#Ghoulish beats

[niks1life]

2023 Best Spooky Halloween Music Mix - 2 Hours | Nik's One Life

Get ready to be haunted by the spine-chilling melodies and eerie ambiance of my Spooky Halloween Music Mix. Dive into the dark and mysterious world of Halloween with this hauntingly captivating collection of music. Immerse yourself in the sinister sounds, ominous tones, and haunting compositions that will send shivers down your spine. Whether you're hosting a Halloween party, creating a spooky atmosphere, or simply in the mood for some bone-chilling tunes, this mix is the perfect soundtrack for the season. Let the haunting melodies transport you to a realm of shadows and embrace the thrill of the unknown. Brace yourself for a hair-raising journey filled with ghostly whispers, macabre symphonies, and a symphony of eerie delights. Prepare for a hauntingly unforgettable Halloween experience with our Spooky Halloween Music Mix.

[lesbiangiratina]

Ythink i could beat gg missing link now that i know how fighting games like. Work. At all

[phantomrose96]

Prometheus

content warnings: horror. body horror. ghost show can have a little existential horror, as a treat! :)

...

Tucker and Danny sat as silhouettes in the Foley attic rec-room.

The ghoulish light of the television pinned their shadows against the back wall, pulsing in and out like fireflies at each flash of the screen. It left their backs drenched in darkness, and it made monoliths of the old furniture and piled-high boxes that wrapped the perimeter of the attic. Drafty air whistled through the gaps in the insulation. Plicks and flicks of moths beat in tone against the light of the television where the seal of the attic window failed to keep them out. Danny hounded the controller in his hands, clackering with each frenetic beat of his thumb while he mashed his buttons and leaned his full bodyweight into the assault he wrought, virtually until--

“BOOM!! Headshot!” Danny yelled with a pump of his fist. From his nonexistent peripheral vision, he could not see the way Tucker would not look at him.

“Come on, man,” Tucker said.

“Get it?” Danny asked.

“Dude, come on, like… Maybe don’t.”

Danny let out a disappointed huff of air from his nostril, spirits dampened. The wayward glow of his eye settled back on the screen: Victory blazoned across his split of the screen. You Died pulsed on Tucker’s. Danny mashed the rematch option. “Maybe get good then,” Danny said, “and then you get to make the bad puns.”

“Sorry man look I’m just—tired okay?”

“Yeah I know—”

“You can be goofy about it tomorrow—”

“I know—”

“I promise it’ll be hilarious then just—”

“Okay okay, I get it. I’ll save the jokes—”

“How much longer?”

“Hmm?”

Danny looked, and Tucker was looking now too, and it was taking all concentrated will on Tucker’s face to keep looking.

“How much longer until you’re like… You know.”

4am chimed from the grandfather clock stowed in the Foley attic. The ghostly sheen of the television splashed bright and pallid across the right side of Tucker’s face, as he stared at Danny. And it splashed bright across the left side of Danny’s face, which was the only side of Danny’s face remaining.

“I don’t know like… maybe 3 more hours, I think?” A lisp whistled from the absent flesh of his jawbone.

Tucker watched his lips. And his eyes drifted to the shadow carved dark and empty in the socket that could no longer see him, a merciful concealment of where skin turned to raw exposed flesh turned to bone.

Tucker looked forward again, and he mashed his thumbs into his own controller. Danny’s character’s skull exploded into a cloud of meat-rain before Danny had the chance to notice the match resume.

“Fine. I can do 3 more hours,” Tucker said. “And start watching your head.”

…

It wasn’t until the camping trip 4 months ago that Danny knew anything was strange.

It was a yearly Fenton tradition, which Danny tolerated and Jazz dreaded, to haul the four of them and the RV out into some swampy campground 3 hours from home. They’d roll in roaring, RV stuffed to the brim with wilderness equipment and enough mechanical monstrosities to scare away all actual wildlife. All except for the fish, who had the disadvantage of not seeing the mechanical affront to God parked with questionable legality on the campgrounds.

This year, Danny had decided he was embracing it. Because for the first time, sitting grubby and wet in the mud for 3 days sounded much nicer than his typical weekend plans, which was mainly getting his ass kicked by ghosts. He’d flagged down Valerie a week ahead of time to tell her, between gunshots, that he’d be absent for those 3 days. Valerie had taken equal offence at the request that she pick up Phantom’s slack, and the implication that she wasn’t already doing that.

But it meant the ghosts were covered for the weekend, and it meant Danny was free to do nothing more exciting than sit in the mud, which was all well and good enough for Danny. Although his hopes of leaving the weekend with the same number of scars he started with were dashed by hour 5. It was his own fault too. Jack had insisted Danny gut the fish Jack caught via a blast of the Fenton Disintegrator to the lake (unconventional, not even a fishing device, a ghost weapon he and Maddie were fine-tuning. A ranger came and yelled at them about it.) And while distracted by his parents getting told off for being menaces, Danny miscalculated the slipperiness of both fish and knife.

Luckily the RV was, among many many things, a hospital on wheels, and Jazz had quit sulking long enough to take a morbid fascination in cleaning Danny’s palm out with antiseptic that burned like acid and bandaging up his palm. For dinner that night, Danny ate his open-flame grilled fish with a little more prejudice than usual.

By Saturday, his hand hadn’t healed. Nor by Sunday. And on Sunday evening while Maddie and Jack busied themselves with packing up the tent they’d both invented and yet struggled to collapse back into its box, Danny flagged Jazz with quiet urgency.

“I think there’s something wrong with my hand.”

“Wrong how?”

“Infected, maybe.”

Jazz knit her brow in concern. “It looked fine this morning,” she muttered as she pulled Danny down onto the stump beside her and flipped open the First Aid kit latch. She unraveled Danny’s bandage layer by layer, and the concerned knit to her brow loosened to confusion.

“It looks fine. It’s barely even red.”

Danny snatched his hand back. “Yeah, and it’s barely healed at all.”

“I mean, it’s healed a little bit.”

“Yeah but. Barely.”

“It looks pretty normal.”

“Jazz my day-job is getting whacked with ghost machetes,” Danny said, tone growing a little tense at Jazz’s lack of concern. “I know how quickly cuts are supposed to heal.”

“And how quickly is that?”

“I mean. It depends. But like a day.”

“A day?”

“Or maybe 25 hours, I guess.”

“Danny, you cut yourself pretty deep.”

“26 hours max, literally.”

Jazz was staring. Danny felt awkwardly judged.

“Hey um, as a question Danny, do you remember the last injury you got before your ghost powers?”

Danny hesitated. He racked his brain and some part of him felt a little embarrassed how hard he had to search, as if it were shameful to have been so delicately uninjured before this whole thing.

“…Dash, maybe. But Dash it good at the kind of quick jabby punches that hit your nerve but don’t bruise.”

“Anything else?”

Danny fell quiet. Then brightened. “I fell off my bike last year. Racing Tucker. Scraped up my shin and knee.”

“And how long did that take to heal?”

The delight faded a bit. Danny thinned his lips thinking. “…Maybe a while.”

“Probably a few weeks.”

“Jeez, really? No.” Danny said. And he so deeply wanted to be offended, because he’d become the biggest expert in the family on getting his skin used as a ghost shrapnel canvas, which should make him the authority on injury healing. And Jazz was doubting all of that. “No. That’d heal in like. A day.”

“Maybe with ghost powers,” Jazz answered. “Maybe in ghost form. Which, currently and for the last 3 days, you have not been in.”

Danny fell quiet. He considered this information that deeply annoyed him until, with grudgingness edging to acceptance, he looked at his hand, and then his sister, and then his hand.

“….Oh.”

That night, home and showered and with the clock creeping toward 1am, Danny sat on his bed. He pooled his hands in his lap, lit by the moonlight pouring through his bedroom window. He sat an inch above his bed, in fact, hair shimmery white and his right glove removed. In the wash of moonlight he watched his palm. And there was something haunting, almost, in the way he could see the edges of the cut stitch themselves back together bit by tiniest bit. He lost himself in a grainy infomercial on his television, and when it ended, his cut was gone.

…

Phantom returned to the ghost fighting scene with an unwarranted new confidence. In truth nothing had changed. But Danny operated now with the knowledge that he was a particular kind of resilient that he’d not actually realized before. And while he did not like getting fileted by Skulker’s ghost gut-hook knife, or seared by Ember’s flame guitar, or bonked in the head by Fenton Bolas (Dad why), there was a certain delight in the “This will all not be a problem by tomorrow”-ness of it all.

Even better, he now knew that just idling in ghost mode for an extra hour or two was all it took to be right as rain again. (“This is making your Gameboy addiction worse than Tucker’s,” Sam had commented. “Well how else am I supposed to pass the time?” Danny asked while mashing buttons with one less finger than usual. “You could read a book.”)

On the flipside, it did make Danny grouchier about mid-school-day attacks, which didn’t afford him the luxury of floating around to bake in ghost mode for an hour or two watching bad tv. And unless Mr. Lancer got real chill real fast with Danny Phantom taking Danny Fenton’s English tests, it meant that any school-time fight injury had to be dealt with conventional human-style, and super-healed after school.

And Danny carried this knowledge with more bitterness than usual one fall afternoon when a fight with Technus had already gouged into the first 15 minutes of his math test, and now Danny was going to have to suck it up for the last 45 minutes if he wanted to pass geometry this quarter. Which was bullshit because that last blast Technus got on him had really fucking hurt.

Danny landed, and in his math-induced funk, he missed the particular wide-eyed way Sam and Tucker stared at him. “Here,” Danny said, handing off the thermos to Tucker, and Danny let his human transformation slip through in rings around his sternum.

“Danny stop,” Sam said, and with an urgent breathlessness that froze Danny in place. “Do not turn back.”

Confusion seeped into Danny’s blood. He let the transformation rings fade away, and he felt the thermos heavy in his outstretched hand that Tucker would not take. Heavy and wet. Heavy, and very very wet.

He looked at his hand, and his white glove was unrecognizable beneath the saturation of red. The thermos dropped from his hand, and suddenly Danny wasn’t so sure which direction was up.

“Sit,” Sam maybe said, or said something like it. Her hands were on his shoulders. He was easing in a direction that was probably down. His butt hit cold pavement. And suddenly he raked in a shuddering breath which was wet as mud.

Sam was pulling away the top of his suit, which was the worst possible place for her to do that considering how much it hurt. She was pulling right where Technus had blasted him, and Danny had half a mind to tell her off until he saw what was underneath the fabric.

“That’s not good,” he bubbled out through a lot of blood in his mouth and throat.

Baseball-sized. Like someone had taken a very large hole-puncher right to his sternum. A very good hole-puncher because it had in fact punched him straight through and run off with the little cut-out it stole. Globby flesh spilled to fill in some of the empty space. But a solid chunk of sternum, and heart, and lung, and spine, were rudely elsewhere.

Danny was in a very slippery wet dream, and his fluttering eyes agreed.

“No,” Sam said with an unnecessarily aggressive pinch of his skin. “Absolutely do not fall asleep.”

“Ow,” Danny said, maybe about the pinch but also his missing organs.

This wasn’t good enough for Sam who was a little bit ghost-shaded herself while she grabbed both Danny’s ears tight and angled Danny’s eyes to hers. “If you turn human now that’s going to be very very bad. You’re fine, Danny. You’re just in shock, I think. Focus on me. Come on, count with me Danny. 1. 2.”

“Isn’t counting sheep supposed to put you to sleep?” Danny quipped, but all the blood gurgling maybe ruined his delivery a little.

…

His heart sewed itself back together in 20 minutes. His esophagus and trachea kindly followed at the 27-minute mark, the last of the tubage knitting itself together and forming the correct kind of air-seal against anything else in his chest cavity. That was a blessing, because passing the time was easier when he could talk without re-enacting the elevator from The Shining – a joke Danny had tried to deliver several times and which refused to land.

And while he still did not have his new spine vertebrae nor sternum by the 30-minute mark, Danny could see the way the last of the white fear had left Sam’s face and the way Tucker could now face him directly. And that told him that however he looked, he no longer looked like someone who was going to die.

By the 1-hour mark, Danny sat drenched in his own blood from a fatal wound that no longer existed. And he’d missed his math test.

…

Super healing was cool. Very cool. What other kind of power lets you just walk away from fatal injuries?

At the close of a ghost fight, thermos capped, swimming in the eerie silence of a street cleared of screams, Danny stood. And he shivered. He ran his hands up and down his stomach, his chest, his back his face, pressing any pain-point to discover if his fingers would sink in wet and deep. Was it safe to transform back? If he made a mistake, would he notice fast enough? Would he be able to turn back again in time?

Alone in the snow of the Amity golf course. The roof of the mall. The back archives of the library. Danny lingered. Many places were good for lingering, and so Danny would linger, wherever and whenever he could. It made that held-breath feeling of transforming back easier, to know no part of him was at risk of undoing him.

And sometimes his hand did come away sticky. And in the black of night Danny went home, mindful to step only on the kitchen tile from which blood could be wiped up cleanly. And he was tired from too many nights of this when he pulled cereal from the cupboard and splashed milk into a bowl and cleared away the nuts and bolts from the half-undressed Fenton Disintegrator (undergoing v2 upgrades) and flickered the noxious glow of the muted television to life while his liver stitched itself back together. The tremble would not quite leave his cereal spoon hand but he’d manage.

One night Walker had blasted off half of Danny’s skull. And he lay shaking hunched on the pavement willing himself to overcome the pangs of shock radiating through his body until he had enough composure to call Tucker on the phone and ask if he could come over, if they could play Man vs. Zombie maybe, and stay awake through the night while his brain matter remade itself.

One night he had to grab Valerie by the ankle before she flew off, and she probably only heeded him because the break in Phantom’s superhero bravado unnerved her so much. “Please just stay and talk to me. Something bad will happen if I fall asleep,” he said, while holding the parts that used to be his stomach. “Define ‘bad.’” “I’ll die.” “Sounds like a human.” She shouldn’t have taken pity on him. But she did. Maybe because she was a human who would die like Danny if left on the pavement with her stomach open. Valerie stayed until the sun rose.

And he was lucky, because as a human he should have died. And Danny didn’t. He just came close, more and more and more. Until the sight of a raised ghost weapon forced a very human flinch from him.

…

“…losing an edge, you’d say, Craig?” “Not exactly. As a psychiatrist who’s worked with many veterans and active-duty soldiers, it’s common to—”

“Morning,” Jack said, flipping up his welding mask just long enough to nod to Danny before re-busying himself in his soldering.

“Dad, do you think maybe you could do that in the lab?” Jazz asked over a bowl of cornflakes, with a tone one might use when asking a 10-year-old to move his basketball game outside.

“Hmm, why? The table won’t catch fire.”

“Which is what you said last time,” Jazz said, carefully plucking up a cooled bit of metal scrap from beside her cereal bowl.

“…ffered many fatal injuries on camera, who knows how many weren’t capt—”

The television drowned beneath the screech of Jack’s welding, let up to breathe for moments at a time before Jack resumed the drowning. Danny’s eyes followed. The refurbished Fenton Disintegrator had nearly reformed, bigger than its original body, with a gaping fish-mouth twice the radius of the thing which had blasted up the fish in the campground lake.

“I just think, Dad, that you and Mom have a whooooole laboratory basement to yourselves, and I have just this one dining table to eat cereal at, so—”

“But then you kids would miss out on what I’m making. See, Danny’s interested. Danny, watch this—”

Jack hoisted the monster up. He hitched it atop his shoulder, and set his eye behind its sight, and twisted at the hip to point its open maw directly at Danny.

Danny froze.

“Dad, Jesus, at least show some trigger-discipline if you’re—Danny?”

Danny could not move. He could not move or really see. The shockwave rippled through him, and he believed for the moment that surely he’d been shot until Jazz shook him. “Danny, are you okay?”

Danny’s heart was intact but still it squeezed like it had been ripped. His legs were whole but they were numb beneath him. And he was useless too. Over what? Over nothing. Over a gun pointed at him, the sort which had been pointed at him 4,000 times before.

“…Danny?” Jazz asked, more worried than before. Jack had put down the gun, and he was staring at Danny in the same way.

And it was stupid. So very stupid. Because Danny had super-healing, and a hit from something like that would heal. It could rip him apart, and he’d be completely fine.

So it was all actually incredibly incredibly stupid that he was somehow, without even meaning to, crying.

…

The fight had ended three hours ago. And three hours was longer than only the worst of his injuries took to heal. Tonight had not been bad at all, just a bit of ripping and tearing at his leg from a bear-trap Skulker had laid (despite Skulker insisting he did not know what a bear was). And that had healed up in 20 minutes flat.

Danny lingered anyway, sitting soaking cold in the snow on the golf course. He liked that it was high-up here. He liked that the lights fanned far and wide. He liked that the razed-flat golf turf allowed nothing to hide. He wiled away the hours he ought to be sleeping, because there was a security in consciousness, in his ghost form. If he slept, he could be killed. And if he sat resting in ghost form on the crest of the golf course hill, he could not.

But he could nod off. Catching his head at each dip. But his mind fizzled and faded, rubbing against the staticky edge of sleep, enough to perhaps not notice steps in the snowfall that tracked him to where he sat.

The whir of the charging gun kicked him to high alert.

All alert, all at once, so suddenly adrenaline soaked that Danny had no sense of orientation when he spun on spot and his eyes drank in the sight of the barrel-mouth breathing to life in his direction.

“Told you I fixed the calibration on this, Honey.”

“Well at least it’s not a fish.”

Stop, Danny wanted to say. But he was paralyzed. He was dread. He was stone.

It screeched. And it roared. And with a connection of a car crash, it took greedily for itself a gibbous moon of Danny’s torso.

He collapsed. Eyes spinning. Ears ringing. Sensation like fire and like ice and like buzzing static and nothing, feeling, at all to connect to his legs.

Stop, Danny wanted to say. But he needed a mouth for that. So the second blast connected.

…

It had been an amount of time. Jack and Maddie Fenton may have stooped in the snow and collected samples to study. Danny could not know, because he’d need eyes to know. They may have crunched with their boots and mused about the resilience of ecto-flesh, more resilient than fish-flesh. Danny could not know, because he’d need ears to know. They may have picked him up piece-meal and carried him in their pockets. Danny could not know. Not without touch.

He may have been on the golf course. He may not have been. There was no ‘where’ Danny could know. He needed his proprioception for that.

There was was. There was something Danny hoped was be. This was, Danny hoped, awake. This was the only awake he could be without a brain. And if this was awake, how long could he last? And if this was awake, was it enough to heal again?

Super healing was cool. It saved you from death. But maybe not always.

Was time passing…? Was the snow cold. Was the wind blowing. Was the hilltop white under pooling lights. Was it. And did it. And was he and did he.

Was time passing?

Surely, it had been just an eternity, by now. An eternity at least.

Or had it been only one second.

Or Danny wasn’t here.

He was, though. He had to exist to feel what he felt in the moment. He had to exist even if he was deprived of the mouth needed to scream the agony that was, in its entirety, him.

…

Sun glazed the snow on the east bank of the golf course down to a slushy sheen by 10am the next morning. Mitted, in snow boots, three trespassers combed the 18 holes of Amity Park Golf Course.

“Are you sure it’s this one?” Sam asked, voice hoarse with a question that had been repeated once an hour for the last three hours between heaving breaths of clearing snow.

“It has to be this one. They said golf course there’s only one golf course,” Jazz answered, and her hands trembled against the heel of the shovel she dug into her nearest snowbank.

“Do you see any foot prints?”

“They’re melted.”

“Well check the melted sides then!”

“We checked the melted sides.”

“Maybe we missed—”

“Guys shut up,” Tucker said, and he said it low, and he said it with lips the color of ash. He stood rooted. And his eyes shifted to the crown of the hill 30 feet to their right.

Jazz and Sam shut up. Because they heard it too.

Jazz abandoned her shovel in the snow. She ran. But Sam was faster.

And it was a noise. Long and piercing and deflating. Quiet. Then starting fresh from the top. Long and singular, like the note of a bagpipe. Sam rounded the crest of the hill. And she found the noise first.

And this close, she realized what it was. The noise was relief. Because the thing lying in the melted snow was finally enough of a mouth, and enough of a throat, and enough of a lung, to scream.

[dandylovesturtles]

explaining the train of thought that got me to this would take way too much backstory but basically I had an idea and then I wrote it. I rewatched Scream recently so maybe that helps lol

cw: death (not of a canon character), mentions of blood and vomit

-----

The call comes in at a little after 2 AM, and he almost doesn’t answer because he’s busy.

But Leo almost never calls him, and it’s a singular enough occurrence that he picks up the phone and hits the button.

“Hello, you are conversing with Donatello,” he greets. “Make it quick, Nardo, I’m elbow deep in the tank’s engine.”

On the other end of the line, Leo is silent. Or, mostly silent; Donnie can hear him breathing, a little too loud, a little too fast.

Suddenly, he’s on high alert. He sits back from the tank, speaking more urgently into the phone, “Leo?”

There’s another second of breathing, and then, finally, in a voice that is too high and panicked to be his normal joking tone, he says, “Hey, remember when I sent you that meme about siblings who will beat the crap out of each other one minute and hide a body for each other the next, and I said, “us,” and you gave it a heart?”

Donnie blinks. Processes that string of words.

“I think I recall it,” he says.

“Well,” says Leo. “I need to know if that’s really us.”

Donnie stands up and keys in the command to swap battleshells to the jetpack.

“Stay where you are,” he says. “I’m on my way.”

-----

The body is male. Early twenties. About six two or six three. Caucasian. Wearing some ghoulish mask like the serial killer in a bad teen slasher.

Actually, now that Donnie thinks about it, there’s been stuff on the news lately. About a guy who likes to knife up co-eds. And Leo’s wearing his biggest, baggiest hoodie, and jeans, and in a dark alley like this it would be easy to mistake him for a normal, non-mutated human teen.

The puzzle pieces are all laid out for Donnie, but the picture it paints is pretty unbelievable.

Then again, he’s a mutant turtle who grew up in a sewer and recently fended off an alien invasion. His bar for believable is pretty low.

He takes in the body, slashed across the chest, ridiculous getup soaked in blood. Then he turns to look at Leo, curled around his knees against the wall. There’s blood all over him, too, but Donnie feels pretty confident that most of it is not his own. There’s a puddle of vomit nearby, and a dagger, and a katana, cast aside.

Leo raises his eyes to meet Donnie’s. “I didn’t know he was human.”

Donnie looks back at the body, and at the mask. Connects it to the dagger, which definitely isn’t Leo’s.

“Seems like he was a great guy,” Donnie says. 

“He stabbed my arm.”

“I meant it sarcastically.”

Leo laughs, high and reedy. Then he leans over and vomits again.

Donnie can’t help but curl his snout at that one. He looks away and waits for Leo to finish.

There’s a spit, then a sniff, then Leo says, “He stabbed my arm and I turned around and saw the mask.”

Ah yes, that. It’s pink and has a serrated smile. Little rubbery bits of slime and ooze. These things got popular after the invasion - they aren’t anywhere near the real thing, but in a dark alley, under attack, alone, when Leo had…

The puzzle pieces are there. Donnie doesn’t really need an explanation to put it together.

Actually, scratch that: he does need an explanation for one thing.

“Why are you so upset about this?” He looks back at Leo. “You took out a serial killer. Or a wannabe serial killer. At the very least a stabber.”

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” says Leo immediately. A little pleading. “I didn’t think that would… I didn’t know he was human.”

“He attacked you.”

“I could have disarmed him. I could have trapped him and let the police deal with him.”

“He came up behind you in this creepy mask and stabbed your arm.”

“He didn’t stand a chance against me,” says Leo, and it’s not swaggering and not boastful, but horrified. “It was like tearing paper, Dee. It was so easy.”

Donnie leaves the body to kneel in front of his brother. He puts his hands on his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye to make sure he listens.

“He attacked you, Nardo. He wanted to kill you. He made the wrong choice. Not you.”

Leo looks down, at the blood on his hoodie, and Donnie squeezes his shoulders until they lock eyes again. 

“He made the wrong choice,” Donnie repeats emphatically. 

Leo sighs, like he’s giving in, and a rueful smile grows on his face. “Thanks, hermano. But I don’t think the EPF is gonna see it that way.”

Ah yes, the good old United States government, and their hilariously poorly titled Earth Protection Force. Since the invasion, their existence had become known to the EPF, and they’ve been in an unspoken truce ever since. A “live and let live” holding pattern.

Unfortunately, Donnie has to admit Leo is right on this one: that this man is likely and most probably a serial killer won’t matter to the EPF. Killing any human crosses a line they won’t tolerate.

And so, there is only one solution here. The one Leo proposed when he first called.

Donnie is going to help him hide a body.

…Which means he is going to have to touch it.

Leo frowns at him. “Uh, Dee, what’s the yarf-face for?”

“I just realized how gross this is going to be.”

Leo laughs again, more than a little hysterical, and lets his head fall against Donnie’s plastron, the giggles shaking his shoulders under Donnie’s hands.

“That wasn’t a joke,” Donnie insists. Leo just laughs even harder.

Donnie scowls, even as he pulls Leo closer. “That meme really is us. I want to beat the crap out of you right now.”

Leo howls with laughter. Except it sounds a little more like sobbing now. Donnie gathers him up and holds him until he’s better again.

-----

Across the Hudson, the sky is turning pink. Donnie stands with Leo, watching the water that the body disappeared under.

They’ve already scrubbed the alley clean of any blood traces - his and Leo’s. He also had his drones bring gloves with the cleaning supplies, so they didn’t leave any fingerprints. At least Leo had the sense not to touch anything. And it’s not like the government has their prints on file, anyway. Donnie’s checked.

There wasn’t anything they could really do to hide the massive laceration that led to the body’s death. Short of melting it in acid, but both of them had dismissed that idea as soon as Donnie raised it. Despite what Donnie thinks of himself, he isn’t actually a stone cold disposer of bodies. The idea of melting it was too gross to think about.

Besides, it doesn’t matter if the body gets found, as long as it doesn’t get traced back to them. And Donnie doesn’t see any reason it should.

He’s already hacked any security cameras near the scene and made sure Leo doesn’t show up on any of them. Leo’s a good enough ninja to avoid that sort of thing, anyway, not that Donnie will admit it out loud. The crabs and fish will take care of the flesh and the katana’s mark. Leo destroyed the weapon itself in a bright blue explosion of ninpo.

“It’s kind of a bummer,” says Leo after a minute, “that the murders will go unsolved.”

“No, they won’t.” Donnie pulls out a phone, holding it carefully with his gloves. “He helpfully took trophy photos.”

Leo’s eyes go wide. “Dude, did you fish around in his pockets?”

Donnie can’t help but curl his lips. “Ugh, don’t remind me. It was a very unpleasant experience and I don’t want to repeat it.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Find where he lived and leave it there.” Donnie shrugs. “His body will turn up, or he’ll get reported missing. The cops will find it and everything will be wrapped up in a neat little bow.”

“Huh. Guess that takes care of that.” A pause. Leo shuffles a bit next to him. “You’re… really calm about this.”

Is he? Since the moment he got that phone call, he entered Fix It mode. He hasn’t really thought of anything else since.

“I don’t know if I will be later,” he admits.

“I’ll be there, if you’re not.”

Donnie hums an acknowledgement. There’s a weight against his arm, Leo leaning into him.

“Thanks, Dee,” he says.

“You’d do the same for me,” Donnie replies.

“Yeah,” Leo agrees. Simple as that.

[lacontroller1991]

Rumors (Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x F!Reader)

Main Master List || Misc Master List

Summary: After you believed he was dead, it comes as a shock to you that he's alive and wrecking havoc.

Warnings: 18+, HEAVY LANGUAGE, drug usage, drinking, mention of cannibalism, violence, gun slinging, blood, nudity, fighting

Author's Note: I swear I'll work on my other requests but the Cooper Howard brain rot is REAL and its STRONG, anywho, first time so let me know how you guys like it :)

Word Count: 3k

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In the wastelands of California, rumors get you killed and you’ve heard rumors. Whispers of his return. It’s been a while since you’ve seen him. Since he left you on your own in the middle of a gun fight to collect his bounty; and it nearly cost you your life. 

The last you’ve heard about him was that he was 6 feet deep and locked in a coffin with no way of escaping, unless someone purposely dug him out. Yet, you can’t think of a single person who would. Still, rumors spread like wildfire, and you’d be damned if you don’t try and get revenge.

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The California sun beats down on your back. The heat weighs you down, but not as much as the pain in your chest. He let you believe that he cared about you. He really fooled you into a sense of partnership, romance, but you really should’ve known. Cooper Howard is a lone wolf, nothing and nobody will stand in his way. 

The site of Filly in the distance is a welcoming sight. If anyone has seen anything, it would have been here. It doesn’t take you long to cross the remaining distance, sweat dripping down your back as you enter the market. 

“Haven’t seen ya in a while (Y/N).” A local merchant snides with a creepy smile, showcasing his rotten teeth. Walking over to your side, he runs a hand down your arm and you resist the urge to gag. “What are ye in town for?” 

“Information.” You eye the stairs that are being fixed, along with other wooden structures, a signature sign that he’s been here.

“Looking for your Ghoul, huh?” His face is offly close to yours and it’s enough for you to draw your gun, casually pressing it into his side, causing him to instantly back off. “He was here two days ago. Got in a firefight with a knight, seemed like he was after a bounty.” You scoff. Of course he is. Anything for those damn vials. Vials. At the thought of vials a malicious smile forms on your face. Sooner or later, he will need to get more, and you’ll be there when he does. 

Holstering your gun, you flip him a bottle cap in appreciation before stalking off, heading to the one place you know he will be.

By the time the sun sets, you’re settled in an abandoned building, low enough to the ground where you can see what’s coming, but high enough to be out of any immediate danger. Wrapping your arms around yourself tighter, you can’t help but to think about the times where you and him would be shoulder to shoulder, barely touching, but enough to make butterflies fly in your stomach.

Despite his ghoulish appearance, you find him to be quite handsome. His rugged cowboy exterior does barely enough to hide the last shred of humanity he has, and at times, it was directed towards you. With a sigh, you let your eyes shut, sleep easily consuming over you.

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“Please, let me go.” A feminine voice stirs you from your unconsciousness as your eyes blink against the harsh light of the sun. “Please, sir, I’m begging you.” Shuffling slightly, you peer your head past the concrete wall, spotting two figures, one in a blue/yellow vault-tec suit and the other in a cowboy hat with a lasso around the girl. 

“Well I’d be damned,” it’s hushed and to yourself, afraid of him hearing you and spotting you.

“I done told you vaultie, ain’t gonna happen. You deaf or sum?” His drawl sends chills down your spine as he nudges her forward with the tip of his gun. “Now hur-” his words are cut off by a coughing fit but his grip on the lasso remains. After regaining his breath, he wipes his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “Hurry up. I ain’t got all day.” You watch in silence as the pair walks past your hideout, unaware of your existence. Grabbing your things, you rush off after them, making sure to stay in the shadows as your brain goes through different scenarios of what could happen. Would you and Cooper make up? Would he try to kill you? Would you try to kill him? Does he even care? The closer they get to the supermart, the more you hang back, hand slightly hovering over your gun. 

Trying to listen to the conversation, you strain your ears but to no avail. Peeking over an abandoned car, you focus your eyes on the situation ahead of you, watching as he gestures for the girl to go through the sliding glass door. The minute they shut, he collapses on the ground and you resist the urge to go and help him. Sighing, you open the bag at your side, rummaging through a variety of equipment before your fingers run over the cool glass of the vials that keep him sane. “That’s just ironic,” you chuckle, looking back to him still laying on the ground, a slight tang of pity radiating through your chest. If there’s anything you hate about yourself, it’s that. You’re too soft for people who have no problem leaving you out to dry. 

You could confront him now, kick him while he’s down, but being dramatic is more fun. It’s useless trying to talk to him when he’s in that sorry state. 

An hour later and you’re still outside, covering from the sun and waiting for the right moment to make your appearance. The sight of the vaultie walking alone gathers your attention as you keep out of sight? Now how the hell did she manage to escape? You’re not an idiot, everyone and their mamas know that the SuperDuper Mart takes in bodies and harvests the organs, selling them to the highest bidder. So how on this God forsaken planet did she escape practically unscathed? As she walks further away you ponder the possibility that maybe you and everyone on the surface has really underestimated the ones who live below. 

Once she is out of sight, you rush out from your hiding spot and toward the mart, hoping to find him. “Well, he isn’t where I saw him last,” you huff out, drawing your gun from its holster as you walk through the glass door, keeping your eyes vigilant. With the mart being practically empty aside from overturned themed rides, it’s easy to hear a person stumbling around, knocking stuff over. 

By the time you spot him, his back is to you, head tipped slightly back as he downs a bottle of alcohol he found. The sound of you cocking your gun causes him to freeze in place, and if you were facing him, you would spot the smile on his face. 

“You ain’t gonna shoot me now, are ya?” Your silence is deafening and you don’t move an inch, not really sure if you would actually shoot him or not.  “Was wonderin’ when you were gonna find me.”

“It’s pretty easy to find a drug addicted ghoul these days, especially ones that have a penchant for the dramatics.” You keep your gun trained on his back as he slowly turns around, dropping the glass bottle and letting it shatter to the floor. 

“Me? Dramatic? I don’t think I’m the dramatic one sweetheart. You’re the one who came in here, guns blazing. I think you’re the dramatic one.” He takes a step forward, and another, and another, until his chest is pressed right against the nozzle of your gun. “Now why don’t you put your gun down and give Coop a big ki-” your gun whacks across his face, tearing the flesh slightly only for it to heal right away, causing him to growl. His gloved hand reaches up and wraps around your throat, hoisting you against the wall while you struggle in his grasp. “That’s no way to greet me. Where are your manners?” He asks, his southern accent penetrating each word.

“Fucker,” raising a leg, you kick between his with all you can muster and spit on his face, the shock being enough to let you loose and allowing you to slip out. 

He looks at you for a second before laughing sadistically, using his thumb to collect your spit and put it in his mouth, closing his eyes as if he was savoring it. “I missed you kitten.”

Scoffing, you holster your gun and take a seat on the couch, turning your attention to the tv where you spot a young, handsome, human Cooper Howard on the screen. “Really Coop? You’re that full of yourself?”

Shrugging his shoulders, he plops down next to you before taking another bottle and giving that a swig. “Was the only half decent shit in this hell hole,” at the mention of the place, you take a proper look around, bodies laying everywhere, some human, some ghoul, and even a robot.

“The fuck happened here?”

“Was traveling with a vault dweller, traded her for some vials but I guess she didn’t take too well to the idea of her organs being sold,” he comments nonchalantly, twisting off the cap of a vial and draining the liquid into his mouth while you look at him like he grew two heads. 

“You’re meaning to tell me that that vault dweller managed to do all this?”

“Did I stutter?” Now you know you really underestimated the people in the vaults. You honestly wonder if they’re all like this or is she just some random four leaf clover. “Why’d you come in here raisin hell anyway?”

Leaning back on the couch, you look forward to the tv, trying to concentrate on the handsome man on the screen instead of the one sitting next to you, “heard you were dead.”

“The details of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Still doesn’t answer my question,” he looks at you with a look that says ‘I frankly don’t give a shit’ but something deep down inside of you tells you that he does. 

“I’m pissed as hell that you left me. I thought we were partners?” Rolling his eyes, he laps at a random white powder laying on the table before leaning back.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. Didn’t see a need to stick around. You got what you wanted and I got what I wanted. Seemed like a fair trade.” 

A sigh escapes your mouth as you take the bottle from his one hand and downed it, scrunching your nose as the alcohol burns down your throat and lights a fire in your stomach. How can he be so naive? You had initially joined him when you were both after the same group of people, but for vastly different reasons. He had wanted the large bounty on the head of the leader and you wanted to find your past lover, but somewhere along the route to finding them you developed feelings for the Ghoul sitting next to you, and you thought he developed them too. You initially didn’t spot him when the shooting started, too occupied with the Ghoul pressing his back against yours, the two of you working in tandem. Everything happened so fast and before you knew it, you were the only one shooting back at the group of people, most of them lying dead and your companion nowhere to be seen. The bounty was also gone.

He had left you on your own and it hurt. It also didn’t help that once the shooting was over and you remained, you found your former lover in the arms of another. It’s true that you found who you wanted, but at what cost? Was it really your lover than you wanted or was it Cooper Howard, the Ghoul, who you wanted?

Realistically, you know the answer. It’s pretty obvious by the way that when you heard he was alive, you practically dropped everything in pursuit of him. Taking another swig of the alcohol you ponder over your next course of actions. Should you admit your feelings for him or should you leave it? Looking back at the tv, you watch the former Cooper Howard get down from his horse, gun in hand and hat tipped ever so slightly over his eyes, much like how the man next to you does. He’s never going to be the same man again, you know that, but maybe he still has the ability to love? “I love you, you know?”

Cooper looks over to you with a puzzled look on his face before it goes blank and your heart sinks. If there was any sort of superpower you could have right now, it would 100% be mind reading. “You’re stupid.” 

“Right. Yep. Totally.” You’re pissed. You took a gamble and lost. Laid your heart on the line only for it to be destroyed. Swallowing down your pride, you get up from your seat and holster your gun, taking a couple of vials for safe keeping. “Have a good life Coop.” You don’t bother turning back, tears welling in your eyes. How could you have been so stupid? Of course he doesn’t return the feeling. You kick the dead body out of your way, too overwhelmed with your emotions to realize that he is calling your name. A hand wrapping around your wrist stirs you from your thoughts as he hand spins you around to face him, a soft look gracing his features.

“I ain’t finished,” it’s soft. Softer than anything you’ve ever heard from him but you yank your hand away, rebuilding the walls around your heart.

“I don’t wanna he-” he cuts you off with a rough kiss against your lips, his arms wrapping around your body and holding you close as his scarred lips move against yours. The kiss is rough, demanding, but also loving, intimate. It’s enough to make you dizzy. Pulling away, he keeps you in his grasp as you look up at him through blown eyes, trying to figure out what he’s playing at. “Coop?”

“Shh darlin’. You didn’t let me finish. I said you’re stupid. Stupid for loving someone like me. I’m no good for anyone, especially you, you should know this.” You can tell by the restraint in his voice that he fully means what he’s telling you. Smiling softly, you dust off his duster and pull on his vest, straightening out his clothes as he watches you, not really sure what to make of your intentions. 

“Y’know, there was this one cowboy I met years ago and when I asked how he survived as long as he has and you know what he told me?”

“What’s that?”

“We take it as it comes.” He closes the bridge between the two of you with his mouth against yours, this time it’s more eager. Taking in your bottom lip, he bites hard enough to draw blood, causing you to gasp in surprise. Using that to his advantage, his tongue slips in, exploring every crevice of the mouth that he’s longed for.

“Well ain’t this sweet. We have a ghoul and a ghoulfucker. I wonder what that sex looks like,” you and Cooper pull away abruptly, you eye the three men in sheriff uniforms while Cooper scowls, annoyed by their presence. Moving towards them, Cooper raises his hands in false surrender while you get behind his back, one hand reaching for his shotgun and the other reaching for your own gun, ready to draw at any moment. 

“What can I do for you folks?” The three men eye each other before pointing their guns at Cooper, you still standing behind him, ready to take on each of them.

“Destroying a legitimate business? That’s illegal around these parts,” one speaks up, aviators covering his eyes as he moves around to get a better view of you. “My my, don’t tell me this pretty little thing did all this damage. Why don’t you raise your hands sweetheart, let’s see that gorgeous figure.” 

If looks could kill, that man would be 12 feet under and blasted to high heaven with the biggest nuke Cooper could find. “I’d be careful if I were you, she may be pretty, but she's also a pint sized atom bomb.” His head tilts, telling you all that you needed to know. Reaching for your gun, you quickly shoot the two companions as Cooper lunges for the man who dared to flirt with you. Kicking the gun away from reach, Cooper wraps his hand around the throat of the sheriff and hoists him in the air while you loot their supplies. Turning the men around, you cut their pants off, leaving their backside exposed for Cooper to take his fair share of ass jerky. The man in his grasp squirms at the site of his counterparts being exposed, but Cooper’s grip doesn’t falter.

“Why are you sick freaks doing this?” The man continues to struggle in Cooper’s grasp, hands trying to claw away at skin but to no avail as you load your gun, sliding over to the duo. 

“Wanna do the honors sweetheart?” It’s rare that Cooper offers anybody anything, let alone a kill and it takes you a minute to process his proposal.

“We do this for the love of the game.” A gunshot rings out while the man goes limp in Cooper’s hand, brains splattered on the floor below you. Dropping the man, Cooper’s eyes flit to your body, chest rising and falling as you come off the adrenaline high. 

“Now that was hot as hell sweetheart. You sure know how to make an impression on an old man.” 

“Is that right?”

“‘m afraid so.” His eyes watch as you begin to unbuckle your armor, letting it fall from your frame to the floor.

“Then come and get me cowboy.”

@reveluving

[pseudowho]

Infiltration, Chapter Seven: The Captive Goddess

Nanami Kento and the reader must pretend to be married to infiltrate a deadly Curse-user cult and take it down from the inside.

*SMUT/NSFW/18+*

A slow-burn fic with fluff/comfort, angst, smut and heroics from our favourite salaryman.

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Nanami Kento had long-since erected walls to the outside world. Very few were allowed a glimpse to his inner sanctum, and assessments of him as cold, aloof, ghoulish, humourless or melancholy provided his armour. He was externally unflappable, methodical, analytical; but under the water, his feet paddled frantically, and he felt his heart a million miles away, perched at the edge of a precipice.

Kento swam in Cursed energy; Father Tatsu was having trouble packing it back in-- the Cursed energy that had never belonged to him-- now he had shown his hand. The air was as thick as treacle. Grimly assessing that he had no choice but to fight if he wanted to give you a chance to escape, Kento rolled up his sleeves, the seal releasing on his Cursed energy as Overtime unlocked. Father Tatsu bared his teeth.

"Will it be me then, instead of that woman you call your wife?" Kento's stomach twisted as Father Tatsu picked at his nails, flippant and disinterested, "I say that...but she'll be gone by now, of course. No blood left for the leeches."

Kento read his adversary, his face impassive as he hummed in thought, seemingly considering you tactically, instead of with the gut-churning dread he really felt. I shouldn't have let her go, Kento tortured himself, bitter, she went back, and that's my fault, and she's gone already--

Kento went through mental acrobatics-- home and dead? Home and injured? Captured and home? Captured and taken to the Shrine? Captured and taken somewhere else? Captured but fought to the death? Captured and--

"She is useful," Kento mused, detached, "but not necessary for this part of the mission. It may be a blessing for her to die now instead of--"

Father Tatsu laughed, "Dead, my boy? No, no. The Goddess prefers to consume them while their heart still beats."

Kento felt a swoop of success at his easy fishing. Captured and taken to the Shrine. Taking a few steps back as Father Tatsu's power swelled, Kento's eyes glanced through the windows overlooking the village, in the direction of your house together. Kento sighed.

"Our mission was reconnaissance and escape," Kento lied smoothly, "so while it's a shame my colleague has likely been neutralised, there's no value in both of us being taken out. If you don't mind, I'll be leaving. I don't imagine it's long before my...institution arrives, to finish the job."

Father Tatsu snarled, his attempt to reel Kento to the Shrine failing. His Cursed-energy grew at an uncontrollable rate, and Father Tatsu appeared drunk, gulping back nausea, staggering. Both considered each others' moves; breaths balanced on a tightrope.

Father Tatsu darted for Kento, so much faster and stronger than his age would normally allow, and Kento jacked sideways into a roll. Righting himself, fingertips to tatami in a balanced squat, Kento swept one leg out under the staggering Father Tatsu, who landed with a resounding slam on his back. Dropping back to his haunches as Father Tatsu lay, stunned, Kento lifted the same leg, slamming the back of his booted foot down onto Father Tatsu's face.

With a nauseating crunch-pop, Father Tatsu's nose broke, lips split, choking on blood and teeth. Lifting his leg once more to land a killing blow, Kento's ankle was grasped in two obscenely strong hands; despite his leg being swathed in Cursed energy, he felt a crack ricochet up his leg, the pain like a gunshot.

Father Tatsu looked so briefly shocked, before his face twisted into a snarl, sloppy and bleeding, yanking Kento's leg, trying to pull Kento in by his broken ankle. He doesn't know how to control the power, Kento realised, hot pain flaring up his leg, because he's never had so much of it.

"Scum," Tatsu snarled, as Kento resisted his pull with gritted teeth and stubborn determination. Tatsu vomitted, hot blood, tooth fragments and bile soaking into Kento's jeans and the tatami below them. Kento watched in muted horror as the man's body seemed to swell and churn, Tatsu briefly contorted with torturous pain before sinking his fingers into Kento's leg, bellowing like a bear.

Father Tatsu was bloated with power, and it refluxed out of him in a gruesome, violent belch, when he stood, swinging Kento in an arc to the other side of the room. Beams splintered under the sinews of Kento's body, on the wall overlooking the village, and it buckled, part of the ceiling shunting down, showering Kento in plaster, clotting with blood on his forehead.

Kento stood, solid and tall, his breath hitching with the agony of standing on a fractured ankle. Kento focused his Cursed energy there, desperate for support, cursing himself for never mastering the art of Reverse Cursed Technique.

Kento was sloppy with distraction, each second away from you lowering your chances of survival. Father Tatsu crouched, arms and fingers twisting into himself like gnarled roots, an unstable implosion. He jutted forwards, staggering, animalistic, his face contorted with rage and failed restraint.

Kento turned on a pinhead, gripping a jutting ceiling beam, before kicking the crumpled wall with a roar of pain, striking a point of critical weakness. The wall collapsed outwards, and Kento and Father Tatsu were met with the cold slap of the drifting snowstorm, before Kento leapt, the remnants of the room's ceiling folding like a blanket over Father Tatsu.

Kento's belly swooped as he dropped three stories, landing in fresh snowdrift with a soft thud, before jackknifing away into the storm, making for the village gates, for escape. Kento heard a cry of rage from the devastated room behind, carried by the wind, making his gut churn with shame.

"Coward! Coward!"

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I'm underwater.

"...feed this one...goddess..."

"...too much...all the others already..."

Warm. It's too heavy. Hurts.

"...arguing!...orders..."

"...tender first...likes them begging..."

I'll just sleep let me sleep go to sleep--

WAKE UP!

Who is that? Love him. Want him.

You're running out of time. Darling. WAKE UP!

Your injury gripped you, and you sank, unbidden, into the deep once more.

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"If you don't ask him out for a coffee, I will. Maybe for me, or maybe for you." Your best friend cringed, squealing with laughter as you slapped at her.

"If you've only come in here to bother me," you chided, urging your friend to the staffroom door, "then go away, you must have something better to do, you pest--"

A gentle knock, and the door swung open, forcing your friend to spin back to you, grasping your shoulders with wicked joy, as Nanami Kento walked in behind her, his eyes questioning. You glared daggers at your friend, giving her an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Naturally, she ignored you.

"I'm so sorry, I can't come to lunch with you today after all!" She bemoaned, "I've got so much to do. You'll just have to eat alone." Your mouth dropped open at her shameless audacity. She excused herself quickly, past Kento, the door closing on you both.

There was a heartbeat of silence, and you adjusted yourself quickly, giving Kento a breathless smile in apology for your friend.

As you moved towards the door yourself, crippled by Kento's presence, you heard his silky voice behind you.

"I normally eat alone. The good company in this place is limited."

Your hand retracted briefly from the door handle as you turned to Kento, blushing. His heart skipped, his decision quick and life-altering as other, rejected paths trailed away, unchosen, alternate fates unravelling.

He folded his newspaper with a light clearing of the throat; "That being said...I know a good bakery. If you'd like to join me for lunch."

Your smile was as soft as dappled sunlight, and Kento felt something deep within him pass irretrievably to you.

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You woke with an agonal gasp, floundering in chains as a bucket of ice-cold water was flung over you. Your head spun and pounded, belly shaking with nauseous, racking shivers. Your wrists creaked against your chains, engraved in symbols; your stomach dropped as you realised your Cursed Technique had been completely neutralised by your bonds.

As soon as you raised your head to look around you, a backhanded slap across your cheek made your teeth crack together and your head rattle; a hit you knew, vaguely, to be from a man, instead of a woman. Your tiptoes pressed to the floor as you hung, coughing.

Nought but footsteps in front of you, something dark and slick across the stones, red-black light writhing and flickering in the gloom. Your foot caught on something as you tried to stand. A second slap had you feeling your captor was enjoying this.

"It's nothing personal, my dear." The voice tickled recognition in the back of your mind, but you hitched against the chains, your head and face battered. You tried to grab your thoughts, like catching smoke. Your captor had rightly ensured you had no chance to fight back-- no monologues, no grandiose speeches.

"Well...a little personal. Breaking into my library. Making a fool of me. The Fathers really did hope it wasn't you two, you know? Such talent."

A punch, deep to your gut. A scurry up your leg, a sharp squeaking bite that sank through your trousers and popped through the skin of your thigh. You were crying out now as you kicked the Librarian's rat off your leg, you were sure, but your head was ringing, vision spinning, cold seeping through to your bones.

You almost begged for mercy, but bit it back, wordless and gasping. Your feet slipped on the part-frozen slick beneath you. Your foot caught again, your floundering throwing something forwards; ragged fabric, dark with slurry, crunched bone, gristle and flesh peeking through it. You retched as the putrid-sweet smell of fleshy rot hit you. Leftovers, you thought.

The squirming nature of the light in this vast round chamber had you throwing your head back, staring upwards with bloodstained vision. An extraordinary mass of black arms and legs writhed above you, the inchoate flesh constantly changing as hundreds of blackened screaming faces, kicking legs, clawing hands moved within it, reaching out. As if in recognition of your acknowledgement, a pulse of Cursed-energy like a weapon of war shook your bones. You'd have dropped to your knees, if not bound.

"When your pain is pure," the Librarian continued, adoring, revenant, "she will devour. She shall be released. Our captive goddess, she of the fertile land, finally imbued with the righteous power needed to debride this festering country."

The Librarian approached you, his leathery hands cupping your face lovingly, shushing you as pink-stained tears ran down your cheeks. He spoke softly, as if gifting you such a boon.

"You will be part of something bigger now, sweet girl. You were misguided...but she is forgiving." The Librarian brushed tears from your tender, swollen cheeks and you grimaced in pain. He looked up, as snowflakes slipped occasionally down past the writhing mass, and reached into his pocket. With a flick, a pocket knife opened casually in his hand.

"Is your husband coming?" The Librarian asked, slow and thoughtful, "Perhaps not. I cannot feel him." Your heart crunched with pain, tears now rushing down your face in a strangled sob, hoping against hope that Kento was escaping, instead of dead.

"It is no matter." The Librarian supported the small of your back as he punched the knife into your gut. All the air shunted out of your lungs, your mouth hanging open in a voiceless gape, agony burning through every nerve of your body as the Librarian swiped the knife sideways through your belly. A slow, fatal wound. He pulled his hand away, drenched in your blood as you began to slip underwater again.

"She will taste your pain. She will come. Do not fear, sweet girl."

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You slipped out of the bathroom, skin still glistening with steam as you wiggled a towel around you, hunting for the tinny ringring-ringring of your phone.

Into your bedroom, throwing discarded clothes aside, and reaching into your pocket, you found your phone. You answered without looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?" A brief silence on the other end.

"I'm...sorry. You must be busy." That familiar voice, that made your belly twist and throb with want, velvet and slurred. You sat on your bed, gripping your towel around you.

"Kento?" You squeezed your phone until your knuckles were white. You heard a sigh and a shuffle, and blurted out in a panic, "No, wait! Don't hang up!"

A pause again.

"I just wanted-- I needed someone to--"

"Kento I--...I'm always here. For you to talk. About anything."

A thousand unspoken truths passed between you in silence. You closed your eyes, bringing your knees up to your chest with your arm wrapped around them. You felt Kento wrapped around you, warm as you waited.

"It's...it's just been a long week," he continued weakly, "Too much. Just way too much. I didn't get to see Haibara-- it was the anniversary, and I--"

You bit your lip, tears stinging in your nose for Kento. Reassurances flurried out of you. Kento felt himself warm through with your voice, slumped in his armchair, whiskey on his knee, shirt and tie open and messy over his broad chest.

You spoke over the phone, for the first time ever. The intimacy of his breaths, his slow chuckles, the crushed velvet of his tipsy voice...with your eyes closed, he was right beside you. He may as well have been in your bed. Your skin pricked with goosebumps as you heard him shift in his chair, releasing a gravelly groan with his aches and pains.

"You can-- you can come over...if you like. I'm not-- not doing anything," you offered, cringing with regret and anticipation as soon as the words left your mouth. You heard Kento's breathing hitch at the other end of the phone, before he breathed out a long, shivering breath.

"I...not tonight," he spoke, hesitant. Your stomach dropped, blushing, tears threatening to spill out as your face twisted in despair, mortified.

"I've been drinking...and you deserve better. So much better. But...tomorrow?" Your heart leapt, wondering how you would possibly wait that long. You bit your lip, burning with desire and delight as you nodded quickly.

"I-- yes. Yes. Please." Kento huffed out a laugh that had the hairs on your neck stand on end. You shivered in your cold, damp towel.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, just-- just still in a towel, I was having a bath." Kento's breath hitched again, and you were sure you could hear his embarrassment.

"God, I'm so sorry," he pressed against your hurried reassurance, "I'll go, just...go to bed. Warm up, I'll...I'll see you tomorrow." You blushed, kicking your legs, wiggling your toes, overwhelmed with joy.

"Okay. Yep. Bed, I'll-- I'll get dressed," you squeaked, unable to help yourself, teasing him with your feigned innocence. He hummed, low and unreadable.

"Sweet dreams," he said, voice warm as honeyed tea. A brief hesitation, as you both held on...the call ending with a beep.

Kento dropped his phone onto the table beside him, cupping his hands over his mouth. His thighs bounced on the chair in thrill, and he fumbled, swearing as whiskey spilled all over his lap.

The next day, he scooped you into his arms off bloodstained concrete, shielding your gaze as your friend's broken body was shifted into black bags.

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Kento had long-since left the village, since heading to the gates in swathes of snow, his broken leg giving and buckling under him as his Cursed-energy buffeted. He had escaped, cold and tactically driven; better just one dead sorcerer, than two dead sorcerers, after all.

Father Tatsu was certain, howling insults into the snow like a wolf on the mountain. His bounding strides cratered the floor beneath him as he lurched through the Temple, throwing aside the questioning approach of the kimono'd woman. She slammed into the wall in a wet crunch, hit with the force of a high-speed traffic collision. Father Tatsu lurched out into the snow, retching and vomiting again.

Father Tatsu stood strong against the piling drive of snow, a maelstrom against a maelstrom. The village was barely visible in the sea of white, as he staggered towards the black-veined, dead hill of the shrine.

Watching the man zigzag up the hill from a snowy roof, a man surrounded by allies raised his hand to pull his balaclava low, his eyes tempered like chocolate, determined.

"Time to move."

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Your heart crumpled under the weight of grief, for a promised life with Kento, never fulfilled as you hung, dying in the red-black gloom. You regretted nothing of the past; only the future you had let slip through your fingers.

The writhing goddess thrummed above you, and viscous pulses of overwhelming power thickened the air. You tried to drink it in, a desperate grasp at life.

A familiar voice called your name in the gloom. You had slipped underwater now, sunk under ice, tangled in reeds.

Kento had nightmares about how he found you, broken, bleeding, hanging and cold, until the day he died.

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One chapter to go! 🤭🤭

Chapter Eight: Unchained, LINK HERE!

@angelofthorr @nn-hh192 @vxmethyst @moonmalice @daisynik7 @heyitsmirae @black-swan-blog27 @vocosys @mischiefmanaged71 @silkspunweb 🐈‍⬛🧎‍♀️ @deegausserr

[whateveriwant]

Happy Sunday! Whatever you do, definitely don't imagine Simon stuck in a time loop, forced to relive the worst day of his life over and over again 😀

The worst day of Simon's life? you might wonder. What would that be? Good question!

How about the day that Simon, at the tender age of four, came face-to-face with the boogeyman himself? His mother had warned him of the ghoulish entity, the one who lurked in shadows, inflicting pain on those who would seek to misbehave. What she didn't tell him, and what Simon would discover for himself that night as he awoke to the sounds of screaming, was that the boogeyman was no mere specter. She didn't tell him how he punished indiscriminately, uncaring if you were a woman or child. She didn't tell him how he wielded his fist like a hammer, his breath stinking of booze and cigarettes. And she didn't tell him (because how could a mother begin to explain to her young son?) that the boogeyman would wear the face of his own father.

Or how about the day that Simon realized he made the biggest mistake of his life? When he first joined the army, he had lofty ideas of honor and glory; action and duty; responsibility and yes, if it came to it, even sacrifice. Call him naive, but what else could you expect of a boy who's been fed nothing but a trough of propaganda his whole life? Simon surely didn't realize, not as he signed his soul over for a pair of dog tags. He didn't realize, not as he queued up with other lost boys for his chance to play soldier. He didn't realize even as he was shipped out with less than two months of basic training under his belt. No, Simon didn't realize until it was already too late, until it was staring at him across the blood-soaked trench with glossy, unblinking eyes. It was only then, looking into what remained of the face of a friend, that Simon realized there is decidedly very little that is ‘dolce et decorum’ about dying in war.

Or there's the day Simon discovered hell exists right here on Earth, and it's ruled over by a devil called Roba. Simon had thought that living a life already full of pain and horror would have thickened his skin like the rings of a tree, making an impenetrable armor even a mortar couldn't dent. But all it took was the careful orchestration of one wicked man to prove that even the toughest of trees can be felled. Day in and day out, he endured a steady stream of beatings, tortures, and assaults. Day in and day out, he was forced to the brink of his sanity, tipping over it once or twice. Day in and day out, the once unbreakable soldier entered a new circle of hell, and as he descended, finding each pit worse than the last, he wondered if he would ever make it out alive.

Or there's the any number of days (and there are a dreadful many) that Simon lost the only things in his life that ever truly mattered to him. The day he came home, the taste of betrayal acrid on his tongue, to find four mangled corpses had replaced the people he called family. The day he failed, the target vanishing like smoke from a gun barrel, his hands wet with the blood of the sergeant he had come to consider a brother. The day he never saw coming, the day that smashed what was left of his heart into pieces, the day he lost the best thing to ever happen to his miserable excuse of a life; the day he lost you.

It was years later, long after he'd hung up his masks and tags, that they came for you in the dead of night. Payback, they'd said, for something he'd done when he was still in the service. Though you had no affiliation with that period of his life, they knew that by taking you – by hurting you – it was the perfect eye for an eye. All Simon could do as they bound and beat you was watch from across the room, his own chains rattling desperately. He watched as your fingers bent at odd angles, your clothes adhered to your skin with blood, the bones in your face shattered and swelled until you were unrecognizable. You were strong – stronger than Simon ever wanted you to have to be – but that didn't stop his heart from breaking with every abuse your body received. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he tried to get through to you, even as the sickening crack of your femur threatened to drown him out.

It was hours (it felt more like decades) that you were both dragged through this misery. Simon watched the whole time, hot tears obscuring his vision, his voice keeping you awake between the syringes of adrenaline pumped into you. But eventually there came a point in which you slumped, a sort of finality to the way your limbs sagged, and Simon couldn't help how his own heart stopped pumping. The room was loud in his ears, louder than it had ever been thus far, and yet, not a single sound was made. He shook his chains to rouse you. Get up, he ordered. Get up, my love. Get up! he begged, screamed until his vocal chords shred. His pleas were met by only silence, a slowing trickle of blood leaking from your mouth, and when the ones that did this to you declared that revenge was now claimed, Simon knew the last thread that wove any sort of meaning into his life had finally been cut.

Any one of these days could be a contender for the worst day of Simon's life, an eternity of torment looped within a 24 hour cycle. And no matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries to change things, it's never enough. He is never enough.

[dollfacefantasy]

Beginning to Slip

pairing: toji fushiguro x fem!reader

summary: after watching one of the scream movies, you have some fun with toji and a ghostface mask

cw: nsfw (18+), smut, p in v, cnc, size kink, knife play, face slapping, degradation, dacryphilia, mentions of murder and death and ghostface stuff

word count: 3k

a/n: um i had to repost cause if issues with tags. but yes i did write one like this for leon a few months ago but idgaf 🤪 i hope everyone enjoys <3

It had started normal enough. A regular night shared between you and your boyfriend, watching movies in bed as you often would do when you both had the spare time and lack of energy for anything else. After scrolling through the tv for a while, you came across one of the new Scream movies.

“Ooh, I haven’t seen this one yet. Wanna watch with me?” you’d asked him casually, sparing a little glance in his direction.

Toji looked at the screen, scanning the description with mild interest. He shrugged. He’d never shared your affinity for horror, never really saw the appeal of slasher movies, but if it put you in a good mood, why would he say no?

You pressed play and tossed the remote to the side. Your head rests on his chest, splitting your hearing between the actors talking and the steady beat of his heat. He absentmindedly strokes your head. You’re quiet for the first couple scenes. That is until you hear the iconic voice crackling through the opening girl’s phone.

“Why does the killer voice get less hot every movie?” you ask.

A simple, innocuous question. One you had posed to other people when you had watched the film before this one. But to Toji, it isn’t just a passing remark. He raises an eyebrow and looks down at you.

“Hot?”

A smile grows on your lips as you meet his eyes. “Yeah, hot,” you laugh.

“Isn’t it supposed to be scary?” he teases.

“Yeah… but that’s what makes it hot,” you respond, your smile widening, “The voice, the knife, the stuff he says. I don’t know. It’s just kinda…” You squirm a bit, trying to communicate your desires through motions rather than figure out the proper wording.

“Kinda what?” he continues affectionately mocking, “You got a thing for masks too? Want me to rough you up a bit?”

You laugh a little more. “Maybe I do.”

His eyes widen with slight curiosity, but he plays it off in the moment, making a joke of how he didn’t know you were into that kind of thing. But the comment stayed with him. It replayed in his head even after the credits rolled and you fell asleep in his arms. It was still with him the next morning when he woke up.

Toji was by no means innocent. He was familiar with all this kinda stuff. He understood the appeal. That wasn’t what had his mind lingering on the idea as he showered and got ready for the day. He just never expected you, his girlfriend who’d always been so gentle, to want to get rough.

He wasn’t against the concept though. Not at all. Visions of you flooded his mind. You completely ruined beneath him, face wet with tears and drool, hips bruised from his fingers. He was so not against it he had to jerk off in the shower. Thanks to his overactive imagination though, it didn’t take too long. As soon as he got out and dried off, he ordered one of those masks.

He felt silly in the days after, painfully aware of how eager he was for it to arrive. When it finally arrived, he knew it was worth it though. He pulled it out of the bag, letting the black cloth fall into place. The ghoulish face stared back at him as if it knew what it was about to be used for.

That very night he intended to use it. He waited till the evening when you were sprawled across the couch relaxing. Then he snuck off to the bedroom and got dressed up. Donned in his normal black shirt with gray pants, he peered into the eyes of his reflection as he pulled the mask over his head. It sat flawlessly, the fabric pooling around his neck perfectly.

The last item he needs sits inside a drawer on his side of the bed. The knife. He’d had this part handled long before he knew you’d be into it. He takes out his favorite one, the one he knows will look prettiest pressed against your flesh. As he watches it glimmer in the dim light of the bedroom, he knows he’s ready to go.

He struts into the living room, pausing several feet away from you and allowing you to just take it in. He feels a pulse within the confines of his jeans as your eyes sparkle. You sit up slowly, looking him up and down.

“Toji?” you ask, “What… what are you doing?”

“You said you had a thing for masks and knives, yeah? Well I know you got a thing for me too,” he says as he begins to approach you.

He sees how your pupils lock onto the reflective blade. Holding the handle, he points it at you. The flat of the cool metal rests beneath your chin. He applies pressure and directs you to look up at him.

“Do you wanna try this out?” he breathes.

Timidly, you nod.

“I wanna hear you say it,” he says.

“I wanna try it out,” you answer.

“You want me to be rough?”

Another nod.

“How rough?”

“As much as you want,” you say so quietly it sounds close to a whisper.

He stares down at you for a moment, thinking over your answers. His thoughts smash into a mental wall when he hears your next sentence.

“Want you to make me cry,” you say. You’re looking up at him with doe eyes too. How could he resist this offer?

After a few moments of contemplation, he swipes the blade away from your jaw. “Should I give you a head start?” he asks simply.

A chill fizzles down your spine. He didn’t even need a voice mod. He already had the voice of an apex predator. You shake your head at his question, causing him to smile beneath the mask.

“Make the first move then, bunny,” he says.

As quick as you can, you scramble off the couch, ducking under his large arm. He chuckles while making a grab for you. You nearly trip but manage to make it to your feet and bolt down the hallway.

He spins around and follows, hot on your tail. He doesn’t have to run, his long legs carry him fast enough with a simple stride. The thrill of adrenaline pumps from your heart and out through your veins. You dash around different pieces of furniture, trying to prevent the heavy footsteps behind you from getting too close.

You come to a crossroads when the path ahead splits between another hall and the staircase. Without a second thought, you sprint up the stairs in the direction of the bedroom. It was pure instinct, but you know this game is about to reach the main part when you see his body fill the doorway. His chest rises and falls with his breaths. You can feel his eyes on you even if you can’t see them. Like a gazelle caged in with a tiger, you know there’s only one way this will end.

“Up the stairs instead of out the front door,” he tuts with a shake of his head, “An amateur mistake. One that dumb little girls like you always make.”

He stalks closer to you, and in-turn, you back away. Your steps continue until your back bumps the wall. He’s closing in, nearly close enough to pin you to the wall. As a last ditch effort, you dart to your left in the direction of the bed. In your mind, you were going to hop over the mattress and manage to speed past him back out the door.

You don’t get that far because he grabs one wrist and then the next and slams you face down on the bed. With your arms pinned to your back, all you can do is wriggle to try and find a way to slip out. He puts a stop to your squirming quickly though, jerking your wrists upwards and causing you to yelp in discomfort.

“Calm down, angel face. I’m not gonna hurt ya. Not until I have my fun at least,” he purrs.

He runs the tip of the blade along your skin peeking out from where your shirt had risen. There’s not enough pressure to draw blood, only leave you with a sting of anticipation. A shaky sigh leaves you, but you're careful not to move and send the knife piercing through your flesh.

“That’s better,” he hums before pulling the knife away and placing it to the side. 

He releases your wrists as well, planning on removing your top next. You don’t make it that simple though. Your arms stretch forward and claw at the blankets to try and drag yourself to the other side of the mattress.

It takes him no effort to wrangle you back into position. His frame is so much larger than yours, it’s like he’s covering every inch of you. Anywhere you try to move, he’s already there. His fingers wrap around your limbs and encapsulate them completely.

He wrestles you still and whips you around onto your back. One of his hands comes up to your throat and sharply jerks your head, bouncing it off the cushioned surface below you.

“That’s a fight you won’t win, little brat,” he breathes as the eyes of the ghostface mask watch your figure.

You resign to be still for a few moments, only minorly fidgeting as he peels your shirt off you. He takes his time. Each second another inch of your body is exposed to him. He drinks in the revelation of your form. He’s so focused, so calculated with his movements that he doesn’t see your arm swinging at him until it collides with the side of the mask, almost knocking it loose.

To him, it was absolutely nothing. He doesn’t even falter. It registers in his mind in the same way a kitten batting its paw would. He stares down at you with a wild grin on his face underneath the white plastic.

His hand leaves your throat and grips your jaw, straightening you out before landing a firm slap on your cheek. He almost breaks and lets out a laugh at the way your hips jump from the contact. He gives you one more on the same cheek before lowering himself closer to you. You feel the cool smoothness of the knife dragging up your stomach and between your breasts as he speaks.

“Count yourself lucky it’s only my hand I’m using,” he taunts before using his free hand to tap your face once more.

The combination of the hits with the low thrum of his voice had you dizzy. Your head feels foggy in the best way as your heart beats faster and your chest rises and falls quicker with your increased breaths. The knife trails along your collarbone. You can feel a light scratch as he presses slightly harder than before. Still not enough to have you spilling crimson, but the right amount to have your panties sticking to your cunt from arousal.

“You gonna be good for me now, or do I need to give you a better reason to be?” he asks, voice right next to your ear. Your blood was running hot as you could hear him breathing under the mask, feel him hard and pressed against your thigh.

“I’ll be good,” you agree. Your voice comes out soft and hazy. He smirks at the state you're in from just a few smacks.

He backs off, rising to his feet again at the side of the bed. He tugs his own shirt over his head and tosses it to the side before dropping his pants. You can nearly feel your eyes dilate as they take in his appearance. No matter how many times you saw it, it never got old. Each ridge and dip in his muscular abdomen and chest looked so familiar but thrillingly new. His cock was a whole other story. The sight of it hanging between his legs had you drooling in more ways than one.

Reaching forward, he yanks you closer to his body by your hips and then tugs your pants off. The forming pile of clothing on the floor grows as he discards them there.

You’re now splayed out on the bed, left only in your panties. He can see the slick that’s soaked the middle of them. Slowly, he grabs the knife again and brings it between your legs. You whimper as you feel the edge of the blade slide up against your clothed center. Your jaw drops and your legs tremble. You stay perfectly still, your eyes trained on the veins on his forearm as he maneuvers the weapon.

“You’d look beautiful covered in red, babydoll,” he 

It glides up the thin cloth between your legs and over your pelvis. The tip catches on the elastic waistband. You bite your lip. Your pulse becomes audible to you as the fabric lifts from your body, hooked on the shiny metal.

“Toji,” you whimper. You see the mask tilt up a bit as he glances at your face, but he says nothing. Until the garment snaps, tearing on the sharp point as the pull becomes too taut.

“You’d be the prettiest one yet,” he murmurs, “All marked up. No mistake about who you belong to.”

His fingers come up to the split in your underwear. He rips it in half like it’s nothing, drawing a gasp from you. The shreds of fabric hang from your legs, and he doesn’t bother removing it any further. Enough of you is accessible for his purposes.

Cupping his hands behind your knees, he pushes your legs up beside your stomach. He can’t get enough of how your pussy glistens and drips for him. He drags two fingers through your folds before gripping his cock and stroking it a few times. He lines up at your entrance and looks down at you for a moment.

“You ready for me, doll?” he asks.

But before you can answer, he shoves himself all the way inside, filling you completely with one stroke. The motion tears a loud cry from your lungs while a cruel laugh comes from him. You try to muffle it by covering your mouth, your own palm flying to your lips. He rips it away though and pins it back on the mattress as he starts thrusting. 

“Don’t try to keep that shit from me. The sounds might be the best part,” he grunts, “I’d bet you’d sound the same if I was slicing you up instead of just fucking you stupid.”

Your eyes roll back as another moan springs free. Constant whimpers come next, intermingling with the creak of the bed. He’s not giving you time to adjust like normal, he’s getting right into it, hard and fast.

His skin slaps against yours, and you grip at his biceps, nails digging into the skin. His head tilts back as he sighs at the small stings. One set of fingers dig into your leg with a bruising hold while the other hand returns to your throat. He holds it, using it for leverage to continue drilling into you with no mercy.

It’s ruthless. You’re left gasping for air as your body bobs with the force of his movements. Your walls tighten up and release, struggling to accept the size of him still. Only the cusps of words can breach your lips. Nothing coherent makes it through.

Tears prick at your eyes as everything else in the world fades to the background. Your lashes flutter as you try to keep them in. They finally spill as his hand connects with your cheek again in a small tap.

“I asked you a question,” he growls into your ear.

“What?” you whimper as warm beads roll from the corners of your eyes, down your temples.

The sight of your glossy eyes looking up at him is almost enough to push him over the edge but he refrains and keeps slamming into your wanting hole.

“I asked if you were crying yet, but I think you have that answered,” he says.

“Oh,” you whine simply.

Your cries become more audible while your lips remain permanently parted, an endless cycle of mewls and whimpers seeping out between sobs.

You’re trembling and sucking him in more than before. His head has dropped to the crook of your neck as his breaths have morphed into harsh puffs. You’re both close and each of you knows this.

Your shaky hand rises to the back of his head, pushing the mask up over his head and letting his smooth black locks fall free. The mask falls off him onto the bed as he brings his head up to look into your eyes.

“Wanna see you when you finish me off,” you choke out.

He grins when hears that and presses his sweaty forehead to yours. “Any last words?” he asks.

One final shake of your head, and you explode from him. You scream as the pleasure courses through you. He locks his digits around you and presses his face harder against yours. The only time it was ok for your sounds to be hushed was when it was caused by his lips on yours.

He keeps fucking you hard and fast, only cumming himself as the overstimulation begins to set in for you. His cum floods your insides as he groans into your mouth. His body continues to roll rhythmically through the whole thing.

When he is done, he practically passes out on top of you. You push on him a little bit but not too hard. Being pinned beneath him was far from the worst thing in the world. He doesn’t move though. You’re kinda shocked he even pulls out with how unresponsive he was to you at the moment. You only know he’s still conscious from the tender way he holds your waist and the kisses he’s lavishing on your neck where his fingers had once been.

You decide this position is as good as any and lazily grab the tv remote which laid in its usual spot next to your pillow. With a few clicks of a button, you’ve got the first Scream turned on. You wrap your arms around Toji and nuzzle his head in return, content to drift off tangled together to the sounds of Drew Barrymore being slaughtered.

[patrollingboston]

I don't really dance // Soap x Reader fluff

Soap your long time crush offers you a dance at a friends wedding.

The wedding looked gorgeous, not being a typical romantic the idea of attending a wedding for an entire day would make your stomach churn. But seeing as it was Gaz’s wedding and he was one of your closest friends you made the effort for him and his lovely new wife.

The dancefloor was bustling, the music was throbbing through your ears. You grasped a glass of wine sipping it slowly underneath a veranda with vines tangled around the legs making a pretty sight. Confetti lay all over the table in the shape of pink and white hearts. How cute. Everyone else, that you knew of, attending the wedding all seemed to be at the bar or enjoying the atmosphere of the dance floor. Ghost sat opposite you on the table, a beer in hand, his mask still pulled over his face; it obviously didn’t come off for special occasions. You sat there like a pair of grumpy idiots whilst everyone else enjoyed themselves.

“What time do weddings usually end?” He grumbled, taking a sip of his beer whilst lifting his mask up to reveal his mouth. He must have had some weird looks from guests who didn’t know about the whole mask ghoulish thing.

“Fuck knows.” You reply taking a small sip from your glass, your eyes scanned the area, the stars contrasting the thick dark sky that loomed above everyone.

“Look at Price and Laswell dancing over there.” He said gesturing to the pair, clearly both plastered as they danced joyfully to the music.

“Psh, at least they are enjoying themselves.”

A beat passed.

“You spoken to Johnny today?” He made direct eye contact with you, swivelling in his seat as if the conversation had taken a more serious turn, making your stomach flip slightly.

“A little bit, caught him before the ceremony. Saw him chatting to one of the bridesmaids. Why?”

“You know if you keep letting your big bruised ego get in the way nothing is going to happen with him.”

“Um excuse me Ghost, I have no idea what you mean.” You said defensively raising your voice a touch so he could hear your annoyance over the loud bass.

“Whatever, I don’t see him with that ’bridesmaid’ now.” He leaned back in his seat again taking a swig of his beer.

“Dick.” You said under your breathe, who was he to talk about your feelings.

Subconsciously your eyes drifted around the space for him, you spotted him perched on a barstool chatting to who you assumed to be Gaz’s mum, always the charmer. As if he could feel eyes on him, his head turned round into your direction. You quickly looked away trying to gulp down your glass of wine to seem occupied; praying he didn’t notice you staring.

The song suddenly switched from an upbeat one into a slower paced one making everyone begin to pair up and sway around the floor. Gaz and his bride were looking lovingly at each other, you couldn’t help but feel a little jealous about what they had. Pushing those feelings down you turned to ghost.

“Want another drink?” You spoke, standing up grabbing your purse from the chair.

“All good, not done with this one yet.”

“Not like you to turn down a free dri- “ You were cut off by a presence in front of you, looking up you saw Soap. You swallowed hard.

“Ya alright?”

His accent made you weak at the knees, even if you’d never tell a soul that.

“Fine, you having a nice time?”

“Yeah, I um wondered if I could steal you for a dance?” He asked, his confident demeanour suddenly changing to an anxious teenager.

“What... I don’t really dance.” Unintentionally you let a laugh slip out.

“Dinnae laugh at me, I’m serious.” He playfully punched your shoulder before holding a hand out towards you.

You looked towards Ghost who was trying his best to ignore the situation happening right in front of him, you managed to catch his eye for a brief second, he widened them as if to say ‘go on’.

You took his hand and he gently led you towards the dance floor, you found a quiet spot between the crowd.

His hands found your waist as you placed yours on either side of his shoulders. You weren’t quite sure where to look so you opted for gazing over his shoulder.

“Relax would you, you’re as stiff as a board.” He teased.

“Can’t say I dance very often, give me a chance I’m not a natural.”

“You’re perfect.”

The comment caught you off guard, you pulled away from his grasp slightly meeting his eyes. You couldn’t help but notice the way the fairy lights surrounding you reflected in them causing a twinkle. All of a sudden, he was twisting you round like a ragdoll. During the spins you couldn’t help but see a few familiar eyes staring in your direction in surprise.

“Johnny please, I’m getting dizzy!” You chuckled, he always had this way of making you unmask and let your guard down no matter the situation.

“You look stunning, I don’t tell you enough.” He spoke with a genuine tone and a cheeky smile as his eyes fell back on yours once again.

“I- “ Choking out a single syllable, you could feel the heat rising to your cheeks.

“Come ere’.” His arms wrapped around you even tighter, causing you to fall against him, you rested your head in his shoulder as he continued to peacefully sway to the music.

Your eyes found Ghost who was still sat, beer in hand at the table by himself. He raised his bottle in your direction, you wanted to be annoyed but couldn’t bring yourself to be, instead you returned him a warm smile.

You would have never guessed that the night ended with you slow dancing with Soap MacTavish underneath the stars like in a romantic comedy but here you both were intertwined moving with the calm pace of the music lovingly.

[holyfruitsnax]

Us Cowpokes, We Take It As It Comes

A/N: So this all started based on a little tidbit I saw today about a silly little southern rule that sparked my interest RIGHT away. Wear the hat, Ride the cowboy. (May do a ghoulish version of something like this as well) Anyways, I'm terrible but we're all here so...Enjoy....

Pairing: PreWar!Cooper Howard x Actress!Reader

Warnings: Ummmm smut! PnV, Foul language obviously, sexual themes, minor DNI!!!, 18+ Darlin', Workplace relations, Cooper Howard bro.

Dark worn boots beat a steady path against hard oak floors, every head in the saloon turning from the armed gunman to lay eyes on their hometown hero. "Cooper!" My voice cried out, throwing an outstretched arm towards the cowboy. The gunman laughed balling my hair tighter behind my head making me hiss "Cooper Howard in the flesh!" his voice rang through the silent bar. "To whom do I owe the pleasure of meeting you?...Couldn't be this little thing here could it? Hmm?" A dark brow raising as Cooper took in the bearded man. "No, no Mr. Palo...Y'see I've been after you since Amarillo....and as for the girl?" Cooper's hand stealthily moved to his hip to draw his pistol. Palo's eyes snapped to his holster, his hands releasing my head to grab his own gun. A piercing shot rang through the wooden building as people shouted and hid while Palo's body fell behind my form with a thud, a race he'd never have won.

"She's spoken for." Cooper took easy strides towards me, brows furrowed in concern as his gloved hand met my forearm to tug my body against his side. "They'll...They'll come after you next, mark my words Howard!" Palo coughed, his hand moved for his gun in his final breaths making Cooper's trigger finger pull one last time. My eyes squinted shut, arms pulling myself closer to Cooper's body with a gasp only opening again as the bar music began to play. "Is- is it over Mr. Howard?" I gazed up at Cooper with wide eyes, his own relaxed gaze staring back at me as he pulled me out of the saloon. "No darlin' I'm afraid not..." His voice low as he spoke to me, left hand pulling his glove off the other. "So he's honest when he says more of his men will come!" I breathed watching Cooper's fingers catch in his mouth, a loud whistle calling his horse, Sugarfoot. "Maybe so, I say let them come." His confidence radiating through his stark smile, turning to ready his horse for our long ride.

"Um...Mr. Howard?..." I coyly grinned tugging on the back of his blue button down. "Why yes? Miss Carlisle?" Cooper turned to meet my ask, my hand moving up to remove his hat bringing him closer. "I could've sworn, I heard you say I was spoken for in there." For once the cowboy faltered as we met face to face, his adams apple bobbed with a swallow. The humble cowboy nodded, "I guess I did." hazel eyes finding the ground for a moment. My head tilted ever so slight to close the distance between our lips, a nervous hand found the space between my shoulder blades while the other cupped my cheek. Cooper pulled away keeping me close, "Let's get a move on darlin'." His show stopping grin catching the lens once again.

"CUT! Beautiful work everybody!" The director clapped along with some of the camera crew. Cooper's head ducked in a modest bow, hand moving up to wave off the praise while I gleamed a smile placing his cowboy hat atop my head. "Thank you- oh ah thank you!" His voice carried around set as everyone mingled. "You know Cooper, I am so glad you decided to take up my offer on revamping an old project...I know everything's been a little downhill since the uh- Divorce- but, I really think this is going to be good for your career!" Our director insisted, shaking Cooper's hand. "Yeah, I'm just glad to be back at it! It's easier having a job in the city so I can stop in and see Janey after work...and ah-" Cooper's eyes drifted over to my face, a laugh rattling out of me as I spoke to one of our costume directors, cowboy hat still on my head. "Hey can I uh, can we chat later?" though it was an ask Cooper began to walk away from our rambling director after noticing me make my way towards the dressing rooms.

"And where do you think you're going?" Cooper called after me with a sly grin, fingers pointed up like a gun. I turned towards the older man, his gesture pulling a soft laugh from me "Oh, I'm sorry sheriff, I was just gonna mosey on along to my dressing room if that's alright with you?" I teased with a heavy southern accent as Cooper came closer. "Why no, It's not. See, you seem to have something of mine." His lips closed into a smug smirk giving the cowboy hat a flick. "Oh! So sorry Mr. Howard, I swear I wasn't stealing." I joked going to remove the old hat from my head, yet hands placed themselves over mine. "Now normally, I'd shoot you where you're standing." Cooper started again, finger gun pressed to my breasts, "But, for you I may have to make an exception." His body bent ever so slight, eyes boring into my own. "Mmmm and why is that?" My heart raced beneath his middle and pointer finger. "Cause it does look good on you...and I can't fault you that." Cooper winked, straightening his posture back out, fingers moving away from my chest to find my back.

"I don't suppose anyone's ever mentioned the cowboy hat rule to you? Hmm darlin'?" A dark brow lifted over Cooper's eyes while he guided me down the hall. "There's a rule for hats?" I asked with a tilt of my head making Cooper chuckle. "Mmmmhmmm. Wear the hat. Ride the cowboy." He teased, the sentence fell from his lips with a click behind his teeth. My eyes blew wide, brows knitting together as I collected his words, a hand placing itself against the door to none other than Cooper Howards dressing room. "Oh I seeeee." My lip pulled between my teeth, I turned to face Cooper again with my hands raised in surrender seeing his 'gun' back up with a mischievous grin. "Oh please Mr. Howard! It was an honest mistake really, I could make it up to you...If you had any suggestions?" I closed my eyes in feigned fear, sliding one open to watch Cooper look back and forth before capturing my raised wrists in on hand, his firm body pushing me flush against the door.

"The only thing I can think of darlin'...Is that rules are rules...and as a sheriff it'd be wrong if I went around breaking them. How would that look?" Cooper's brows lifted in innocence as the handle popped open for he and I to back inside of the secluded room. "Oh, well we wouldn't want that." I nodded watching him nudge the door shut, and in a moment he was on me again with a needy kiss. Thick fingers tugged at the buttons of my costume pulling the white blouse I wore open so his lips could ghost across the soft skin of my chest. "I'd really like it." Cooper's lips planted a trail as he spoke "If you took all this off for me." He gestured over my side with one hand, my shirt falling to the floor.

So I did just that, stripping the old western get up off my body, leaving me naked before the older man. Cooper's face dipped low to nip and suck at my skin as clothing fell from it his hands pressing on either side of my chest to push my flesh together, releasing to watch the soft bounce of my tits as he let out a satisfied groan. "Is there, anything else you'd like?" My voice soft and breathy, one hand combing back dark hair while the other palmed him through pinstriped slacks as Cooper explored. Hazel eyes eclipsed by dark blown pupils as I met Cooper's gaze again, his warmth retreating with fluid steps towards his couch removing his belt in one swift movement letting the leather fall with a thud, wide dominant thighs spread as fingers coaxed me closer. Cooper's hands gripped my hips placing a kiss to my sternum "I just want you." his head falling against the back of the velvet sofa to grin up at me.

My knees hit the floor beneath me finding my place between Cooper's thighs with a nod "How bad exactly?" my fingers tugging open his zipper to tug his dick free, hand stroking him slowly. "I- oh so bad darlin' been needing you allll day." He gulped watching my lips ghost over the tip of his dick, tongue smoothing over him before dipping low to take his length into my mouth. A breathy moan left Cooper while I worked him with my mouth, delicately massaging his balls. "Ahh that's, that's it." He praised finding the back of my head to guide my movements as I bobbed and sucked, plush bottom lip pulled harsh between white teeth. "There's- whoo baby hol' on." Cooper's tongue darted out to soothe his lip, accent thick as he pulled me off his cock. "Remember what you started now." Cooper tugged my hips over his own forcing my legs to straddle him. I let my hands run along the damp skin of his firm chest, hips rolling to grind my wet core against Cooper's dick making us both sigh.

"I want you to ride me- Think you can handle that cowpoke?" Cooper's lips traced my jaw, rough fingers circling my clit pulling a moan from my chest. Lips finding their place together as I eased myself down onto Cooper, his jaw going slack once our bodies pushed flush against one another. Mumbles of perfection and disbelief fell from Cooper like a waterfall, his hands gripping at my thighs. The stars chest heaved as I began to bounced and roll my hips against him, my lips leaving hot kisses along the sensitive skin of his throat with a moan. A hiss pushed between Cooper's teeth, his hips bucking to meet my own slower movements making me grin.

"What are you...playing at baby." Cooper cocked his head, drawing out a moan as he spoke, arm looping around my waist to pull me closer. "You said you wanted me to ride you- that's what I'm gonna do." My words came out in a deep whine while my movements grew bold forcing Cooper's hips to still, a hand gripping at the loose fabric of his unbuttoned shirt. I began to grind my hips down against him, tongue sliding past Cooper's lips with a groan. The sound of wet skin and heavy breaths filled the dressing room as I rode Cooper. Before long he was panting and twitching beneath me, something snapping within the man as he opened his eyes and watched my body bounce against his.

In a flash my body was bent over the arm of the couch, legs pushed wide so Cooper could slot himself back into my cunt from behind. The loud moan I gave brought back Cooper's smile as he fucked into me, hands digging at my sides, hips and ass "Hold on baby I'm- I'm almost there." He moaned watching his dick disappear inside of me with each thrust. "Cooper I'm gonna-" I whined pushing my hips back to meet his thrusts causing him to growl. "Go head darlin', come on give me what you got." Cooper licked his lips, groaning as I came around him, walls quivering and clenching. His hips continued rolling my orgasm through me until I felt warm thick ropes fill me and run down my inner thigh.

Cooper fell heavy against my back with a satisfied hum, hands massaging my skin as he peppered kisses along my spine. Pulling out of me he'd wandered away for a moment to find something to clean me up with. When he returned I laid across the smooth velvet catching my breath. "Now that's a sight." He chuckled kneeling between my legs to clean his mess, cowboy hat long forgotten on the floor next to us along with the scuff marks the couch legs had left. "Well, you know us cowpokes." I shrugged making Cooper glance up at me with a raised brow. "We take it as it comes." I giggled letting my head fall back while Cooper shook his head tossing his towel aside with a smile.

[ramblingoak]

Promise Me

For @midnight-moth who requested Terzo x Omega and a kiss "as a promise" from this list.

Terzo x Omega

~ As their bus heads to the final stop of the tour Omega finds himself comforting a Terzo who is scared of what the future holds... ~

Warnings: references to what happens on stage at the end Terzo's final performance so, you know, ANGST but otherwise it's sfw, 1k words (thank you to @ghuleh-recs for the dividers!)

His Papa was nervous.

Omega didn’t even need his quintessence to know that.  While Papa had never been good at sitting still the past few days he had been extra fidgety.  Constantly adjusting his gloves and his robes, fixing his hair, tapping his fingers against any nearby surface…twitchy is what Alpha had said.  Omega agreed with him that there was definitely something going on with their Papa and as the tour got closer and closer to ending it only seemed to get worse.

Now he just seemed scared.

“Papa?”  Omega winced when the man flinched.  He hadn’t meant to startle him but he didn’t want to wake up the others on the tour bus so he had crept up on the man while he sat in the lounge area.  “Is everything alright?”

“Sì, sì.  All is fine, tesoro.”

The endearment he used for Omega never failed to make his heart flutter in his chest.  He moved closer to the plush chair Papa was sitting in, hesitating for only a moment before dropping to his knees.  When he covered the man’s own knees with his large hands Papa was quick to put his over Omega’s.  He wasn’t wearing his gloves, in fact he wasn’t wearing much of anything.  Just a silky pair of sleep pants that felt nice and cool against Omega’s rough skin.

“Couldn’t sleep?”  His question earned him just a brief shake of Papa’s head, nothing more.  “Is there anything I can do to help, Papa?”

“Terzo.”  The man squeezed Omega’s hands hard as he spoke and the ghoul’s eyes shot up to meet the mismatched gaze he had grown to love.  There was an unreadable look on his Papa’s face and Omega couldn’t help but lean closer.  “When it’s just us, I am Terzo.  Okay?”

“Okie dokie.”  

Using Papa’s, no Terzo’s, familiar phrase earned him a smile and absolutely nothing could stop Omega from leaning in and covering those lips with his own.  Terzo’s mouth tasted like tea and the throat lozenges he popped like candy in between performances and Omega couldn’t help but push his tongue in deeper, chasing the taste as much as he could.  He pushed in closer, Terzo’s legs widening to allow him room.  While Terzo moved his hands to Omega’s shoulders, quickly slipping them around his neck, Omega kept one on his knee, the other sliding up Terzo’s leg until he could rest it on the man’s soft side.

Terzo broke away from the kiss with a gasp, resting his forehead against Omega’s and taking deep lungfuls of air.  His fingers had found their way into the ghoul’s hair, his nails scratching lightly at his scalp underneath the thick white strands that covered his head.  Omega began to run his own nails carefully from the man’s side to his belly, playing with the dark hair that covered him.  He couldn’t help but move it higher, up and up until he could scrape a claw gently over a nipple.  Omega would have kept going, had planned on continuing until the nipple was hard and swollen from his work, but with a whimper Terzo pulled one of his hands out of the ghoul’s hair and abruptly covered his, making it so his palm was pressed flat right over the erratic beating of Terzo’s heart.

“Terzo?  What’s wr–”

“Tell me.  Per favore, tell me.”

Omega shook his head slightly for a moment, unsure what Terzo meant.  Tell him what?  When Terzo’s heart seemed to beat even faster he wrapped his arm around the man’s waist, tugging him even closer to try and comfort him.

“I’ll tell you anything, anything you want to hear.”  He pressed a gentle kiss to Terzo’s swollen lips before pulling away and whispering a quiet phrase in Ghoulish against them.  His Papa had heard it enough by now that all the tension seemed to leave the man’s body at once and he practically melted against Omega.  Still, it was worth repeating in English and any other language the ghoul could learn.  “I love you.”

“No matter what?”

“Terzo, I don–...did something happen?”  The man in his arms shook his head but Omega could practically taste the fear that was coming off of him in waves.  “Whatever happened I’m here, I’m not leaving.”

“Promise me.”  Terzo pulled away enough so they could look into each other’s eyes.  “Promise me that you will love me no matter what.  That you will stay with me no matter what.”

Omega brought both his hands up to cup Terzo’s face, stroking his thumbs across the man’s cheeks and brushing the tears that had started to fall.  He leaned close so their foreheads were resting against each other again.

“I promise, with everything that I am, that I will never stop loving you.  That I will never leave you.”  

He sealed his promise with a kiss, trying to pour all of his emotions into it.  Terzo kissed him back fiercely in return, clinging to Omega like he was the only thing anchoring him to this world.  Neither one of them let up and right when Omega was about to stand and drag Terzo back to the small bed they shared on the bus the man pulled away, his eyes still shining with emotion.

“I promise you the same.”  Omega smiled at Terzo’s words, leaning in to press a quick kiss on the tip of his nose before pulling away.  “They’d have to drag me away from you kicking and screaming.”

His choice of words gave Omega an uneasy feeling but he quickly shook it off.  All he wanted to do at this moment was get Terzo in bed and hold him close.  They both needed their rest before they reached their last stop.  One more performance before the tour was finally over and they could go home.  He took Terzo’s hands in his and stood up, gently tugging the man to his feet as well.  His lover still looked scared and Omega made a mental note to ask him in the morning what had brought this conversation on.  For now he settled for pulling him close and leaning in so he could whisper another reassurance into his ear.

“I’d like to see them try.”

If you'd like to be added/removed from the tag list (or if I accidentally left your name off) of this fic or any of my others please leave a comment or send me a dm! Thank you 💙

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[forlorn-crows]

crow. babe. darling. my love.

do you know what i need? i need aeon and dew reluctantly being sweet. all the tension that's hung in the air between them dissolving as one of them sneaks into bed because being alone is too much right now, even if their only option is someone who (they think) hates them.

i know you know what i mean.

oh wow how convenient of an ask. would you look at that. and from my sweet darling mal. however could you have known what i wanted to write today. that is crazy (tee hee)

what is ALSO crazy is APPARENTLY @miasmaghoul and i, onCE AGAIN, have the same braincell and wrote basically the same fucking thing at the same fucking time. no, i literally told her nothing about what i was writing beyond "aeon/dew comfort somethin somethin", and she told me nothing about hers. love you bitch

a little bit of aeon/dew Feelings. breaking down walls and such. @waywardsamaritan inspired me to write them with their fic about dew bein all sweet to aeon.

iimagazh means 'little light' in ghoulish; word so graciously borrowed from mal's big lore brain

Dew flips around for what feels like the hundredth time, smushing his cheek into his pillow with more force than necessary. Sleep continues to slip through his claws like fine sand, leaving a heavy weight of . . . something in its wake. Maybe it’s just insomnia or uncomfortable bus bunks. Maybe it’s the pinprick of emptiness gnawing at the back of his brainstem, a feeling that situated itself there as soon as they left for tour.

He wishes Aether were here. To pull him close with those big, warm arms. Aid his addled mind. Kiss him on his hairline and lull him to sleep with a few well-placed waves of quintessence. 

But he’s not.

Instead, Dew stares across the aisle at Aeon’s sleeping form. His eyes roam over his back, bouncing between his wide shoulders. His chest rises and falls evenly in sleep. Lucky bastard, the fire ghoul thinks. Envious. He can almost feel the tug of Aeon’s magick from here, the tiniest tingling at the edges of his awareness. Dew can recognize it well enough, even if it’s not the same brand, so to speak. It’s more subtle than Aether’s, more demure. For as big as his presence is on stage, his magickal footprint is anything but. Aeon’s is more of a low hum, stuck in a tight aura around his vessel. It doesn’t quite warm a room like Aether’s, big in energy and personality as he is. But Dew’s caught the edge of his quintessence enough times to start to get familiar with its calm, yet electric spirals. 

It’s dangerously tempting now, even with their strained relationship. Dew clutches the pillow in his arms a little tighter, scoots closer to the edge of the bunk. He could crawl in with Mountain, as he’s done already so many nights prior. Tucked himself into his nest of long limbs, drawing close to the steady, grounding beat of his heart in his rumbling chest. Putting him as close as he can to their oldest bond. 

He’s just not Aether. And as much as he hates to admit it, he misses the calming touch of quintessence in general, not just from his mate. 

Dew feels vulnerable. Like his longing has cracked open a chasm in his chest and left him open. Wanting. 

His body is moving before his brain can ruminate any further. He slips down from his bunk, careful to avoid the creak of the built-in’s edge. Dew pads across the small aisle, standing dumbly in front of Aeon’s bunk. Breathing as quietly as his lungs will allow. 

Fuck it.

Deftly, the fire ghoul climbs over Aeon and into his bunk, nearly launching himself into the back wall in effort not to jostle the other ghoul. The quintessence ghoul grumbles a little at the dip in the mattress but doesn't fully wake. Dew situates himself close to his front, moving to curl his limbs into himself so as not to touch. Just enough to be close. 

"Hmm . . . iimagazh. . ." Aeon mumbles, pulling the fire ghoul to his chest and throwing a leg over his hips. The lisp of infernal language makes Dew’s breath hitch, let alone the way Aeon easily slots himself against his suddenly over-warm body and presses his nose against the crown of his head, right between the horns, and sighs heavily. 

This is not how this was supposed to go. He can’t know it’s Dew. There’s no reason to elicit such an intimate reaction from someone he’s barely even touched beyond a civil handshake. The fire ghoul holds his breath and wishes he could whisk himself back to his bunk. 

It only takes a few more moments before Aeon unsurprisingly stirs, brow furrowing as he no doubt inhales the scent of fresh shampoo and burnt spices. The quintessence ghoul lets out a confused chirp, shifting back to blink open his eyes and stare at the ghoul in his arms. 

Dew’s eyes are as wide as saucers, fingers curled weakly into Aeon’s sleep shirt. Aeon flicks his gaze all over, realization blooming across his cheeks in the form of a lilac blush, visible even in the dim of the bunk. 

“Uh.” He clears his throat weakly. “Thought you were ‘Rora,” Aeon mutters, avoiding Dew’s eyes in the dark. He moves to pull away, but Dew interrupts. 

“Is it . . . okay that I’m not?”

Aeon makes a small noise, a cross between surprise and disbelief. He hovers between too far and close enough, breaths as shallow as a rabbit’s. Something unreadable crosses his face, but eventually he relaxes a little. Tentatively rests a hand on Dew’s hip. “S-sure. It’s alright.”

“Okay.”

He’s not sure which of them moves first. But soon after he speaks the word they’re pressed together once more, skinny legs intertwined and Aeon’s arms holding him close. He’s surprisingly dense, if Dew had to choose a word for it. He’s not as big and soft as Aether—he’s closer to Dew’s own physique, with a dash of Rain’s height and limber joints. But there’s still a gentle edge to him, comforting in a different way—smells different too. Like the static in the air before a storm, like cool air and myrrh. Yet underneath the mark of quintessence is something else; sage, a hint of metallic tang, and the smell of sap that bursts from a freshly broken branch. Earthy. 

Dew doesn’t want to unpack how that makes him feel right now.

Silence passes between them, broken only by the shuffle of limbs, Mountain's snores from the bunk above, and the dull rumble of the tires on the road.

"Thought you hated me," Aeon whispers.

Dew sighs. Rubs his face into Aeon's shirt. "Don't hate you. M' sorry." 

A beat. Then: “I’m glad you don’t.” Dew lifts his head up, face now millimeters from Aeon’s, tips of their noses barely brushing. Copper eyes gaze into dark ashy brown ones, searching. The quintessence ghoul reaches up and brushes a stray strand of hair back behind Dew’s horns, touch feather-light. And though Aeon’s gaze dips down to his mouth, almost imperceptibly, he only leans in to place a chaste kiss to his forehead before tucking his head back under his chin with a slow exhale. In a way, Dew’s thankful for that. He slips his arms around Aeon’s middle, shuffling as close as possible before allowing himself to close his eyes and release the last bit of tension still straightening his spine. 

Mountain’s the first one up in the morning, dropping down from his bunk with a soft thud. He’s met with the sight of the two lanky ghouls absolutely tangled up in each other in the same small bunk, Dew notably flung across Aeon’s torso and drooling onto his shoulder. The earth ghoul looks at them with amused shock, fondness tugging at his heart a little. 

“Oh ho ho, look what we have—” Swiss is immediately silenced by a well-deserved pillow smack from across the aisle. Mountain frowns at him, miming for the multi ghoul to shut his mouth. 

“Not a word,” he hisses. Mountain presses into his mind instead. That, the earth ghoul points to them, is the best sleep he has gotten this entire time. 

Swiss holds his hands up in surrender, smirk tugging at his lips. Okay, okay. I’ll let the gremlin and his new friend have their beauty sleep. 

[ghouly-boiiiii]

THE GHOUL: WHY HE'S HOT - (A SCIENCE!)

࣪⊹°˖✧ Welcome to a Powerpoint Presentation by Some Ghoul-Loving Freak ✧˖° ⊹

Why is The Ghoul hot? I think many of us who find ourselves swooning over this necrotic, murdering cowboy have been asking ourselves that very question lately. Is there something wrong with me? Do I need therapy? Will my friends ever look at me the same way again? Well my fellow ghoul lovers, you are not alone. And I am here to explain to you the exact reasons why this gun-slingin’, ass bitin’ baked potato with teeth has captured the hearts of so many... with science! (sort of) 🤠

------(Spoiler warning... lots and lots of spoilers below the cut!)------

1. Walton Goggins… just Walton Goggins

I think we can all agree that the man behind the makeup and prosthetics is a large reason as to what makes The Ghoul so attractive. Walton himself is a very nice looking fellow, and he absolutely oozes charisma, both on the set and off. And for some reason decided to amp that up to 100 while playing The Ghoul. He managed to make Ghouly Boi likable and endearing, even when he's doing murdery things. So yeah, the dude's mad talented.

"Strong enough to keep out the rads... and the reds." - Cooper Howard shooting a Vault-Tec commercial in episode 6.

2. The makeup artists knew what they were doing

Attempting to make The Ghoul “kind of hot” was absolutely intentional. There was serious discussion behind the scenes about how they could make The Ghoul attractive to viewers, despite him being… well… a ghoul. (So yeah, it is 100% the creators fault. They did this to us on purpose!) When creating The Ghoul’s design, they deliberately ghoulified features that weren’t that important for attraction and left the rest alone, or made them more accentuated.

For example, when it comes to the attractiveness of a male, specifically in the face, most people focus in on the eyes, lips, jaw and cheekbones, which they emphasized and brought out with the makeup. Things like the nose, hair and even skin can be safely tinkered with, and even with those they went pretty easy on. Many ghouls have cloudy or discolored eyes, but not Ghouly. (in fact, bro’s still got his eyelashes, lol) They also kept his ears, despite most ghouls’ tending to fall off just like the nose. His teeth are still intact, despite being rather discolored. And they even made his skin relatively smooth compared to most ghouls. (I’m willing to bet he gets made fun of in a lot of ghoul circles for being such a baby smooth smoothskin)

If the creators had made him any uglier - messed up his eyes, took away the ears, rotted out some teeth, or made his skin a lot more torn up - we might not be here right now. But the character designers and makeup artists were very intentional in his appearance, making him look rotten enough to be recognized as a ghoul, but not so nasty he’d be hard to look at. By keeping and even accentuating Walton’s eyes and bone structure, while giving the ghoulishness to other features, they managed to balance out the ‘yuk’ with the ‘hmmm… wait what?’ just right.

"Sometimes a fella's gotta eat a fella." - The Ghoul to Lucy while munchin' on Roger in episode 4.

3. His charisma, charm and sense of humor

Look, Ghouly is charming as FUCK, okay? There’s no getting around it, so let’s just get that out of the way right now. He exudes confidence and beats you in the face with his overwhelming swag. He also has these… looks. Which I can only describe as “sexy” looks. I’m not really sure how to explain, but if you’re reading this, you probably know what I mean.

As mentioned before, a lot of this is just Goggins being Goggins, but the writing is brilliant as well. He definitely embodies that sort of hot badboy/outlaw/pirate sort of archetype that is often found in romantic settings/stories, so yeah. And also, who doesn't love a man with a great sense of humor? He's got all the best lines in the show and is just a joy to watch, even if it's just for the funny. Really, whoever wrote for Ghouly was a comedic genius, a gentleman, and a scholar. They should be commended.

"I'd offer you one a' these cherreh tomaydas, but you got a hole on yo neck." - The Ghoul to some guy he just shot in episode 2.

4. He loves dogs

Okay, so yes, we all know he stabs Dogmeat in order to keep her from ripping his face off, which ALMOST ruined his character for me, but then he brought her back with a Stimpak and all was forgiven. I’m willing to bet he probably also tried to stab her in a place that he knew wouldn’t be fatal, and also his choice to stab instead when he could have easily just shot her, letting her get right up on top of him before doing anything to defend himself, shows his hesitation in harming a dog.

It’s clear that Coop has a lot of affection for dogs, especially when we see the flashbacks of him with his OG dog and how pissed he gets about not being able to bring him into the vaults. The way he handles Dogmeat with such loving care, and smiles with genuine joy as she leaps up off the table was one of the first moments to show that, underneath that hardened exterior, he’s still got a soft, squishy, gooey center (other than the rotting flesh, I mean).

"Who decided that there were no dogs in the vault?" - Cooper to his wife upon finding out their dog Roosevelt wouldn't be able to go to the vault with them in episode 6.

5. He's a genuinely good person, deep down...

Not only does he save the dog (twice), but Ghouly also did other things that were surprisingly unselfish and not awful. Does that make up for the bad shit he did? Well, no. But again, it shows that he’s at least not ALL bad, and that the man he use to be is still in there somewhere.

For example, he could have easily ratted out Lucy for busting up the Super Duper Mart, but he took the heat for it instead. And despite the fact that he shoots (and eats) Roger, he does seem to have genuine empathy for the turning ghoul. So his choice to kill him wasn’t completely selfish, but also an act of mercy. Roger was essentially dying anyway, and Cooper saved him from an arguably worse fate than death. He even took a moment to remind Roger of a happy memory before doing the deed, a scenario reminiscent of the book Of Mice And Men, when George shoots Lenny at the end after reminding him of their dream in order to save him from a worse fate as well.

And let's not forget that before the bombs dropped, Cooper struggled to even fake kill a man on screen while shooting a film, not wanting his character to go down such a dark path. This shows that he was once a man who lived by a code of morals and principals, so much so that just the idea of stepping outside of that made him deeply uncomfortable, even if it was just pretend. This is why Cooper gives Lucy the line, "Oh, I'm you, sweetie. Just... give it a little time." Because he sees himself in her, or rather the person he used to be.

One of the things I love about how Cooper’s story is told is that we get to see his present and past self right away, juxtaposed against each other. His backstory isn’t revealed as a surprise later on. Instead we really get to see up front the complexities of his character that make him so compelling. He’s not just some heartless killer. He’s like this because he’s been through so much pain, and pushed to the point where he was forced to become something he's not in order to survive and carry on. Because of this, it makes The Ghoul a lot more likable and relatable than he would have been otherwise. It also kinda lets you put yourself in his shoes and ask yourself what you would do if you found yourself in his position. Actually brilliant writing, in my opinion.

"Do I have to kill him?" - Cooper to the director of the film he's shooting in Episode 3.

6. That tragic backstory

This is where the character of Cooper Howard really got me in the feels. Not only does Ghouly love dogs, but he loves his family too. And it’s revealed at the end of the season that even after 200+ years, they are still on his mind. He’s spent over two centuries looking for them, and putting himself through absolute hell, because he loves them that much. And not just his daughter, but his wife as well. Even though they had gotten divorced, presumably because of what he learned at the end of the season. Maybe he’s even hoping his old dog is still alive somehow, although that’s admittedly very unlikely...

So... you know what that means... Although he’s done horrible things, Cooper is a man driven by LOVE. He's stayed alive because of LOVE. He does these bad things because of LOVE. He’s become a monster IN THE NAME OF LOVE!!! It’s all about the power of LOVE, you guys. Call it cliché, but if that isn’t romantic as hell, I donno what the fuck is, ladies.

"Now, I've waited over 200 years to ask somebody one question... Where's my fuckin' family?" - Cooper to Hank in Episode 8

In Conclusion

So yes. He's ugly. He's mean. He's murdery. Kinda toxic AF. But that doesn't mean he can't also be a sexy motherfucker as well. 👍

He's a fictional character. It's a fantasy, and fantasies are allowed to be kinda fucked up. 😃 Hey, don't ask me why humans human the way we do. I didn't make us, so I don't know. It's all in good fun though, so let's just enjoy ourselves and try not to think too hard about it, eh? 😆 (So says the person who literally just wrote a fucking essay on the subject)

Alright, well... I guess that's about it. Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk. I hope this helped anyone who was feeling their sanity slip a little bit (like me 😃). Refreshments and resources are at the back. Exits to your left. Have a lovely evening and please excuse me while I drop my mic and go find myself a fuckin' gin martini. Team Ghoul Forever, baby! 🤠

[altocat]

What would ASGZC do if they saw a ghost?

Angeal: NOPE.jpg. Grabs everything of value and peaces the fuck out.

Sephiroth: Tries to communicate with it. Is it related to the ghoulish red-eyed specter that haunts him every night?

Genesis: Adamantly insists he doesn't believe in ghosts. Cries like a scared little baby the second he sees it.

Zack: Pokes it. THEN KEEPS POKING IT.

Cloud: Aggressively keeps flinging shit and shining flashlights on it until he has it backed into a corner. Beat the ghost into submission!

[occasionally-intelligent]

If We Never Met- Part 1

hiya!! this is my first @invisobang piece ever!! it's around 25k words in total, but i plan to post in parts, this part being around 1.2k. i'm so glad i got to work with @this-is-z-art-blog and @thickerthanectoplasm to get the wonderful art that's coming with it (plus quite a bit of beta reading)!

Summary: In the episode "Memory Blank", Danny loses his memory and powers to Desiree, the wishing ghost. What if, instead of forcing Danny to go through the portal again, Sam became the new half-ghost protector of Amity Park? She thinks she's the only one who remembers how it used to be, but as she adjusts to her new reality and discovers her new powers, Sam soon finds she's not alone.

“Do I know you?”

“Oh, very cute. I said I wish we’d never met and now you’re pretending we didn’t meet. You’re hilarious.” Sam rolled her eyes, hand on her hip as she waited for Danny to cut the crap.

“No, seriously, do I know you?” He responded in earnest confusion.

Before Sam could respond, Tucker spritzed something minty into his mouth and practically pushed the other boy away. “And more importantly, would you like to know me?”

He held out his hand for Sam to shake, “Hi, I’m Tucker. Tucker Foley. That’s T.F. as in ‘too fine’.”

“Oh, gross!” Sam’s entire body shuddered as she slapped his hand away, “Are you hitting on me?”

As this was happening, one of Casper High’s various nerds was being cruelly shoved into a locker down the hall. Even if it was a regular occurance, this particular nerd had had enough. “I wish someone would give you a taste of your own medicine!” He screamed.

And as if she could hear the calls of Murphy's law, Desiree materialized from the void to make everything worse, announcing– “So you have wished it, and so it shall be!”

Desiree smiled as she zapped the kid, ignorant enough to make a wish around her, turning him into a ghoulish, green monster. He leapt out of the locker excitedly and (deservedly) beat the snot out of Dash and Kwan. 

She smiled, proud to display her power and ready to move on to the next victim. But before Desiree took her leave, something peculiar caught her eye. She began moving cautiously towards the moody girl she knew as the ghost boy’s friend, but quickly changed trajectory and headed in Danny’s direction instead.  

Once she was close enough to tower over Danny, she smirked as she said, ”Boo.”

“G-g-GHOST!!” he screamed, throwing his scrawny arms over his head. 

Desiree was pleased with herself, and before any of the trio could stand up to her, she flew away, cackling and mumbling to herself. 

Sam was less than impressed at Danny’s shenanigans today. “That’s Desiree, the wishing ghost!” Sam grabbed Danny by the shoulders, and avoided the temptation to shake him a little. “Danny, you’ve gotta do something. Why aren’t you going ghost?”

Unfortunately there was zero recognition from her friend. Danny shrugged her off and backed away, “Look, kid. I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about. All I know is I am out of here!”

---

All Sam could think as she watched Danny run off like a coward was how someone like that could have ever ended up a “fearless superhero”.

Sam was at a complete loss for words. Only two things in her mind were possible; either the boys were playing an asinine prank on her, or they really didn’t remember who she was.

She hoped it was the former, but the fact Tucker flirted with her (weird) pointed, hopefully, to the latter. He’d always flirted with every girl that moved– but was adamant he’d never flirt with Sam. And if he’s gone back on his word, it better be because he doesn’t remember her. No matter how stupid it sounds. Otherwise she’d have to strangle him. Probably.

But that train of thought would have to stay in the back of her mind– she had classes to prepare for, and a locker to visit. Her day, apart from this, should be completely normal.

Or not.

As soon as Sam opened her locker, she was smacked in the face with undeniable evidence that her friends (if she could even call them that anymore) truly didn’t remember her. Her favorite polaroid, one of the three of them on the first day of school, one she had only taken a few months ago didn’t have a single trace of her in it. Only Danny and Tucker standing with an awkward blank space between the two of them, as though she was erased.

This… this isn’t right– There’s gotta be some way to prove I was in the picture– I’m the one who took it!

Sam shook her head and pocketed the photo for later. The halls were emptying and she couldn’t risk being late, or worse– detention.

As she hastily grabbed all the books she needed for the first few periods, Sam’s hand brushed against the spine of something that was definitely not a textbook. Is this where this damn thing had been misplaced for months? She yanked out her old photo album. 

Well, it’s not that old, but old enough she gave up on finding it again. Hell, she was close to making a new one the last few weeks, seeing as she hadn’t seen it in months. It isn’t anything special, really. It started out with a few of her birthdays from before middle school Danny or Tucker were occasionally in the background, but once she gets to the pages from middle school onwards, the two become more prominent. The most recent pages were fresh after Danny’s accident and stopped around the time she misplaced the damn thing.

How convenient– this might actually work if she shows it to the bo–

Suddenly, the bell rings shrilly, making her want to cover her ears.

‘Dang– are you kidding me?? My parents will kill me if they find out I’m late again.’

Sam simply sighs, rustling around in her bag and producing a stack of hall passes, quickly forging a signature without a thought. 

What? She’s a responsible student. Usually.

---

The fake pass barely works, but Sam manages to slide home to her first period seat unaccosted. Tetslaff has a nigh unreadable signature, even to hawk-eyed Lancer.. She slumps down in her usual spot in the room. It takes her a moment but she notices Tucker and Danny are nowhere to be found.

Didn’t we always have first hour together? 

The three are inseparable, both at home and in the classroom– specifically by parental ‘suggestion’. 

When the three finally made it to freshman year, Sam offhandedly mentioned her worry of being alone in her classes, very loudly, within her mother’s range of hearing. Not even a week later, her parents made a call to the school to ensure the trio would have all their classes together. all day. Even when they drove each other up the wall.

She smiles fondly as she prepares for Lancer’s blabbing for the hour. She looks at her friend’s empty seats and feels the emptiness in her heart when she realizes there would be no passing notes or sharing whispers.

‘Now is not the time. I need to help Danny get his powers back. Or maybe even convince him to do it on his own. I wonder if the portal has even been opened yet…’

As Lancer drolls on about the book of the week, she finds her mind wandering to earlier that day. Specifically to what Danny said. More specifically, the thing about her being the reason he had ghost powers in the first place. 

‘Wait, if I gave him his ghost powers in the first place– that means… all the stress and responsibility,’

Sam frowns at the realization before her train of thought continues. ‘If I did that to him, to my best friend, doesn’t that mean I can do the same for… or to someone else?’

With that heavy train of thought, she starts to make a plan.

---

Stay tuned for part 2!

[symphonyofmalice]

Epaine

@charmantevamp (liked for a theater-era starter)

The Theatre Des Vampires was putting on a play- an odd, monstrous, macabre adaptation of the abduction of Persephone.

Nicolas, playwright, musician, centerpiece of the theater- was in the titular role of this particular performance. The play began with him in the role of Maiden. His long hair was loose, braided through with wild flowers. His clothing was all flowing pastels. The other vampires danced around him, nymphs and divine companions, as he played the violin. The song was one of pastoral beauty, of peace, joy and springtime.

Some found the casting of Hades odd. Was the Lord of the Underworld usually so small, so slight of frame? But the actor playing the eldest Olympian brought a gravitas to the role nonetheless. Cloaked in darkness, presaged by the beat of earth-shaking drums, attended by ghoulish monsters, he stole Persephone away. The shrill, stabbing notes of the violin as Nicolas was dragged into the darkness sounded remarkably like screams. The vampiric dead tore the flowers from his hair, crushed them under foot, left him in torn rags.

Now the temptation began. And this was the theater of the vampires after all. Hades wooed his stolen bride with a procession of victims- played mostly by vampires. They were dressed in the Greek style, with dripping necklaces of red rubies- the pomegranate seeds of blood. Persephone refused again and again, except for the last- the only true mortal in the line. One more, like so many others, stolen off the street and charmed with mental tricks. Hades and the other vampires feasted on the victim, drinking deeply. And submitting to temptation, Persephone drank just enough for the stain of red around her lips to be visible to the back rows of the audience.

But there was no Demeter in this play. No springtime. No return from the cold, frost, death of Winter. No escape from the Underworld. Instead, it showed why Persephone had epithets like Brimō, the angry. Epainē, the fearful, the dreaded. Dressed now all in black, Persephone stood side by side with her husband. Queen of the Underworld, watching with stone-faced impassivity, waiting for the next doomed mortal, merciless to how their suffering was once her own. The curtains closed on the screams of the next victim being brought in.