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viskarenvisla · 2 months ago

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Where the Shadows Lie: Chapter 1 - Incredible Weakness

The fox looked at me once again, narrowed its eyes and cocked its head. “[Carpe noctum, frater,]” it rumbled at me in a voice as deep as a sousaphone, before it stepped through the dresser doors. They slammed shut, catapulting the azure furniture back into the water.

Huh.

"So...you're not going to stick me in an institution, or tell the school I'm not fit for study, right?"

"No. I'm not going to do those things unless you tell me you're going to hurt someone or yourself...don't go getting any ideas."

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," I assured him.

The university psychologist wasn't exactly the kind of person I pictured when I made the appointment. I thought Shams al-Rashi would be a tweedly little fellow with a bushy moustache and a balding pate, scribing my madness on a notepad and reclining in a very specific kind of red armchair. I was right about the moustache, totally spot on actually - glorious, if I was being perfectly honest. Black, striped with white, it curled up at the ends under his hawk-beak nose. Doctor al-Rashi's face reminded me of a tall, blunt crystal struck from the earth and given form, as well as a perpetual glower. He was wearing a dark green blazer, piped with red...cheaply made, but his vermilion tie looked like hand-woven silk.

His head was on fire; just the top, a nimbus of orange and white, replacing his hair.

"Then Mister Razansky I can promise you the whole point of this venture is to find constructive solutions that work for you and protect your academic performance." Instead of a little moleskine notebook or a boring notepad, a wafer-thin tablet glowed on the table before him. He twirled a stylus between his fingers. Shams wasn't sitting either, but instead standing at a podium while I reclined. I think some people would find it imposing or intimidating, but it felt like he was taking me seriously...no chance for him to zone out listening to my bullshit.

I appreciated that sort of focus; if you’re gonna do a job, you damn well oughta do it right. "So..." he gestured to me with white-hot fingertips (how did he keep from burning everything?), "let's start basic. Have you ever seen a counselor before?"

"No. I never thought I'd need one, I never thought there'd be much of a point," I admitted cautiously. This was a big step for me, the notion of talking to someone who wasn’t Arryn was akin to joining a new religion. It was something you did with a quizzical heart, but a little apple-core of hope hidden away, all the same.

Movement outside the window was perpetually distracting for me; a few wild herons had landed outside at the edge of a green pond ringed with palm trees and ferns...glorious creatures. Beyond them, a trio of...women, I think, cavorted in the water; their skin was a mottled greenish color like a frog's, their hair like tendrils of swamp mandrake dangling down their spines. They looked to be quarreling over an eel.

Good lord…I still had no idea what they were. I glanced at Shams, at some girls on the basketball team passing by; were they seeing this shit?

The weirdness made my stomach twist. I remembered how one of those mandrake women had snatched a dog from its leash…just pulled it down under the water, turned it all bubbling and red with froth. Did they ever snatch people like that?

He dutifully recorded notes on his tablet, holding the pen from the end like a priest scribing a text. "Mmm. As men we are often told by other men to seek solace in our own strength, but only a strength they approve of; women often tell us to express, but in many cases they mean to express what they want to hear."

"The lady who raised me was pretty good letting me say my piece, but yeah she works for the Army...'strength comes from within', that kind of person." I never told Rachel about stuff like Doctor al-Rashi's partial state of immolation, or the frog-women bickering over the eel. Or about Tessa. "I guess this is different from what other people come in for."

"You'd be surprised at what I've heard," he assured me with cool sobriety. I could feel his eyes, like two little pinpoints of heat, tracing the shape of my eyes, the set of my facial muscles; reflexively oppositional, I tightened the screws on my poker face. I was a perfectly controlled feelings-machine; he’d see what I wanted him to see.

Speaking of: "How would you describe your emotional state right now, sitting on that couch?"

Exhausted. Skittish. Low-scale aroused, almost all the time…something’s wrong with me.

"It's a comfortable couch," I demurred, patting the dark red cushion with a nod of approval. "I'm happy with the couch. I'm feeling stressed and unsure about my future, and tired." I swallowed dryly, watching him watching me; it felt like we were sizing each other up for a duel (and with what weapons, I wondered? He looked like a saber-and-shield type of guy, I was more of a pistols at dawn fellow).

"And...?" he gestured for me to continue…experienced shrink like him knew I’d be holding back.

"And, I'm...kinda scared, I guess. I feel like I'm being watched and followed." That part wasn’t easy to admit; how do you tell a stranger you’re afraid of something?

Doctor al-Rashi paused his scrawling, an eyebrow cropping up dramatically - weren't shrinks supposed to mask their responses?

"Do you feel unsafe?" he queried, setting the stylus down.

"I'm not sure." The admission came with some reticence because it sounded dull. "I feel a little...transgressed." And I did. Ashland was the kind of place where people talked, and because people were all about themselves, that talk could come back and bite you real fast. Real city of jackals.

"Is that what's been weighing most on your mind, or is there something else?" When he moved it sort of reminded me of fire passing between torches; a gait that at-once flickered yet also seemed to float. He poured a pot of spicy smelling, earthy tea and offered it to me on a coaster...I took some and sipped it out of politeness; piping hot, enough to scald the roof of my mouth and make my eyes water. Good tea though.

"Nngh...well, I guess there's kind of a lot going on." I paused to take a fake sip...how much would I reveal? He assured me he wasn't going to recommend me for institutionalization or take action unless I was a threat to myself or others, but when would he make that judgment? We'd keep it mundane, for now. "So, if you follow the news, President Parker sent out that EO that the International Humanitarian Reconstruction Bureau is losing its funding."

"It sounds like his style of slash-and-burn, yes." Doctor al-Rashi's eyes tracked one of the custodial staff outside; Alvarez, I think was his name. He was pulling one of those mini-dumpsters on wheels, filled with broken-up pieces of wood and a shattered toilet. Did the Doctor see his tree-trunk arms, as I did? Literal columns of knotted wood, groaning as he worked?

"Yeah, so...I was on the IHRB Post-College Entry Program and just got confirmed to ship out to Khamrungsa next July." I hazarded another sip of this tea...perhaps the burning sensation heightened the bite of the spices. Physical pain and tribulation usually helped me ignore internal discord, part of my unhealthy exercise compulsion.

The school psychologist tugged gently on the tip of his moustache, nodding along for me to proceed. "I presume to withhold congratulations...?" Gosh what a character…he reminded me a bit of the guy who played Saladin in that Ridley Scott movie about the Crusade - all weathered and hawkish, no-nonsense as sandstone.

I liked his dry humor, it was soothing in a way. "Ssso yeah, International Humanitarian Response Bureau got all its funding wiped with that executive order, so..." Still…putting those words out there, even leaving them half formed, it was another slow thrust of the dagger-of-night into my chest. 99% of the country wouldn’t have even heard of the IHRB, just another department lost to the Parker Purges. For me it was like my life had ended before it’d even begun.

"Ah. So a great elephant has stepped in your path." I blinked up at him and saw his lip curl upward in a wry smile.

The two of us shared a low chuckle...I liked the symbolism, Parker won thanks to GOP voters here in sunny Louisiana. This state was a caricature of itself in so many ways; I grew up in Seattle, a polar opposite of the Bayou State with its cross-clutching piety mingling with neon-pink debauchery.

"Yep. Don't really see a way around it.” Award for understatement of the century goes to Ascher Razansky. I was fucked, to put it bluntly.

My gaze drifted from the doctor back out the window, watching a stormfront rolling in from the South...it seemed like it'd been storming constantly, like Dade County was constantly under hurricane watch. The haze of near-summer heat lingered around ninety degrees daily, humid as a harlot’s palm. It was only the sterile zephyr of modern HVAC and the anticipation of nightfall that kept us out-of-staters in-state, otherwise this swamp wouldn’t be liveable.

"Such are the wages of good will, Mister Razansky...but I'll spare you the philosophy unless you wish to get into it." Another jotting of notes; I watched a fruit fly jump from a bowl of ripe bananas and mangos to float near his hair. It went up in a tiny puff of orange light and smoke.

So the fire is real - how the hell isn’t he igniting everything around him?

"I dunno Doctor, I barely squeezed a B out of Zakin's intro class...so yeah, there's an elephant in my path. There's also..." I stopped and shifted uncomfortably, the armchair feeling oppressive quite suddenly. There it was, that survival instinct that knocked on my temple, reminding me: Don’t air your dirty laundry, Ascher.

"Okay, you've probably heard this one before. Five guys walk with me into a bar. We all see this really hot girl I like, and I ask them if she's single. They all answer 'yeah, she's Andrew's / Liam's / Jun's / Tara's / Vahn's girl'." I gazed at him flatly, expecting another wry chuckle but he instead gives me a look that hovers between patriarchal disapproval and avuncular pity.

"How does that affect your perception of yourself as a man, Ascher? Do you pine for her, or is she out of your reach?" he went straight for the throat on that one; yowch. I actually felt it, like a hot blade prodding against my jugular. Mean son of a bitch. I struggled for a moment to keep my cool at the directness of his questioning, reminding myself this was his job.

"It's not great,” I understated my sense of smallness. “I don't know. I think she sees me...I've caught her staring at me a couple of times, but she's always with someone else."

That was only half of it of course. This girl I was heart throbbing over, what would he say if I told him she had graceful, curling horns like a ram? What if I told him those long legs of hers, sleek as satin, ended in a goat’s cloven hooves? Would he walk back on his promise not to institutionalize me if I told him her eyes glowed heliotrope at night?

"Hmm. A Triple Alliance of Troubles," he notes, adjusting a pair of brass wire glasses on his bent nose...how did they not melt? "Pursuit by an unknown dread...uncertain future...complex desire."

"Oh my," I quipped. We both shared an understated chuckle at that.

"Let us return to this sensation you have of being watched or chased, Mister Razansky." He sipped from his own mug of scalding tea; I watched with fascination as steam rose from the place where his moustache made contact with the liquid, hissing like a subdued adder. "When do you feel like this? Is there a particular environment? Is it when you're alone, or..."

I usually consider what I say before I say it, and I know to some people that's given the impression that I can be a little slow...not true of course, I'm as sharp as the next mattock. Doctor al-Rashi appears patient on the outside, but he has a few tells that signal to me that he's chomping at the bit; that must be a challenge in this job. He plucks the edge of his teacup with a fingernail, worrying a small crack; his gaze continually flits out to the stormfront rolling in from the shoreline, like he's checking for something in the clouds; the halo of flame standing in for his hair flickers between orange and blue.

I know he didn’t mean it, but these questions reminded me of that uncomfortable time when I was eight years old. The doctor explained just why he was going to ask me to turn my head and cough; it took about two hours for me to do so, I was a pretty stubborn kid. “I guess like, when I’m…y’know. Having sex, or like, taking care of myself.” At least he didn’t make it any weirder by keeping his eyes on his tablet, clinical and detached as a bunsen burner.

"I got some friends who are like...y'know, they're into urban exploration and ghost wrangling - "

"Ghost wrangling," he repeats, glancing at me from above his frames like he wasn't sure I'd actually used those words...not the first time I've gotten that kind of response. I don’t blame him, even I think it’s rather silly.

Even if I do see some stuff that scars the backs of my eyes; I’m thankful my friends don’t notice.

"Yeah like, hunting for paranormal activity." I palm my Samsung and play a video I took from March. It shows Vicky and Karl (two of my fellow wranglers) walking ahead down an ugly, bare concrete maintenance tunnel. It’s barely lit by guttering bulbs hanging from the ceiling, puddles of dirty water disturbed by Vicky's converses.

The bushy braids on either side of her head sweep voluminously as she swivels her neck side to side, thrusting the EVP box in front of her like a holy talisman. She was dramatically interrogating the spirit of Jack Croix, who was supposedly lynched here back in the 1800s - are you angry at our intrusion? Give us a sign!

"I see...do you feel like you are being stalked when you are…wrangling ghosts with your friends?" Ahh there it is. Right, Mr. Shams you think I’m a crazy person. I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.

I’m not crazy.

"Not just then...it depends on the neighborhood, and the building I think...like the old bomb factory on Krome, or the Sunset Mall." Were things like him aware of how they looked? Nobody else I’d met would have noticed the massive, avian shapes battling with thunder strikes in the approaching clouds. Did the doctor know he was on fire? Would he be like this tomorrow? Would he see the strange, yellowed doorways that slid up from the ground in the Mall, opening to cavernous spaces that couldn't exist in Dade County?

A smirk crosses his face as he takes his notes - no...just a lick of plasma playing over his facial hair. "Have you ever gotten a glimpse of your pursuer?"

The question prompts a shivering chill to run up my spine, as if one of those mandrake-women from the pond had slid their claws up the back of my neck…no. Well, not entirely ‘no’. "I think so," I volunteer, always cautious and deliberate in speech. "Usually I don't see anything, but like...a couple times I caught something at my periphery, but it just kinda slithered behind a wall and…" I make an effusive gesture with my fingers and mouth poof.

"Sometimes I feel like there's someone right behind me, like they could reach out and poke me between the ribs but when I turn around there's nothing there, just this smell."

He glances up from his notes, clearly waiting for me to proceed. His eyes are devoid of judgment. "When I was little there was this old Chinese guy I lived next to, and he'd use linseed oil to treat these big panes of dark silk...apparently it made it waterproof, don't ask me. He'd hang them up on lines and I could smell them whenever I passed, not a loud smell. Sometimes when I'm feeling watched I can smell tamarind, maybe like...something kinda musky, like the stuff Miss Vang wears in her hair."

"You do not seem overly concerned for your safety," he points out; the statement makes me bristle, because suddenly he’s starting to hit close to home again, like with that question about my view of my manhood or whatever.

"What makes you say that?" I ask diplomatically, reminding myself that, asshole or no, I came into this office willingly and he was doing his job like he saw fit.

"You have not expressed fear. Unease perhaps, but you seem more preoccupied by the object of your affections than your little voyeur." The way he stood there, tall and straight as a torch...his gaze rarely left me, and he rarely smiled; it brought back memories of Temple services with Rachel. Rabbi Krovil had watched me like that, and they almost looked alike but for the fact that Krovil's head wasn't perpetually aflame.

Krovil's lower body had been that of a snake, I recalled. Nobody ever commented.

I wonder why he called it a ‘little voyeur’.

"Ascher," his voice yanked me back from my musings. "Do you feel as if you understand your place in this world?"

Alright, now I was starting to really regret coming here, he was getting into personal questions that didn’t really have any bearing on the issue at hand - handling my stress, which we hadn’t even gotten to, and it had already been fifteen damn minutes of this pressure cooker interrogation. To make matters worse, for this to be of any purpose, I have to answer honestly:

“No," I admit. "Ever since my program got cut I feel like I don't know what I'm doing with myself, or if this major is even useful...it's not like anyone's putting up anything of use."

"There's always need for civil engineers," he pointed out, but it felt more like a test, like he was prodding me forward to see how I’d respond.

"Any guy with a CEM can put up wiring for new condos on Alton," I countered, unable to keep the irritation from our voice as we circled around the gaping void of purpose in my life, a basket in which I'd thrown all my eggs only to find the bottom sheared away. "Those will be bought up by people with too much money, they don't need me. Nobody needs me here, Shams."

"You put too little stock in the depth of your own character, Mister Razansky," the doctor stated sharply - it felt like a particularly loud crackle from a campfire. "There is more to you than whatever you saw yourself doing in Khamrungsa; a man is not a tool shaped for one purpose, but an evolving force that shapes itself and the world around it...and if you truly feel your destiny can only be found in the Kham Mountains, there's more than one way to scale a cliff. You are as a man standing at a gorge with only a rickety rope bridge to see you across." He drew my attention to a picture of…a tropical canyon, green with a rushing river, spanned by what could barely be called a bridge. “I crossed that thing everyday to go to school, boy. I know what it’s like. If there’s a way across you take it.”

I didn't bother to hide my skepticism. Khamdo was a tropical mountain basin, choked with jungles and impassable rock-faces. It had never been governed by a single entity until the disastrous 1st Republic, and there was almost no modern transit infrastructure. The few forms of entry were jealously protected by any number of militias and rebel groups...and my own character? Shams may have been a psychologist but he didn't know who I was.

He didn't know how useless I was without this direction in life.

"Let's circle back around," he tapped a few times on his tablet which made a curious -whirrup- sound, and pulled a stool up to sit before me, steepling his smoldering fingers. "I want to address these things first with the remaining time we have, and make sure we have somewhere to jump off from the next time you see me - I already scheduled you to meet with me Monday after Control Systems."

He what? But before I could press him on invading my schedule he bowled over me.

"Mister Razansky, you are being a leaf in the wind...a salmon swept out to sea." He took his glasses off, and his irises quite literally ignited, burning out of their sockets as he polished his lenses. "A mouse in a maze, one might even say."

I weathered the animal metaphors with stony quiet, trying my best not to bristle like a hedgehog - dammit, no I was doing it now. "...are you saying - "

"Yes. I am. You are being incredibly weak."

---

“Mother-FUCKER.” The rock skipped across the water, slashing the scummy surface three times before disappearing beneath the pond’s mucky depths. One of the Mandrake women glanced up from where she was busily braiding her sister’s hair and sniffed at me as if I’d disturbed her peace.

Would she even understand me if I talked to her, or was she just another dumb animal?

Childish outbursts like that were usually beneath me, but Doctor al-Rashi had given me the fourth degree - here I thought I was going to get some professional advice, not to get flayed like a heretic in a dungeon. What would Tessa think if she saw me get worked over like that?

I sat down heavily at the edge of the pond and huffed through my teeth, feeling the last rays of the sun’s vengeful stare disappearing behind tonight’s thunderstorm. In the midst of Shams’ excoriation of my character in the guise of counseling was one truth that was just…painfully dismaying. The fact that it pissed me off proved how accurately his critique struck.

I could have just got home to get ready for tonight - we were going to check out the Villa Romana in Boca Raton later, heard some chilling stuff about it - but I stayed for a bit…one thing I’d learned at age seventeen, people see anger from a tall man and feel a reflexive fear. I needed to work it out first, it wouldn’t be considerate to go dragging it through a crowd.

A fox emerged from a patch of cinnamon ferns walking on its hind-legs, its glossy red coat patched in places by what looked like thatch. It held a mason jar filled with glowing worms in its paws, clutching it without concern for anatomical possibility. It wore a lime-green chiffon around its throat, three rings pierced through its right ear.

What the fuck, came the initial reaction to the weirdness of it all; I’d been seeing things like this for over fourteen years and it never felt normal. There was always some grotesque, otherworldly pageantry to it, and I always asked myself: am I really seeing this shit?

“You know the worst part of it,” I began, looking directly at the fox and catching it off guard as it unscrewed the top of the mason jar, nearly dropping it from its scabbling paws, “he’s right about everything, and even though that’s not what makes him an asshole, it’s his delivery that makes him an asshole.”

The little red canid gawped at me, like it couldn’t believe I was speaking to it. It quickly drew its eyes away from me, as if by ignoring me I’d somehow be unable to see it, but I wasn’t deterred from venting - what did it matter? Most people would just see an imposing dark haired man ranting to himself at the water’s edge and leave me be, and if the fox was a figment of my imagination then…what did it matter?

“So apparently I’m the coward because I’m not just turning and throwing my chest out at whatever’s creeping on me and saying ‘hey you, fuck off!’, cuz that’s what you do with a potential ax murderer, right?” I scoffed, watching the fox carefully fasten the glowing worm on a slender line and hook - it give a quiet ‘skreee!’ of pain. “And you know what he had the audacity to tell me? Here, and I quote: ‘you are an almost two meters tall man and a compulsive exerciser, surely you can stand before some scuttling shadow.’” I made sure to frame the last two words in air-quotes that the fox regarded with dry disbelief, as if to ask why on earth are you talking to me?

“‘My boy if you keep behaving like a ferret in flight you’ll eventually be prey for hawks.’ I’ve never heard so many animal metaphors in forty five minutes…sorry.” That was rude of me, I glanced apologetically at the fox who was watching me warily from the corner of its eyes. It wrinkled its nose at my gaze, like it didn’t want to be seen.

“Then, okay, here’s where he gets real audacious. Just bear with me here - get it?” I smirked wryly, leaning back on my palms and staring up at the rapidly darkening sky. “Bear? Cuz you’re a fox - ah…probably not…so, he said about Tessa, this guy clearly thinks he’s some sort of Cassanova who wrote the 1950s Punjab version of How to Not Die Alone. He was like, ‘a woman like that does not reveal herself to you, does not allow you to witness her heavy gaze without intent. That gaze hooks you, it gives her power over you - why do you let it? Why do you not seize the bull by the horns and take charge?’”

I sighed with the sort of weighty drama I reserved for Arryn. The fox had dropped the line in the water, waiting with fraying patience and weathering my venting admirably; it must have been a figment of my imagination in that case. “He asked if I really desired her, since I hadn’t yet made a move and the answer is god yes…”

I fell back onto the grass and let my thoughts wander to her. Tess Diyonis was the most enchanting woman I’d ever seen in my whole life, beyond what I could have imagined. Her hair was the same red as copper warmed by the sun, as the outer edges of a bonfire in whose light I basked. “She has these cheeks that get really round and rosy when she laughs, and when she laughs it’s like…the opening lines of a jazz show, all smoky and honey flavored.” It made my chest thrum, it made my loins ache. The fox scoffed, rolling its eyes as I waxed poetic; I didn’t give a damn.

“Her body…fffuck…sorry if this is TMI but I don’t think I have ever seen a nicer pair of breasts in my whole life, I kid you not my friend, they’re solid 10s. Furthermore,” I held a finger up, covering the last corona-edge of the sun, “she has gold rings through her nipples.” That fact alone…it made my eyes roll backward. So fucking hot. I’d never been with a girl that had those, and they were…tempting, to put it mildly.

I glanced at my vulpine companion, watching him haul backward, as if he’d hooked something, clenching his sharp little teeth and straining hard. “She also has horns. And goat legs. Let’s not forget that part, and you know that shouldn’t be sexy, it should be weird but it’s not. She’s actually in my Control Systems class so I have no choice but to check her out at all possible opportunities.” She was intensely distracting; I had to record the lectures since I zoned out watching her move through the lab, dancing between equipment like a whirlwind of self-contained, exultant chaos.

“That,” I punctuated the word dramatically by slapping my fist into my palm, “is why I can’t just waltz up to her and say…” a flippant gesture, watching the fox struggle with its catch, “hey babe, you wanna grab a drink? Who says that kind of thing and just makes it work?”

I knew she wasn’t just some dumb Panhandler who’d ended up at Ashland-U…Tessa was the kind of girl who’d end up going places. I didn’t really know much about her, I already felt kind of like…outclassed, like she was a girl far outside my league.

I watched the fox growl and struggle, digging its heels into the grassy banks of the pond and slide toward the water. Feeling only briefly foolish and hoping nobody was watching, I moved to grab the line as well, pulling the catch toward the surface…weird, it didn’t seem to struggle so much as simply weigh a great deal.

“He makes everything sound so easy, like ‘hey just get up and go do it’,” I continued to complain as the fox barked first in outrage as my intrusion, then gave a low chortle of appreciation as we made progress hauling something large and oblong to the surface…how deep was this pond? “So, I had a job lined up that got cancelled, basically screwed up my post-grad plans, and he’s all ‘Ascher, Khamrungsa sits upon a mountain range. It is not going anywhere because it is incapable of movement, it is simply waiting for you to scale it…you lost your easy way in is all, is that enough to unman you?”

Unman me. What. The. Hell. That word had slid between my ribs like a stiletto, twisting and tearing…brutal. Insulting.

I’d actually gotten up to storm from his office at that point, but he’d been brazen enough to put his hand on the doorknob, pinning me in the heat of his gaze again - and that close, I could definitely feel the heat. “He made one good point though…” I had to admit, watching with some curiosity as we dragged what appeared to be an antique, bright blue dresser from the water. It stood up on its own accord…strikingly blue. Hypnotically, potently sky blue, the blue of liberation.

Huh. It looked familiar; vertigo and deja vu danced at the edge of my senses, like they always did when I encountered the Otherworld, or whatever this was.

Why did that color blue hit so hard, like a message?

“If I don’t make my own purpose, someone is going to make it for me, and it’ll be for their benefit.” I watched the fox sidle past me and test the drawers and handles; it was sealed with a combination lock, one which the little canine with its ostentatious scarf was expertly spinning. “Don’t you think?”

-click-

The padlock fell away. I should have looked away, but as was so often the case with the Otherworld, it was like an exquisite catastrophe I couldn’t look away from.

Huh.

#writing #changeling the lost #faerie #changeling #chronicles of darkness #viskarenvisla #onyx path publishing #slow burn #polyamory #jealousy #a rose is as beautiful as its thorns are sharp #nobody knows #original characters

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rreskk · 2 years ago

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TROUBLE CONCEIVING LUST

-A/N: I lowkey rushed cos my laptop is dying, so apologises if grammar sucks (and spelling!)

Summary: You met this guy through mutual friends and he had to be the most... Interesting... Sexy?... Unusual man, ever. Playing a "spin the bottle" game ended drastically. You couldn't help yourself, and neither could he.

TW: -Smut

Pairings: Fem!reader/ Trevor Philips

Word count: 5777

NORTH YANKTON — 2002

“Who are these fine babes?”

You looked up from your empty glass of booze. A night out with some friends was almost at it’s end until one of your friends, Amanda, decided to bring along her “friend” who’s name was Michael. He mentioned 2 other guys coming, 2 faces you aren’t familiar with.

Smiling softly, you stared ahead at this middle-aged man who’s hair was blonde and slicked into a pony-tail. He was quite chubby but tall, a big lad. He was the guy who spoke first, his eyes drifting from girl to girl. There was a sense of excitement behind his gaze as Michael, the one you were briefly familiar with, spoke.

“This is Brad,” His hand signalled to the blonde guy you were just looking at before noticing a taller, much slimmer man behind them both, “And this is Trevor.”

You instantly made eye-contact with this stud. A shabby mullet, all wild and untamed. His hair was brown, a dark, chocolate brown (to be exact), and so was this stache. It was a fairly groomed moustache that really brings out his intense eyes. You couldn’t help but inspect this stranger with every detail you could find… That goes from his eyebrow scar to this gauntly, sickly grin he had. It was abnormal and different. You’ve never seen a man so rugged, scary but also striking.

You both held strong eye-contact before he was torn from your gaze and upon the rest of the group.

“How are you, Trevor?” Amanda asked with an informal tone; sounding rather disinterested, almost irritated at this guy called Trevor.

And the moment he revealed his voice, you had opened your mouth with fascination. The rawness and deep, taunting, grainy voice – it was glorious – you’d be able to sit and listen to him talk for years straight. However, a few words in, you’ve came to the conclusion that he was from the North; Canada. He had this Canadian tongue that was quite hard to miss.

“Splendid, Mandy. Don’t you have a nightshift, ay? It is a Friday.” He grinned at her, teasing.

“I took the day off.”

“Oh!” Mocked Trevor, “I thought money was an issue?”

Amanda glared at him. This guy was definitely a menace.

“Trevor leave her alone. Come introduce yourself, you too Brad. We’ve got – “ Michael had named every girl before approaching you, “ – and this is [y/n].”

“How’s it going, [y/n]?” You were surprised that he had asked you a question. His deadly eyes stared back at yours.

“I’m fine.”

“Mm… Nice evening?”

“It’s been nice, yes.” You nodded your head.

“Michael mentioned you before,” He looked at you up and down, “Pleasure to meet you, at last.” He held out his hand and you could proper visualise his rough, veiny skin.

You proceeded to shake his hand, the contact so electrifying that you couldn’t even dare yourself to look into his eyes. It felt forbidden to feel such strong emotions for a man you just met.

“Pleasure to meet you too, Trevor.”

Trevor gave you a wink as everyone began to chat amongst themselves. He had left the conversation with intensions of annoying his buddies who were trying to decide on a “friendly, fun game” to end the night. They all took chairs and sat around the already crowded table. This guy, Bradley, was already smoking up a joint as Trevor eagerly took a hit before pouring himself some whiskey that Amanda didn’t finish. He ignored her protests and just downed it in one, throwing the bottle aside as it rolled off onto the floor.

“Jesus, Trevor! That was mine!” She complained and looked at Michael for support, but he was too busy pouring a pint of beer.

“Chill, old girl. It was just a sip.”

“A fucking sip? You drank it all! That cost me a good few notes!”

“Woah, correct yourself, it costed Michael a good few stacks,” Trevor grinned at her, “Team effort, Mandy. Thank us.”

“Fuck you, Trevor.” You watched as Amanda refused to look in his direction.

“Maybe a few more shifts at the strip joint and you can afford the cheapest here.” He continued to torment her.

Mikey had distracted him before he could bully her too much and they all had an open discussion at the table. You ear-dropped their conversation and heard all sorts of ideas that consists of sexual imagery – most coming from Michael’s buddies – not Mikey himself.

“What’s wrong with sexy truth or dare?” Bradley seemed disappointed when his idea was turned down.

“Dude, it ain’t right. Why not a simple drinking game?”

“God… Amanda, what have you done to M? He’s a boring old prick now.”

“Shut up, Trevor. I’ve saved him from your psychotic ass!” And her backtalks were incredibly entertaining. It left you smiling giddily before Trevor caught your amusement, and he frowned. He didn’t like how you found joy in him being humiliated.

So you dropped your head and pretended to adjust your black dress, hoping to avoid any confrontation from this… Man. Somehow it made your stomach coil, not in a good way. These guys didn’t look as promising as Amanda painted them.

“I vote spin the bottle!” Brad announced.

“And what? Shots?”

“You know damn well, Mikey. How about kisses, blowjobs, handjobs?”

“Shut up, T.”

“Trevor’s right, dude.”

Michael groaned, “Shut up, Brad – Fuckin’ fine… Kisses then, but nothing else… Don’t be creepy, yeah?”

Your friends, including Amanda, seemed content with this game of spine the bottle, but you? Mixed feelings. You only just met these 2 guys and they are already demanding the group to participate in some high-school, drunk college game. You just knew that they had a rough idea to bring someone home, especially that one guy, Trevor.

Speaking of Trevor, he caught your sights again and smirked. You’ve noticed that he’s barely given any of the other girls attention. He didn’t even say hi or smiled at them – yet he seemed extremely curious about you. It felt dangerous.

“So we’ve got three chicks and three studs, yeah? Where’s a bottle we can use?” Brad inquired.

“Jesus, are you blind? Look around you, B. The table is filled with bottles.”

He responded to Trevor, “Shit man, they still have booze in them.” Both of them began looking around the table until they noticed your almost empty bottle. Bradley tilted his head and gave you a sickening grin.

“Are you gonna finish that, darl?”

You noticed Trevor wince at the pet name. He sent a glare to his friend and clenched his jaw.

“I – “ Feeling pressured, you just pushed the drink towards them, “No. You can, uh, have the rest.”

“Mmm… Thanks, babe.”

“Shut the fuck up, Bradley.” Your man of interest muttered before pouring the remainder of alcohol into a random glass.

Michael had rubbed his hands together in addition to the game beginning. He was sat beside Amanda, obviously making it known that they are two peas in a pod. It seems as they didn’t mind playing as an “unconfirmed” relationship, but you knew they wouldn’t take it as far as one kiss.

“Who’s going first?” Your other female friend asked.

It was getting late so the bar was slowly decreasing in population. Soon enough, you were the only table left behind. The jukebox was playing some late 80s rock and roll, a big throwback to the past. You listened to it through the background noise of Brad’s booming voice.

“I’ll go!”

He leaned forward and spun the bottle. Everyone watched with anticipation. You heart began beating. It was slowing and you gulped, thinking it was gonna land in you. Not wanting to kiss this man, you prayed to God. You sat tight and held your breath before it landed on Trevor.

The table began to laugh as Brad scowled with embarrassment.

“You fucking kidding me, bro?” He mumbled.

“Go on then!” Michael laughed, his arm around Mandy’s shoulder.

Trevor, unlike his friend, was smirking. He turned to face Bradley and gave him a mocking kissy face, waiting.

“T, stop it man. This is weird as fuck!”

“The longer you wait bro, the longer I’m gonna smooch the life outta ya.” He teased his buddy.

This only made everyone laugh louder. You chuckled here and there until it all died down and Brad was left with no choice. He squeezed his eyes closed and speedily pecked Trevor’s lips. You saw it barely touched.

“Come on, man. You’re such a pussy.” T would roll his eyes.

“Shut up. Just… Carry on, goddammit!”

You were sat next to Brad, so it was your turn. Everyone looked over and gave you words of encouragement. You found the confidence to lean over the table and spin the bottle. You studied how fast it spun. Your heart was beating rapidly, you could feel your pulse breaking. It was nerve-wracking. The bottle was slowing down and it stopped. You followed it’s gaze and realised it pointed to your friend. She giggled.

Luckily it wasn’t… him.

“Ohhh…” He was the first to speak, “Mmm, I see how it is. Come on, ladies. Bring it on…”

You both ignored Trevor. Your friend adjusted her chair so she was facing you and held in a laugh. You did too. At least it was nothing awkward, more humorous. You decided to beat the clock and gave her a small kiss on the lips. She erupted in giggles, holding onto the table for support. The tension finally eased after your first go. It made you think this game wasn’t so bad.

“That was hot.” Murmured that raspy voice.

“Trevor, shut up. No creepy shit.”

“Whatever, Mikey. It’s your turn.”

Michael grumbled something you couldn’t hear and spun the bottle. He sipped his beer and waited for it to stop, and when it did, it was pointing at Bradley. The table was in hysterics.

“Are you fucking kidding me!” The blonde man was in disbelief, “I have to kiss another dude?”

“Just my luck, hm?” Mikey said to Amanda before she urged him to do it, for the games sake.

Trevor clapped his hands, oddly excited to see his two friends kiss in front of him. You’ve been observing him and the way his eyes lit up, them pupils dilating when the game proceeds. He was definitely aroused. You could tell.

“C’mon you guys!”

“Trevor, bro, just shut up!” Brad whined. He shook his head and leaned across the table, closer to Mikey who was also hesitant. They cringed before kissing for a split second and moving away from each other straight after.

You covered your mouth and chuckled.

“You are both fuckin’ pussies!” Trevor cried with distaste, “That weren’t even a fuckin’ kiss!”

Amanda rushed to her boyfriends rescue, “It’s your turn! Go!”

“Oh? You want some, Amand?” He grinned at her.

“Don’t be disgusting, Trevor.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, my turn.”

And then your heart only grew more unbearably nerved. His red, bruised hands spun that green bottle. He was right opposite you as well so you saw that concentrated stare in his rugged face. The way he leaned down to spin, some hair strands fell in his face, giving him a really pirated look…

He bit his lip and impatiently waited until it stopped.

You felt your whole body grow paraylsed. That neck, that tip of the damn bottle was facing you. It was just your luck, your VERY luck.

“Oh?” That cat-like smirk grew more perverted, “Look who it is, [y/n]…”

Looking into Trevor’s eyes felt like a Deathwish on it’s own. He was eye-fucking you so hard, it made you shiver. Them cold, dark, brown eyes. They were unmatched, so scary, so intimidating.

“I guess it is.” You slowly spelled out.

“How come Trevor gets the hot chic – “ Bradley’s face was suddenly muffled by Trevor’s hardened hands. He didn’t even look away from you though. He kept his sights fixated on you.

“You’re a lucky girl, [y/n].”

“If you say so.”

“I say so.” He murmured and stood up. His lean figure hovered over the table; his efforts to be closer. This was pressuring enough to make you meet him half-way, but when you tried, he was already pining you against your seat.

The group all watched as Trevor practically climbed over the table just to meet with you. Desperation depicted his sly grin. Them cruel fingers had wrapped themselves around your wrists, trapping you.

“You ready?” His voice purred in your ear.

“Oh my God, stop being a freak!” Amanda was disgusted. She exchanged glances with Michael who was equally as disturbed.

Trevor raised an eyebrow and gave her a side eye, “You wished Michael was this intense and romantic, Mandy. Don’t even start.”

“Excuse me? – “

“You heard me. Now shut up while I give [y/n] a kiss, yeah? That’s a great idea, ain’t it?”

Everyone was dead silent before he returned his attention to you and sighed in your neck.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Anyways, let’s continue the game, ay?” He licked his lips and stared down at yours.

His breath stunk of alcohol, weed, cigarettes, and… Weird metal? You didn’t even want to know. He was bizarre, completely out of your league! You’ve never seen a guy so unpredictable and manic. However, a part of you found it admirable. Inhaling deeply, you gave him what he wanted and kissed his lips.

For you, it lasted hours. Trevor kissed back with passion, his tongue wasting no time and forcing itself into your mouth. You thought to yourself for a brief second; it was only supposed to be a kiss? Why are you letting him passionately make out with you? Why are you enjoying it? At this point, he was properly pushing his weight onto your chair, his shoulders hiding you from everyone’s sights as his face was smashed against yours. You couldn’t help but wrap your arms around them masculine shoulders and keep him close, your hands mindlessly tugging at his mullet until someone had separated you both from any further “activities.”

“Fucking Hell, T!” Michael pulled Trevor away from you, both your lips swollen and red.

“What?” He asked breathlessly, “We were just kissing?”

“Kissing? You were eating each other’s faces!”

“You wish you were me, Bradley.”

“Okay, okay, uhh! Can we just… Carry on with the game? From what I last remembered, it’s my turn.” Amanda tried her best to convert the awkward situation. She waited as Trevor walked back to his seat, a look of disappointment on his face after being separated from you.

She placed her cup down and spun the bottle. Michael was watched intently, clearly growing a bit nervous in case she had to kiss either Trev or Brad. He hoped it would be him.

“C’mon, c’mon…” He’d unconsciously hum out loud.

The bottle stopped and you bit into your tongue. It landed on you again.

Amanda chuckled softly and shrugged, “I’m thankful it’s you, [y/n], and not them two chumps.”

“Woah, watch your tongue!” Brad winked. She returned the wink. You had sensed some sort of tension between the two, and so did Michael. He looked at them both, his face growing angered.

You decided to step in and avoid any conflicts.

“Okay, I guess we have to kiss, Mandy.”

She glanced away from Bradley and nodded. You felt Trevor’s eager eyes as you two both kissed and giggled afterwards. Amanda kissed your cheek in a friendly manner before returning to the game.

You had made eye-contact with him again and he smirked. His lips were still swollen but this time, there was a predatory danger behind his pupils. He pointed to your black dress and made a sexual had gesture of a penis and pussy. Your cheeks grew red. The childish flirting actually made you flustered? What has this man done to you…

“Okay, I guess it’s my turn again.” Brad mused.

“Woah, woah – “ You interrupted, “You missed Michael. It’s his turn.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. Go ahead, Brad. I don’t care.”

“Too scared to kiss me, Mikey?” Trevor pouted playfully.

“If I kissed you, I’d catch STDs.”

“Mmm… Not from what I rememb – “

“Okay, Brad go.” Michael quickly disengaged his friend from confessing something that had quickly caught your undying attention. Not from what I remember? You smelt something fishy between them two, but decided not to ask any further questions considering the game was still playing.

Bradley spun the bottle and bounced up and down in his seat. He looked hopeful this time. He was had his fingers crossed.

“Strain anymore and you’re gonna shit yourself.” Your other friend joked, earning a small laugh from Michael.

“Don’t ruin my strive, girl.” He whispered and went wide-eyed when it stopped. The person it face was revealed to be Amanda, and Michael’s amusements fell into despair.

“What?”

“It’s just a kiss, Mikey.” Brad mentioned. It wasn’t helpful at how casual he felt about kissing his friends darling.

“No, not Mandy.” He refused.

“Let her have some fun – “

“Wait… You have the hots for her?” Michael was beginning to get more enraged, “Dude, that’s my fucking girlfriend! Amanda? What the fuck is this? Trevor, bro?” He looked at Trevor with pled.

“What? I don’t know what’s fuckin’ going on.” He huskily uttered from the opposite side of the table.

“Mikey, it’s nothin’! It’s just a kiss!”

“Bradley, I swear to fuck! – “

“Michael!” Amanda held onto his shirt, “Just sit down, please! You are overreacting.”

“Overreacting? Amand, he’s a fucking chump!”

You played around with the green bottle as the game was probably ruined now. Nonetheless, you looked at the clock and decided to leave sooner than later. Whispering to the other friend, you told her about leaving soon and she agreed. The three of them were still fighting; the tension growing, so you stood up and began to collect your things.

Trevor was daydreaming until he’s noticed you stand. He tilted his head and gave you a small frown.

“Where you going, [y/n]?”

You gave him a small smile, “I’m gonna go soon and catch a taxi home.”

“Nah, nah…” He immediately stood as well and rushed over, “Don’t leave me. Can I catch the taxi with you? I ain’t driving back with these pricks.”

“Where abouts do you live?”

“Uhh… I’m renting this motel room with the boys.”

You were holding your leather jacket before he grabbed it and placed it back onto your seat. He sounded more needy now.

“Don’t leave right now. We can sit in one of those booths at the back and get some drinks on, ay?”

“I’d love to, Trevor, but – “

“C’mon… Don’t leave, not after what happened,” He gave you a knowing smirk, “I don’t like pretty girls playing with my heart. I wanna… Get to know you more.”

And you knew exactly what he meant. From the way he was staring down at your dress, it was super clear what he was referring to. You were fluttered. You shouldn’t be though, from what you saw earlier, he was a nutjob.

But he was dashingly irresistible. You studied his facial features again and reintroduced yourself with his scars and classic 70s porno stache. Then you remembered the feeling of his mullet between your fingers. He had oddly soft hair despite the balding and split-ends. You didn’t want to admit it, but he was handsome.

“You like what you see?” He caught interest in your staring.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t apologise. I like it when you look at me.” Trevor whispered and stepped closer. He sneakily outstretched an arm to fit around your waist. He ogled your figure again before tugging you closer so your chests were touching. He had to look down (due to height difference), and he smirked.

“You’re a sexy piece of work. If them cunts didn’t stop me, your dress would’ve been ripped off by now.”

God damn, is what you thought. He was extremely bold and confident. It was too attractive.

“You like that idea?” He purred against your forehead.

Suddenly, the background noise of arguing had disappeared. You were too focussed on Trevor that your whole world, right there, revolved around him.

“Mhm…” You nodded.

“Atta girl. You know, from what I can see, you’d be the hottest on top of me.”

“On top?”

“Yeah, babe. Don’t think I can’t see that fire burning from beneath your eyes. You got that power, I felt it before, I wanna feel it again.”

“Oh God…” You exhaled, your stomach burning up with arousal.

“I’m gonna be honest, [y/n], I won’t make it back at my motel…” Trevor admitted with a grin. His free hand moved to his growing bulge, groping himself.

“Can’t you now?”

“Yeah, ma’am, I can’t.” He growled in your ear.

“Oh, you’re calling me ma’am now?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

You chuckled softly, “Nothing…”

“It sounded like you were complaining.” His grip around your waist tightened as he began moving you both towards the booths.

“I weren’t complaining.”

“Good,” Trevor lets go before jumping onto the leather seats and lying down, “C’mere…” He made grabby hands, his boner visible for you to see.

You hesitantly crawled onto his lap until he grabbed your hips, helping you get comfortable. You sat inches away from his boner and smiled down at him. He seemed to be enjoying your weight.

“Are they still fighting each other?” He’d lowly ask.

To answer his question, you peeked out of the booth and saw them still at each other’s throats.

“Yes, they are.”

“Goodio…” Trevor grabbed the straps of your dress and dragged it down your arms, your chest being exposed willingly. He’d giggle like a child when you were seen without a bra. Your tits were inches away from his face and he began licking the nipples.

You held in a whimper, “Are you sure they won’t see us?”

He didn’t respond. He ripped your dress off fully and yanked you so you were practically lying on him. Your breasts, already caked in his saliva, was suffocating his face as he licked and nibbled every ounce of your skin. The warmth of his tongue made you chew your inner mouth to restrain a moan.

“I knew you had a smashing body under that dress, I could sense it.” Trevor finally murmured, moving his way up your chest to your neck. He smothered your neck with hickeys and bite marks.

“Oh God…”

“You sound perfect, ma’am,” He pressed a kiss against your jaw before unzipping his flies, “I want you. I need you, so bad.”

You straightened your back and sat on his crotch as he freed himself from those jeans he wore. The moment you saw his cock, you traced your fingertip over his tip. Length never mattered to you, so it really didn’t surprise you when he wasn’t big. Trevor didn’t seem to care either – it was attractive.

“Say yes to me.” He pled, staring through his eyebrows.

“What happens if I say yes?” You decided to tease.

His dick twitched at your taunts.

“I want you to ride me, [y/n]. Ride me – “

“Manners?”

He groaned, “Whaaaaaat?”

“Did your mother not teach your manners?”

Sensitive topic, it made him wince and pout. Trevor stayed silent. You noticed how he refused to look at you in the eye. All his confidence dropped when you mentioned his mother. He just continued eye-fucking you and caressing your breasts.

“Trevor?” You broke the silence.

“[y/n],” The way he slurred your name, “Fucking ride me. I ain’t gonna ask twice.”

“But you already asked me twice…”

“You’re starting to piss me off, sugar. Don’t fuck with me.”

“You’re asking me to fuck you.” You pointed out. While in heat, you warmed up his erected cock with your hands. Whether you were prepared, Trevor arched his back and groaned heavily. You didn’t realise how sensitive he was, especially from a handjob.

“Oh, yes… Yes, I like that,” He panted, “Keep going, keep going!”

You grinned and used this for your advantage. He was vulnerable. You pretended to stroke his cock before raising your palm and slapping the tip.

His back arched in pain, “FUCK!” Trevor roared.

You did it again; seeing the same reaction.

“Fuck, oh yeah! OH, SHIT!” He was a hot mess. Every time you slapped his length, he’d only squirm and moan like no one else was in the room. Wrong. People were in the room, but you weren’t bothered anymore. Maybe this crazed guy was more fun than you thought. If only you knew how whiney he was before the game, you wouldn’t be too nervous around him then.

“Take your top off.” You ordered softly.

“Ah… Ah, uh?” Trevor glanced up, his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat, “My top?”

“Yes.”

He breathed in and out heavily. You had to help him take off his leather jacket and shirt as he was left shirtless, for your taste. He had a hairy chest, quite skinny but oddly muscular. However, the beers he had that day made his stomach bloated so you were greeted with a small, hairy pouch. You trailed your finger across it, using your nail, making him whine and whimper.

“Ohhhh, you’re fuckin’ with me…”

“You wanted me to.”

Trevor glared lustfully at you, “Jesus… You’re too fuckin’ hot, [y/n].”

“Just lie back. You wanted me to ride you, yeah?”

“Yes, yes, yes! I want, I want! I want! Gimme! – “

“Shush.” You pressed a finger against his wet lips.

Trevor raised an eyebrow but stayed quiet. Authority wasn’t his cup of tea, yet he seemed content to follow your commands. He scratched his stache before lying down and holding onto your hips, ready.

“I hope they see this though…” He’d cheekily oppose as you sat down onto his naked lap, his boner painfully fucking your clit.

You nibbled your bottom lip and closed your eyes. You grabbed his penis and used it to cause friction against your clit until you were both squirming against each other.

“Nah, stop… Stop fuckin’ edging me!”

“Easy… Easy…” You’d attempt to calm him. Trevor was growing breathless already. He was arching his back, grabbing the table, jerking his hips up; he was doing everything he could to resist your playfulness.

“Oh, fuck… Nah, do it, please. I won’t be able to last, [y/n].”

You took his words for granted and sat down, your crotches interacting. Once he was fully fucking your insides, volume didn’t seem like a boundary. You’d moan his name and begin to bounce.

“Oh! Yes, God, you’re so fuckin’ wet!” Trevor heaved and migrated his hands from your waist to your jiggling breasts. He squeezed them like a squish toy, making ungodly sounds, varying from grunts to outrageous gags.

“Trevor, ah!” You held onto his wrists and bounced faster.

“Ma’am, ma! – “

“Shit, fuck… Mhm…” His cock would bury itself deeper after he allowed you to dig into him. You couldn’t believe you were having sex with him, you just met him a few hours ago? Comparing his appearance from the second you met him, his mullet was draped in sweat, his dark eyes were dazed and unconscious, his stache was ruffled from the intense kissing. To cut it short, he was ruined.

And it was your fault.

“Yeah, yeah! Oh yeah!” Trevor whined, “C’mon! Give it to me! Your cunt is so fuckin’ sexy, oh yeah!”

You swore the room gotten more quiet as Trevor’s moans echoed. Nonetheless, you ignored it while riding him because the sensation was heavy. It felt like you needed to cum already. Your stomach was dominated with butterflies and Trevor’s cock was furiously twitching and pulsing.

You’d peer down at him with a honest, pleasured smile. Your tongue sat on your bottom lip until it was confirmed that you were climaxing.

“Oh fuck…”

“I’m gonna fuckin’ cum in your pussy!” Trevor – as per usual – was expressive. He kept you riding him as you both choked out some groans, your orgasm meeting with his. His dick loaded an impressive ton of cum inside your cunt, the spillage making you whimper his name.

“Shit, shit…” You breathed.

“More, more!”

“Oh God, okay.”

He sat up and stared at you with a perverted smirk.

“What?” You’d frown.

“Sit on my face.”

“Huh?”

Trevor used his strength and lifted you up from his lap and crawled under. You gasped when he was directly under your cum-soaked pussy. You felt his eyes stab Hell into it.

“Fuckin’ sit on me, [y/n]…” He growled, hands clasping your thighs.

The booth seats were rattling when you lowered yourself onto him. Trevor was still lying on the leather seats, forcing you to hover over his face. Of course, you used the table beside you for stability and in front of you was the whole bar. It was empty, calming your thoughts after the anxiety that more people would come by for a few beers.

“Gimme a piece of your fuckin’ cunt, ma’am.” Was the last thing Trevor muffled before stuffing his mouth into your abused pussy. His tongue, so unreally long, licked up the traces of his own semen after he had filled you up.

You squirmed and gripped onto the table. Your tits were hanging, his handprints marking red bruises all over your chest and neck (not forgetting the amount of hickeys).

“Oh, fuck…” You gulped and looked over your shoulder as you heard rubbing noises. Trevor was jacking himself off when face-fucking you. He was brutal. You watched him interrogate his poor cock like it was replaceable.

“Argh!” He muffled a cry in your cunt.

“Trevor, oh my! – “

You turned around again and went wide eyed when you noticed the group.

They were still there.

“Trevor, they are here – FUCK!” He dismissed your concerns by tongue-fucking you to death. You pathetically moaned, accidentally making eye-contact with Michael who was disturbed beyond belief.

They all grabbed their things and headed towards the exit. You watched in guilt, but at the same time, you were too aroused to care. You began to grind against Trevor’s mouth. His moustache had left rashes upon your thighs and flaps. It was burning hot, it was making you overstimulated – beautifully overstimulated. You wanted more to feel, more to cum to.

“Oh, yeah! Trevor!”

Bradley was the last to leave. Unlike the others, he smirked and gave you a wink. It was an uncomfortable gesture. He was as weird as Trevor, in that creepy way, and you knew when you finish and part ways, he’s going to get questioned about… Your “activities” that they had accidentally walked in to.

“Fuck! Oh yeah!”

You constantly looked over your shoulder to see him orgasming many times. There was a puddle of semen on his stomach. His sensitivity had made him cum when you sat on his face. He had cum when jacking off. He had cum to the thought and feeling of you. It was hard to hear him orgasm considering he was being strangled by your pussy, but in a way, you’d feel his tongue shake with anticipation.

“I- I’m gonna…” You pushed harder against him, “I’m gonna cum!”

Trevor was crawling under your skin, his tongue was torture to your poor cunt. He wasn’t gentle at all. He was beating you to a pimp until you came.

And it was a drastic, messy, unstainable orgasm.

“FUUUUCKK!” You sobbed and trembled.

He licked up the cum that drained into his mouth. He slurped, you heard this, and he slurped again, and again, and again.

“Oh… Oh, my God…”

Trevor’s tongue departed from your sex before pressing hot kisses in your inner thighs, freeing himself from between your legs. He gasped for the fresh air and stared up at you. There were drooled, white liquids oozing from his lips and chin. He grabbed your jaw and pulled your head down, kissing your lips. You tasted your own cum and moaned. Trevor passionately made love to your lips until he pulled away and ruffled up his mullet.

“You tasted like heaven on a golden platter, ma’am…” He giggled dazedly.

You followed the way he tangled up his hair and reached over, stroking it. You draped your fingers across his scalp.

“Mm…” Trevor murmured and closed his eyes, “That’s nice…”

“I like your hair.”

“Oh yeah? I like your tits.”

“Ahh…” You chuckled and felt him knead them with his bare palms again.

“And your pretty little face…”

“That was intense.”

He giggled, “Oh, you’ve seen nothin’ ye – “

“Trevor!” A loud voice interrupting your conversation. Brad was at the bar exit, his face bored, “Bro! C’mon! You finished your little fuck-fest. The fucking taxi is here, hurry up already!”

Trevor glared at Bradley as he crawled out of the booth, putting his cock away and throwing on his shirt again.

“Fuckin’ Bastard…” He whispered to no one in general before helping you zip up your dress and made you look… At least punctual when seeing the rest (who’s shamefully experienced your momentary sex).

“We were long.” You smiled.

“Yeah, but I wanted more time.”

“We will soon.”

Trevor winked and nudged you, “You bet your ass…”

You made your way out of the bar and was greeted with the uncomfortable atmosphere. Mikey was sending stares of Satan at Trevor while Amanda was biting her lips, trying to ignore what she saw.

“I’m here. Now what?” Trevor muttered grumpily.

“Excuse me, ma’am…” You went wide eyed when Brad used the term “ma’am”, almost tormenting you both, “Would you like a ride home with us?”

“Bradley, I swear to fuckin’ God, I’ll kill you.”

“I can’t believe you said ma’am during sex, bro!”

Trevor went to punch him until Michael held him back. He effortlessly held onto the collar of his jacket before the taxi finally arrived, and by then, you decided walking was safer than… A carpool with these heathens.

“You aren’t joining us?” Amanda asked, sitting in the front.

You shook your head.

“No, rephrase that… You ain’t coming?”

“Brad!” T shoved his friend into the car before crawling inside after him.

“Go say goodbye to your madam!

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” You heard him scream, then he rolled down the windows and winked, “My motel room is down the main-road West… Show up any time, sugar.”

“Trevor, get your own room! We share that room!” Michael protested.

“Pussy…”

“[y/n], is Trevor’s dick small?” Brad tried to shout over the noise of the engine.

“FUCK OFF, CUNT!” Trevor battered him again.

“Jesus Christ… Get home safe, [y/n].” Mikey muttered before their taxi drove off, leaving you embarrassed, excited…

And fucking sore.

133 notes · View notes

fanaticsnail · 10 months ago

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Tobiuo and the Moustached Man

@thenotsofantasticlifestory 's Kiki decided to bring her partner, Law, home to meet her family. Tobiuo comes up to the house from the Tang with some documents for Law to sign, and became immediately transfixed on Jo's beautiful moustache. She is in love with that old man, and it shows.

She loves that old man almost as much as I do.

Mini fic below the cut because I love them:

Characters featured: Kiki, Jo, Law, Hank, Finn, Tobiuo

Kiki has asked the Polar Tang to take her and Law home to Pucci to meet her adoptive dad, Jo, and one of her younger brothers, Hank. Law has done his absolute best in attempting to meet the expectations of Jo, but so far he has not been able to crack the hard shell. He wants to bad to make a good impression, but his past title as warlord and surgeon of death has held him back.

Up from the Tang, with a report on personale, strolls Tobiuo who needs a write off for permission to go on leave after Pucci. Knocking three times, she waits patiently for the door to open in Kiki's childhood home.

Darting her eyes down, she is met with the steely gaze of Jo: sat in his wheelchair, a beer clasped in his hand. While Tobiuo can't speak, her eyes are immediately drawn to his impressive moustache and her jaw slacks.

Her people can't grow moustaches, and Jo's moustache was glorious.

Pocketing her paper, she attempts to flutter sign through shuddering stutters, but shakes her head to steady her thoughts. Opting rather to tap her knuckles on the door, she asks him in Morse: "Is my boss and my friend Kiki at this residence? Have I come to the correct house?"

Hearing the Morse tapping, Kiki comes to the door and stands behind a now smiling Jo. As their gaze holds with one another, Kiki's eyes widen and dart hastily between them.

"Jo, this is Tobiuo, Law's chief of security. Iyo, this is my, uh... Dad, Jo," she shifts her hands, fluttering in the sign she knows, "Have you got the hots for my dad, Iyo?"

Tobiuo sucks in her lips, biting back her broad, toothy grin, and nods her head.

"Well aren't you the prettiest thing I ever did see," Jo's whisky-smooth voice croons up at her, "Your name is Tobiuo? Pleasure to meet you."

"Pleasures mine, sir," Tobiuo's hands signal, offering a polite bow with her hand over her chest. Jo hums in approval, turning to Kiki and elbowing her in the thigh.

"Well? Invite her in and get her a drink, would you, Ki?" Jo chuckles. Moving his chair in reverse, he gestures for Tobiuo to come into the home. Following his motion, Tobiuo crosses the threshold with a soft smile donned on her features.

Once Tobiuo is out of sight and looking for her boss, Jo turns to Kiki and widens his eyes with a large smile beneath his moustache.

"She works for Law?" He gasps in disbelief, "How the hell did that scrawny noodle end up with such a glorious woman? And she's the security officer, you say?"

"Don't. Even. Think. About. It," Kiki articulates every word like a knife chipping away at solid ice, "She's my friend, and she's not interested in old men like you."

"How would you know? She's never met an old man like me," Jo chuckles once more, moving past Kiki towards the dining room, "Tell Hank to get out here. He's gonna want to meet a Fishwoman. She looks like she's from the Deep Blue, too." Humming in contemplation, Jo shakes his head and continues on his way. Muttering a final sentence to himself, he shakes his head once more with a short huffed laugh.

"If only the boys could see me now. What a day. What a beautiful day."

Sitting around the lengthy wooden dining table was an array of individuals Kiki had never in her life dreamed of ever meeting. Sure, she wanted Jo and Hank to meet Law at some stage: introduce him as her partner and have him assimilate into her unconventional family unit the way he embraced her into his own. She loved him, he loved her, all she wanted now is for her family to love him too.

What she didn't anticipate was Tobiuo also being present at the table.

"When you swim, do you have to remove your uniform to cut through the ocean quicker? Does the suit weigh you down? What about your boots? Do you have to remove them too-?" Hank continued to flutter out an array of questions: one more unhinged than the last, "-Hang on, are your toes webbed too? I know your ears are, and your hands - but what about your toes? And your ears, are they just used for swimming and a flap to guard holes beside your head, or is the hole at the centre like a human-?"

"-Hank, please," Kiki managed to cut through his invasive questions, bringing the teenager's attention back onto herself, "You haven't given her enough time to respond to the first one, let alone the next. Just take a breath." Kiki turns to Tobiuo, displaying her sorrowful apologies on her features, "Iyo, I'm so sorry. He's never met fishfolk before. You don't have to answer anything if you don't want to."

Tobiuo offers her a tight-lipped smile, reaching into her boiler suit and fishing out her led pencil and her note paper.

Law is breathing a fair amount easier than he initially did beneath the intense scrutiny of Kiki's father, Jo. While he wanted to make a good impression on the retired pirate, nothing seemed to work in his favour. None of his feats felt up to par, including his former status of warlord. Hell, his past with the Donquixote Pirates also held him back, Doflamingo not being the most reputable individual in the first place.

Law spending time under Doflamingo in any capacity seemed to set him back further in Jo's eyes, regardless as to the outcome of Dressrosa.

Having Tobiuo take a lot of the heat from Hank and Jo in regards to their attention and intense line of questions had him breathe a little easier. Tobiuo just had a knack of rescuing Law from a lot of events: often in the brutality of battle.

Law darted his attention between Hank and Tobiuo, watching as the tall Fishwoman began etching notes on her paper with a soft smile on her blue lips. Drawing his eyes over to the older Jo, Law stifled a chuckle that wanted to flee from his throat at the look in the pirate's eyes.

Jo looked as if a childhood fairytale had plopped themselves down at the kitchen table: the whimsical look of innocence over his worn features. There was a soft glint in his eye that seemed to reflect a lot of the emotions Law, himself, felt the first time he met Tobiuo. She was a creature many would not have the opportunity to interact with, her species incredibly shy and closed off to the outsides. If Law had never met Tobiuo, he would've thought the Deep Blue was a land of myth - akin to the All Blue.

Jo was enchanted.

As he rose his bottle to his lips, he never for a moment took his attention away from the navy-skinned woman at the end of the table in fear she would disappear. There she was, a creature he had always wanted to encounter: sitting across from his boy, beside his girl, eating dinner they had lovingly prepared for family night. He had never seen a Fishwoman like her before, and wanted to carve a visual memory of her deep into the recesses of his mind. He was enamored with her.

Placing down her pencil, Tobiuo rose her milky eyes up to Hank and passed him the note paper. Offering him a few gestures he had no frame of reference to understand, Kiki offered to translate for her.

"She's saying these are the answers you're looking for," Kiki giggled, reaching over the table and bringing a scoop of vegetables towards her own plate, "While she can't answer a lot of personal ones due to her hazy memory, she has done her best for you."

"W-What-?" Hank asked, his eyes widening as he goes over the notes, "This-... This is-... This is amazing! I just-... I can't."

Jo chuckles, placing down his empty bottle and leaning forward to gather a tongue of barbecued meats. Placing some on his own plate, he offered out a scoop of the rich, fried morsels towards the Fishwoman.

"Would you like some more, sweetheart?" Jo offered with a kindness in his eyes. Kiki raised her eyebrow, but elected to say nothing at this stage. Tobiuo shook her head slowly, turning to Law and making a few small gestures with her hands.

"No, I don't think so," Law shrugs in response, "It'll be up to Bepo. He's in charge while I'm here." Tobiuo nods at first, offering a few more gestures to her boss who nods along.

Kiki draws her eyes over to Jo, gently kicks his wheelchair with her foot to gain his attention. Shielding her mouth with her hand, she wordlessly chastises him while Tobiuo and Law are distracted.

"Stop flirting with her. It's creeping me out, old man," Kiki mocks a frown, her smile attempting to rise behind her pout. Jo leans forward, cupping his own mouth and mouthing back to her.

"I'm being polite, you brat," he darts his eyes between hers, "If you want to see me really flirt, I have no quarry with doing so in front of you and your frail fishbone of a partner."

Kiki couldn't help but laugh, leaning back in her seat with Law tucking her in the crook of his shoulder, and bracing her against himself.

"If you'd rather take your leave on Pucci, I won't stop you," Law shrugs at Tobiuo, who continued to gesture to him with her eyes depicting a far few more emotions to emphasise her actions. Law chuckled, shaking his head and waving off her concerns.

"Look, I'm happy if you are, chief. If you'd rather have Bepo in charge without both me and you, I'm not gonna stop you," Law chuckled. Tobiuo rolled her pale eyes, shaking her head with a smile on her lips. Before she managed to say anything back, Hank interjected with a passionate gasp.

"-So you can speak under water?!" He excitedly shrieked in glee, "What about a drink of water? Like if we pour it in your gills and you have a go at talking? Can we do that? Here-!" He placed the paper back in her hands, tapping the table and gesturing for her to take up her pen.

Tobiuo's chest flutters up and down as if she was laughing, picking up the pen and scribbling hastily.

"I don't know, I've never tried. It might be messy."

"We'll go outside! C'mon. You don't mind, do you, old man?" Hank already began rising to his feet to stand, "We'll be back in a second."

Hank reached for the water jug, clasping it in his hand before lacing his arm in the crook of Tobiuo's elbow. Tobiuo rose to her feet, gesturing to Kiki her apologies before bowing politely to Jo. The giddiness rising in her chest about attempting something unhinged with her anatomy was thrilling. She was excited by Hank's excitement.

Racing to the door, Tobiuo reached for the handle and gave the door a quick tug, only for her eyes to be met with a pale, balled fist at the door.

"Uh-..." a voice called behind the raised arm, slowly dropping it to their side, "Is... Is Jo home-?"

"-Finn!" Hank excitedly yelled from beside Tobiuo, unlacing his hand and thrusting his arms around his older brother. Water sloshed from the jug, dampening the pale overcoat of Finn's uniform.

"Hey, Hank," the taller man managed to chuckle, throwing his arms around his shoulders and drawing him into himself further, "Missed you, bud. Uh-... I take it if you're here, officer, your boss isn't far behind."

Tobiuo narrowed her eyes and folded her arms over her chest. The last time Finn and Tobiuo met, Finn was locked in an intense fistfight with his older sister. Tobiuo was not going to let this marine attempt anything on her boss now he was not protected beneath the world government's title of warlord.

Unlacing his arms from over Hank's shoulders, he held up his hands defensively beside him in a bid to set her at ease.

"Look, I'm just here to see my family. I promise I'm not going to do anything to your boss," he swore, his voice void of dishonesty, "If I was going to do anything, I would've brought my unit with me, and your vessel would be sunk by now."

Tobiuo unlaced her arms, placing her fist on the door and aggressively knocking in marine code.

"If you'd have attempted anything on the Tang, my boss, or my crew, I would've played a game with you as to who could hold their breath the longest beneath the water," Tobiuo narrows her eyes, glaring at the man with a rage within her eyes, "Each time you would think I'm bringing you up to take a reprieve, I'd pull you back under and laugh as you struggle to stay awake."

"Then let us be thankful that we are here in a brief ceasefire," Finn nodded, taking Tobiuo's word as law, "And I am also thankful that my younger brother is yet to learn code. You are truly a vicious Fishwoman, officer."

"And you are a horrible human, Marine," Tobiuo smirked back, stepping aside and letting Finn pass within the threshold.

Just as he brushed his shoulder with hers, Tobiuo hastily grabbed his upper arm and bore her milky eyes between his. Finn sighed, hanging his head and giving a few soft nods in understanding.

"I'm not going to hurt your boss, or my sister. This I swear to you, on my honour as a marine," Finn attempted to pull away from her grip, but Tobiuo held on a little firmer, her lips curling back and revealing a few sharpened teeth.

"Not as a marine," Finn rose his eyes to meet with hers, "As a brother. I swear to you, pirate. As a brother, and as a son, I will not hurt your captain, or alert the marines where your vessel is located."

"Her name is Tobiuo, Finn," Hank offered quietly, "Not pirate, not officer. Tobiuo. And she's cool."

Finn chuckled, feeling Tobiuo loosen her grip on his arm. She nods at him slowly, her hand being caught on its descent by Finn's. Slowly raising it in front of him, he gripped her hand in a gesture of mutual understanding, shaking it to solidify his honour.

"Tobiuo," he whispered with a soft smile. Releasing her hand, Tobiuo offers him a tight-lipped smile and fluttering a sign to him with a nod.

Brushing past one another, Tobiuo's warmth returns to her as she throws her arm around the teenage Hank and ruffles his hair.

"What did your sign mean?" He asked, unlacing himself from beneath her arms. He repeats the gesture she extended towards Finn earlier, "This one. What is that?"

Tobiuo brings her note paper up and scribbles: "His name."

"So, just the letters? F-I-N-N?" Hank arches his eyebrows at her. Tobiuo shakes her head, jotting down a couple of sentences.

"I offer sign names based on how I see an individual. My captain is "boss", your sister is "bloom" or "blossom". Your brother, Finn, is "pig". More technically, "piglet"."

Hank burst out laughing, the water in the jug sloshing over the sides of the rim as he clutches his stomach. Catching his breath, he asks, "What about me? What am I? Do I get a cool name?"

Tobiuo ponders for a moment, her eyes darting between his, before reaching up to her face and circling a hooked hand over her temple: rotating it in a clockwise motion. Gesturing for Hank to do the same, he raises his hand up and rolls his digit at his temple.

"What does this mean? What am I to you?" Hank asks with a broad grin. Tobiuo mimics his smile, reaching for her paper and scribbling a few etchings on the sheet.

"Curious. You are 'curious' to me. Now, let's go and drown my gills to see if I can talk above water. This is gonna be messy."

Hank beams at the Fishwoman, hurriedly stepping off the porch and towards the grassy area and indicating for Tobiuo to follow.

"Alright, Iyo," he indicates for her to roll her head on the side, "Lay like this, and I'm gonna drench your face and neck in water. Talk if you can!"

Tobiuo offers Hank a lazy two fingered salute, doing as the teenager asked and prepared herself to receive a large amount of water over her face and neck.

#one piece #oc x oc #other's ocs #tobiuo x jo #kiki x law #oc x canon #one piece x oc #one piece original character #one piece fanart #my art #digital art #oc kiki #oc tobiuo #oc jo #ibis paint x #drawn with fingers #quick draw

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sleepless-in-southlands · 1 year ago

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in a vision, your body told me it had always been afraid

Ao3

Summary: As far as Luke had ever been concerned, his power of prophecy had only ever been, and only ever would be, a curse. Knowing the future was useless and painful when he wasn't allowed to do anything about it, especially when the future shoved Inscryption into his hands, already bloodied. When he drops into Hermitcraft, however, things change. Maybe his curse can too. Content: AU (of an AU), hurt/comfort; prophets/prophecy, secret identity, mistaken identity, watchers, a luke who is both very on top of things And very oblivious, getting together Pairings: Lucky Jumbo (Luke Carder/Mumbo Jumbo), Luke Carder & Grian Notes: This is an AU of my AU, Lucky Jumbo, and is part of the MCU (Mumbo Carder Universe)! Knowledge of Inscryption, HC, and/or Lucky Jumbo isn't necessary to read this, but they may help. Spoilers for all three will be present to some degree, so reader beware

Knock, knock.

Luke glanced tiredly in the direction of his front door, well aware of who was knocking on it like it had offended them, well aware of what would happen when he went to answer it, well aware he couldn’t change any of it. Not for the first time (but likely the last), he wished he hadn’t dug up the damned game that had led him to his penultimate moment of regret.

Not that he really had any say in the matter. Luke was all too familiar with just how self-fulfilling his prophecies could be when he tried to avoid them. His sister’s death was as much his fault as it wasn’t, and neither interpretation brought him any relief.

Luke pushed himself to his feet, a choir of sirens singing a mourning song in a background only he could hear. He couldn’t actually wait as long as he wanted to face the reaper, nice as it would be. The reporter’s words, crackly and mumbled through his phone’s speaker, were echoing the ones he had heard barely a week before. He had hoped that particular vision had been another corrupted one- the madness of a prophet and the madness of Inscryption did not mix well- but deep down he had known otherwise. He always knew otherwise.

He hadn’t had a vision since, which had been the final nail in his pre-built coffin. His vision-self opened the door, and then all was dark, as he hoped it would be forever after. There were many myths about what became of prophets after death, few pleasant, and Luke… Luke was tired. He wanted rest, and with Inscryption dogging his feet, he knew that Amanda might be his only true chance for it.

Luke moved to his door almost on autopilot, pushing aside his thoughts as best he could. The more he thought of what was coming, the more his head hurt, and it was about to be doing enough of that all on its own. He paused for a single, final breath.

Luke opened the door.

Amanda shot him in the head.

Blood-red curtains spilled across the floor and ended the scene, and Luke knew nothing, not even peace.

Luke had to give it to the universe. It was the reason he was cursed, and yet it had still managed to deliver a twist he hadn’t seen coming.

Namely: life, continuing, but in some weird, alternate universe that somehow made less sense than Luke walking into his own elaborately planned death of arcing madness. Listen, knowing ahead of time that first person you met in your new world (a man with no visible mouth, a glorious moustache, and an extremely high tolerance for being fallen on top of from heights that should have killed both him and Luke) was going to start beating up a tree for its wood didn’t make it any less painful and perplexing to witness.

Because of course Luke’s curse had to follow him into his new life of cubes and code. It had adapted, even, his foresight shifting from overlapping voices that sung like a greek chorus and screamed like horror movie victims into floating, digital words, draping themselves over the edges of the world around him and sliding off his back like a cape of fortune. Quieter, but not silent, as evidenced by the warbled laughter that had come alongside the head’s-up that his attempt to fly would end in pyrotechnical disaster, the wind that cooed like a bird when he took Mumbo’s hand.

Presumably his visions had followed him as well, but they were more infrequent. Luke couldn’t be surprised he hadn’t had one after only a few weeks in Hermitcraft, even if he wished the reveal would get itself over with. Foresight was annoying, but Luke could tune it out, had spent a life perfecting how to do so. Visions were unpredictable. Visions were debilitating if they were severe enough. Luke needed to know if he was still going to have them so he could start preparing excuses for when a hermit inevitably caught him having one.

Which he hadn’t, at first, thought would be a problem. People had mixed feelings about prophets in his old world (his old life), including quite a bit of debate over whether or not they really existed, but they were generally accepted. Respected by some, dismissed by others, but treated within a fairly normal range. There were extremists groups, but Luke rarely felt like his life was more at threat from fellow people than it ever was from his curse. Amanda included.

But Hermitcraft…

(“Do you guys have prophets here?”

Luke’s fellow Boatem members looked at him with varying levels of confusion, conveyed to varying levels of accuracy via their varying levels of full facial structure. They were all sitting down together after one of Luke’s Boatem tours, having originally begun with only Mumbo and himself before the rest of the group slowly joined in on the wanderings and build-describings. They had finished at the Boatem hole, and Luke had opted to have the group seat themselves a healthy distance from it, doing his best to avoid having to tumble into the hole on his foresight’s command.

“...Profits?” Scar repeated, and Luke appreciated the way his newly visual foresight allowed him to pick up on the translation issue immediately. “In Boatem? I’m a little insulted you have to ask, Luke.”

“No, not diamond profits, I mean like oracles. Or seers?” Luke offered, frowning at the hermits’ continued confusion.

“I… don’t think so?” Pearl offered after a moment of consideration. “Are those villager classes?”

“Not exactly.” Luke answered, taking his own time to try and think of a minecraft-friendly description. “It’s… something a player can be. No one’s really sure how they work, uh, but they’re able to see the future. Predict something that’s going to happen, that sort of thing. I didn’t know if-”

Luke cut himself off. His foresight was humming, swirling past him, encircling Grian with predictions of what he would say next, what he would do, and Luke didn’t need the words to tell him how tense the mouthless hermit had gotten.

“Something a player could be?” Grian repeated. The question was rhetorical, but the words curling under Luke’s chin told him he nodded, so he did. “Were they… were they common?”

“...No.” Luke said slowly, because he felt like he should, because he knew he should. “They were rare. Not everyone agreed on if they even existed.”

Some of the tension seeped out of Grian, shoulders slumping incrementally, but not much. He stood up, Luke’s predictions rising with him, hanging like golden chains off his red sweater. “No. Hermitcraft doesn’t have them.”

Luke watched as Grian turned on his heel, then, walking away from the group, Luke’s foresight clinging until it faded into the sunlight.

Pearl sighed and stood up as well. “I’ll go talk to him.” She told the group, Mumbo and Scar more so than Luke, before going off as she said she would, as Luke’s foresight confirmed she would.

“I’m… sorry?” Luke said after a moment of silence. Occasionally, his foresight would tell him the why of something, but it wasn’t a guarantee. Grian walking off at the mention of oracles had been predicted, but not explained.

Mumbo bumped Luke’s shoulder from where he was sitting next to him. The words swirling there scattered at the point of contact, as though touching a non-prophet would be treasonous to their accursed seer. “Don’t be. Grian’s not upset, just…”

“I think we have a different word for your… prophets.” Scar finished for Mumbo, glancing in the direction Grian and Pearl had gone. “They can be a sore subject for some hermits.”

“Oh.” Luke pulled his arms closer to himself, tucking in his visual foresight as best he could, as if Mumbo and Scar would suddenly be able to see it if he didn’t. “I’ll avoid mentioning them, then.”

“That may be for the best.”)

Luke sighed at the memory. He couldn’t be too surprised that Hermitcraft, a place that was weird but ultimately wonderful, a server filled with kind hermits who took in a complete stranger like it was nothing, would just happen to be a world where prophets were… he didn’t even know what. Something bad. Something unspoken. It would have been too easy, too kind, of the universe to simply provide Luke with a perfect new life, no questions asked, no cost except a bullet through his skull he could taste in the back of his mouth on bad mornings.

Of course, if the universe had really wanted to be kind, it would have taken away his powers in the first place. If Luke had expected anything but tricks and hidden catches, it was his own fault for not reading the writing on his back.

But Luke would be fine. He knew how to react to his foresight without making it clear he had foresight. He hadn’t had a vision yet, and he trusted in his ability to make something up if he got caught having one. All Luke had to do was keep his predictions under wraps, and he would be fine.

Well, that and avoid hurting Mumbo, but Luke thought that had been an unnecessary demand to deliver to him via threatening circle. He didn’t think he gave the impression he wanted to hurt his first hermit friend. When Grian had first cornered Luke, he had thought his secret had been found out, that somehow Grian knew.

But no. What Grian ‘knew’ was something Luke didn’t understand, and vice versa. It hadn’t stopped Luke’s foresight from chittering at him like grinding metal, suggesting it too knew something Luke didn’t, which Luke didn’t think was technically possible.

Knock, knock.

Luke’s thoughts tore themselves up like tissue paper at the sound of someone knocking, his visual foresight briefly flashing red at him in an ironically too-late warning. He knew it wasn’t Amanda at the door, knew it wouldn’t matter if it was, but Hermitcraft still had headaches, and prophets weren’t immune to fear.

“Luke?” Mumbo called out after a minute of no answer. Luke huffed, both in relief and some minor level of self-abashment at letting the old prediction get to him.

“Come in!” Luke yelled back as he got up from where he had been sitting and contemplating at his kitchen table. He knew he needed to start adapting into his new life, spend his time learning things like ‘how to build architectural miracles’ and ‘what to do when you inevitably get lost in a mine,’ but he had yet to do much more than exist and wait to exist while doing something with other hermits. Mostly Mumbo.

Mumbo, as invited, let himself in, moustache-smiling at Luke when he saw him. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Luke waved off the thought, words of the future scattering honey-light only he could see on his fingers as he did so. “Not at all, I was just distracted. How can I help you?”

The words crawling the backs of Luke’s hands answered him before Mumbo did. “I was thinking about exploring some further out world generation, see if I could find a new village or a shipwreck, nothing too exciting. Wanted to know if you’d like to tag along.”

“How much flying will be involved?”

Mumbo laughed at Luke’s immediate off-the-bat question. It sounded much better coming from him than it did reading it. “A little, to get far enough out and to get back, but nothing else. And I promise I’ll guide you.”

“As long as I don’t have to handle the fireworks myself, I’m in.” Luke said, doing a quick check of his inventory to make sure he had his elytra and enough golden carrots to feed several armies. “Anything we should handle before leaving, or…?”

“I’m ready to go when you are.” Mumbo answered, still smiling at Luke in a way he couldn’t help but return.

“Then let’s go.”

The flight out was, thankfully, fairly unexciting. Luke didn’t entirely trust Mumbo’s ‘redstone-improved’ wings, but his foresight didn’t reveal them suddenly exploding mid-flight, so Luke was able to mostly put the concern to the back of his mind. Mumbo’s guiding help remained masterful, and although the flight was a bit longer than the one to Boatem had been, his grip on Luke’s hand never once faltered.

(Again, Luke’s foresight had murmured the nonsense of a whale song when Luke took Mumbo’s hand. Again, Luke couldn’t fathom as to why. His foresight seemed to be teasing him- which, was it even supposed to do that? was it allowed?- but Luke didn’t think it had any reason to be doing so. Holding Mumbo’s hand was nice, not funny.)

When they landed, it was on the edge of a forest, flowers of all kinds and colours dotting the land around and between the trees. Luke surveyed the area while Mumbo put away his wings, having started being more careful with how he tucked them in his pocket since he caught Luke’s wide-eyed stare at the way he usually shoved them into his inventory. Luke’s foresight told him Mumbo’s behaviour hadn’t changed in general, that it was an adjustment made specifically around him, which Luke greatly appreciated.

“This looks like a good place to start.” Mumbo said, slightly unnecessarily, as he finished his task.

Luke hummed his agreement, waiting for Mumbo to pick their starting direction before falling into line beside him. To Luke’s understanding, exploration so ‘late in the season’ (as Mumbo kept putting it) was more for enjoyment and adventure than it was any specific use, since the general ‘main area’ for the server had already been set up and developed by that point. A lack of importance came with a lack of pressure, and Luke enjoyed how simple and casual that allowed the trip to be.

“Did you have these flowers on your old server, too?” Mumbo asked once they were deeper into the forest, trees surrounding them. He had been naming some of the flowers for Luke, pointing them out in case he couldn’t match name to flora. A sweet, if unneeded, gesture when Luke’s arms dripped with honeyed predictive descriptions.

“We did.” Luke answered, watching the bulbs of a blue orchid sway like neon bells under its own weight. “They look different here, though.”

“Bad different?”

“No, not bad.” Luke reassured quickly. “These ones are incredible.”

“Aren’t they?” Mumbo mumbled, seemingly mostly to himself, tone slightly awed. Luke had moments of foresight often, but not always, and when he turned to look at Mumbo he did so with no glowing golden guidance. He found that he must have been blocking Mumbo’s view of one flower or another, the redstoner looking as though his focus was only on Luke.

Luke tried to take a small step back, hoping to get out of the way, but Mumbo’s gaze only followed his movement, laughing a little. Luke, caught off guard and not entirely sure what was happening, did nothing but watch as Mumbo bent down, picked the blue orchid nearest to him, and approached Luke.

“I know some servers have wilting mods,” Mumbo started as he began tucking the cerulean flower into the front pocket of Luke’s shirt, the same white collared one he had died in having followed him alongside his curse, “but we don’t. So this will stay perfectly lively even in your pocket.”

“Oh.” Luke said, in lieu of anything meaningful, tilting his head down to see the way Mumbo had arranged the naturally drooping flowers against his chest, their bright colour making it clear they were alive no matter what position they slumped into. Though he was done with the flowers, Mumbo continued adjusting Luke’s shirt, fixing his collar and tugging on the sleeves to straighten them. Which meant, of course, that when Luke looked up, Mumbo was right there, still looking at him and much closer than he had been before.

“How do you like it?” Mumbo asked, and while it could never be said that Luke ever wished for his curse to be on him, he could acknowledge that it wouldn’t have been the worst thing ever if his foresight had been active right then, feeding him answers he wasn’t entirely certain he had the wherewithal to produce on his own in that moment. Something about Mumbo being so close was throwing Luke off, disrupting his thoughts.

It wasn’t as unpleasant as it should have been, conceptually.

“It’s… nice.” Luke offered after too long. A point in his favour on the ‘hiding being a prophet’ front- no seer would have taken so long to give such a simple response. “I mean- they’re pretty. Especially if they won’t die.”

“So you like them?” Mumbo moustache-smiled again, and despite everything else he wasn’t following, Luke was capable of smiling back.

“Yeah, Mumbo, I like them. Thank you.”

Mumbo’s smile grew at that, and he looked as though he wanted to say something more but was hesitant, needed to be sure of it. Luke was happy to wait, would have been happy to wait, but it was at that moment his foresight decided to make a reappearance.

The bright yellow text, matching the orchid in intensity, trickled across the sky beside Mumbo’s head to provide Luke with a warning he couldn’t properly issue: a creeper, already visible over Mumbo’s shoulder, having successfully sidled up to them in their distraction. By the time Mumbo noticed it, it would be too late, and the blast would kill him and severely injure Luke. A tragic and sudden end to what had been a pleasant outing.

The prophecy didn’t have Luke saying anything, modeling him as having been too distracted to have noticed the oncoming threat, only doing so at all because of his curse. Luke however, admittedly somewhat mentally unbalanced, unthinkingly said, “Creeper.”

Not that it would matter. His prophecies could flex when necessary, to bend back into the path they were meant to follow. Mumbo would blow up slightly more aware of the creeper than he had been originally, but he would still blow up, and Luke would still end up stranded with a long walk home ahead of him.

Case in point: Mumbo’s eyes quickly widening, him turning around to spot the creeper, the creeper already beginning to flash white, Mumbo moving quicker than Luke had yet seen him do to grab Luke’s arm and pull them both out of the blast radius-

Wait.

What?

Luke blinked rapidly, as if that would cause his vision to change and clear, to reveal his prophecy having occurred as intended and letting him explain away hallucinating otherwise as a moment of madness. It didn’t, however; all it revealed was the creeper, having not exploded, approaching him and Mumbo once more, and Mumbo looking at Luke like his third eye had become visible.

“Luke? Luke, are you alright?” Mumbo asked him, sounding worried as he slowly kept pulling Luke backwards with him, keeping a safe distance between them and the creeper. He had pulled his sword, which Luke knew he didn’t want to use, but he looked like he might if Luke didn’t snap back into the conversation soon.

“You weren’t… you weren’t supposed to do that.” Luke murmured, not needing to see Mumbo’s face, not needing to read his foresight to know that was possibly the least comforting response he could have offered. He sounded dazed, half-there, which was accurate, but not exactly the image he needed to portray right then.

“Luke?” Mumbo repeated, softer, as if he wasn’t sure what to say in response to that. Around his wrists, Luke watched his foresight continue on, shaping itself to fit the new reality. Now, Mumbo, panicking about a mostly unresponsive Luke and having no other option, kills the creeper, breaking his no-kill streak so he could eliminate the threat and focus on properly assessing the situation.

Luke looked over at Mumbo, watched him glance rapidly between himself and the green mob, watched him tighten his grip on his sword. Something in Luke’s gut twisted painfully. He didn’t want to be the reason Mumbo lost his self-set challenge, even if he didn’t fully understand it, even aside from the fact Grian might then kill him for it, but it was foretold, it was prophesied, and Luke’s sight gave him the ability to know but never touch, never change, never alter.

Except… he had. Mumbo had. Luke had given a warning and Mumbo had saved them, had shifted what was supposed to happen, and his foresight had followed. In his old world, seers were powerless in face of their fortunes, meant to record and report and never rewrite. But here… here….

Before he could think it any further through, Luke dug his hand into his pocket, the handle of his own sword settling into his grasp with barely a thought. The sudden movement startled Mumbo, enough that Luke was able to pull his arm from Mumbo’s gasp with relative ease, moving quicker than his thoughts could follow as he took two running steps up to the creeper and slashed it across its chest.

Nothing exploded. No godly figure appeared in a blaze of terrifying glory to smite Luke for wrongdoing against the oath he had never signed up for. The creeper didn’t magically bounce off of Luke’s blade and onto Mumbo’s in a deadly strike.

Instead, the creeper fell back slightly, as was to be expected. Mumbo stayed back, sword at the ready but lowered. Luke’s foresight changed, shimmering as it looped itself around his arm, his hand, his sword and told him of the new future he was plunging into- Luke, victorious against the creeper, victorious against fate.

That prophecy Luke brought to fruition, swinging until the creeper was gone, leaving behind nothing but the smell of mulch and an oddly well-stacked pile of gunpowder.

Luke, for his part, stopped moving as soon as the creeper was dead, standing in place and letting the sharp edges of his sword droop into the grass and dirt. He was panting slightly, staring uncomprehendingly at the mob drop. Mumbo hadn’t died, hadn’t broken his no-kill streak. Luke hadn’t been severely injured. The creeper hadn’t detonated. His foresight, still yellow, still golden, still present, rustled like crystal leaves from where it pooled on the ground around his sword. Luke had changed his prophecy.

Luke had changed the future.

With loud, deliberate steps, Mumbo came to stand next to Luke, pausing for a moment before setting a hand on Luke’s shoulder, as if afraid anything too fast, too sudden, too much would scare him out of his skin. “Luke?”

Luke forced himself to take in a deep breath, hoping he only imagined it when yellow smoke tinged the following release of air. “Sorry, Mumbo, I don’t… I don’t know what happened there.”

“It’s alright, I just… want to make sure you’re alright.” Mumbo said, staring at the way Luke was still gripping his sword a little too tightly. “I take it you don’t fight much?”

“You can say that again.”

“I certainly understand that feeling.” Mumbo chuckled, putting his own sword away and shifting his grip to be around Luke’s upper arm, light and grounding. “Do you want to head back to Boatem? Since this d- trip hasn’t been quite as peaceful as I promised.”

Luke looked to his pocket, drawn by the shine of prophetic words outlining his blue orchid, telling him to say yes, to say let’s go back, to say we can continue another time.

Luke looked to Mumbo, expression sweet and worried, waiting patiently for Luke’s response, completely and blessedly unaware that it had already been decided upon.

“It was only one creeper.” Luke said, pocketing his sword before laying the newly freed hand over the orchid’s stem. He smiled at Mumbo, ignoring the rearrangements of his foresight. “If we see another huge spider though, I’m turning around and sprinting all the way back to Boatem.”

Mumbo laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He responded, guiding Luke with a slight tug to continue on in the direction they had been going before the near-explosive interruption. Luke followed him easily, words more malleable than Luke had ever known trailing behind him like a cloak.

At first, outside of what had happened while he was out exploring with Mumbo, Luke avoided trying to alter his prophecies. It wasn’t something prophets were supposed to do- not that Luke had ever thought that was any fair, to hold prophets to promises none of them had chosen to make- and it wasn’t something that could be done. Prophecies, those of foresight and visions, were unchangeable because the future was unchangeable, set in stone, destined. Trying to avoid them only ever ended up bringing them about- Luke had read the Greek tragedies, the news, the obituaries. He knew better than to mess with the future, knew better than to try.

And yet… Luke couldn’t help but want to. It wasn’t a moment of hubris, the desire to escape the inescapable that nearly all oracles experienced at some point. It had happened. He had gone against one of his prophecies and it had worked- not just one, but three.

If prophets were treated differently in Hermitcraft than they were where Luke came from, why couldn’t the same be true for their prophecies? That might explain why seers were taboo. To predict an unchanging future was one thing, but to have the power to alter it, to shape it?

So, of course, Luke started going against his prophecies.

They were little changes, for the most part; a slightly different sentence, a step to the left instead of the right. Nothing that would seem out of place to the other hermits, especially given none of them knew what was ‘supposed’ to be happening. His visual foresight always changed to predict the new future, and Luke always eventually followed it, but the prophecies did change. Luke wasn’t trapped. For the first time in possibly his entire life (lives), Luke’s sight wasn’t a curse.

And because of it… Luke got sloppy. It was his fault. Hadn’t he already known, already told himself that the universe wouldn’t give him any free favours? That just because he couldn’t see it, didn’t mean there wasn’t a trick hiding in the background?

Luke’s foresight told him everything that was about to happen within his sphere of interaction, not everything that was happening at every given moment. It didn’t inform him of things going on around him unless he noticed- or was going to notice- them. It didn’t tell Luke about the way Grian had started to watch him, didn’t tell Luke about the growing suspicion in Grian’s eyes, didn’t tell Luke that Grian had noticed something.

It didn’t tell Luke anything until Grian was pulling a sword on him.

The attack had come out of nowhere, Grian having originally pulled Luke into a discussion about block palettes that Luke had, truthfully, only been half-following. He had been distracted, autopiloting his half of the conversation, when there was suddenly a sharp, loud noise, like a bell being struck by lightning.

It had come from his foresight, a warning he could actually act on- Grian, drawing his sword with no preamble, stabbing Luke through the chest.

Luke’s eyes widened. Grian’s arm twitched. Without thinking, Luke stepped quickly to the side, and Grian’s blade cut through nothing but air.

Luke’s foresight dutifully began to change, rewriting itself alongside the new future, but Luke didn’t need to read it to know what it was going to tell him. Luke had avoided a surprise attack before it had begun. There was only one way he could have done that, and given the way Grian’s expression had hardened, they both knew exactly what way that was.

“I can explain.” Luke said immediately, aware he had no chance of maintaining a pretense. Grian’s initial response was to swing at him again, Luke dodging a second early.

“Do I look like I want to hear your explanation?” Grian’s tone was venomous, his diamond blade glinting in the sun as he continued going after Luke. In counter, Luke’s foresight had wrapped itself around the sword, bright yellow moving a breath before the blue beneath, showing Luke when and how to move even as each word wrote a story of being cut.

“It’s- it’s different where I’m from!” Wind against the back of Luke’s neck as he ducked a high swing. “I didn’t realize-”

“You didn’t realize?” Grian echoed, mocking, disbelieving. “You- what- you came to Hermitcraft by accident? You moved into Boatem without processing the player names there? You started flirting with Mumbo out of pointless happenstance?”

“Flirting?!”

Grian briefly abandoned trying to slice Luke up, instead ramming an arm in his direction. Luke dodged most of the hit, but he stumbled when Grian made contact with his shoulder, only barely missing the next swing. He could see the future, but that didn’t mean Luke had good reflexes. He couldn’t avoid Grian’s attacks forever.

“By Code, I should have never let you get this far.” Grian showed no signs of stopping soon, if ever. “I don’t know what your plans here were, and I don’t care. You’re not invulnerable. None of you are. If I have to be the first one to prove it, if that’s what it takes to get you all to leave me alone, I will.”

“Luke?! Grian?!”

Mumbo’s words were predicted, but Luke still swiveled his head hard in the direction of his voice. He had been walking, going about his day casually, but he had broken into a run at the sight of the in-process violent homicide.

Looking away proved to be a mistake within a second, however, Luke’s arm suddenly beginning to burn. Grian had finally landed a hit.

Instinctively, Luke slapped his hand over the wound, pain being overridden by terror when he realized the site of the injury was warm and sticky. He looked down, hoping that somehow both his intuition and foresight would be wrong.

He wasn’t. Beading from the cut, clogging under his hand, dripping down his arm was blood. Crimson, liquid blood.

(“Do hermits not… bleed?” Luke asked, tentative, as he watched Mumbo pull an arrow out of his arm with the same level of concern as Luke would treat a splinter with.

“Not naturally, no.” Mumbo answered in a way that felt much too normal. “Blood mods are pretty common, but Hermitcraft doesn’t have one. Did yours?”

“We did.” Luke confirmed, ignoring the copper-like taste coating his mouth. “I think I’ll enjoy not having it anymore, though.”

Mumbo chuckled. “It’s certainly less messy.”)

Grian had stopped actively slashing at Luke, eyes wide when Luke looked up. Mumbo, having reached the two of them, wore a similar expression of shock.

“Luke-” Grian started haltingly. Luke took a step back.

“I’m sorry.” Luke said as genuinely as he could manage before turning on his heel and sprinting in the opposite direction.

He heard someone call his name again as he ran, but he didn’t stop, hastily digging his hands into his pockets to grab his elytra and emergency fireworks. Luke’s foresight jumped ahead of him, caution signs keeping pace with him, telling him yes, this time you will fly, go, do it now.

Luke went airborne with only a little difficulty, wobbling in the air but managing to avoid crashing into anything as he went up. He didn’t hear any other rockets going off behind him, which meant he wasn’t being followed- good. He had no chance of out-flying any of the other hermits, especially Grian, who used his elytra like it was a pair of actual wings.

Granted, Luke hardly had any sort of plan, but step one of it whenever he figured it out was definitely ‘don’t get killed.’ Step two, he decided, mid-air and hurtling aimlessly off in one direction, was to find a chunk of land far enough away from the inhabited ones to hide away on and form the rest of his plan. Hermitcraft went as far as any player could go in every direction- it would take them a while to find Luke, unless they got truly lucky, and Luke would theoretically have foresight to protect him from their approach.

With that ‘plan’ in mind, Luke set off another firework, continuing until he was far, far past the point that he could see any hermit-built structures.

He didn’t decide upon a stopping point so much as it decided upon him, his foresight having scattered in the air and leaving him defenseless against dipping low at the exact wrong moment and accidentally slamming his leg into the edge of a hilltop. Sure, arguably, he should have been able to see it coming on his own but- well- he was distracted.

Luke rolled down the hill, elytra folding up and saving itself as he tumbled. By the time he came to a stop, he was sore all over, blood from his cut arm smeared across some of the grass. He pushed himself into a seated position, shucking off his elytra and banishing it into his inventory along with his remaining rockets. If he needed them, he would get them, but the wings were heavy on his aching back and the fireworks would never not be dangerous to Luke.

Luke exchanged the flying gear for one of his many golden carrots, nibbling on the metallic first-aid vegetable and returning to his barely-started plan. The most obvious next step was to get out of Hermitcraft, make it to the ‘server hub’ he had occasionally heard mentioned and disappear into a different world, but what was much less obvious was how, exactly, he could pull it off.

While Mumbo and some of the other hermits had asked Luke about his former server, tried to see if there was anywhere he needed or wanted to go back to, Luke had known there was no point in attempting to find a way back. Even if his old life really had been on some ‘heavily modded server,’ Luke knew his time on it had ended. Permanently. As long as the hermits had been happy to have Luke, Luke had been happy to stay in Hermitcraft.

Luke didn’t regret his decision, but it certainly was coming back to haunt him right then, sitting on a plain in the middle of generated nowhere with no way out. He might have had a chance to get a quick ticket out if he had gone directly from Hermitcraft to Xisuma and convinced voi to take him to the server hub, but he had lost too much time getting away. Grian had likely already told every other hermit what he had learned, Xisuma probably the first on the list after the already-present Mumbo. All the hermits were protective of their server and servermates, and Luke knew that went double for the admin. The chance that voi would want to help a prophet who had kept their identity a secret until a forced reveal? Zero. None. Nil. Luke was on his own, which narrowed his options significantly.

Then again, all the best oracles were cave-dwelling exiles, right? Luke could make that work, assuming the hermits would eventually get tired of looking for him, which… didn’t seem terribly likely.

Luke finished off his carrot. His cut had closed, and his bruises had abated, but the ache from all of them remained. Along with those pains, there was another building behind his temple, one that was awfully familiar in a way Luke had hoped he would never experience again.

And to top it all off- the universe once more reminding Luke that it wasn’t his friend in the slightest, not even a friendly acquaintance, despite all the wisdom it was constantly dumping directly into his skull- that was when Luke saw two figures gliding across the sky above him.

The plain offered Luke no place to hide, so he wasn’t too surprised when they immediately honed in on him, dropping a bit suddenly into a landing a short distance across from him. Luke shoved himself to his feet, hoping to use their landing time as a small headstart for himself, but the leg that had slammed into the hill protested his haste and brought him right back down to the ground. Now he wasn’t just a prophet, he was a clumsy prophet too. Great. Super. Was one death with dignity too much to ask for?

Escape foiled, Luke turned to face the hermits, unsurprised to find them to be Mumbo and Grian. Mumbo was closer to him, putting his elytra away (so carefully) but keeping his eyes on Luke, moustache frowning in what the distance had Luke mistaking for concern. Grian was to Mumbo’s side, several blocks behind him, glancing between Luke and his communicator in his hand.

“We’ve found him.” Grian said to his communicator which, wonderful, Luke hadn’t been gone an hour and the server was already on some sort of manhunt for him. “No, I think we- I think Mumbo has this. Yeah, we’ll let you know if we need help.”

Luke shifted his focus to Mumbo as Grian finished his call. He looked miserable. Grian sounded miserable. Luke felt miserable. A+ work, universe.

“You guys got here faster than I expected.” Luke said, shooting for a neutral, unaffected tone that he doubted he achieved.

“We asked Xisuma to find your coords.”

Luke swallowed, feeling nauseous in a way that didn’t entirely have to do with the fact that he was well and truly screwed, both unable to leave Hermitcraft and unable to hide from its inhabitants. He got to his feet, going slower, not missing the way both Mumbo and Grian tracked his movements, ready for him to try and run. “Listen, I- I don’t know how to leave servers, but if you show me how to, I promise, I’ll go. You don’t have to see me again. I won’t come back. You don’t- I’ll go, I’ll just go.”

Mumbo’s frown deepened. He took a step forward. Luke took a step back, and Mumbo stopped moving. Grian stayed motionless where he was.

“Luke.” Mumbo said his name placatingly, calmingly, worriedly, which was not the combination of emotions Luke was expecting to hear in any capacity. Anger, disgust, disappointment- those felt more appropriate for the situation. “There’s been a misunderstanding. We don’t want you to leave.”

Ah. That was it. Mumbo- sweet, friendly, first-hermit-to-befriend-Luke Mumbo- hadn’t believed Grian when he revealed that Luke was a prophet. He thought there was a misunderstanding. That’s why Grian hadn’t started attacking Luke on sight; he was waiting for Luke to play his hand, show his cards, to give Mumbo the proof that would validate Grian when he did go back to slashing and hacking.

Well, they had come at the perfect time for exactly that, if the ringing beginning to build in Luke’s ears was anything to go by. His foresight might have changed in the transition between worlds, but his visions seemingly had not. Luke had a minute or two, at best, before he would be too caught up in the vision to do anything in the line of covering it up or defending himself from swords.

“For the record, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to trick you all.” Luke said, voice getting tight as his headache worsened. Maybe, if he was pitiable enough, they wouldn’t kill him mid-vision. He wasn’t sure what that would look like, and he wasn’t particularly interested in finding out.

“You didn’t trick us.” Mumbo assured him, rocking on his feet as though he wanted to step forward again but was holding off. “Are you- are you okay?”

Luke raised a shaky hand to his head. The skin of his temple was burning, the world around him was beginning to spin, his throat was closing in on itself. Luke shut his eyes, and under his eyelids, everything was golden. “No.”

Presumably, that was the moment Luke collapsed, the strain of the vision disconnecting Luke from his body and leaving it to fend for itself as he learned its prophecy.

Unfettered from the demands of his physical body (free from ‘mortal needs,’ from his ‘human half’ as some people would put it, those who considered prophets to be the middlemen between humanity and divinity), Luke was able to receive the vision in its full form. Segments of time, glimpses of triple-digit dimensions, sensations that no language could describe bombarded him, a fortune so detailed it would take Luke four dictionaries worth of pages to write it all down, all overlaid with the only words Luke was allowed to speak, a single spec of sand out of a beach full of information. There was a reason all prophets went mad, and it was contained in the break-neck juxtaposition between the future they knew and the future they were permitted to speak.

Purple eyes surrounded Luke in the space of the vision, the space in his mind torn out to make room for his curse, all wide and watching and never blinking. The darkness swallowing them bent, distorted, claws forming to jump out at Luke, scratching and grasping, obsidian nails painting bloody divots across his chest. One hand held one purple eye, twisting and snarling, burning up mauve, magenta, merlot. Blood dripped from the corner of the eye, honey fed from Luke’s own wrists, scabbed over in useless words of gold. The captured eye turned to stare directly at Luke, and fearfully the other eyes closed out of existence. The captured eye said nothing. The captured eye said sorry. Luke, hand drenched in amber guilt, reached out towards it.

Luke opened his eyes.

Time was meaningless in the thralls of a vision. As far as Luke knew, it could have been a minute since it began, or it could have been hours. The sun was still in the sky, and Luke was still on the plain he had crashed into, but even those indicator variables felt useless. Luke could have been there, trapped in the vision, for days.

What didn’t feel useless, however, was Mumbo, sitting with Luke tucked against his side, an arm swung comfortingly across Luke’s shoulders while Luke’s head lolled on the top of his chest. He was warm.

Across from the two of them was Grian, standing up and squeezing his communicator so hard it seemed liable to crack and shatter in his grasp. He was closer than he had been earlier, before Luke’s vision, but not close. Looking at Grian, a sense of inhuman understanding settled in Luke’s gut, weighty and unignorable: the vision was for him.

Luke sat up, stiff and sudden, Mumbo’s arm falling off his shoulders in the process. He stared directly at Grian, whose eyes were wide in the face of Luke’s, blinding sunlight in perfect circles. Luke opened his mouth, smoke the colour of sulfur spilling out before he said a word.

“In three days time, a thousand eyes of violet violence shall descend upon you,” Luke intoned in a voice that was borrowed and stolen and entirely his, “lured by power they’ll seek to know but never will. Your server you will save, but not yourself, nor your false enemy of unmalleable gold.”

Prophecy delivered, Luke slumped back into the exact position he had been arranged in, exhaustion coursing through him like it had replaced his blood. Mumbo tucked his arm around Luke once more without question.

Grian, for his part, looked the same way most people did when they received one of Luke’s prophecies: angry and terrified.

“When you first came to Boatem, and you were asking us about prophets,” Mumbo was the first to break the silence that followed Luke’s prediction, his words half-rumble in Luke’s ears, “you asked because you’re one, didn’t you?”

Luke nodded, sliding his head against Mumbo’s chest. He had been long since found out; the vision was a last shovelful of dirt over an already buried coffin. Lying wouldn’t do him any good (telling the truth wouldn’t either but then, what did it matter? might as well go out honest). “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t- you don’t need to apologize.” Grian said, voice uncertain, as though he didn’t know if he was saying the right thing. “If anything, I’m the one who should be sorry. I am sorry. I shouldn’t have- well-”

Luke wondered, idly, what Grian’s intended end of sentence was supposed to be. ‘Sorry for not killing you fast enough?’ Luke would have accepted it. If he had died at Boatem, at least he would have done so without another vision under his belt.

Mumbo’s arm tightened around Luke. “No one’s killing you, Luke.”

Ah. Apparently those hadn’t been ‘idle wonderings,’ but rather ‘words he was saying aloud.’ A common mix-up.

“I can be ready to leave in five minutes.” Luke said, that time on purpose, mind jumping to what the other option must be if they weren’t going to kill him- they had accepted his plea. They were going to let him off with a promise to never return to Hermitcraft. It wouldn’t be pleasant, he knew, and saying he could be ready to travel in five minutes was stretching the truth to the point of poking holes in it, but he wasn’t going to risk trying their patience when he had already determined the ‘allowed to leave alive’ option to be so unlikely.

“You don’t- There’s been a misunderstanding.” Mumbo’s hold on Luke didn’t lessen, which Luke felt would make it hard for him to eventually get up and go. Both in a logistical sense (how could he get up when he was being held down?) and a more emotional/exhausted way (the closer he got to falling asleep on Mumbo, the less he wanted to get off of Mumbo). “We don’t have prophets here. We thought, based on your description, that you were talking about… something else. But we were wrong. We-”

“I was wrong.” Grian cut Mumbo off, crossing his arms and looking away from Luke. “I should have- I should have known you weren’t one of them. That you aren’t one of them.”

“We have a lot of names.” Luke made a vague motion with his hand. “Oracles, seers, fortune tellers, other things. I’m not surprised Hermitcraft would have a different one.”

Mumbo shook his head, a motion Luke more felt than saw. “It’s not just the name that’s different.”

Ahead of them, Grian sighed and sat down, still so far despite having moved onto Luke’s level. “Watchers don’t bleed, no matter what server they’re in.” Grian told him, the group’s name dripping with poison and sparking lightning in Luke’s mind. “And they certainly don’t do whatever that was.”

“Vision.” Luke said reflexively, unhelpfully, as he mentally skimmed through the aforementioned where it kept writhing in his brain. “A thousand eyes of violet violence…”

“That’s them.” Grain confirmed. He sounded furious. He sounded scared. He sounded tired. “I don’t know what your, uh, vision told you, but they’re bad news.”

“I got that impression.” Luke admitted, claws of starless night flashing behind his eyes. “I have something else to apologize for, then.”

“What?”

“Lured by power they’ll seek to know but never will.” Luke repeated, shrugging helplessly at Grian’s confused eyes. For all that coming to Hermitcraft had changed about his curse, Luke could still feel a force as strong as diamond, as bedrock, as the universe itself digging into the base of his tongue, a harsh reminder that some things would never change. “I can’t speak past the bounds of the prophecy. I can’t- I can’t explain it to you. I can’t.”

Mumbo patted Luke’s arm. “That’s alright. You said we have three days, right? We can figure something out in three days.”

That’s what they all say, Luke thought but didn’t speak. He didn’t want to risk his tongue saying more than he was allowed. He didn’t want to explain the inevitability of a prophecy, the doom of self-fulfillment.

“I don’t- how could they get in? How will they get in?” Grian dragged his hand across his face. If it weren’t for the circumstances, Luke would have been touched at how readily his vision had been accepted. Dire prophecies especially usually took at least one day of denial-processing. “They couldn’t get in when I first moved here. Why would that change now? Sorry, Luke, I’m not- don’t say what you can’t.”

Luke watched Grian dissolve into muttering to himself, trying to make sense of Luke’s words, their meanings, their methods. It reminded him of El, sister of a prophet and doomed by her own blood, scrambling to find an escape to a fate Luke knew was unavoidable. Trying to help her had been the first and last time Luke had tried to interfere with his visions. Delivering a prophecy and fulfilling it were functionally the same thing, but the former had a layer of separation Luke could hide behind.

But this was Hermitcraft. If his foretellings could change- if the immediate future could change-

Luke closed his eyes. Walked himself back into the vision. Prophets weren’t allowed to speak, but they were allowed to know, if only they were willing to take the time necessary to hack their way through the vision and tear out its meat. After El, Luke had never bothered. It didn’t matter how much he knew. It didn’t matter what he did. The dominos always fell the same.

Luke curled his fingers tight around a special dagger and started slitting purple, taunting, visionary eyes.

In the unwanted space in his head, the unbleeding eyes bled the future, trails of understanding that soaked into the soles of Luke’s feet. The moment of arrival, the moment of leaving, gleeful wanting and taking and terrible, frustrating, razing anguish over the unknown. Luke waded through the future memories, unsatisfied. Grian had the right questions- Luke needed the how, the why now, not the terrible afterwards.

Two eyes, three eyes, four eyes and there was code dripping down Luke’s arms, a purple mockery of his visual foresight that burned into Luke with the importance of a sword cut. The words made no sense to him, but they sang with significance, twisted into the angles of a key.

Luke opened his eyes with a cough, more yellow smoke drifting out. Against him, Mumbo managed to shift in a way that felt concerned. “Is that… are you going to keep doing that?”

“It’s non-toxic.” Luke responded distractedly, looking again towards Grian, who also seemed less than satisfied with Luke’s smoke. “Come over here.”

Grian did not come over. “I- let’s- why?”

“Can’t say.” Luke twitched his foot at Grian. He felt stupid. The whole idea was stupid. Rule number one of being a prophet: give up on the idea that you have any control. You are never above fate. You are never above the future. But this wasn’t his old world. This wasn’t his old life, where fate killed his sister and he couldn’t do anything but watch, where the future had handed him Inscryption and laughed. This was minecraft, Hermitcraft, and Luke was so fucking tired of being destiny’s middleman. “I also can’t stand up without falling over. If you’re- you can take out your sword, or something, if you’re worried, just- just come here.”

“I wasn’t-” Grian cut off his own protest, hesitating for a moment before doing as requested, moving over to be sitting next to Luke and Mumbo. “I’m not pulling another sword on you.”

Luke hummed, more focused on finishing what he technically hadn’t yet started. He had never been a ‘prophet of the people,’ had never made a career out of giving fortunes, but he knew that oracles who did were able to provide visions for specific people by connecting to them. Some used objects or rituals, but most did so through touch, creating a direct livewire between the person and the prophet’s ability to reach for their future. The science behind it wasn’t well understood, but the best guesses all boiled down to something having to do with the core ‘essence’ of a person.

What, exactly, the ‘essence’ of a person was in Luke’s old world wasn’t clear. But in the new one, Luke knew code was- quite literally- everything. If Luke could connect to that… well, he could possibly mess up disastrously and cause the equivalent of taking scissors to someone’s nervous system. Or he could help fulfill the prophecy exactly as it was intended. Or he could possibly, possibly, flip fate the bird, redirect the prophecy, and give Grian an incredibly solid reason to continue with not-killing him.

“How badly do you want to stop it?” Luke asked, putting the decision he couldn’t explain out-loud into Grian’s hands.

Grian set his expression, an impressive display given it consisted only of two eyes. “I’ll do anything.”

“Great. I’m going to hold your hand.”

“What?”

Luke ignored the confusion from both Grian and Mumbo. Surely his spitting up yellow smoke and predicting the terrifying future had to be more unnerving than him holding Grian’s hand. Mumbo put up with it no problem, and Luke hadn’t ever been trying to rearrange his code. Luke reached out, not so much ‘holding’ Grian’s hand as he was laying his over Grian’s. All he needed was the point of connection.

With both Mumbo and Grian doing their best to frown at him despite their lack of mouths, Luke closed his eyes again, pushing past the remnants of the vision and doing his best to channel his entire focus towards Grian, his code, the one line that was still wrapped around Luke’s metaphorical arm.

It took a few minutes for Luke to successfully shove the vision out of place, the bleeding eyes following him angrily until he managed to find the sliver between them leading out. The nightmare space faded into one of nothing but lines upon lines of blocky white code, all somehow compiling into Grian. The words scrolled past Luke in a rush, constantly moving and running and jumping around as they processed- presumably- the action of Grian sitting and judging Luke heavily.

Luke let it all pass him without trying to acknowledge them, focused single-mindedly on finding the line from his vision, the line that would lead the Watchers to them if Luke wasn’t able to do something about it. It was all a blur of white to Luke, theoretically useless, but Luke wasn’t looking with his actual, physical eyes.

The line he had been looking for appeared, and the code slammed to a stop like it had been frozen.

The string of code was isolated from the others, sitting plainly on its own line, self-contained. As code, Luke couldn’t understand it, but the matching words on his arm burned with cryptic explanation- a variable in waiting, a hidden backdoor, a trap waiting to be tripped. Luke’s vision, mostly but not perfectly contained to its own section, spliced itself with the code, overlaying the words with prophecy: Grian, trying to predict the tactics of the Watchers, accidentally letting them in all on his own, calling them not only to himself, but to an open Hermitcraft, to the newest hermit and his infinitely useful powers.

Luke scowled at the vision, scowled at the code, scowled at the promises they tried to make him, scowled at the way they tried to deter him. He was already so close. He was already so tired. If fate wanted to stop him, it was welcome to materialize and try.

Luke walked up to the line of code he needed, hefted his dagger, and started slashing.

When Luke opened his eyes next, the chunk of Grian’s code he had been looking for had been reduced to nothing, the letters having fritzed purple at Luke as he painstakingly tore each one out of place. Grian, for his part, didn’t look like Luke had accidentally killed him, which Luke took as a good sign in spite of the fact his entire body had shifted into feeling like it was made of lead.

Using much more effort than it reasonably should have taken, Luke pulled his hand back into his lap. “There.”

Grian pressed the hand Luke had ‘released’ against his chest, forehead furrowed. “I… feel different. What did you do?”

“Mm. Something. Should have helped. No more prophecy.” Luke answered without answering, less out of a caution for what he could-and-couldn’t say and more due to the mental fog that had settled over him alongside the weight in his limbs. Maybe… maybe he wasn’t made for messing with the pure essence of a player. Maybe that had been a ‘bit much’ for him in his already-drained state.

“You- you can do that?”

“I just did.” Luke tilted his face further into Mumbo’s chest. Remembered he wasn’t supposed to do that. Un-tilted his face using monumental effort. “I can… ten minutes? I can be gone in ten minutes.”

“You’re not leaving.” Mumbo said, firmly, at the same time Grian rudely reminded Luke, “You can’t even stand up.”

Luke frowned. Who said he couldn’t stand up? He could stand up. All it took was-

Mumbo pulled Luke back against his side before he could successfully face-plant into the grass. He sighed. “If you… if you don’t want to stay, we won’t force you to, but-”

“I can’t stay.” Luke interrupted. “Prophet.”

“Misunderstanding.” Mumbo countered. “Hermitcraft allows prophets, even if we don’t know what they are.”

“And I shouldn’t have attacked you.” Grian added, nudging Luke’s leg with his foot. “I did it because I thought you were one of them, not because you’re a prophet.”

“But… the blood? I shouldn’t… no blood in Hermitcraft.”

“If you had the mod in your old server, it might have carried over with you into this one.” Grian offered, sounding a touch guilty. In an attempt to convey he didn’t hold his blood against Grian, Luke thoughtfully bumped him with his foot.

Mumbo, clearly wanting to join in on the bumping-fun, bumped his leg against Luke’s. “Grian’s right. A rogue blood mod isn’t server-threatening.”

“It’s messy.”

Mumbo huffed, a sound that Luke’s severely exhausted mind chose to interpret as fond. The hand that had been resting on Luke’s further shoulder lifted as Mumbo started to comb his fingers through the hair at the base of Luke’s neck, an action that was both wonderful and not at all helping Luke’s already poor grasp on reality. “If it’s yours, I don’t mind.”

Grian, sounding slightly as if he were underwater, made an exasperated noise. “Get a room.”

“I think that’s the plan.” Mumbo joked. “Unless you think we should leave Luke to fall asleep out here.”

“You could.”

“We’re not.” Mumbo and Grian rebuked at more or less the same time.

Luke huffed. “You won’t let me stand up.”

“You would fall over.”

“Stop insulting me.”

Mumbo chuckled at Luke and Grian’s exchange. “Luke, do you want to fly right now?”

“...No.”

“Then we’re not going to make you fly.” Mumbo’s logic made sense to Luke. It was extremely considerate of him. Included no insults. “Do you want to go back to Boatem? Or someone else’s base?”

“Boatem.” Luke answered before Mumbo fully finished. “If. If I can.”

“You can.” Mumbo said softly, the response followed by the beeping of a communicator. Luke opened his eyes- when had he closed them?- and found it was Grian, typing something into his.

“Xisuma says voi can teleport us back.” Grian said after what had either been a minute or ten, Luke being too distracted trying to keep his eyes open to focus on the passage of time. “And that voi’s glad you’re ok, Luke.”

Luke hummed in acknowledgement. Briefly lost the battle against his eyelids. Started rapidly blinking in an attempt to beat back the urge to sleep.

Grian, who was not acting nearly grateful enough for someone who’s future Luke had helpfully changed, laughed at the display. “I don’t think he’s going to make it back to Boatem awake, Mumbo.”

Mumbo, secondary reason Luke was not going to make it back to Boatem awake and who was being forgiven on account of being so warm, also laughed. “It’s probably best he doesn’t. Teleporting when exhausted is quite, er, unpleasant.”

“I’m right here, you know.” Luke mumbled, fairly certain he had said at least half of the words out loud. His eyes had fallen shut again and seemed content to remain that way.

The arm around the back of Luke’s shoulders shifted, pulling Luke closer and allowing his head to rest more comfortably on the soft-warm-solid surface. “Go to sleep, Luke. I’ve got you.”

Luke, exhausted, happily listened to his pillow’s advice.

Four days later, Luke found himself sitting outside of his house, appreciating the beauty of a Hermitcraft that hadn’t been split open by false gods of wine-purple eyes.

Even with Luke feeling fairly certain he had circumvented his vision, the server had been tense for the three days after it. Luke’s foresight proved he wasn’t lying about his ability to predict the future, after all, and the mix of his inability to speak of the prophecy past its given lines and his uncertainty in whether or not avoiding it was even possible hadn’t exactly filled the hermits with hope. The three days of waiting had been filled with open-secret preparations, every hermit with admin knowledge helping Xisuma to run through the server’s protections with a fine-toothed comb, and a lot of anticipatory glancing at the sky.

(Admittedly, Luke had missed most of these things occurring during his nearly two day long recovery sleep. His visions were usually tiring in a way a long nap could fix, so Luke was forced to assume his exhaustion had come either from altering Grian’s code, interfering with the future of his prophecy, or both.)

But the third day had passed, free of any Watcher appearance, and Luke was left to conclude that he had truly done it. He had defied a vision. He had changed the future, short-term and long-term. For the first time in his lives, Luke was free of the prophet’s curse, even as golden words continued to wind themselves around him.

Luke turned his head a second early as those gold words told him of Mumbo’s approach, because he could, because the hermits didn’t care, because he wanted to revel in how he could know and alter. He did wait until Mumbo actually came around the corner of his house to speak, out of politeness. “Hey Mumbo.”

Mumbo, for his part, didn’t seem put off by Luke’s unnatural readiness. “Hello Luke. Might I join you?”

“Please do.”

Mumbo moustache-smiled as he took a seat in the grass next to Luke, sitting close enough their legs were touching. Luke didn’t mind. The proximity was nice. “How are you doing?”

“Better. Awake.” Luke answered, getting a chuckle out of Mumbo. “I think Phantoms fear me now. I might start chasing them around during the day.”

“I don’t think Phantoms exist during the daytime.”

“They will. That’s how afraid of me they are.”

Mumbo shook his head, but his smile remained. “Glad to see you’re in good spirits as well.”

“I’m a prophet who can defy the future and isn’t having to engage in any impromptu sword fights because of it.” Luke watched his foresight wiggle on the ground as he did just that, switching around the phrasing it had offered him solely because it couldn’t stop him. “My spirits have never been better.”

“You really weren’t joking when you said prophecy was a curse on your old server, huh?”

Mumbo’s tone was light, but Luke could make out the undercurrent of worry in it. Luke hadn’t had a chance to go too in-depth on all the details of being a prophet- he hadn’t yet had the time- but he had explained a few things to Mumbo, in between his naps and the Watcher watches. Unsurprisingly, Mumbo hadn’t liked much of it, biased by the fact that Luke didn’t like much of it either.

“For me at least, yeah.” Luke bumped his shoulder against Mumbo’s. “But I’m here now, remember? And it’s… it’s good here.”

Mumbo hummed, clear he still had something on his mind. Luke waited patiently for him to get to it, no creeper around to ruin the moment. In front of him, Luke watched his foresight turn into ellipses, blinking at him before draining into the grass, as if choosing to leave him and Mumbo alone.

“Your old server was a hardcore one, right?”

“Are those the one-life-only servers?”

“They are.”

“Then yeah, hardcore server.” Luke answered, not entirely untruthfully. His old life had been a one-chance set up, as far as he was aware.

Mumbo nodded, hesitating for a second before continuing on with his line of inquiry. “When you… did you know-”

“When I was going to die?” Luke finished for Mumbo, sighing and looking out over Boatem. Inscryption was an entire bundle of thoughts he had largely left untouched since coming to Hermitcraft, and while he knew he wouldn’t be able to ignore it forever, he had been doing his best to pretend that the only part of his death that mattered was that it had happened. “I did. Unfortunately.”

“Oh, that’s- I was going to ask if you knew you would end up here.” Luke turned back to Mumbo, finding him frowning in concern.

“Oh.” Not the question Luke had expected, but one that was much more preferable. “You know, I actually didn’t. Falling into Hermitcraft was a complete surprise to me.”

“A good surprise?”

Luke grinned at Mumbo. “The best.”

Mumbo returned the grin as best he could with only a moustache. He scooted a little bit closer to Luke. “Luke, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“Is it something I said during my two day long nap? Or while I was pretending I wasn’t falling asleep on top of you?” Luke hazarded as guesses, aware that he had, at some point in his rests, sleep-talked some fairly odd things. Including, based on the various notes Boatem had kept while watching over him, some rather inspired Catch Monster teams. “Which, I did mean to apologize for at some point. I know you hadn’t planned on playing pillow to a half-mad prophet that day.”

“It’s alright.” Mumbo reassured Luke, waiting a beat before adding on, “You were cute.”

Despite being a prophet, Luke had not seen that coming.

It must have showed in his expression- or in the way he had frozen in surprise, or in the way he was speechless, or in anything, because Luke was pretty sure not a single cell of his being was currently behaving in a normal, unshocked way- because Mumbo laughed, smile softening.

“I didn’t think I was being subtle.” Mumbo told him, teasing but kind. “Especially for a prophet.”

“Prophets- I- we- I predict the future, Mumbo, that doesn’t make me observant!” Luke found enough of his voice to protest, although given the way his face felt like it was burning, he doubted it was a very effective one. He considered trying to hide his face in his hands, but he was fairly certain it would only make his embarrassment worse.

“And you didn’t see this coming? Even a little bit?”

“My foresight’s not here right now.” Luke defended, as if that explained him missing every other sign along the road to that exact moment.

At the mention of his briefly MIA foresight, however, Mumbo hesitated. “Do you… should I wait til it comes back?”

“Actually, Mumbo, I think- I think I can figure this one out from here.”

Another second of pause, and then Mumbo’s smile grew as he leaned into Luke’s side, getting as close as he had been the day he had given Luke the blue orchids that now lived in a flower pot on his bedside table. “Why don’t you tell me the future then, lucky prophet?”

If Luke’s face got any redder, it was liable to explode. “Yes. I see- I see the prophet saying yes.”

“You do?” Mumbo asked, and he was still teasing, still amused, but there was something so earnest and hopeful in his eyes Luke couldn’t help but wonder how the hell he hadn’t noticed anything before that exact moment.

“Yes.” Luke repeated, fulfilling his own prophecy, created just for him and Mumbo. “I do.”

And as Luke leaned in, surrounded by green grass and blue sky and not a single drop of spilled blood, he finally felt peace.

#lucky jumbo #i really cornered myself with the whole ship name = my series name thing huh #in a vision #luke carder #mumbo jumbo #grian #hermitcraft #inscryption #m.y funky words #mumbo carder universe #anyways . this is ~11k i wrote in 3 days bc i was seized with the madness of luke . please enjoy #i cannot be trusted with these blorbos but no one is strong enough to take them from me

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commandervamiris · 2 years ago

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Day 3: Fortune

307 words.

Grian breaks into Mumbo's vault.

"Welcome back, Mumbo."

Grian spun around on the squeaky swivel chair grinning from ear to ear. He was draped over it; legs over one arm, with his hand on his chin. His wings curled around him.

Mumbo, for his part, laughed. "What are you- what is- who's chair is that?"

Squeak, squeak. Grian wiggled. "I dunno. Stole it." His eyes twinkled, "and, it's not the only thing."

"Oh?" Mumbo's laughter faded, but smile didn't.

In the halls of Mumbo's Vault, blackstone and copper, quartz and warped wood, Grian gestured around at it all. Almost manically, "your riches! Your diamond fortune! I'm in Mumbo! I got in!"

"Yeah. Yeah you did." Mumbo said, softly rubbing his glorious facial hair, "you're here. All my building materials and- and my hot guy poster. All yours! That was the deal wasn't it?"

"Yeah!" Grian said, his voice jubilant, "Everything is now mine! You can keep the poster though."

"Haha! Yep. It's all yours."

That fuzzy smile never faltered, not for a second. That's what made Grian's own feelings of overwhelming victory waver.

"You're- you're taking this awfully well." Grian lets out a little laugh, "me winning?"

Mumbo nods, "it's all yours!" And slowly, he rubs his chin, and looks towards the entrance to the vault. "And you've-" Mumbo's façade cracks as he sniggers, "you've got a bunch of very lovely rocks. Or well- well, you used to. Now you've got a-"

"No…"

"-A… haha- a lovely Vault that you've- haha-"

"NO I'VE WORKED SO HARD ON THAT-"

"You-you said it. You won Grian! Congrats!"

"No-" Grian kicks the swivel chair back as he starts to fly, "you haven't-"

"I've already reset my spawn-" "NO!"

"Did you- did you forget about the button- and the crowns too?" Mumbo said, moustache twinkling through the sounds of his barking, delightful laugh. "Goodbye Grian!"

"AGH!"

View the masterlist here!

#hermittober #trafficblr #hermitcraft #life series #writers on tumblr #hermittober23 #grian #mumbo jumbo #no beta we die like men

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ghostbustingreen · 2 years ago

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊

NAME: luigi mario.

NICKNAMES: greenie, l'il bro, green 'stache, lou/lu, green guy, weege, bro, mama, sweetie, green bean, ect.

AGE: late 20s/early 30s.

BIRTHDATE: October 11th.

SPECIES: star child.

NATIONALITY: italian.

GENDER: genderfluid.

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: he/him.

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: biromantic.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: asexual.

FACE CLAIM: his own glorious face. though if I had to pick an irl actor it's charlie day.

FAMILY: big family back in brooklyn, but also the yoshi clan that saved him and mario as babies.

PARENTS: mama mario and papa mario.

SIBLINGS: older twin sibling mario!

SIGNIFICANT OTHERS: depends on ship.

CHILDREN: some baby yoshis.

EYE COLOR(S): blue.

HAIR COLOR(S): brunette with a dark brown (almost black) moustache.

HEIGHT: 5'11".

WEIGHT: around 170 but it fluctuates based on stress levels.

BODY BUILD: athletic but a little chubby. very strong legs.

tagged by: @mariotime ♥️ tagging: if you haven't done it yoink it!

#( ;; headcanon ⦙ ❝ get this bro ❞ ✰ )#( ❝ i've’a practised but nobody will play with luigi! will you play with me? ❞ ⦙ memes )

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chillin-at-partys-bar · 2 years ago

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Send me ♕ to bump into my muse at a masquerade ball @cmdrace asked: 👑

The last time he had seen Benn Beckman, the man had been shaking with a silent rage at his Captain's actions. Though Shanks certainly welcomed criticism of his behavior and movements, this was a situation that he very much did not ask for nor deserve such violent vitriol.

"You are making an ass out of yourself," Beck had seethed. But Shanks had ignored him and was now at the masquerade ball. He was sure the stares at him were because he looked so much like he blended in.

He had borrowed one of Beck's fancy black coats that hugged his torso and was a little tight around one of his biceps. His missing arm was hidden by a navy blue cape, a navy blue and silver mask was over his face and hiding his scars.

On his head, nice and tall, was a top hat he had swindled off of some pompous ass in the last town. Normally, despite his tendency to lean towards the pirate life, he really wasn't about stealing people's personal affects. Especially their hats. But this guy was a jerk and the hat deserved to be with someone who was not a jerk: namely Shanks.

Perhaps the part of all of this that really made Beck call his captain and long time best friend an ass was the slicked back, freshly-dyed black hair. There was a bathroom on the Force that was now also dyed black from the semi-permanent hair dye he had purchased for this occasion. It did work though - he now had jet black hair. He even remembered to dye his eyebrows. And he only marginally dyed parts of his fingers.

The other part that probably made Beck call him an ass was the large, glorious mustache he had affixed to his face. It almost mimicked that of his own Captain, but Captain Roger had died years ago so clearly he was not him. Though he did perhaps look like Captain Roger's son. The discount version of Ace. The - and pardon the modern metaphor - wish.com version of Ace.

Whether he looked like Captain Roger's son, an ass, or the 'we have Ace at home' Ace with a moustache, he certainly did not look like Red-Haired Shanks. But he was certainly drunk like him.

As he walked through the ballroom, he found himself stumbling a little over his feet and into another person. "I'm sorry dear boy," he was doing his impression of what he thought a high-class gentleman with a moustache and slicked back black hair would sound like. It just sounded like an idiot, really. "I didn't see you there. I hope you're unharmed."

What are you even saying, Shanks?

#cmdrace #{verse: main}#{muse: shanks}#{answered}#((thanks for sending in! Sorry this got silly loool and long but I was having fun haha))

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talesofthesecondcity · 2 years ago

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Please, Dont Let Me Trip!

I didn’t exactly explode onto Birmingham’s gay scene in glorious rainbow technicolour, more creep apprehensively down a flight of steep stairs… and straight into an awkwardly familiar face!

In my late teens, Friday nights were spent alternating between several pubs on the social triangle of Aston University. I’d been drinking on campus for months prior to turning the legal age, but being student pubs, used to a clientele of fresh-faced undergrads, our spotty faces barely stood out. Doormen would turn a blind eye if you could rattle off your fake date of birth with enough conviction.

On one evening out, I couldn’t shake thoughts of another bar in town, the idea of which ignited my teenage hormones like a drop of blood screaming to a hunting shark. I decisively downed the dregs of my cordial-coloured Snakebite & Black, turned to my best-mate and announced, “I’m going to The Jester.”

The Jester was a basement gay bar, lurking beneath Scala Building, a shabby curve of concrete and glass on Holloway Circus. This typical 1960’s development, of the style old-school Birmingham is notorious, had seen better days, even back in the 80s.

I paced outside for an age, trying to muster the courage to go inside, but somebody would walk by or a bus would circle the roundabout and I would lose my nerve. Finally, the coast was clear and I dashed to the door. The unremarkable entrance took me to a tight flight of stairs leading down into… well, I had no idea.

My heart pounded with a giddy mix of fear and excitement as I descended the steep stairs. All I could think was, Please, don’t let me trip.

I gripped the handrail with white-knuckled intensity, while trying to convey casual nonchalance. I managed to get to the bottom of the stairs upright and with the maximum dignity a gawky teen could carry off.

Guys turned to check out the new chicken in town.

I crossed to the elliptical central bar and ordered a beer.

Waiting for the barman to return with my drink, I dared a quick glance around, taking in the small dance floor, the neon lighting and, to my delight, a glitterball. They actually had a glitterball! My only previous knowledge of a gay bar came solely from The Blue Oyster in the movie Police Academy, which had a glitterball that the Leather Queens danced romantically beneath. I was now convinced every gay venue in the world had one.

I clocked one cute guy around the curve of the bar to my left.

He looks very handsome, I thought, around my age, chiselled jawline, slicked back black hair. Oh, hang on… It’s a lesbian.

My drink arrived. I let out a sigh of relief. I had made it inside, down the stairs and got a drink, all without incident. The night was mine!

A hand fell upon my shoulder.

“How are you, young man?”

I turned to find the benignly smiling face… of my form teacher.

Sat at a bar with my teacher wasn’t exactly how I’d expected my first night on the scene to turn out… but I could not have wanted for a better introduction.

It was a relief to finally have another gay man to confide in, even better that it was a familiar and trusted figure. Here was an opportunity to talk to someone with experience of a world I was taking my first steps into.

Although being caught in a gay bar by Sir had been a shock, I had not been surprised that he frequented such establishments. Rumours about him had circulated school for years. The shaved head, handlebar moustache, penchant for a leather jacket and the general Village People vibe had also been a bit of a giveaway. He wouldn’t have looked out of place swaying beneath that glitterball at The Blue Oyster.

As the evening progressed, Sir suggested we move on to The Nightingale, the city’s only night club in the 1980s. He was a member and offered to sign me in as his guest.

At this point in the club’s history The Gale, as it is affectionally known, was situated near the stage door of the Birmingham Hippodrome, at the end of a short alley. You had to ring the bell, wait until a face appeared behind a sliding slot, then confirm you knew what type of bar it was before being admitted.

Once inside, there was a cloakroom and small bar dominated by a gaudy fountain. Beyond was the main disco. On the far side of the dancefloor was a dimly lit area, partitioned off from prying eyes. I remember being baffled as to why anyone would want to disappear into a dark subdivision of a busy nightclub. How naive! So much to learn… and so much fun learning.

At the end of the night, Sir drove me home, dropping off a few streets away, so as not to arouse suspicions of sleepless parents, inevitably awaiting their teenage son’s late-night return.

I am eternally grateful to my then form teacher for looking after me on my first night out on Birmingham’s gay scene.

I have told this tale many times over the years, inevitably greeted by cynical eyebrows and the implication he was on the make… but no, he was the perfect gentleman… and continues to be to this day.

To Sir, With Love. X

Find over 100 tales from Birmingham's gay scene @talesofthesecondcity.com

#lgbtq #lgbt #gay #lgbtq🌈#gaylife #gaybirminghamuk #gaybirmingham #gay scene #birminghamgayvillage #gaybrum #Gay Birmingham #coming out #queer #queer community #lgbtqia

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viskarenvisla · 3 months ago

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The Sluagh's Tongue: Chapter One - Incredible Weakness

The dresser’s doors sprung open with a violent clatter, revealing a vast, sylvan landscape beyond, filled with flowers of strange colors I couldn’t put words to. Mountains that looked as if they’d been melted up from the ground stabbed upward in the distance, clawing at a sky dotted with floating islands of mossy rock and crystal. A massive crater stood in the center of it all, smouldering with sinuous blue light. The fox looked at me once again, narrowing its eyes and cocking its head. “[Carpe noctum, frater,]” it rumbled at me in a voice as deep as a sousaphone, before it stepped through the dresser doors. They slammed shut, catapulting the azure furniture back into the water.

Chapter 1: Incredible Weakness

"So...you're not going to stick me in an institution, or tell the school I'm not fit for study, right?"

"No. I'm not going to do those things unless you tell me you're going to hurt someone or yourself...don't go getting any ideas."

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," I assured him.

His head was on fire; just the top, a nimbus of orange and white, replacing his hair.

I appreciated that sort of focus; if you’re gonna do a job, you damn well oughta do it right.. "So..." he gestured to me with white-hot fingertips (how did he keep from burning everything?), "let's start basic. Have you ever seen a counselor before?"

Good lord…I still had no idea what they were. I glanced at Shams, at some girls on the basketball team passing by; were they seeing this shit?

Speaking of: "How would you describe your emotional state right now, sitting on that couch?"

Exhausted. Skittish. Low-scale aroused, almost all the time…something’s wrong with me.

"It's a comfortable couch," I demured, patting the dark red cushion with a nod of approval. "I'm happy with the couch. I'm feeling stressed and unsure about my future, and tired." I swallowed dryly, watching him watching me; it felt like we were sizing each other up for a duel (and with what weapons, I wondered? He looked like a saber-and-shield type of guy, I was more of a pistols at dawn fellow).

"And...?" he gestured for me to continue…experienced shrink like him knew I’d be holding back.

"And, I'm...kinda scared, I guess. I feel like I'm being watched and followed." That part wasn’t easy to admit; how do you tell a stranger you’re afraid of something?

Doctor al-Rashi paused his scrawling, an eyebrow cropping up dramatically - weren't shrinks supposed to mask their responses?

"Do you feel unsafe?" he queried, setting the stylus down.

"I'm not sure." The admission came with some reticence because it sounded dull. "I feel a little...transgressed." And I did. Miami was the kind of place where people talked, and because people were all about themselves, that talk could come back and bite you real fast. Real city of jackals.

"Yeah so...I was on the IHRB Post-College Entry Program and just got confirmed to ship out to Khamrungsa next July." I hazarded another sip of this tea...perhaps the burning sensation heightened the bite of the spices. Physical pain and tribulation usually helped me ignore internal discord, part of my unhealthy exercise compulsion.

"Ah. So a great elephant has stepped in your path." I blinked up at him and saw his lip curl upward in a wry smile.

The two of us shared a low chuckle...I liked the symbolism, Parker won thanks to GOP voters here in sunny Florida. This state was a caricature of itself in so many ways; I grew up in Seattle, a polar opposite of the Sunshine State with its cross-clutching piety mingling with neon-pink debauchery.

"Yep. Don't really see a way around it.” Award for understatement of the century goes to Ascher Razansky. I was fucked, to put it bluntly.

So the fire is real - how the hell isn’t he igniting everything around him?

"It's not great,” I understated my sense of smallness. “I don't know. I think she sees me...I've caught her staring at me a couple of times, but she's always with someone else."

"Hmm. A Triple Alliance of Troubles," he notes, adjusting a pair of brass wire glasses on his bent nose...how did they not melt? "Pursuit by an unknown dread...uncertain future...complex desire."

"Oh my," I quipped. We both shared an understated chuckle at that.

"I got some friends who are like...y'know, they're into urban exploration and ghost wrangling - "

Even if I do see some stuff that scars the backs of my eyes; I’m thankful my friends don’t notice.

"I see...do you feel like you are being stalked when you are…wrangling ghosts with your friends?" Ahh there it is…right, Mr. Shams you think I’m a crazy person. I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.

I’m not crazy.

A smirk crosses his face as he takes his notes - no...just a lick of plasma playing over his facial hair. "Have you ever gotten a glimpse of your pursuer?"

"Sometimes I feel like there's someone right behind me, like they could reach out and poke me between the ribs but when I turn around there's nothing there, just this smell."

"What makes you say that?" I ask diplomatically, reminding myself that, asshole or no, I came into this office willingly and he was doing his job like he saw fit.

Krovil's lower body had been that of a snake, I recalled. Nobody ever commented.

I wonder why he called it a ‘little voyeur’.

"Ascher," his voice yanked me back from my musings. "Do you feel as if you understand your place in this world?"

“No," I admit. "Ever since my program got cut I feel like I don't know what I'm doing with myself, or if this major is even useful...it's not like anyone's putting up anything of use."

"There's always need for civil engineers," he pointed out, but it felt more like a test, like he was prodding me forward to see how I’d respond.

He didn't know how useless I was without this direction in life.

He what? But before I could press him on invading my schedule he bowled over me.

I weathered the animal metaphors with stony quiet, trying my best not to bristle like a hedgehog - dammit, no I was doing it now. "...are you saying - "

"Yes. I am. You are being incredibly weak."

---

Would she even understand me if I talked to her, or was she just another dumb animal?

I knew she wasn’t just some dumb Panhandler who’d ended up at Miami-U…Tessa was the kind of girl who’d end up going places. I didn’t really know much about her, I already felt kind of like…outclassed, like she was a girl far outside my league.

Unman me. What. The. Hell. That word had slid between my ribs like a stiletto, twisting and tearing…brutal. Insulting.

Huh. It looked familiar; vertigo and deja vu danced at the edge of my senses, like they always did when I encountered the Otherworld, or whatever this was.

Why did that color blue hit so hard, like a message?

-click-

The padlock fell away. I should have looked away, but as was so often the case with the Otherworld, it was like an exquisite catastrophe I couldn’t look away from.

The fox looked at me once again, narrowing its eyes and cocking its head. “[Carpe noctum, frater,]” it rumbled at me in a voice as deep as a sousaphone, before it stepped through the dresser doors. They slammed shut, catapulting the azure furniture back into the water.

Huh.

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