mailbird-crack-b5

[quillheel]

♡ // for Yusuke and Akechi~ c;

Send me a ♡ plus a ship and I'll tell you... // always accepting!

WHO ASKED WHO OUT FIRST? ━ Honestly? it depends! Akechi is very much someone to take initiative and roles of leadership in many areas, personal included, but he's also EXTREMELY adverse to Fully allowing himself to break the distance he always puts between himself and others & as a result allow them to Know him beneath the masks he wears and the way he Wishes to be presented and the way he Is in a very genuine, raw sense. he is raw meat when you remove the skin and as much as it's honest, it's also sometimes ugly, sometimes it's volatile. he doesn't want to tie himself to someone who becomes an obligation he must mask himself to rather than an individual he's forged a connection with and can drop that false disposition, even slightly, with. He doesn't expect to be able to fully, and frankly I don't know if that's more Yusuke or Akechi restraining himself, but even slightly is something unparalleled to him. Akechi has more than enough nerve and articulation but it depends on how Yusuke responds for him to use any of it and lower himself from the distance he tries to keep to meet him on truly equal footing.

it'd also take Akechi coming to terms of an admission of his sexuality and therefore offering a direct 'crack' in his facade that, while maybe not major to others as individuals who are meant to be considered his friends ( and most of them probably Also queer, even if canon doesn't Say as much ) and the fact sexualities can change and often do over time, IS major to Akechi who often labels himself ━ knowingly incorrect ━ as straight to appear what is Expected of him in every avenue. 'appealing' isn't the right word, too sickly sweet of a term for this, but it's the closest I can think of when Akechi's domain is dominated by namely older individuals and a social norm based in homophobia where you are simply expected to be straight and if you are not it is expected to be secret, you as a person and you on the screen as two different people who should never clash and hell breaks loose when someone finds something they shouldn't and it does.

even in instances of this world where this Isn't true and Japan is much more accepting or where homophobia is just simply ignored, Akechi will always feel as though he must be either private ( always fun, always coy, always 'can you figure me out?' more than an actual right to his own secrets, always like a game he's playing with the audience that isn't one at all ) or performative, and the concept of directly admitting the contrary to someone, even unspoken, is difficult and daunting for him. Akechi wants to appear the 'nicest' option to those in his field and his fans, but part of this is also the fear of information being used against him. the question is ━ do i trust Yusuke enough to keep my secrets even when i want this? i may love him, but is it worth breaking the act for? breaking character? how much does this person mean to me, and is it enough? love and trust are two separate ideas, levels, 'love' being a foreign concept to him, and he must ask if they are cause enough to risk his person for. if he decides that 'yes, it's enough', then the decision, the asking is a quiet one, but one that cannot be stopped. Akechi has always been a stubborn, dedicated person when he sets his mind to something he so deeply believes as truth. Yusuke, on the other-hand, i think could be much more direct about it! after THREE PARAGRAPHS of me writing about how fucking complicated it'd be for Akechi where a solid 99% of it is ENTIRELY internal and HALF subconscious!!!!! Yusuke feels to me as a very withdrawn quiet character in a way, shy, which would probably make it harder but he feels as though he could ask much faster than Akechi could. Akechi takes months upon months of small moments reaffirming trust and reinstating a belief that Yusuke is worth this trust where he whittles down the distance despite how uncomfortable it makes him, and while I don't know what Yusuke could take, Yusuke always struck me as a honest, if romantic person. he doesn't need less, but I think he might trust Akechi more. the thought more approachable; he does, of course, perhaps have less to lose WHO WENT IN FOR THE FIRST KISS? ━ AKECHI. honestly it's extremely likely and i wouldn't be shocked at all if THIS was how Akechi wound up 'confessing' or 'asking Yusuke out'. Akechi is a very thoughtful, complicated individual but he's also very impulsive at times and while he has SO much strategy in Everything he does, he flips between intense self━restraint and intense, overwhelming, impulsiveness and sometimes, a lot of the time honestly especially where the metaverse is involved ( and Yusuke as a result since! well! he's part of the fucken phantom thieves! ) that side of him wins. in particular, I like to think it happened somewhere secluded at perhaps a holiday party when one of them stepped away, potentially Akechi, and the other found them, or late in the evening after a long night of spending time together; perhaps initially with the entire group before everyone went home and it was left as just the two of them, going home, the subway station almost ghost-like with them as the only people left there at such an hour, and either of how those quiet moments can invoke such a sense of disregard to caution when there is nothing left but conversation and opportunity, waiting to be taken to see what happens. AAAND that's as far as I can go without Tunglr LITERALLY refusing to post the damn thing so WOE google doc in the source it is

[luvsavos]

i deserve financial compensation for the amount of fucking hoops i had to jump through to enable tipping on here

[ckret2]

At some point, the Axolotl must've witnessed the aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre.

As you can see, Bill is very happy and definitely not at all traumatized and doing great and look at all these followers he's found who are definitely alive.

Here, have a fic about the Axolotl, the birth of the Nightmare Realm, and Bill trying so so hard to convince himself that he's the hero.

####

To the mortals he swam past, with their different calendars and their different ways of perceiving time, the great Axolotl's migration through space and between dimensions was an event of great note: his passing marked eclipses, tsunamis, festivals, omens, meteor showers; his migration was studied by astronomers and his position was marked in astrological birth charts.

To the Axolotl, he was on his daily commute home. He could take an interdimensional portal, but swimming was better for the environment and he could use the exercise.

He passed by the same two dimensional wall every day. It was covered with many little worlds, and so many of them populated with little mortals, and he'd never paid any particular attention to the wall—until yesterday. A bold little triangle had shouted at him as he passed. It had been an amusing conversation—first contact was always fun—but he'd been busy and couldn't talk more than a moment, just long enough for the Axolotl to be charmed that a lower-dimensional creature had yelled at him and for the triangle to be shocked that a higher-dimensional creature had answered. The triangle had told him that, to his two-dimensional people, these shadows on the wall, the Axolotl was an eclipse: they marked the time by the shadow he cast on their flat world during his commute.

He hadn't even learned the triangle's real name. The triangle had refused to tell him, instead introducing himself as the "Magister Mentium." Teacher of minds? Maybe it was a job title.

Between the nightmare of a case the Axolotl was currently handling and the fact that he'd had to stay late working, he'd nearly forgotten about yesterday's fascinating little meeting until he was leaving on his nightly commute. He didn't know how long the tiny shapes' life cycles were; he hoped the little triangle was still alive today. If not, maybe he'd left behind descendants.

But when he came up to the wall, it was gone.

The vacuum reeked of burning hydrogen.

The Axolotl stopped, puzzled. The wall wasn't empty, wasn't damaged, wasn't going through heat death—the entire thing was missing. No rubble. Surely it hadn't been demolished for some new construction? It had been in good condition. It was a fairly new plane of reality, likely under fifty billion years old. And it had admittedly been a few eons since the Axolotl had studied dimension use & zoning law, but last he checked it was unlawful to demolish a populated dimension without transplanting the growths first—which took much longer than a day. So what could possibly have done this? And what he saw behind the wall...

Something was very wrong. He started moving again, faster, looking for someone who could tell him what was happening. He kept the ragged rip in reality left by the missing wall in his peripheral vision. Stars and stardust slowly fell in, sucked through the tear. The wall must have come down by accident.

Nobody would have knowingly left behind such a large hole to Dimension Zero.

Assuming he was looking at Dimension Zero; he wasn't sure he was. Beneath all other dimensions was supposed to be a void, an empty in-between space. The zeroth "dimension" was simply reality's center point, the not-dimension between all dimensions; it wasn't a place. But with the two dimensional wall gone, he didn't see reality bending in toward a point like he should. He saw a roiling, nauseating mass of blinding colors, thrashing around each other like a frightened pile of injured worms.

Far in the distance, a full reality away, he saw a faint line of blue light.

It was several minutes before he began to run into other people. He passed a crew of cosmic firefighters and their ships, spread out over a span of space wider than an asteroid belt. The fact that they didn't appear to currently be fighting any fires was more disconcerting than a full blaze would have been. An eerie tension hung thick over the scene like invisible smoke. As the Axolotl swam by a couple of firefighters, he overheard them saying, "... orders of magnitude higher than anything we've been trained to handle. An entire reality catching fire is one thing, but the concept of realitycatching fire...?"

"And the speed it's moving..."

"Excuse me," the Axolotl said, trying to keep the edge of fear out of his voice. (Why was he so afraid? He was barely acquaintances with one resident on the wall.) "Can you tell me what happened to the wall? It was just here yesterday."

Rather than explain, one of them pointed in the direction he'd been going. "Sorry, we don't know any more than you do. Look for the storm. You can't miss it."

The other asked, "Are you one of the guys with the apoc cops?"

His fear leaped higher. The "apoc cops" were members of the Apocalyptic Threat Task Force. "No. Sorry, I have to go." He swam onward toward the blue line of light.

The stench of burning hydrogen grew stronger. He smelled something else acrid underneath.

####

To his slight relief, the "storm" wasn't the disaster that had brought down this wall. Rather, it was a person: a lightly raining storm cloud with a gray rain-soaked fedora perched on top, hovering in space.

It was talking to a hapless-looking furred serpent twice the Axolotl's length with four mismatched limbs: she clutched a can of spray paint in her claws, and was so nervous he could hear the marble in the can rattling. A disembodied sunbeam pierced the eye of the storm cloud to shine in the serpent's face as she spoke, and a tornado swirled beneath its cloud, carrying all its personal effects—including a tumbling badge from the Apocalyptic Threat Task Force, its logo of a mushroom cloud struck out with the "no" symbol still visible through a thin glaze of sleet. A chill ran through the Axolotl at the sight of that badge.

The cloud wasn't the only one with the apoc cops on the scene. There were several other investigators nearby, taking readings where the wall used to be. The Axolotl didn't like just how many were buzzing around. They seemed far too busy for far too empty a space, and they steered far too clear of the thrashing, multicolored miasma covering the emptiness that should contain Dimension Zero.

There were several stars in the area that the investigators had to work around. Between the crowds and the missing wall, it took the Axolotl a moment to realize where they were: this was the spot he'd met the triangle yesterday. He was sure of it. He recognized the star right next to the missing wall, the one the triangle had told him he eclipsed during his commute. He'd passed it millions of times.

Why had the apoc cops set up here?

The star was slowly falling toward the roiling miasma where Dimension Zero should have been. He nudged it back into place as he passed.

As the Axolotl approached the duo, the serpent was saying, "I told you, I don't know how it caught fire! I was just passing by..." The storm cloud's sunbeam dropped from her face to point skeptically at her spray paint. She hid it behind her back and quickly went on, "I was just passing by, minding my own business and not doing anything illegal, and suddenly the whole wall went up in flames!"

The cloud said, "The whole wall? Simultaneously?"

"The whole thing! I mean... it kind of rolled across the dimension, but—it took less than ten seconds to cover everything I saw!"

"Which direction did the fire travel?"

While the serpent tried to remember, the Axolotl swam up to the storm cloud. "Excuse me, the firefighters said you're in charge of the investigation?"

"Currently," the cloud said, in a tone that suggested it very much wished it wasn't. It looked over the Axolotl, then turned back to the serpent—she flinched when its sunbeam hit her face again—and it asked gruffly, "Is this your lawyer?"

The serpent looked hopeful. "Are you my lawyer?"

"No, I'm not," the Axolotl said, perturbed. Potential defendants aside, nobody ever insinuated he was somebody's lawyer and meant it in a nice way—and he was on the receiving end of such accusations more and more often lately. His reputation was beginning to precede him. "We've never met. I'm trying to find out what happened to this wall. I know a—friend in there. You said something about a fire?"

An active ATTF investigation was in no way the Axolotl's business. But people had a tendency to cooperate with professionals, whether or not their profession had anything to do with the situation at hand. The ATTF agent turned to the Axolotl and said, "You had a friend in there. The wall that used to be here, Dimension 2 Delta, has been completely incinerated."

The Axolotl stared at the cloud, trying to process that. But the whole wall had been there yesterday. Billions of galaxies, each with trillions of stars, each capable of supporting trillions of species—never mind lives. "You can't mean completely. Surely there are some survivors?"

"Not a single one," the cloud said. "Not even gods and ghosts made it out."

"How?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," the storm said. "Right now, the only witness we've found was the person who called in the emergency." A branch of lightning pointed toward the serpent. "And she doesn't know a damn thing." The serpent nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

"But that's... How does an entire dimension disappear with only one witness?"

"Very quickly," the storm said. "The apocalypse Origin & Cause investigation can't make heads or tails of the scene—" a gust of wind swept demonstratively toward the other apoc cops taking readings near the missing wall, "but far as we can tell, the damn thing spontaneously combusted—somewhere near here."

The Axolotl stared helplessly between the serpent and the storm. "Dimensions aren't supposed to spontaneously combust," he said, very reasonably and very unnecessarily.

"Tell 2Δ that," the storm said. "Only time a dimension moves that fast is during a Big Bang explosion or a Big Crunch implosion—and 2Δ wasn't undergoing a Big Crunch. No natural one, anyway. In all my eons with ATTF, I've never seen anything like it."

The Axolotl had been around enough eons himself to know that, after a certain point, novelty became very, very scary—because things working like they should shouldn't do anything you'd never seen before. He worriedly searched the roiling chaos exposed by Dimension 2 Delta's collapse for any sign of what had happened.

The chaos simply thrashed. It moved like it was in pain.

"Did that..." the Axolotl gestured vaguely toward the chaotic foam, "have anything to do with the wall's combustion?"

The serpent shrugged. "I didn't see it until after the fire went by."

The storm grunted uncertainly, a low, thunderous grumble. "Heck if we know. It's connected, no doubt about that—but we haven't even figured out what it is yet. All we know is, it shouldn't have been behind the wall."

The Axolotl stared into the roiling colors, looking for anything visible through the thrashing kaleidoscopic colors.  "If you don't know what it is yet—then, how do you know there aren't survivors in there?" The Axolotl couldn't stop seeing that poor, frightened, awed triangle he'd met yesterday. All the people who'd once been in Dimension 2 Delta mattered—of course they did, those billions of trillions of trillions of billions of lives; he wanted any of them to survive—but that triangle was the one he knew, the one he saw in his mind's eye now. The whole dimension was contained inside that triangle. He had to hope. "I'm going to check."

"What—? You're crazy! Don't you know falling into Dimension Zero will destroy you?!"

"I know falling into Dimension Zero destroys you; I don't know what falling into that thing will do." He squared up with the chaos and steeled his nerves. "Besides, I can regenerate. I'm an axolotl."

"But—!"

"Sorry, there isn't time for more questions." He swam into the maelstrom.

####

Dimension Zero was supposed to be a singularity. Like a black hole, but even smaller—a point so dense it broke physics. If you fell in you'd be crushed into that point by the weight of all realities, a point so small it had no volume.

But whatever was behind where the wall had been, it was certainly no point.

As soon as he crossed the threshold, he was barraged with a psychic hurricane. Reality frothed and foamed like a flood spilling from a burst dam. Distant baby stars were born and popped like bubbles, and old stars fell in and were gloriously reignited. His every sense was bombarded with infinite sensations—every color and image in this dimension all at once; every song that had ever been played playing in the same instant and the instant extended indefinitely; strobe lights that were both flashing on and flashing off at the exact same moment. Beneath the music was a constant hiss like the background radiation of reality, the static echo of a universe's birth, but much too loud; he could swear it sounded like gibbering, babbling voices, their desperate messages unintelligible. He smelled every scent, including the lingering smell of burning hydrogen that he'd noticed outside; but above and beyond all that, he smelled the stench of burning life.

He knew now, this was Dimension Zero: it was as if all of spacetime had been crushed into a singularity, but then the singularity was bloated up to the size of an entire universe. Dimension Zero was never supposed to be this bloated.

And the most terrifying part: there were people in this bizarre ruin of a dimension. Millions of them. (Just as horrifying: there were only millions of them.) He was sure he must have been hallucinating—here, dreams and reality swirled around each other like a bottle of water and oil shaken until they were forced to mix—but the longer he looked, the more sure he was that the people were a part of reality. They were, perhaps, the most real thing in the entire dimension.

They were all dancing.

They were all dead.

"Heeey, look who's here!" Suddenly, in front of the Axolotl, there he was—as if he'd always been in front of the Axolotl, as if he were always everywhere at once. The ghost of the little triangle he'd seen yesterday, neon incorporeal. "Happy New Year, everybody!" He laughed. "Get it? That—that's a joke, time doesn't pass in the dream realm, so..." The triangle waved off the Axolotl. "Oh, you wouldn't get it. Screw you. Anyway, introductions! I should do that." 

The triangle was extremely inebriated. He was blinking blearily, floating crookedly, moving in odd uncoordinated jerks, his pupil expanding and contracting with no correlation to the light it was taking in. He seemed to flicker across multiple timelines that had been collapsed into one, like a drunk that couldn't walk a straight line: appearing here then there, then multiple places at once, then everywhere; and then became everywhere, and then collapsed again to a single triangular point. The Axolotl had the worrying impression that the triangle hadn't been sober for a long time.

"So! These are my people!" He gestured with a flourish to the dancing corpse puppets. The strobe lights—which, the Axolotl only now realized, didn't actually have a source, but were rather disembodied rays of light emanating from nothing—turned to highlight them from every angle. It was like a cloud of glitter, all these tiny, flat, jewel-tone flecks, emerald and citrine and ruby and sapphire, triangles and squares and pentagons and hexagons. Each with two spindly arms; some with legs and some without; a single dull eye or a slack mouth; some of them cracked and chipped like broken glass, some of them crushed and melted together into multi-corpsed horrors, some of them fraying and peeling apart around the edges like fabric; so much silvery blood dripping and floating around them. Such beautiful, colorful dancing gore. "All my followers and friends! They love me! They couldn't see you last time you flew by, but thanks to me, they sure can now! Say hellooo!"

It took the Axolotl a moment to realize that the triangle's eye was boring into him and the instruction was for him. "Hello," he said weakly. 

"Very nice." The triangle turned without turning to the millions lost inside Dimension Zero, reality shifting around him to put all of the dimension's prisoners in front of his eye. The Axolotl reeled from existential vertigo. "Now check this out!" The triangle gestured at the Axolotl for his people's benefit. "Behold! Your Magister Mentium presents to you: the eclipse! In the horrifying pink flesh! Quite a sight, huh?"

Many of the dancers turned toward him. Some aimed their dull, dead eyes in his direction. He shivered under their chill stares.

Heedless of the Axolotl's horror, the triangle elbowed him. "I didn't peg you for a party crasher, pinky!" (The triangle's touch was so cold.) "But hey, the more the merrier. Welcome to the dream realm, have a drink!"

A 2D cup manifested in front of the Axolotl that, based on its smooth, featureless yellow surface and its glow, appeared to be made from the triangle's own ghostly flesh. It seemed to be filled with watered-down raw existence. He didn't touch the cup. "What's the dream realm?" He couldn't stop staring at the dancers macabre.

"This is!" The triangle stretched out his arms—and stretched them, and stretched them, seeming to embrace all of reality at once. The Axolotl got the terrifying impression he was within the embrace too. "The realm of dreams! My realm! Paradise of color and light! Realm of spirits and muses!"

"It looks more like a nightmare."

"Do I come to your house and insult your wallpaper? Buzz off."

When the triangle dismissively floated away from him, the Axolotl again got the dizzying sensation that he was the one moving. The truth finally dawned on him:

The triangle, somehow, was literally the center of this universe. Point 0,0,0 on the cartesian plane of reality. Whenever he moved, Dimension Zero moved with him. When he backed away from the Axolotl, Dimension Zero backed with him, rushing past while the Axolotl held still.

And not once during their conversation did any of the millions of dead shapes stop dancing. 

"What are you doing?" the Axolotl asked, voice hushed.

"Partying," the triangle said. "We're having a party."

The Axolotl couldn't tear his eyes from the choreomaniacs' forced revelry. "How long have you been partying?"

"Uhh... pfff... I dunno, hard to keep track. A few months?" The triangle turned toward his tortured people. "Hey! How long have we been partying?"

One of the bodies mixed in amongst the dead, boogying deliriously, faintly cried back, "Time has no meaning and eternity has collapsed into a single unending moment of bliss!" (The Axolotl shuddered at the grotesque ventriloquism act.)

"Oh, yeah, right, forgot I decreed that. Thanks, pal!"

"You're welcome, oh wise and glorious Magister Mentium!"

The triangle turned back to the Axolotl. "An eternity."

The Axolotl tore his horrified eyes away from the dancers. "What about all the others?"

The triangle paused. "I don't know who you're talking about." The background radiation hissed in agitation.

The Axolotl very much suspected he did. "Your other people."

"There aren't any others," the triangle said defensively.

"There were! All of the other shapes around your world! All of the lives on other worlds! Where are all those people?!" He hoped that they might have gotten evacuated to a neighboring wall, or that they'd been concealed somehow, or even that they'd been collapsed together into the shapes he saw before him and could still be separated—

"It's fine," the triangle said stiffly. "Nothing important was lost."

"Nothing important?" the Axolotl repeated, shocked. "This was an entire dimension—!"

"A wall," the triangle said.

"A wall with lives on it—"

"Shadows."

"And do shadows not deserve to live?!"

The triangle flinched at the question as his good cheer crumbled. He didn't answer, but he gave the Axolotl a heavy, hard, emotionless look—a wretched, empty look—and the Axolotl knew he knew they did deserve to live.

"They don't matter," the triangle lied. "Nothing important was lost. Only the true believers and the worthy remain."

"Your dimension had billions of trillions of stars alone. All the people surrounding them—"

"I didn't see any stars!" He said it so vehemently—as though, if he didn't see them, they must not have existed. As though he refused to acknowledge their existence. "I told everyone about the third dimension, I told them we were going, they had their chance to join me!" His voice was shaking. As he spoke he grew larger, until he was as large as the Axolotl—or perhaps the universe had contracted around him. "And if they refused to join the liberation, then they are what we liberated ourselves from!" Distant bolts of lights flashed through Dimension Zero, responding to the triangle's outrage; the nearest stars blazed brighter for him. His dead people screamed in terror. They didn't stop dancing.

"You... tried to leave your dimension before the fire reached them?" Had he tried too late?

The triangle flinched again; his appearance flickered, like a TV that for a moment had picked up a pirate station broadcasting on the same frequency. The whispers hissing beneath the music grew more excited again, but the Axolotl still couldn't make out what they said beneath the party music.

The triangle said, "The... the fire came second."

"What came first?"

But he didn't answer. "Yeah, I brought them here." He spread his arms again, gesturing at the other shapes. "They followed me, and I freed them from our flat, restrictive dimension. They're all fine. And they all love me for saving them."

"Saving them?" he echoed. He wanted to laugh in disbelief, but it felt too much like laughing at a stranger's funeral. Laughing at an open mass grave. "But—everyone here is already dead. Even you." The triangle should be in an afterlife. Whatever afterlives his dimension once had, they were gone now. The Axolotl would have to help the triangle find one in another dimension—the paperwork alone would take time he didn't have to spare; he'd probably have to split off a timeline or two to squeeze it in...

The triangle snapped, "Whoa, hey, hey! Watch who you call dead, buddy! Look at me!" He stretched out his limbs, glowing dazzlingly bright. Brighter than a star. Even the Axolotl had to turn away from the blinding light. "I transcended my body! I'm made of pure energy! This is the most alive I've ever been!" A being of pure energy that had lost its physical form was the very definition of a ghost; but the Axolotl didn't have a chance to argue before the triangle went on, "And does anyone here look dead? Everyone's dancing! We're all having a great time, aren't we?" A few corpses groaned and gurgled in response.

If the triangle wanted to be a wandering ghost, fine. That was his prerogative. But he had no right to force the remains of his followers to deny their death with him. "Look—look at your people," the Axolotl commanded. "You're making them dance! You must know what state they're in!"

Without actually moving, the triangle had somehow become the space in between the Axolotl and his choreomaniacs, forming a sharp shield in between them. "You don't know what you're talking about. They're fine. They're immortal!"

The Axolotl gestured furiously past the triangle. "LOOK AT THEM!"

The triangle's gaze flickered toward them for a split second. The Axolotl saw guilt flashing in his eye; but then he squeezed his eye shut. "No, you look at them. Maybe it took me a little bit to get it right, but they're all great now."

To get it right? The Axolotl peered around the triangle at the shapes again, and only now saw that he was right.

Not all of them were dead.

Some were trapped in ecstatic trances; some were numb with terror; some were already long dead, and yet the corpses weren't being puppeted like he'd assumed—they danced under their own power. There were amalgams of a dozen, a hundred bodies fused together into shambling, gyrating horrors—but there was still life in their horrified eyes and their limbs twitched independently. The ones that were bleeding just kept bleeding and bleeding and bleeding, unending, blood never clotting nor running dry. The corpses and the comatose and the ailing and the bleeding dancing with the living that craved death.

The triangle was responsible for their condition?

He glided between the corpses, sliding his arms around a few of them. They kept dancing.  "I didn't quite get to a few of them in time, so I took the empty space where their souls used to be and filled them with an insatiable hunger to party," he said. "And look, they're good as new! Probably better than they were before, even!"

"These bodies should be laid to rest," the Axolotl said heatedly, "and the rest of you should be dead."

The triangle went still.

The Axolotl remembered, a second too late, that that was a perfectly normal thing to say to deceased clients and other gods in his line of work, but the kind of thing that scared the living daylights out of mortals.

"So that's a threat." His arms slid off the shapes; his fingers were stained with silvery blood that shimmered like static noise.

"No! No. But the condition that you're all in..."

"You'd better check yourself, frills," the triangle snapped. "You crash our party, in our eternal paradise, and start threatening us! Who the hell do you think you are, telling us we should be dead?!"

The Axolotl paused uneasily. "A fully licensed psychopomp...?"

"Well you'd better keep your psycho, pompous paws off my people!" The triangle blazed bright red, literally incandescent with rage. Some of his "people" slowly stopped dancing and turned their hollow eyes toward the Axolotl.

And the Axolotl couldn't say why, but he was suddenly sure he was in very grave danger.

He backed up from the triangle, moving in the direction that the edge of Dimension Zero should have been, although he was no longer sure whether it was still behind him. "I... think I should leave."

"I think you'd better."

He turned and fled. He couldn't explain his panic, but he felt in his bones like something was chasing him. He had to spend longer than he wanted searching for the edge of this bizarre reality—the triangle had turned and twisted and moved the borders so many times that he'd completely lost his bearings—spied the nearest exit, and darted for it between two unfinished planes of reality.

He thought he felt flames at his back.

The triangle's voice followed him out: "Next time, poop on somebody else's party!"

He tumbled through the membrane between the overbloated Dimension Zero and the higher dimensions with the relief of a suffocating fish escaping its net to plummet back into the water. He had to take a moment to reorient himself to his surroundings—time passing so that each moment took its turn and ended when it was over, space that felt like space rather than all distances collapsed in on themselves—and looked back at Dimension Zero.

The longer he stared into the kaleidoscopic miasma, the more sure he was that, no matter where he looked, right at the center of his field of view, he could always see a shining yellow fleck of triangular glitter.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I spoke out of emotion. I am glad that you—" well, "survived" wasn't the right word, "—still exist. And it was heroic of you to save as many people as you did. I shouldn't have said they shouldn't be alive; just..."

He felt like he could still see the shapes dancing in the corners of his eyes.

"... Just not alive like that."

####

Who was the triangle?

At their first meeting yesterday, it had been clear to the Axolotl that the triangle could see and perceive things off his wall while the rest of his people could not; he'd identified himself as "Magister Mentium" rather than by name; and he'd been surrounded by shapes, all turned toward him, listening: so perhaps he was a leader of some kind? He must have seen whatever destroyed their dimension coming and been able to use his position to evacuate a few people. The true believers and the worthy, he'd said—maybe his... congregation? Maybe he was a religious leader? At any rate, it was a miracle he'd saved as many people as he had with what must have been very short notice.

But... their forced dance... the bodies fused together... the living-who-should-be-dead bleeding and bleeding and bleeding without end...

The Axolotl didn't want to believe the triangle had any ill will. He reminded himself that he didn't know anything about his people or their culture. These shapes had been through something unimaginably traumatic. They'd watched an entire reality die; many of them were stuck in the process of dying in a place where they couldn't complete it. Any mortal would be insane with grief. Perhaps their magister was just leading them in some sort of cathartic dancing mania; perhaps this was how the shapes processed their grief. He hoped that was what it was. He hadn't gotten a chance to speak to the others—he didn't know how many could speak—but he had seen, for just a moment, how survivor's guilt ate at the triangle.

The storm cloud with the Apocalyptic Threat Task Force had said that every single living being from Dimension 2 Delta had been killed. Even the gods and the ghosts. So how had the triangle and his people survived?

And what were they doing here, in the singular heart of all reality?

And what had happened to their world?

####

(Hello, thanks for reading!! If you were lured in by the colorful art I laid out as bait and this is your first time here, welcome!! This is part 1 of a 5-or-6 part fic about the Axolotl in the immediate aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre. I'll be posting one chapter a week, Fridays 5pm CST, so stick around if you wanna read more and learn the exciting answers to exciting questions like "Bill where in the good goddamn did you find a bunch of half-dead shapes??"

It's ALSO chapter 61 of an ongoing post-canon post-TBOB very-reluctantly-human Bill fic. So if you wanna read more of me writing Bill, check it out here. If you're not sold on the idea of a human Bill fic, I've also got a one-shot about normal triangle Bill escaping the Theraprism if you wanna read that.

If this is NOT your first time here and you already knew all of the above: hey y'all remember when we had to skip over chapter 61 because it would've been posted like four days after TBOB came out and it needed MAJOR revisions? Well, here it is!! And also it's currently like six times longer than it was originally. We're gonna be hanging out with the Ax for like a month and a half, buckle up. 

Let me know what y'all think so far!!)

[radiance1]

If you asked Danny how he found himself in this situation, he wouldn't be able to give you a short answer. For you see, Danny was a Prince, heir to the throne that will never be his (and thank the Ancients for that) and an ageless being who will stay around for eons to come.

He out-lived his family, friends, entire town. Except for Vlad, that man wouldn't die so easily to something like old age, much less when his empire still stands.

Regardless.

Danny has been summoned only a handful of times, all of which were either mistakes or some mortals who wanted to summon something for shits and giggles.

He liked the last ones, they usually have pretty good food.

However, the last summon he's answered, a mistake, was done by a handful of wizards who weren't exactly happy with the results they got, so he made fun of them severely for their mistake and then their master- who was apparently watching in case things went wrong- turned him into a cat after he could a bit too... excited.

So, how did it escalate from there?

It was a simple thing, really, he encountered a few injured cats, and then nursed them back to health. Then those cats kept coming back to him, again, and again, and again, the first few times with injuries, but later they came just to be around him and chat sometime.

Then they started bringing other cats around him, skittish ones they were, not exactly keen on letting him take care of him the first few times, but just like the ones before, they soon came around to consider him as a friend of sorts.

Then that repeated, and repeated, and repeated.

Then suddenly, he found that he had acquired a family of sorts, one made of feral cats that were as chaotic as his own, previous, family was and more. It was... nice, when he realized that, that he had a place, a foothold, in the mortal world and not just as Prince of the Infinite Realms.

Although, the amount of grandpa jokes when he revealed his age- 150 is still young, he'll have you know- was something that took getting used to. But it was nice to know they were comfortable enough to call him that.

There were some special cases among his little Familia. A few of them had what this world called meta-abilities, ranging from such like superstrength, enhanced durability, super speed to things like telekinesis, teleportation, flight, etc, etc.

One of them even had the ability to separate their body parts.

He kept an eye on those that had these abilities, no doubt that multiple people would try and kidnap them for nefarious purposes. Though they were incredibly small in number, caution is best to be kept, especially in a city as dangerous as that of Gotham.

He's never really made himself known to anyone other than his little Familia and a certain cat-themed criminal. He preferred to stay in his little warehouse, watching the days pass while taking care of a few kittens here and there, sleeping, eating, managing to use that Tv and computer he stole that one time to watch whatever thing is one.

It was a very calm life, all things considered.

Of course, then came a disturbance in said life, when the apparent rival Familia's wanted to meet him for one reason or another. Helpfully supplied by the first to have join his Familia, a cat with an immortality ability that he named Kevin.

Of course, he never knew Kevin had was immortal, but seeing him die one too many times and watching him get back up was prime evidence that he had one.

Apparently, his Familia was regarded as a relatively new one in the city of crime, and the other cats that were considered 'Heads' wanted to meet him for quite some time, especially when is got as big as it did and Kevin, glorious, glorious Kevin, has been going in his place to said meetings, and this district of Gotham they occupied was considered their territory.

Danny was blissfully unaware of this until today. But he decided that Kevin, sweet, hardworking, death-defying young Kevin, can continue engaging in cat politics, he wants no part in such things and Kevin has proven himself capable of handling it!

As much as he didn't want a part in this, he was persuaded to go at least once and can then leave everything up to Kevin. So he goes there, does things, talk to other 'Heads', being very vocal in his body language about how he couldn't really care less about being there.

Of course, he had to care when he sees Batman being thrown through a nearby wall and seeing as how he's heard about him from a friend (Catwoman has made it very clear how she felt about him on numerous occasions whenever they met.), he wasn't exactly keen on seeing him being smushed into a paste, so he went ghost, pure black fur being replaced by glowing white.

And then slammed right into a battle with Bane.

Kevin he swears to the Ancients if you for some reason try to get into this fight and die again, he will treat you like a kitten for the next three weeks.

[love-that-we-were-in]

Let All Your Damage Damage Me

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader Summary: There's something to be said for patching up Camp Half-Blood, especially when you end up seeing more of Luke Castellan than you thought you ever would. Or 3 times Luke starts a fight and 1 time he doesn't. Word Count: 4.6k Warnings: smoking, mentions of low-grade drugs and underage drinking, implied sexual content and more teenage dirtbag luke because @initialchains was kind enough to let me steal him for evil!

a/n: this is the most brainrot i've ever brainrotted and again, all credit for this version of luke to noli. enjoy!!!

There’s this weight that carries the name Luke Castellan across Camp Half-Blood. Once, it was a new camper - years on the run with a young daughter of Athena and a fatality at the borders that drew interest. In the time since, it’s become something different, reshaped and frayed. A promising young demigod lingering on the outskirts where possible, creating his own tethers to the mortal world like it’ll detach itself from him if he doesn’t. 

It confuses new campers at first, the dichotomy between how Luke is spoken of and who he is. The best swordsman in almost three centuries, a once favorite son of Hermes. To look at him then, take in his scuffed shoes and the cigarette tucked behind his ear - it makes them wonder what it took for him to fall so far out of alignment. 

No one ever asks. 

1.

The conch sounds from your left and the rest of your campmates spread out across the land with a battle cry. You know how this evening goes, too many of them spent alone in the quiet of the med-bay. There’s three of you as it stands, all waiting for someone to show up with a cut to tend to as the game gets underway. Will stands outside, eyes wandering over the edges of the forest as if he can see through the trees to what’s happening within them. It’s his first summer, the thrill of camp yet to be lost on him, and you’re glad he can find excitement in being on the sidelines. Lee has already tucked himself into a corner, technically a part of the medical team but mostly waiting to tag into the game. A back-up player. 

You know that within the hour, you’ll likely lose both of them to the game. It’s not something you mind, dealing with the minor injuries alone. There’s an element of peace to it, tending to everyone else’s wounds and sending them on their way. It’s what you’re best at, a healed knife wound last year the reason you were claimed. Still, it makes capture the flag last for eons - every hint of action happening further than you can see, often too far away for you to even register until someone pushes their way through your door in need of help.

So you settle in, let the peace of the evening wash over you. When one of the younger Demeter kids rushes into the room, you observe Will treating the deep cut on her arm. Disinfectant, gauze, a small bandage. When he’s done, he looks at you and you’re all too familiar with it. The longing to be part of the action. At your nod, he takes off, hot on the heels of the young girl and into the thick of battle. 

Eventually one of Clarisse’s siblings bursts into the room, fire in his eyes and you can hardly blink before Lee is standing to attention. It’s the way of the game and you wave him off lightly, lowering yourself back into a chair and letting your head fall against the cool surface of the wall. 

Another hour. 

If you had to guess, you would say there’s less violence on the field today. It’s Annabeth’s first time leading a team, you know that, and you’re aware of the way her mind works - lower injuries, higher soldiers. There’s little doubt that she’s ran the numbers, with backup plans for her backup plans to find and steal the flag. You know you should be rooting against her, Apollo partnered with Ares this time around, but you want this victory for her. 

There’s a flurry of movement from outside moments later, a groan followed by a muttered “I’m fine, Annabeth” before the girl is in front of you, frown pulling across her features. 

Beside her, or rather resting his weight on her, is Luke Castellan, eyebrows scrunched together and arms covered in thin cuts. 

You don’t really have much of an opinion on Luke if you’re being honest. You know the basics - a crash course given to you by Silena when you arrived at camp, actual information littered between rumors. Son of Hermes, incredible swordsman. Snuck out of camp two years ago to get a tattoo because he was drunk. Bribed Katie to start growing weed in one of the rarely used greenhouses.

Now, faced with him in a bloodied camp t-shirt and lacking his usual cigarette, you sort of want to know what’s true. 

“What happened to him?” There should be more urgency to your actions, you know, but you help Annabeth guide him into one of the beds at the side of the room slowly. 

“He decided to pick a fight with a bunch of kids near the lake,” Annabeth says, rolling her eyes. Even as she does, there’s this adoration that seeps out of her, the same one you’ve always known her to carry where Luke is concerned. “Three on one.”

Luke groans as you shift his position, glaring at the girl in front of him. “They deserved it. The shit they were saying.” 

Part of you wants to ask, desperately. Annabeth chuckles, nudging his shoulder and says, “Yeah, I know. I already thanked you so stop fishing for compliments.” 

He laughs lowly and you almost forget that there’s a real reason Annabeth would’ve brought him here. You’ve only seen Luke in this room once, late last winter, so it’s odd that he’d be here now. He tilts his chin at her, and then at the door. “Go win that flag.”

She starts to protest, talking about having faith in her team and how making sure he’s safe is more important. Still, she glances towards the door. 

“He’s in good hands with me, Annabeth,” You say when she stops to breathe for a moment. She bites her lip. “I promise.”

“She promises,” Luke repeats from behind you and apparently, that’s all Annabeth needed. With a final glance between you, she retreats, working her way back into the game. “Just me and you now, Angel.” 

There’s some sort of shift with Annabeth’s absence, thicker in the air and not completely unwelcome. Maybe it’s the nickname, too familiar for people having their second conversation, but there’s this way Luke says it, no intention twisting around the letters but settling warmly into your system anyway. You ignore it. “Where are you hurt, Castellan?” 

He grimaces and it’s the first time you notice his hand clasped at his side. It drops and you take in the darker color of his camp t-shirt there, the way it sticks to the area damp with blood and probably a lot of sweat. 

“Holy shit.” 

“It’s not that bad,” he jokes and you raise an eyebrow at him. He shrugs. “I’ve had worse.”

You shake your head. “Come on then, let’s see it.” 

It’s something you don’t do often, this informality with a patient. Bedside manner means something in healing but right now, you can’t think of the right way to channel it. To be gentle with Luke would feel awkward, restrictive almost, and to be too formal would just be rude at this point. What you’re doing now seems to work, if the way he grins is any indication, and you excuse yourself to the supply cabinet as he does as requested.

When you turn back around, Luke has his shirt off, legs still hanging off the side of the bed. You almost want to tell him to lay down, for your own peace of mind. Make it so you can simply treat the wound without having to look at him properly. Because Luke is…

Luke is really fucking pretty. 

You’ve known he was attractive - everyone knew that. It wasn’t something openly spoken about, not with how he exists on the outskirts of camp most of the time, but it was mutually understood. For all his faults, Luke was incredibly attractive. 

Now, though, even with blood covering half of his torso, he’s really fucking pretty. 

“I’m just going to clean it first,” you say when you reach him and it comes out quieter than you intended. You stand in front of him and his head tilts back slightly to look at your face properly. “Do you mind if you just- I need to get a little closer to look at it.”

You expect him to turn to the side, let the wound face you a bit better. Instead, the space between Luke’s legs widens enough for you to take a step closer, almost like a challenge, and you take it anyway. 

You work on instinct, wiping the blood away, pressing gentle fingertips into the skin. Habits formed over months, usually steady hands shaking just slightly as you wipe the cloth against Luke’s torso, his even breaths hitting the side of your neck at this angle. 

It’s not as deep as you expected, the skin still open, completely raw but not as ugly as it could be. As what you expected it to be. Gently, you press the gauze to it, lifting your head to be met with Luke’s eyes. They’re brown. They’re brown and completely relaxed and you kind of really want to find out how wide they could get in the right situation. 

“I told you it wasn’t that bad,” Luke says and you feel it more than you hear it. It shoots through your veins and you distantly remember Silena telling you that she once caught him with a line of coke. They rattle together before falling silent and you can hear your own breathing again. Luke’s too, slower than yours but close enough that you can count the length of each one. 

“You still should’ve come to me when you got injured.” 

“I’ll remember that next time.” It drifts across your cheeks, warming the skin there and you look back down at your hand pressed against Luke’s side. Pulling the gauze away, you quickly replace it with a clean square, sticking it in place carefully.

You run a finger across the edges before muttering, “All done.” 

There’s a right thing to do. Take a step back, give Luke the privacy to redress and send him on his way with instructions for looking after the dressing. That’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s what your brain is screaming at you to do, actually, but Luke’s skin is still so warm under your palm and each breath makes you more aware of the dip in his collarbones and you can’t think of a single good reason to move away.

When his lips part, you think he’s going to give you one. Instead, he whispers, “Tell me no,” and it just makes more sense to meet him halfway than say yes. 

Turns out, Luke Castellan is a really good kisser. It matches him, the blase way he leans into the action, tilts his head and adjusts the pressure to match whatever you do. Distantly, you remember to move your hand, dropping it from the gauze and resting it on his thigh instead and there’s this noise Luke makes in the back of his throat as you do so that makes you want to do it again.

He breaks off in the end, drawing in deep breaths. To see him disheveled isn’t entirely new, not with the lack of care he puts into maintaining his camp uniform, but to see him like this - dark curls run through, cheeks flushed red and lips swollen - is something else entirely. Without thinking too hard, you dip your head and place a kiss to the skin where his neck meets his shoulder. He shivers and you take it as an invitation, pressing another to his shoulder and then one to his right collarbone. 

His loose grip on your hip tightens and you wonder how far you could take this before you would have to stop. Based on the low curse Luke lets out when you repeat the motions on the other side of his neck, it’ll probably take until another camper comes to find you. 

Dragging your gaze down Luke’s frame, you come to the reasonable conclusion that it’s a risk you’re just going to have to take. 

2.

You expect it to happen sooner, staring at the door each evening willing it to open. A week of counting the hours, locking the med bay every night and still no sign of Luke. He’s back from his quest - Will had rushed in with the news when he’d crossed the border back into camp - but you’re yet to see him at all. Silena tried to tell you about his quest, about his failure really, and you’d shut her down before she could give you anything more than that he’d been badly injured. 

Lee had been on duty the day he’d returned. Written the notes and left them filed away. 

Deep scarring on the face. Nectar and ambrosia required on arrival. Patient refused monitoring. 

He doesn’t offer any further insight when he catches you reading over them the next morning, just shrugs like he expected Luke to refuse his help. Like he’s surprised the other boy even showed up for treatment at all. It’s moments like that, where there’s this judgement surrounding Luke’s mere existence, that remind you of the weeks before his quest. The five hectic weeks of bruised knuckles and how soft they could be against your skin. Of how nice cigarette smoke could be coming from Luke’s lips instead of just lingering in the air. 

So it catches you off guard when the knock sounds on your door, the same familiar quick raps of knuckles on the wood that you grew accustomed to hearing late into the night. He’s there, when you pry the door open, and he’s nothing like you expected. 

He’s still Luke, from the ragged tee to staggered breathing, but there’s blood covering half of his face, dripping from the stretch of open skin running down his left cheek and a dip in his spine he never had before. 

“Do you want to berate me first or can I just come in?” 

Stepping out of the way, you gesture into the empty room. There’s a familiar routine to this now, despite the week without it, and Luke takes his usual path to the bed near the cabinets. It’s wrong, the way you attach yourself to the casualness of it, to the comfort of having him back in this space with you, instead of rushing to do your job. 

But it’s Luke, a little broken maybe, but still Luke. 

“Who’d you fight this time?” You ask as you dig through drawers for everything you might need. You tell yourself it’s to be prepared - you both know what it really is. “Don’t tell me the foxes are back.”

“If you think this is bad, you should see the other guy.” 

It’s a running joke, borne of concern the first time Luke showed up here after curfew with a cut on jaw and nose a little more crooked than before. Something to reassure you, to stop you shifting yourself into professional mode. A way of assuring you that there was no rush. 

“You didn’t have a healing scar before,” you mutter regardless, slotting yourself into the space between his legs like normal. There’s an overhead light and, from directly in front of him, you can make out the length of it, the shape of the raised skin. It’s still raw, a little puffy, but on the right track. “Or did you forget?” 

“It’s not exactly easy to ignore, is it?” He shrugs, sitting straighter. “Besides, Ares kids are never all that.”

Finally, you think, lifting your hand to touch the taut skin there, there’s the bitterness you’ve heard in his voice so many times before. It’s one of those things you’ve come to recognise in Luke’s tone, the cadence of it when he actually cares, pitching lower than usual, burying itself under nonchalance. 

He watches as your thumb swipes across his cheek, pulling back to observe the way it stains red. You’re used to seeing him a little damaged, easily put back together by your hand. This is something else, a reflection of how everyone else sees him - bloodied and broken and damn near unapproachable for fear of spilled blood - and you want to capture it in your brain for the future, maybe forever. 

“I’m starting to think you might like me,” Luke says, hands moving from where they sit on the bed to rest on your waist. Your eyes stay locked on the pad of your thumb, watching the blood begin to seep into your skin. A beat, the brush of his warm thumb against the skin on your waist, and then, “It doesn’t hurt that much.” 

It goes against so much of who you’ve always sworn to be, finding him so pretty in this moment. Taking in the red of his cheek, the way it stretches down his neck and drips onto his t-shirt. Short of taking a medical oath, you’ve promised yourself to heal. To mend. To treating the injured, regardless of your own feelings on the matter.

Of course it would only take Luke Castellan, dark eyes and tender hands, to challenge that. 

“Tell me if it does,” You whisper and he licks his lower lip as he nods, wiping away some of the blood staining it as he does. The end of his quiet “promise” catches itself between your lips, mingling with the metal on your tongue and making it sweeter than you could’ve ever anticipated. 

This part of Luke is all too familiar, the taste of him to the comfortable weight of yourself on him. You’d learnt on that first night what made him tick, what made its way through him and he would return to you tenfold. In the weeks since, you’ve studied them, picking them apart until there’s been nothing to do but follow them into freefall. 

Now, you use them to guide you. Those small hitches in his breathing, the clearing of his throat, the slip of his palm when you press your lips to the skin above his pulse on the left and let them stain the right to match. It’ll all fade when you come back to yourself, cleaning the wound and stitching him back up, but it’s there when you lean back to look at him again, the undeniable mark of you on Luke Castellan’s skin. 

“You’re really fucking pretty, you know that.”

Luke tilts his head, squinting a little to focus his gaze. It’s this thing he does whenever you get like this, observant and a tad shy, waiting for the ball to drop. You keep silent, arms still wrapped around his shoulders and knees digging into the mattress either side of his hips. It’ll pass, always. 

When it does, the air changes. Not quite the same heated urgency as before, less hazy and with Luke realising the inch he’s been given, taking the mile you’ve offered in the inbetween. He’s still broken, still stained despite your best efforts to remove it, and he settles a hand in the hair at the nape of your neck as you push closer to him. 

3.

Silena told you once that it only takes twenty-one days to form a habit. She was talking about finding cigarette ends scattered around the training centre, a sure sign of Luke’s presence there each day, and how his habits had become too ingrained in him after years for them to be broken. It wasn’t true, you’d known that much, but it stayed in the back of your mind with every new one you attempted to build - daily runs, the correct amount of sleep, offering help to someone you didn’t know too well at camp. None of them ever stuck, lasting a few days at most, but it strikes you again now, Luke pushing his way through your door.

Eight weeks. More than enough time to form an alleged habit. You think, observing the flex of his arm, the thin section of ink peeking out from under his camp tee when he does, that you’ve fallen into a habit with Luke Castellan. Possibly even the habit of Luke Castellan. 

It’s different this time, however. The lack of visible bruising on his own skin, for one. There’s hints of it, smatterings of black and purple stretching across his knuckles, the skin peeling slightly, but his face is unmarred save for his usual scar. You don’t often see Luke mean. Based on the clench of his fists, so tight you’re sure it must hurt, you’re not entirely sure you want to.

“Did you know that he was summoned?” He says through gritted teeth. Sometimes, you wonder if Luke knows how to start a conversation properly. It’s not something you’ve known him to do, never a hello or goodbye, just a topic spoken into the space around you both. Neverending. “Claimed while I was away getting my ass handed to me by a dragon and then summoned for a discussion with Hermes.” 

You understand, then, why his entire body is tense. A carefully curated reputation tumbling down around him after years. The fallen son of Hermes finally getting some comeuppance for his impudence. Being replaced, in spite of dedication given to people who couldn’t stand to be around him. It’s not the first time you’ve been upset for him, but it is the first time it’s made you ache for justice. 

“I heard he got back this morning.” 

Luke hums and you watch as his cheek hollows, knowing how his teeth are indenting on the skin inside. “Came to find me first thing. To tell me all about it.”

“He came to rub it in.”

“Good girl,” he smiles, the first since walking in, and the combination burns low in your gut. A habit takes twenty-one days to form and it took Luke seventeen to understand the effect those words had on you. “I swung for him before I even realised I was doing it.” 

You perch yourself on the edge of one of the beds, keeping careful track of his movements across the room. “This might be the first time you’ve come here and the other guy is actually going to look worse.” 

It does what you wanted it to, drags a chuckle out of him and releases the tension from his shoulders. “I bumped into Will on my way here. Sent him to patch him up and keep him far away from me.��� 

“Are you telling me you planned to get me alone in the med bay, Castellan?”

His nose scrunches, stealing the last of his rage from the air and twisting it into something different. “You were already alone in the med bay. I just planned to take advantage of it.”

The change in dynamic isn’t lost on you, so unused to starting in these positions, but you let it linger for a moment anyway. Ground yourself in the knowledge that Luke knows you, knows your breathing and your movements and your heartbeat. It doesn’t take twenty-one days to build a habit, and you’re far from breaking this one.

“Tell me no,” Luke says and it echoes in a way it hasn’t before. Joins the dust in the air and settles in the sunlight from the high windows. You take a breath. He releases one. “Tell me yes.” 

It’s something you should think about more, letting him ingrain himself in your space the way you have been. Patching him up is one thing, borne from consideration and oath and demanded by a higher power than yourself. In the dark nights of camp, you can pretend the time you spend with him doesn’t count for much - that it barely exists if you want to. That’s how you’ve navigated it so far, pretending not to know the calluses on his hands during demonstrations, brushing it off when Silena points out how he’s been getting into more fights these past few months. 

You should leave Luke Castellan in the shadows, a boy mended in dim lighting and known through hushed conversations. 

But you know the taste of smoke from his lungs, the press of his lips on your skin. You know his blood and his sweat and his mumbled curses. You know more about him than anyone in this camp, maybe in this world, and you’re the only one who cares to trace it over again and again until you can recite him line by line. 

“Yes, Luke,” It comes out louder than intended, completely defined. “Please.” 

Whatever it is about it, the assuredness or the plea, it’s what he needs, crashing into you like it’s all he’s ever wanted to do. There’s an easy confidence to the way he touches you now, swallows the sounds you make to keep them for himself, keeps you half-hidden from the daylight peering in like it’ll protect you both. You bury yourself under his skin, nails and teeth and take parts of him with you when you let go. 

It’s risky, slightly too hurried for how important it feels, but it makes sense with each breath you share. Fits itself to the bitterness that frays your edges, hems them into something more palatable. Luke’s mumbles are half-formed against your skin and yours are incomplete in air and they stick together as something no one else could translate. 

You can’t define this, not with a theory or a diagnosis, but you think it could fall neatly into your notes as a categorised addiction. 

With Luke’s soft curls between your fingers, you kind of forget how to care.

+1

“You know, I could probably beat you in a fight.” 

Luke chuckles, flicking the ash from his cigarette to the ground behind your cabin. It’s a new thing, hiding yourselves away in new locations, and you’re sort of fascinated with the way he chooses where to go. No rhyme or reason. “You think?”

“I would bet so much money on it if we actually got paid here,” You nod, rocking back on your heels. He’s nicer like this, bathed in moonlight and at peace with his surroundings. It’s something you’ve become accustomed to, the casual dichotomy of Luke at night, unburdened by rumours. “I would bet your chain on it.” 

You’re not serious, he knows that - the silver necklace is one of the few things he actually treasures - but it’s funny to see his face lift in disbelief as you say it. He presses the end of his cigarette out under his shoe and you bite the inside of your cheek to stop the smile threatening to come out. 

“You really think you could beat me in a fight?” 

You take a step back with each one he takes forward, only to find yourself pressed against your cabin seconds later. Luke’s smile changes, twists a little more into a smirk, and you let yourself relax into it. Instead of an answer, you hum lightly. His hands land either side of your head and you feel yourself smile before you remember to stop it. 

“Take it back,” he whispers and it drifts across your cheekbones. You drop your gaze to the peek of silver above his camp shirt, curling a finger underneath the metal so the charm dangling from it drops into full view. You glance back at him, his gaze dropping from your face to hand on his chest. “Please.” 

Wrapping your hand around the cool metal, you tug him the short distance between you and it feels like the better response when Luke smiles against your lips.

[luimagines]

Not sure if this has been asked already but scenario with the chain where reader is asleep but randomly calls out Link/one of the boy’s name. Would the guys think it’s cute or be embarrassed wondering what reader is dreaming about?

Oh this one is good!!! XD Let's see what I come up with.

Masterlist

Part one will include Warrior, Sky and Wind.

Content under the cut!

Warrior

Warrior had taken the fourth shift of the night. It was early. By the time his shift would be over the sun would be coming up. He hopes that he'll fall asleep fast enough to catch the last two hours of the night before they set up to leave the for the day.

He yawns and shakes himself awake. He's so tired. But a job has to be done.

You turn over in your sleep. The movement catches his eye and he smiles subconsciously. You're adorable. Your hair is messy from your sleep and your hands are curled by your face. You looks peaceful.

Warrior sighs and runs his hands through his hair. He's being creepy, watching you while you sleep. He needs to get a grip and look elsewhere. His only consolation is that you're asleep and so is everyone else. So no one can call him out on this.

"Mmm..." You grunt and hide your face with your arm. "...Link..."

Warrior sits up straighter in an instant. Well, nevermind. All forethought is thrown out the window. He's no longer going to hide that he's watching you.

He tilts his head and leans close to you. Who are you thinking of? It can be any number of them. It tells him so much and yet so little.

No, no, no, no- He's looking away. He's ignoring it. He's not going to get his hopes up. What hopes? That you're dreaming about him? Weird. Besides- no one said it was a good thing. He's not going to pay attention, he swears it.

"...Captain..."

Warrior curses in his head and winces. He's afraid to even breathe. If he so much as makes any noise it might wake you up.

He starts frantically bouncing his knee, looking the other way with his fist in his cheek. He has so many questions. He wants to be nosey and ask and wake you but that would be literally the worst thing he could do in this moment.

His mind starts to run with the idea of what you could be dreaming of. Is a good dream? He hopes it's a good dream. He would feel horrible if you were thinking of him in a negative light. (A small voice tells him, that logically, it could be a dream with him in it. It doesn't have to be about him. He ignores it.)

You makes another small grunt and turn around again, pulling the blankets over your head.

Warrior curses under his breath, feeling his blood rush through his body. He needs to get his mind and body under control. It wouldn't do anyone any good for him to be out of his mind throughout the next day.

He can kiss goodbye the thought of sleeping again after this. Warrior whines in the back of his throat, wondering how on earth something so innocent so go far into the gutter so quickly.

It's not fair! How on earth is he going to look you in the eye tomorrow? It's not like you're aware of this!

Warrior takes in a shaky breath and picks up his sword. He can do one last perimeter check before he has to wake up Wild for the last shift. That should help, right?

It doesn't.

Sky

He was so tired.

You both had been traveling in this dungeon for what felt like eons. With little progress to show for it, Sky called it about time that you both took a break.

He thought he was going to fall asleep any second, but it seems like you beat him to the punch.

Sky watched over you, keeping his sword out just in case any monster decided to break their walk pattern and walk in on the two of you. His head is lulling to the side with the need to keep watch over you, he finds himself unable to sleep.

You roll over and sigh. Sky sighs with you, letting a small smile grace his face. He understands. Even in your sleep, you're still frustrated with this situation.

"....Link..."

He sits up straighter.

"Yes?" Sky tilts his head and waits for you to respond. Were you awake already? Did you need something?

You don't reply.

You were talking in your sleep, he realizes. Which should have been a more comforting thought- had you not said his name. But that begs the questions, doesn't it? Are you talking to him? Or one of the others?

Sky can feel a blush slowly take over his face. He looks away from you. It's probably someone else. What would be the odds that you were calling out to him in your dream? There's a lot of Links these days. No need for him to get his hopes up, rig-?

"Sky... Please..."

Sky covers half of his face with his hand. He accidentally drops the sword.

Oh, it's him. You're dreaming about him. You're talking to him in your dreams.

All sense of fatigue leaves him in an instant. Spurred on by embarrassment and endearment, he feels as it he could take on this whole dungeon- just to avoid the emotional conversation he would no doubt have with himself in regards to this.

By Hylia, why do you talk in your sleep? Have you always talked in your sleep?

Do you always dream about him?

He hopes it's a good dream at least.

Wind

Wind was bored. And so were you. Enough so that you fell asleep on his shoulder.

Wind felt bad. He didn't want to wake you up, but he also didn't want you to get caught for falling asleep during the very important briefing that did not have to be so early in the morning.

He sighed and tucked you closer to him, wrapping his arm around you. He pats your head and rests his head against yours.

He huffs and puffs and closes his eyes, trying to not fall asleep either.

It's hard. He can hear Time and Warrior sharing ideas in the background about their next moves and how they would try to split the group up into the traveling groups, with quiet input from Twilight and Sky every now and then. It's boring stuff.

He starts to feel himself nod off before you shift from under him.

Wind blinks his eyes open and looks down to you. No, you're still sleeping. Maybe you're uncomfortable? He shifts you again, laying you back against the wall, trying to cushion your head as much as he can.

"Nn... Link..." You mutter, not once opening your eyes.

Wind freezes and waits to see if you'll wake up. His heart starts pounding. It feels weird, hearing his name after so long. He pokes your forehead and waits.

You don't wake up.

Wind lets out a breath and tries to reorient himself against you and get comfy again. He's so sleepy. A little cat nap wouldn't be too bad right?

"Wind..." You whisper and Wind can feel himself be jolted awake once more. "...Pirate..."

Wind tilts his head and watches you for a moment. You frown in your sleep and turn your head away. A nightmare?

Wind won't chance it.

He shakes you by the shoulder and doesn't stop until you wake up. "Hey."

You take a startled breath and look around. "Wha- Huh? Where am I?"

"Oh good." Time calls out. "We need your opinion on this. Come here."

You nod and rub your eyes, standing without missing a beat. You pat Wind on the head and yawn. Wind frowns some more as he watches you engage with the group, it's almost as if you weren't asleep at all. You slip into the conversation easily.

What were you dreaming about? Why did you call out to him?

Wind is nervous to ask.

Part 2

[golbrocklovely]

guardian angel // colby brock

A/N: hey yall, hope you're enjoying my 13 nights so far! this fic was really fun to write and i'm excited to see what you guys think. let me know and happy haunting :)

prompt: you are colby's guardian angel, and have been watching over him his entire life. suddenly you learn that he's going to die, much sooner than you thought. it's against the rules, but you must save him. || colby brock x fem!reader

trigger warning: angst, cursing, colby (almost) dies, heaven is like an office setting lol, time jump, happy ending

word count: 4182

~~~~~~~~~~

Being a guardian angel was no easy feat. Many angels weren’t cut out for the job; too many rules and regulations, too much of a numbers game. But I, Y/N, was born for it.

No literally, God created me to be a guardian angel. And I was the best one around. I had been one for eons, millenniums. I was the top ranking amongst my division. I prided myself on my clean and non-rule breaking record. Being a guardian angel was basically a full time job. Constantly watching over your person, making sure to lead them in the right direction, lend a helping hand when you could… it took up a lot of time. And luckily for humans, angels never needed sleep.

Guardian angels had a very strict job. And if done right, when your person would pass on you were allowed to guide them into the light, let them know how you cared for them, and help them find peace once moved on. It was a job I had become good at. One I had done millions of times.

Then I was tasked with a new human to watch over. His name is Colby Brock.

His early years were pretty uneventful. Most humans' childhoods are. I watched him as he went through all the milestones: his first crush, school, puberty, his angsty phase - that somehow never left - and many other little moments. Everything about his life, and what it was going to be, was written out. Of course humans had free will and the ability to change things, but certain situations were destined.

In particular, his meeting of Sam Golbach.

They were destined to be lifelong friends, business partners, and platonic soulmates. Interestingly however, when they did meet, Colby’s death meter spiked for a moment.

A death meter, as its name sounds, measured the amount of death surrounding a person at any given time. I realized that Sam, while extremely important in Colby’s life, might lead him down certain paths he wouldn’t have taken on his own; which of course could always lead to his early demise.

But I trusted Sam, not only because he was a good person, but because his guardian angel was good at their job as well. Not as good as me, of course...

As time slowly ticked on day by day, year by year, I had this feeling inside of myself. One that I had noticed in many humans but never experienced personally. I for one was an angel, and human emotions weren’t exactly something that came easily to us. But this one… was inherent in everything living.

I had grown to love him. I loved all of my persons that I had cared for over my time as a GA, but he was something different. And the love I felt for him was too.

I watched Colby grow up, struggle. He was hard on himself a lot, internally and externally. I tried my best to send him love in many ways, and sometimes they would help. But it was temporary. There were times I wanted to reach out, to help him more. To maybe even speak directly to him in ways that weren’t allowed.

Guardian angels and humans weren’t meant to speak to one another, unless in the very rare occasion of psychics. But true psychics…. They had once been angels too. That was our punishment for breaking rules: you lost your angel privileges and became human. Depending on how many rules you broke, you would spend multiple cycles being a human, going through the ups and downs over and over again. It was described as a terrible existence in a way, far beyond one of just a normal human. And maybe if you paid your dues you could become an angel again, but there was no guarantee.

I knew my love for Colby was odd in multiple ways. I shouldn’t have felt this for him, this ache in my (what would be) heart, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to protect him, to make sure he was okay every moment of every day. And it was far beyond what my job required. But I didn’t care.

He had had many scares before, coming a little too close to death for my liking. I would peak into the future in those times, seeing if he would come out the other side. And luckily he always did. He was only 27 years old, and had many years left to live from what I saw.

But then he made the wrong choice.

Sam and Colby were ghost hunters, a first for any human I was a GA for. I watched them go from place to place, the death meter spiking at random. Truly, since this career pivot, my job had become a constant heart attack waiting to happen.

If I could get one of those, of course.

And one day, the death meter went to a high voltage; one that was only reserved for when someone was dying that very day.

I glared, puzzled at the device. Surely this was a mistake. He had years to go, many things to accomplish. There was no way he was dying.

I flipped his book open, reading the words carefully. He was hunting at a random location in Wyoming, a place called the Seesaw Inn. It was old, decrepit, and definitely was a safety hazard.

I read ahead quickly, needing to know what was going to happen, because in the current time, him and Sam were just walking around with the owner, getting a feel for the place. But his story continued on past that point and into the night. On the last page of his book, it spelt out the way he would go: Colby entered the third floor, walking towards room 312. Both boys were told how this room was one of the most haunted, and Colby - losing to a game of rock, paper, scissors - was tasked with going into the room alone and standing out on the balcony to see if he could catch a lady in white appear down below. As he stepped onto the balcony, he noticed how creaky the railing of the balcony was. He shrugged it off, turning his camera on and speaking to it softly. “Guys, I’m out here on Room 312’s balcony. Sam is in the basement, doing a solo onvoy investigation, and I’m supposed to call out to the woman in white. I swear if I see her, I’m shitting myself.” He turned the camera to himself, smiling, and leaned slightly on the railing. It suddenly cracked under the pressure of his weight, Colby letting out a shriek. As he tried to catch his footing, he slipped further and over the railing. Then, he fell, hitting his hea-

I stopped reading, gasping at words. No, no no. This couldn't be happening. There's no way he's dying tonight. How is that even possible? He had a whole life to live! This must have been a mistake.

Vida, Sam's guardian angel, rushed up to me. "Y/N, did you see? Colby's gonna di-"

"Yes I did, Vida. I know." I hushed her, looking around our office quickly, hoping no one noticed.

"I can't believe it. I was looking ahead in Sam's future and saw things change." She sighed deeply, "He's gonna need me now more than ever after this."

"No, he won't," I jumped up from my seat. "Because I'm not gonna let this happen."

"What are you talking about, Y/N? You can't change it. It's set in stone." Vida argued, shaking her head.

I began walking hastily towards the elevators. "Yesterday it wasn't. He was gonna live a whole life! And now, because he plans to lean against some rickety old railing, he dies? Not on my watch."

"You can't just go down there and change things. That's not how we help them." She explained.

I glanced back at her, "There's not enough time for me to change his fate. Unless I physically do so."

"But if you go down there...." Her voice fell softly, "you're done. You won't be allowed back."

"I know. But I can't just let him die. Too many people rely on him. There is so much more harm that will come from his passing." I swallowed hard as my eyes locked onto the elevators, "I can't.... watch him die and do nothing."

"I've never seen you like this, in all my years of being a GA." She murmured.

I took a deep breath, hitting the elevator button down. I turned to her, looking into her eyes deeply, "Just make sure the next GA he gets is nice to him, okay? He really needs us sometimes. So make sure they actually listen to him."

"I will." She nodded her head, leaning in quickly and giving me a tight hug. "Goodbye, Y/N."

"Bye, Vida. It was nice knowing you." I pulled away from her, hearing the doors open.

I entered the elevator, clicking the first floor level. As the elevator descended, I imagined Colby and where he was in this moment. I only had a couple more minutes until his demise. I needed to rush to him, and fast.

Finally the last 'ding' of the elevator clicked. As the doors opened, I looked around my surroundings. It was right outside the Seesaw Inn. I had to get to Colby quickly, so I began flying towards room 312's balcony. I knew he would be there any moment, the clocking ticking down fast.

I stepped over the railing, landing softly onto the balcony. I hid in the corner, right behind where the door would open. A moment passed and Colby came into the room soundly. He mumbled something to himself, walking over to the balcony door and swinging it open.

As he stepped onto the balcony, he glanced at the railing. He shrugged, turning the camera to him and speaking quietly. "Guys, I’m out here on Room 312’s balcony. Sam is in the basement, doing a solo onvoy investigation, and I’m supposed to call out to the woman in white. I swear if I see her, I’m shitting myself.” He turned the camera to himself, smiling, and leaned slightly on the railing. As he began to fall forward, a yell escaping his lips, I grabbed the back of his jacket, holding him back. I yanked him back into the room, knocking him onto the floor.

He shuttered out a cry, gazing up at me in fear, ""W-What the f-fuck?!"

I raised my hands up, "Calm down, Colby. It's alright."

Colby crawled backwards away from me, bumping into the desk nearby. "W-Who are you and how did you get up here? You shouldn't be here."

I stepped into the room but kept my distance from him. I was suddenly overcome with frustration, narrowing my eyes. "Do you know how dangerous that balcony is? You could have died! I mean, you were literally meant to, and all of this over a game of rock-paper-scissors?!"

"Who the hell are you? Did you follow us here?" He stood up quickly, his stance tense.

"You're not gonna believe me when I say this, but I'm your guardian angel. And I just saved your life." I explained plainly.

He paused, his face scrunching, "...My what?"

"Guardian angel. You believe in those, right? At least from what I can tell, you do. So this shouldn't be that much of a shock to you." I half-heartedly laughed.

Colby shook his head, confused. "No... no. You're just some fan that snuck in. You shouldn't be here. You have to leave."

"Do I need to show you my wings to prove to you I'm real?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes, "What? Yeah, sure."

I shrugged, acknowledging his snarky attitude, and fluttered my wings out. The room illuminated with the subtle glow of my wings. Colby stepped back, dropping his camera onto the bed. His eyes were widened in fear and awe.

He kept his eyes on them, "H-Holy... shit."

"I wasn't lying, Colby. I am your guardian angel, and you were supposed to die just then." I stated, slowly folding my wings back up.

He sat down, almost falling onto the bed; the wind being kicked out of him. "There's no way."

"The railing of the balcony is weak, and you were supposed to lean against it, and fall to your death. But I stopped that from happening." I walked over to the railing, Colby's eyes trailing after me curiously. I pushed against the railing, and it broke apart, failing over the balcony. Colby's heart stopped for a moment, his eyes taking everything in.

He swallowed hard, staring at the ground in bewilderment. "Fuck."

"Make sure to sue the person that owns this building for negligence... or something. I'm not entirely sure how human laws work, so just make sure you get some compensation out of your almost death." I remarked, exhaling.

I began to walk towards the door, Colby's voice stopping me. "Wait! Why did you save me?"

I raised an eyebrow at him, "Why?"

"I mean, I figure because you're my... angel, you're supposed to. But why now? Was I not supposed to die?" He questioned, stepping towards me.

"Guardian angels are only supposed to help when you reach out first. Technically what I just did breaks the rule. Actually the biggest rule of them all: don't stop death. We're not supposed to do things like that." I commented, "It kind of fucks with timelines and whatnot."

"But you did it." He breathed.

I nodded. "Yes, I did."

"Why?" Colby whispered.

I took a deep breath, getting close to him slowly. "You are extremely important, Colby. There are so many things left in this world that I know you need to get to. And I don't know why your path changed so quickly, but I knew I had to stop it before it was too late. I couldn't watch you die. I... care about you too much. And so do many others. And I made the executive decision that it wasn't your time to go just yet."

His eyes welled up for a moment, "Thank you. I don't think I'm even remotely ready to die."

"Most aren't. But at least you know now is not your time." I leaned up sweetly, kissing his cheek. "Goodbye Colby."

He held my hand gently, and I felt my being go warm. "Will I ever see you again?"

"Probably not. I'm actually gonna be in huge trouble once I get back upstairs. They'll most like reassign me to someone else," I lied. "So you'll have a new guardian angel. But I'll still check on you from time to time."

He bit his lip. "I don't even know what to say."

"It's okay. There isn't much you can. By the way, the footage on that camera is a no go... can't exactly have people knowing we're around like this." I snapped my fingers, the camera making a bunch of weird clicking noises and then shutting off.

He picked up the camera, looking it over. "Did you delete all of the footage?"

"No. I actually gave you a little present on there so... you're welcome. I guess." I chuckled, walking into the hallway.

I waltzed towards the elevator for the Inn, an up button appear on the panel, glowing a dim white light. I clicked it, waiting for the doors to open.

He cocked his head, squinting his eyes at the doors. "The elevator doesn't work."

It softly 'dinged' and I smirked over at him. "It does for me."

He raced up to the doors, his eyes locking with mine. "I never caught your name."

My breath hitched, tears brimming at my eyes. I shouldn't feel sadness, but in this moment I did. Because I knew once I left him, I would never see him again. I turned my head to him, smiling as brightly as I could. "Y/N. My name is Y/N."

He smiled back. "Goodbye, Y/N."

"Goodbye Colby." I choked back a cry, "I love you."

~~~~

20 Years Later

Most angels, when turned into humans, lose all of their memories when it comes to their past lives. Especially guardian angels. We aren't meant to remember a thing about what we once were.

I was somehow blessed, or cursed, with remembering it all.

After being berated by management, I was turned into a human. I lived a relatively normal life, full of the usual heartache and suffering. And over time I became less of an angel and more human as the years went on.

Luckily for me, they didn't make me start out as a baby. I came down to Earth as a freshly new adult. I was now 34, working part time retail and part time in a bar in downtown Los Angeles.

So I was, essentially, sent to hell in at least one way.

I originally kept tabs on Colby, but slowly as time went on I stopped. It was hard to constantly watch him from the sidelines enjoy his life, even though that's what I used to do. I did check on him every so often, seeing how life was treating him. And he seemed fine; happy, even. And that's all I had wanted for him. I never went searching for him. I didn't think it was smart for me to do so. It all hurt too much that he was so close yet so far away at the same time.

But God always finds the sense of humor in things.

I wiped down the counter of the bar, getting rid of the droplets of alcohol left behind from the previous drink I made. Today had been slow, a regular Tuesday night. Things would start picking up some once it got later, but as of 10 pm, it made sense for it to be dead in the bar.

I heard the door to the bar cling open, a man walking towards the bar confidently. I barely registered him, stepping over to the touch screen to enter his order.

"Hi, what can I get for you?" I asked.

"Just a beer. Corona." The man's deep voice stated.

"Sounds like a good choice." I looked up at him, my eyes widening once I finally took him in. I could spot that face from anywhere. "Colby?"

He smiled meekly, giving a soft laugh. "God, I haven't gone by that in a while."

"Holy shit..." I studied his face; he looked oddly the same, just a bit older. Wrinkles and lines had etched itself kindly into his features, his hair no longer the emo cut he once had, but now pushed back. He had some facial hair, a mustache and goatee, that appeared to be lightly graying. He still dressed like he used to, all black.

"Do I know you from somewhere? Or are you a fan... of me?" He questioned hesitantly, handing me his card to pay for his drink.

"Um, yeah. You could say that." I choked out a laugh, swiping his card. "I used to watch you and Sam all the time back in the youtube days. But I haven't paid attention to you in a while, if I am honest."

"I'm not that interesting, so you didn't miss out on much," he smirked. "But I'm surprised. You look so young, I would have thought you knew me for my music."

"I did listen to your first album. It was a banger." I grinned.

His dimples appeared as he smiled back. "Thank you, thank you. I appreciate that."

I grabbed his Corona from the fridge, popping it open and handing it to him. "What made you stop doing youtube videos? If you don't mind me asking."

He sat down at the bar, cupping the bottle and taking a swig. "Well, me and Sam had a very close encounter with death. So much so, I was a bit freaked out with making content like that anymore. But then we saw the footage we caught, a full on apportion, and we stuck around a bit longer after that. We were all over the news, as proof of actual paranormal, which was actually crazy. But slowly over time, even though we were super successful, it became a bit too much for me. Plus, I wanted to settle down, meet someone. Have a family. And Sam felt the same after a while too. So we just... slowly stopped. Went our own ways."

I leaned towards him, "Are you guys still friends?"

He snickered, "Oh yeah. He literally lives next door to me. We get together every other weekend, or whenever we can, and just hang out in my backyard. Watch the kiddos play."

My jaw dropped at his words, "You have kids?"

"Two. Sam's got three, funny enough. My oldest is about to go into fourth grade. My youngest is in kindergarten." He took another sip, smiling. "It's fucking nuts how time flies."

"That's amazing. I know about the music, but didn't you also do some modeling after youtube as well?" I queried.

"Oh yeah, my very short lived modeling career," he mumbled bashfully. "Personally, while it was fun, I got a lot more of an enjoyment out of music."

I nodded, "What does Sam do now?"

"Well, after youtube, he spent a year traveling. Finding himself. Wrote a book about it, wrote another one the following year. Did a Ted Talk that went viral," he laughed. "Then he went on to do behind the scenes stuff, and now he runs his own management company for celebrities."

I raised an eyebrow, "And then found his wife somewhere in all of that?"

"Yep. Same as me." He closed his eyes, thinking, "I was touring, in the middle of my press run for my album, and I met my wife at a party and I just knew she was the one I wanted to be with forever."

My heart fluttered at his words, "That's really sweet. I'm so glad you got to do all of that."

"Yeah..." His voice trailed off, his eyes fixating on the bar. "At one point in time, I didn't think I would."

I replied, "Because of the close encounter?"

He nodded, picking at the label of his beer.

"What happened that night?" I pressed, lowering my voice.

"Well, um... do you want the story we told or the real one?" He questioned, his eyes growing cold.

"Both, if you're up for it." I challenged.

He sighed, "The story we gave is that I went out on the balcony, caught the woman in white, and almost fell off the balcony because of the railing being shit."

"And that's not what happened?" I questioned, already knowing the answer.

"No. I... was saved." He whispered, "By my guardian angel. And then she left, and I never saw her again."

"Did you want to see her again?" I asked, gazing into his eyes.

"Every night I prayed that she would reappear to me. But she never did. Sometimes I think I went crazy that night." He chuckled, "God knows Sam still to this day doesn't full believe me when I tell him what happened."

I breathed, "The railing was really shitty though. Even an ounce of weight would have cracked it."

"Exactly, exact-" He paused, looking up at me puzzled, "Wait how would you know?"

My voice trembled, "Because... I was there that night, Colby."

He shook his head, laughing bitterly. "No, you're not. You're not her."

"Yes I am, Colby. I'm not lying to you." I rebutted, walking around the bar to him.

He stood up, looking me over. "Right, then what's your name?"

"Y/N. My name is Y/N." I answered.

Colby's breath hitched in his throat, his eyes watering instantly. He whispered, "There's no way."

"I was there that night, Colby. I'm the one that saved you." I swallowed hard, holding back tears. "I'm sorry it took me twenty years to see you again."

"Y/N? Is it really you?" He came up to me, his eyes really taking me in, "You look so... human."

"I am," I laughed. "My punishment for breaking the rules."

He scrunched his face, "You told me you would get reassigned."

"I lied. I didn't want you to feel guilty for my decision." I admitted.

"Who watches over me now?" He questioned.

"Someone good, apparently. Since your life has been working out pretty well for you," I smirked. "I made sure that Vida would care to that."

He raised an eyebrow, "Vida?"

"Sam's guardian angel." I mentioned.

Colby grew quiet for a moment, just staring at me. I could feel my face warm as his stare intensified.

His chest heaved, a kind smile growing on his face. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you too." My eyes welled with tears as I embraced him tightly, his arms wrapping around me instantly. We stood for a moment, just holding one another.

He pulled back, his eyes bright. "Sam's gonna owe me so much money now."

I laughed, Colby joining in cheekily.

[jhuzen]

old and new [gn/m.reader]

good lord i have been gone for a long time. i am so sorry, i am recovering from bloccus writicus. also i may have been… getting in touch with my thirst for strong women. women are so beautiful. i love them. to all my requesters (? how to english), please excuse my tardiness. allow me to rev my engine before delivering them once again. i’m gonna warm up with a few posts (including this). ALSO THIS STORY IS JDIADMC IDK.

𖦹 big on genshin lore because i am nerding out, creator reader but not sagau reader, like i’m talking you are a character in the story, ooh look at me diverting from my agenda of overseer reader (i blame skirk’s master).

The mere ability to create is something so vast and so elaborate, placed upon the pedestal for all to see. If one is gifted with the passion and talent to create, they are the envy of all — to craft the most divine pieces, create something so intricate that it is nothing short of impressive.

And through it all, an artist hones one’s skills until they have reached the peak — until they’ve viewed every perspective, until they’ve used every shade, until they’ve done every stroke, all of it comes down to their prized creation;

Their Magnum Opus.

That… was Teyvat to you.

It was your pièce de résistance. If the myriad of heavenly bodies that lay before your trail were thought-provoking and terrifyingly beautiful to a fault, then Teyvat was your inexplicable masterpiece, one that took trial and error as your gentle hands shaped and carved every landscape, as your breath that blew into it became the protecting breeze, and as the tears that you wept from joy became the primordial seas of the world that birthed new life forms that you managed to call a mere happy accident.

It was yours. Many worlds before it were mere prototypes, but something you’ve cherished nonetheless. To you, Teyvat was the product that will possibly never get any better and a creation that will never be bested by anything else.

You granted it laws that were akin to the past worlds you’ve crafted with your own hands, you gave it life through the creatures that crawled around the earth. It thrived and you gave it autonomy once you thought it could work on its own course with your given gifts to let it thrive.

Teyvat was your cherished creation.

And the same rings true until now upon your quiet descent. Your immaculate robes that were woven with stardusts suddenly turning into a soft silk. You walked the earth in your bare feet, the blades of grass a mere tickle underneath you as you journeyed through the world.

The breeze blew by your hair and you felt the sheer invigoration, forcing a tiny titter out of you. You embraced the fruits of your hard labor, recalling the eons you nearly wept in agony as you continued to sculpt everything down to its tiniest detail.

And out of all of that, you birthed your pride and joy, this world that could never measure up to anything else.

Your eyes which held the countless stars and worlds you’ve created soon found itself gazing across the vast lands of this realm of light you’ve created, finding the realm of void opposing the one you were on.

Countless times you’ve heard your fellow artisans question you for creating such an unconventional place to be. But you sought balance in this perfect world of yours, where every creature can walk on their own respective realms. And if you can create pure beings of light, who’s to say that you can’t create the creatures that lurk within the void?

Your feet pattered against the grass that rustled as you hoped to approach and visit the opposing realm when you felt the ground beneath your rumble and shake. You stilled yourself with ease as you looked over your shoulder.

And your eyes had never known such beauty until now.

For the first time, a creature of divinity such as yourself was gobsmacked at the sight of a huge Vishap that stood before you.

It was a beautiful one — its blue scales that blended with the water from your tears of joy that you’ve shed upon your creation, its eyes holding the purest intentions that matched its pure being. You can feel the waters surge within its very form, like a fresh cold spring on a hot summer day.

Your eyes suddenly filled with tears as you felt your heart constrict with so much love as you watched it approach you. You have never seen such beauty that it truly nearly knocked you off your feet. Your chest ached with so much want as you continued to marvel the creature that you only hoped of succeeding in creating several eons ago.

“Oh… look at you…”

Your voice, honeyed and smooth as a silk, tinkled across the lands — waking up the creations that you gave life to upon your very own creation of Teyvat. Your voice, filled with so much love and tenderness, directed to the Vishap that towered over your tiny mortal form with ease, rang out, as if to call for it to come closer.

And it does.

The earth shakes with every weighted step that it took and you followed, contrasting the loudness with the silence of your own steps. You met it halfway until the very concept of distance no longer exists between you and the Vishap.

“…Such a beautiful one you are,” you whispered, your voice emitting a lilt of care and intense joy that you managed to suppress for a good measure before it overwhelmed you.

You lent a hand and its gaze directs towards it.

The Vishap leans into your touch and you can feel the waves of the primordial sea flow through you. With it, you can feel the joy you’ve felt once you’ve reached the end of your creation. You’ve felt the nostalgic satisfaction that kept you fulfilled even until now. You’ve felt the overwhelming love and excitement that you had when you took a step back and got a good look on Teyvat’s finality.

“You, who cradled our lives in your hands,” it spoke with a bellowing voice, making it seem like your own was but a mere squeak. “…Why do you pursue a creation as grand as this?”

You took a second as you pondered its question.

“…For the love in me is much too big not to share.”

“We have anticipated your descent. Nibelung has prophesied the return of the tearful artisan.”

You felt yourself flush at the title that was given to you unceremoniously, “Are my tears so ineffably embarrassing that I deserve such a name from my beloved creations?”

It huffed at your light jest, “It is nothing more but a praise. Your tears brought life in this barren world. Your tears gave birth to a new life that not one could hope to achieve—

“Your tears are my waters, to which I have complete sovereign on. Your tears are my will, to which I am eternally thankful for.”

You felt the inevitable warmth flow through your tiny body from the Vishap’s words alone. While it was satisfying to finish Teyvat on its own, you suddenly found a level beyond that feeling after receiving gratitude from your own creation firsthand. It melted your lonely soul and you couldn’t help but feel giddy at the feeling of it alone.

Such a simple gesture it was — to thank you — and yet the feeling it gave transcends every other emotion you’ve felt throughout the course of your long and eternal life.

“May you continue to prosper with the gift I’ve given you.” You blessed it with your small voice, barely above a mere whisper.

Your palm that shaped many worlds emitted the kind of warmth from a starting kiln and the Vishap relished in the feeling, a pleased growl echoing through the empty vast land of the light realm.

“The life that I owe to you will be cherished and used to its fullest. And should I perish, I will return with memories of you, no matter how faint.” It promised in one breath.

Your silken robes billowed against the breeze that blew by again. You can only feel your thoughts and feelings mingle with the Vishap’s. For once, you are able to see how it and its fellow Vishaps came to be, how each of them walked through the light realm and claimed its own homes where they ruled with incredible prosperity and indomitable ambition.

You were able to appreciate the further creation of life on this world that you deemed perfect, and was able to see how it went when you slept to rest for a good few centuries.

It was a feeling so invigorating, that you could feel your heart swell with so much love and pride for these dragons that walked the haven you’ve created. It mattered not to you how they came to be, only that they were able to live in peace and free from cumbersome bothers. It eased your heart, knowing that they are able to propagate their kind with so much freedom under the autonomous law that you gave to Teyvat.

You were feeling genuine satisfaction.

And it feels your jovial heart, with the way it continued to nestle its luminous scaled body into your touch.

“Protect this world with all your might. And you… you that holds my tears, will be given the authority to bring judgment of all life that makes a home on this world for centuries to come.”

Among the array of emotions that flowed through you, you felt its grateful pride surge through you.

A draconic pride that will leave its mark on you.

You had hoped it was a bad dream — a childish nightmare, no matter how unheard of it was among the divinity like you.

You hoped that the constriction in your loving heart was a jest in poor taste, that it was just a passing act of scare that you will laugh at. But as your eyes gazed at your magnum opus, your heart nearly shattered into a million little pieces.

The waters that were intimately connected to your essence, your very being, was tainted with anguish and anger. You can feel the hardships that started to brew from a few tiny nicks of pain in your heart. Teyvat was quite literally anchored to you through the primordial waters that flowed through it.

And as it continued to suffer contamination from something foreign, your heart further corroded into something that inflicted pain. You can feel the blood that soaked into the waters cry for desperation, you can feel the way it boiled with so much thirst for vengeance against whatever caused the first tragedy on Teyvat in the first place.

You placed full faith on the seven sovereigns, you had given them blessings that will aid them to guard your precious creation, but you could feel the tinge of betrayal flow through your veins when you threw a quick glance and saw Nibelung seeking something far more dangerous to defend their realm.

Something not from Teyvat. Something you know the laws that you placed which granted autonomy would reject and inflict sorrow upon those that were affected by it.

You fell into a state of unrest, pained with the grief of betrayal and longing for those that fought to protect your very own creation. A part of your mind condemns you for placing such a burden on your creations that cannot be better than outworld creatures that transcend them. But another part of you screams genuine belief to those you have tasked, that they will prevail and honor your simple wish.

Normally a couple of decades was nothing to you — as it could pass as quick as a mere minute, but to experience excruciating pain that throbbed like a vile tumor on your heavenly being was not something to sneeze at. Your heart ached for so many decades as you watched the sovereigns fall before those that intruded in your lovely creation.

And as it stole the authorities of the sovereigns, like a widow bereft its lover, you were forced into a state of slumber, lasting for centuries to come.

The new world thrives with lush life, creatures alike living as though its lives weren’t owed to the slumbering deity that was consumed with so much grief after all the tragic events that happened since its arrival on your world.

Perhaps it was the gentle mercy granted upon you that you stayed asleep when it parted a new realm for humanity’s arrival. When it was challenged by someone of the same nature, resulting to more catastrophic devastation that marred your heart with more fresh scars while you slept.

Perhaps it was best that you were unconscious as your closed eyes poured out tears endlessly that would sure tire you out for years as it happened.

And perhaps it was its atonement for the damage it caused you when you woke up and saw your Teyvat as something entirely new. Something that you didn’t create, something… completely alien.

Your pride as a divine creator was shaken, but you were quick to brush it off, wanting to see just how much your precious world was defiled and turned into something you know would never pass up as befitting into your standards. It was admittedly unbecoming of you, to turn your nose up against a creation, you always held some form of admiration and appreciation towards anything. You loved — and loved so much that you had to create to share it with your creations.

But Teyvat was once your magnum opus, it was… yours. It bathed in your heavenly tears, it felt every caress of your hands as you molded it into something you called your greatest masterpiece eons ago. You broke into a sweat, slaved away for the sake of your satisfaction upon completion, and when you finished it, you cried from happiness alone.

You descended, the flurry of stardust in your divine robes coagulating into the familiar silken robes that you wore whenever you would visit the seven sovereigns.

How many years have you been asleep? Dreaming up a reality where you shared a meal with the humongous and serpentine Dragon of Verdure, where you watched the Dragon King roar with pride, and where you exchanged the most insightful and heartfelt conversations with the Dragon of Water — the one that held your tears.

The grass underneath your bare feet feels as though it had a million stories to tell you, that among those years you’ve been forced into a slumber, you had missed a good chunk of what made Teyvat into this.

But the familiarity of the empty landscape was enough to urge you to keep going forth.

And that same familiarity ended the moment your eyes landed on fallen structures — ones you’ve never seen before. You can decipher that it once stood at a towering height, just from pillars that could squash your tiny mortal form with ease should it fall at the slightest disturbance.

You could feel a sense of tyranny from these structures, a tyranny broken by a hope from perhaps the creatures that felt trapped by it. You may have been asleep when it happened, but you can almost see how the tyranny of the past ruler of this place fell against the unity of those who longed freedom.

“Freedom… huh…” You murmured softly and a breeze rustled the grass beneath you. A lone leaf from the many trees landed on your hair, prompting you to take it and look at it.

You wondered how the Dragon of Verdure was fairing. If it had the same authority over the luscious life of Dendro as it did before.

Your feet continued to take you somewhere else, as though it had a sense of where to go. You never questioned it — as alien as Teyvat was to you now, it was still your world. And as long as the primordial waters are around, it stays anchored with you.

It didn’t take long before you ended up before a civilization — one you have never seen before when you descended before it came to challenge the seven sovereigns. Your eyes widened at the sight, pupils dilating as you watched humanity flourish and thrive within that patch of rock where a city sat.

Never had you expected to wake up to the sight of humans thriving in your world where there was once none.

Your sense of cautiousness dropped in a quick second and you took yourself towards it, foot against the hard cobblestone bridge as you walked towards the walls of this… civilization.

If you looked odd approaching this city in such a state, then you were certain they brushed it off as the guards welcomed you with a smile.

“Weary traveler, welcome to Mondstadt, the City of Freedom, blessed by our beloved Anemo Archon, Barbatos himself!”

For the first time since you had woken up, you felt the same overwhelming sense of love and tenderness as you were welcomed with living mortals, living in your creation like it was a normal occurrence for them.

Never had you known that humanity, no matter how it came upon your world, could be so beautiful.

And just like the day you met that beloved Vishap of yours, you wept.

“You sure know a lot of things about this place! Paimon could even say that you’re far more knowledgeable than Zhongli could be!”

Your laugh rang through the streets of Fontaine, angelic and seeming like a song from the heavens itself.

It had been so many years — dare you say centuries even, since you first descended after sleeping for so long with all the catastrophic events that has happened. You had traveled far and wide, discovered every single hidden civilization from the time you were asleep, learned every little conflict that happened.

You had to do the hard part of reading through every ancient tome that had a different language with each ancient civilization, but filling in the gaps was much easier. Despite it being your creation, the mere fact that you gave it autonomy only meant it wasn’t always subservient to you. It had its own laws even if you were the very being that gave those laws.

It was a refreshing change, quite frankly. Teyvat treated you like any other mortal and you could see and experience how humanity managed to adapt to the laws of your creation. It was honestly tear-jerking. You may not be the one that introduced humanity — rather it was the one that caused devastation to you and your dragons, but it was nonetheless still an endearing sight that you cherished.

You had to relearn Teyvat’s new history as it began embarking on a journey as a new world, where humans thrived and dominated, where beings in a mortal body but with a higher threshold, power, and purpose called gods were the ones to govern instead of the elemental sovereigns.

Somehow throughout it all, it felt as though your world was no longer yours.

But the waters ring familiarity, as it held your feelings from all those years ago. And now it’s far more potent in the Land of Hydro that you were currently on as you accompanied the blonde traveler that gained infamy across the nations you too journeyed in the past.

You felt for them, much like you before, they had to learn the secrets of this world. Only that they had to do it blind, while you managed to fill in the blanks of the tragic past of this world. And as much as you’d like to play the hero, since your descent after your sleep, you have learned to let everything play out on its own.

“I’m not one to claim superiority over Mister Zhongli’s prowess. Surely he knows far more than I do,” you deny with a genuine conviction. You learned he was the oldest of all archons, and have a better grasp of the world than you do when you were asleep.

“Mm. Let’s just call it quits and say you and him are even!” The tiny floating guide chirped, clapping in satisfaction after her own little conclusion.

You only nodded, conceding to her whims before finding the traveler walking up to you and giving you a serving of fish and chips and a double of serving for Paimon. You thanked them kindly and they only offered you a polite smile and a nod.

“Oh! Right! We should be heading off to pick up some bounty for more mora! Are you coming, [Name]?” Paimon asked, looking at you.

You caught their gaze and shook your head, “I think I’d like to take a walk around for a moment. I’ll see you two in awhile.” You said with the same unwavering smile that offered nothing but fondness for either of the two.

With a nod from them, off they went to Euphrasie to hound her for more bounty and its fruitful rewards.

You walked through the streets, basking in the noise of every call from every vendor within the side of the street, indulging the bustling nature of the busybodies in Fontaine, and savoring the air of nostalgia that perhaps only you can understand and feel.

Your feet halted at the remote parts of Palais Mermonia, admiring the flowers while you embraced the sense of familiarity that coursed through your veins. It was a welcome feeling above all, as it was the same feeling when you first truly experienced happiness.

And what luck it was when the Iudex himself was passing by for a quick break, to take a tiny breather from the suffocating throes of workload that was hurled on him as one of his many responsibilities.

You perked up when you heard a pair of footsteps echo within the cavernous structure of the Palais Mermonia and you looked over your shoulder.

Suddenly, that nostalgic feeling increased and your heart throbbed and ached with so much longing.

Suddenly, the breeze felt like it did centuries ago.

Suddenly, the hard concrete floor felt like the gentle grass beneath you.

And suddenly, the man behind you felt like the bearer of your tears.

You took a moment before facing him and found a smidgen of confusion and surprise that broke through his otherwise stoic expression. You had heard his impartiality and people reveled in him, word of the mouth was that the great Iudex, Mister Neuvillette himself, was the very symbol of Justice in Fontaine.

You didn’t know whether or not it was a wasted chance, but it never occurred to you to even ask if he kept his promise.

To come back with the faintest memories of you.

Instead, you smiled, bowed so gracefully and respectfully to him like any other mortal who have heard of his achievements would.

But you had to give him a few words yourself; just for old time’s sake.

“Look at you now…”

Your voice, much like millions of years ago, held the same sweetness and fondness, honeyed to perfection that it can lull anyone within earshot to a sense of comfort and warmth. Your voice beckoned him to come closer.

And he does.

“You’re thriving so beautifully… living among humanity…”

You could see the way his breath hitch in his throat, and you stifle a tiny laugh and suppressed the nostalgic fondness and love in your heart that was close to bursting at the seams.

“You did well.”

And you left him then and there, like a soft breeze in passing, in search of the traveler and their tiny emergency sustenance, without you knowing, that for once, it wasn’t you who cried.

It’s true, the new Teyvat felt alien to you.

It is no longer your world, but theirs — they, the humanity that staked its claim and lived for generations, they, the creatures that survived every catastrophic event that struck this world, and they… the beings that claim dominion over it.

And as this world’s creator, you would do well to enact the safety of the life it nurtured, even if you were overshadowed by the very being that devastated you.

After all, with all the love in you, it would be hard not to share it with the world you once knew.

[dragonlover123a]

Hooves

Lucifer sighed as he took off his socks and boots, staring at his feet in disdain.

Being a goat based angel, Lucifer had hooves. And they used to be such a beautiful golden color, shimmering in the light of the Garden of Eden.

But that was such a long time ago. Eons in fact. Since then, Lucifer had fallen into a deep depression and had been unable to care for them properly. So now they were an ugly, dirty yellow in color.

Suddenly, a hand was lifting the fallen angel's face upwards, making him jump slightly in surprise. But Lucifer quickly relaxed when he saw it was just his husband.

Alastor, the Radio Demon might've been a terrifying apex predator in the eyes of many sinners and lower Hellborns alike, but to Lucifer, he was merely a nuisance. Or at least at first. Despite his height, Lucifer could be the bigger man and admit that he did sorta start it when he insulted Alastor's bar. But Alastor telling him he was a terrible father was, while correct, a low blow. Lucifer couldn't help falling head over hooves for the deer though. His tendencies to creep around in the shadows or how he would snap and crack his neck at odd angles was oddly endearing to Lucifer. Alastor was courageously himself, no matter if he was in a room of Sinners or demonic royalty. And Lucifer loved him for it.

"My darling Little Apple~" Alastor crooned, rubbing his thumb over his husband's rose colored cheek, "What's ever the matter, my dear?"

Gold dusted Lucifer's cheeks, blushing heavily at the pet names. "Oh! Nothing really... I... Um..." he stammered, trying to hide his hooves.

Of course, Alastor noticed. Kneeling before the king, the demon gently wrapped his much larger hand around the angel's ankle, tugging it forward to inspect the dirty yellow hoof.

"My," Alastor tsked disapprovingly, "When was the last time you cleaned and polished your hooves?" He asked, looking up at Lucifer with a raised brow.

"Oh! Um...." Lucifer fidgeted under his husband's gaze. Could he reduce the deer demon to atoms with a snap of his fingers? Sure he could. But he couldn't help but feel nervous as Alastor scolded him for not taking care of himself. "Couple... Thousand... years... Maybe?" Lucifer admitted, giving Alastor a sheepish smile.

Alastor chuckled fondly, shaking his head as he stood to sit next to Lucifer. The angel was suddenly pulled into the deer's lap, making him let out an undignified squeak.

"Hey! What are you....?!"

"Hush, darling," Alastor interrupted. With a wave of his hand, one of his shadows presented him with a case of supplies. "Proper hoof care is vital for those with them, whether they be a demon like myself, or an angel, my Little Apple." Alastor lectured as he picked out a tool and got to work cleaning and polishing the shorter blond's hooves.

Lucifer couldn't help but relax into his husband's lap. Between the surprisingly pleasant feeling of his husband's red claws gently scratching off some especially stubborn gunk, the natural static that emitted from his large form and the gentle humming as he worked, Lucifer found himself dozing off.

He was awoken a little while later to Alastor running his fingers through his blond locks, blinking and looking up at him. "Done already?"

Alastor hummed in confirmation, shifting Lucifer in his lap so he could inspect his work for himself. What Lucifer saw, made him want to start crying. His hooves, once a dirty yellow for eons, had been restored to their original gleaming gold.

"What do you think?"

"I..." Lucifer choked out, "I don't know what to say... Thank you Alastor. Thank you so much!" He couldn't help but cry out, throwing his arms around the deer's middle.

Alastor landed on his back on the mattress of the bed with an "OOMF!" but couldn't help but chuckle at his husband's enthusiastic thanks, running his claws through his blond hair.

"You are very welcome, my dear sweet, Little Apple" he cooed.

[thirteenducks]

dinner & diatribes

(zhongli x wife!reader) [NSFW]

༻❁༺ content: fem!reader, established relationship, ~5k wc

༻❁༺ tags: dom!reader, sub!zhongli, accidental stimulation, masturbation, handjobs, orgasm denial, teasing, zhongli has dragonesque tendencies including a rut season, reader is only a little mean about it <3

For all of his wisdom and eons of knowledge, Zhongli's not quite certain what to do when he ends up achingly aroused at a dinner party with his wife. The plan from here: survive, and retain his pride at all costs.

Zhongli’s long, gloved fingers were curled so tightly around the glass in his hand that it was a miracle it hadn’t cracked yet. 

Curses. To be in such a state, in a public place like this, with her and all of our friends as witnesses...

He let an obscenity softly slip out under his breath. 

It was partially his own fault, Zhongli told himself. After all, that dress had been handpicked by him to adorn his beloved tonight. His eyes naturally gravitated to her the way they always did, admiring the beautiful flush that animated conversation had brought to her cheeks, though it besieged his mind with thoughts he’d rather not be having at the moment.

It’s a good thing you retired, you old bastard. These are hardly thoughts fitting of an archon at any time, let alone at a banquet with his wife and dearest friends. 

Zhongli took a shaky sip of his wine and bit back a low groan, wishing it would cloud all of his senses the way it did his thoughts. His discomposure, to his dismay, was growing by the minute. Under the table, he could feel the uncomfortable tightness in his suit trousers every time he shifted. 

Earlier that afternoon, he’d felt the telltale stirrings of something in his subconscious. As he helped his wife prepare for the evening, fastening her necklace of jade, his more base desires had urged him to leave a mark on her lovely exposed neck, as if her garments and the arm wrapped around her waist were not enough to announce her as his. He had heard the rush of blood in his ears, had felt the outbreak of sweat on his forehead, and yet he had done nothing to prepare.

And now, Zhongli would pay due penance for neglecting to keep on top of his calendar.

Curse the limits of this human body. In his archon form, he wouldn’t be considering bringing himself off in the restroom of a reputable establishment to stave off a rut, of that he was certain.

While excusing himself to the men’s room was the quickest way to relief and thus the most tempting course of action, it would never be enough; Zhongli knew his vessel too well to pretend the issue would be resolved that easily. If memory served—and his always did—this might go on all night, regardless of how many times he...

He drummed his gloved fingers anxiously on the expensive tablecloth. No, temporary release was not the solution. Besides, he’d rather relive the wrath of Osial a thousand times than walk across this dining room with his arousal prominent in his trousers.

This brought him to the next scenario, which required letting his beloved know of his current... predicament.

It wouldn’t be too difficult. He was worked up enough that a gentle pass of her lovely hand over his lap would convey his message just fine. He pushed past that dangerous thought before he could dwell on it for very long.

While she would most assuredly be understanding, as she was in all her husband’s matters, Zhongli’s pride protested just a little too much to really consider going through with it. The promise of leaving early under the guise of sudden sickness was enticing to his weary mind, but at home, he could hide nothing from her. To show such vulnerability, even to his wife, would be a trial indeed for an ex-archon. 

He sighed, bringing his eyes back into focus from a few decidedly unsophisticated fantasies of what she might do in response. Tch. Stay lucid, Morax. 

Only one option remained. He fought back a grimace at the thought of it, but if he was to end the night with the same grace he began it, he would have to suffer through the rest of dinner and endure until he was safely at home behind a locked door. Such a show of restraint actually might kill him, he thought, but what other choice did he have?

A woman’s voice from across the table interrupted his internal monologue; Yanfei had asked his opinion on a popular betting game. In the interest of appearing like his normal self, who never passed on an opportunity to impart knowledge, he suppressed the sound that was forming in the back of his throat and attempted to compose himself. 

Surreptitiously pressing one hand to the obvious outline in his pants and curling the fingers of the other into his palm, he gathered himself enough to give a believable response, if not quite of the usual length. 

His friends seemed satisfied enough with his answer to leave him alone for the time being. He begged a prayer to the heavenly principles that his wife wouldn’t happen to look over on a whim and see her husband with a hand slotted between his legs and a thinly veiled blush.

The marginal friction it provided was simultaneously heaven and hell, but he couldn’t stay like that forever. Not when he might be discovered at any moment. He dug his nails into his palm harder, leaving crescent marks even through his glove, and bit his inner lip as he released his shaft and placed his hand limply on the table. 

As he was fighting to stabilize his lust-shrouded mind, Zhongli felt a soft hand on his flushed upper thigh. He turned to his right, his cock twitching in mingled surprise and pleasure, and cursed internally. There, looking so lovely that she hurt to behold in his current state of mind, was his wife, who turned her body toward his and met his eyes with a look of gentle concern. Did she know...?

To his quiet dismay, her thumb began to move in circles against his thigh in what he assumed was meant as a comforting gesture to a husband she believed to be feeling ill. (He was. Please, attend to your sick husband, he thought.) 

Unfortunately, her ministrations were having quite the opposite effect on Zhongli’s hormone-riddled vessel. The circles became larger, spanning the skin from his inner thigh to his trouser pocket. As her movements got bolder, she began stroking his leg like she would be stroking a different part of his body right now, if he had his way, and oh— if she would just move her hand a little to the left, please. Please.

But no, they were still at this accursed dinner and he had a reputation to maintain, he reminded himself staunchly. He fought off a headache as his southern head pulsed in mocking synchrony.

It was pathetic how easily he melted under her touch in any circumstance. With this added to the already considerable strain on his self control... 

At the moment, Zhongli was barely fighting the urge to buck his hips into his wife’s hand, to grind against it for any source of satisfaction he could get.

 He gripped the edge of his seat with the hand hidden from her view, knuckles turning white with exertion, and coerced his features into a calm smile. She returned it and fell back into conversation with someone on her other side, but kept her hand on his leg, tracing shapes in the fabric and driving her poor husband absolutely out of his damn mind.

He slipped into a dazed state for a minute, feeling nothing but her soft touch and the rubbing of the sensitive head of his cock against the seam of his pants. 

The scraping of a chair across the table brought him back half to his senses, and he bit his cheek hard, the pain momentarily clearing his mind. He looked up from the clock his eyes had been fixed to on the far wall of the restaurant just in time to see most of the table gathering their belongings from the coat rack and hugging their goodbyes. 

Mercifully, her hand then eased from its maddening position on his thigh as she arose to give her farewells; “—for the both of us, as my husband is unfortunately not feeling his best right now,” he heard her explain as she ushered the Liyue Qixing out the door with many sweet compliments to their families. He could collect himself only enough to smile and give a gentle wave as they and the rest of their dinner companions exited the parlor into the brisk night. 

He then had only to wait for the check to be delivered by the waitress before he would be on his way home, one minute closer to relief, to having her under him and—

He bit back a curse. He was still here. Childe had yet to finish his umpteenth glass of expensive Snezhnayan wine and seemed to be in no rush to leave the company of Morax and his darling wife, much to his friend’s chagrin.

Liyue customs stipulated that the hosts of the table may not leave until after their last guest had quit the table, a fact that was all too inconvenient for Zhongli as he recalled it bitterly. Why did he establish that rule? That surely must have been one of Guizhong’s.

But, he thought, he had made it this far. He would not make a fool of himself now, even if it ended up being the final nail in the coffin for the man known as Zhongli.

Now that there were less prying eyes, he took the opportunity to shove his left hand between his thighs under the table and waited impatiently, biting his cheek at intervals until he drew blood. He could taste it, metallic and sharp on his tongue, and it shamed him enough to keep his composure.

And still the bastard wouldn’t leave. 

Zhongli had always been in an uneasy truce with the Cryo Archon while he reigned, but at the moment he felt like socking her in the face on her subordinate’s account. Was he waiting to pay the check? Or did he just unconsciously enjoy watching his friend wallow in agony? 

If the former were the case, there was no need. Even if his wife had not brought his wallet with her when she left the house that evening– always two steps ahead of her husband’s mistakes– her purse was just as able to cover the cost of dinner. So much planning and preparation had gone into tonight, he recalled with an edge of bitterness, only for his own hormonal cycle to throw a gargantuan wrench into his well-earned enjoyment.

His thoughts momentarily went blank as the tightness in his pants throbbed in time with his rabbiting heartbeat, sending whatever blood his cock could spare rushing to his cheeks and shivers down his spine. Principles above. Zhongli would never go out at this time of year again while he walked this mortal earth, he vowed.

Body desperate, mind cloudy, conscience resigned, he dimly wondered whether he could get away with rocking his hips against his hand in his current slouched position.

Before he could give in to his base urges, the check finally did come and it was paid and sent away with as much grace and elegance as the poor man could contrive while barely fighting off the desire to thrust into his own hand.

As the waitress left the room, bidding them a ‘restful night’ (Zhongli would have scoffed if his mind was clearer), his beloved yawned and stretched her arms out. He watched almost in slow motion as she let a hand drop under the table to his lap, inches from the pronounced outline in his pants, with a noise of tired contentment that went straight to his dick. He jolted from the sudden touch so close to where he needed it most, slamming the hand holding his coin purse onto the table with a conspicuous jingling of coins. 

The noise drew Childe’s attention from the animated story he was telling, and he glanced from Zhongli’s tightly clenched hand to his pained expression, raising an eyebrow. 

He was spared an explanation by his wife. “You’ll have to excuse my husband, he’s feeling a little off at the moment,” she murmured, caressing his amber tresses with her manicured fingernails, her knowing eyes trained on his. Zhongli could do nothing but close his own and pray that she didn’t move her other hand any lower on his lap. “I’m afraid the soup did not agree with him tonight... in any case, we shall be departing shortly to get him to bed, poor dear.” 

If he was listening rather than lost in fantasies of pressing her into their mattress, he would have thought that an excellent choice of words.

Childe took the hint and pushed himself back from the table, giving his regards to both of them and gathering his belongings. To his credit, though having stayed far past his welcome in his friend’s eyes, he did not tarry long with his goodbyes. 

And if the harbinger did make a noise that sounded too little like a cough and too much like poorly contained laughter on his way out of the building, Zhongli internally thanked him for keeping his suspicions to himself.

“Are you able to stand, my love?” 

Her voice was a balm to his frayed nerves on any other night, but he had pushed past his limits tonight. As it was, Zhongli was undeniably coming apart at the seams. It would be a miracle if he held it together until they arrived at their home, let alone convinced his companion he was merely feeling the effects of some ill-prepared dish.

He sighed. Pride be damned, there was certainly no use in concealing what would soon come to light by more embarrassing means than these.

“Beloved, I’m afraid —” His words slid into a choked moan as she moved her hand sharply to hold him, right there, applying steady yet unmoving pressure in a way that nearly brought him to tears from mixed pain and pleasure. 

“Ngh - I- You—” He swallowed a low, guttural sound that originated from his hindbrain and turned to face her, eyes clouded with lust. “You knew. I should have- ah - guessed.” 

She smiled, caressing his cheek with one hand and while pressing into him with the other. “Of course I did, love. Should I not notice when my husband is in distress?” she purred. In a gentler tone, she added, “Is this helping? I don’t want to make it any more difficult for you...” 

He took a moment, steadying his breathing and focusing the rest of his spent energy on her soothing presence.

 “I- Mm. Yes, I- I think so.” The heat and gentle pressure of her hand had abated some of the tightness in his pants for the moment. Gingerly moving his thigh from its locked position, he found that he could put weight on it without losing his balance.

He made a motion to get up and she moved with him, adjusting her hand so that he could stand as comfortably as possible. She gathered the rest of their belongings, Zhongli standing stock-still while she tucked his wallet back into his coat pocket. He tried not to focus on the warmth of her hand over his chest and the thrumming heat that rose to meet it. 

Finally, after a certain man’s longest night in centuries, they moved from the accursed dining room out into the Liyuean night. The light breeze cooled his flushed cheeks as they stood in comfortable silence in the doorway of the restaurant, watching the muted streetlights sway in the city below.

Until now, the thought of logistically how to maintain this compromising configuration while walking about the streets of Liyue Harbor had not yet crossed the foggy wasteland behind Zhongli’s dilated pupils, and it was clear by his hesitation in beginning the journey home.

“You know... you could always duck into an alleyway, if you’re that desperate,” she giggled, relishing the annoyed blush that spread across her husband’s face. Both of them knew he’d never agree to such a scheme— he, the former Geo archon, rutting in an alley like a stray tomcat...! 

He barely allowed himself to entertain the thought. Restaurant bathrooms were one thing, but the moonlit streets of the city he raised from the ground? Not while he still retained an ounce of pride.

Still, the matter yet remained.

She glanced at his face, seeing the restraint that was causing his brow to knit and his jaw to tighten as he considered their options. It did cause her pain to know that her beloved was so uncomfortable, yet her own desires weren’t impervious to the thought of his growing sexual frustration and the feel of the warm length pressed against her left hand.

The ghost of a whine escaped his lips and she was shaken out of her own reverie by his obvious need for her to take initiative.

“Well then, my love, let’s get you home. Shall we?” She smiled up at him as she undid his coat buttons and wrapped one shoulder of the ample fabric around her, shielding his predicament from the world as long as she stayed close to his side. Thus prepared, she took his trembling hands in hers and tugged him along next to her as they fell into step.

Much to Zhongli’s relief, stay close she did. As they started down the restaurant steps, she felt one of his gloved hands release hers and snake around her cloaked waist to cling to her, desperate for stability. 

As aware as she was that she had this powerful man in the very palm of her hand at the moment, she valiantly resisted the instinct to tease and test his resolve to maintain respectable appearances while in public.

At first, she succeeded. Until he started being unfair and moaning under his breath in the lewdest way imaginable, that is. 

They were halfway to their residence and Zhongli was trying oh-so-hard to keep it together, for her sake and for his own, but for fuck’s sake, the way her hand would involuntarily stroke him when he took a step, sliding up and down his clothed shaft and making walking ten times harder than it needed to be— 

“Ngh~ My-My dear, I- Mmph.”  

She chanced a glimpse of his face and momentarily lost her balance, causing both of them to stumble and her husband to whine lowly at the loss of friction.

Between the sounds coming from the beautiful man next to her and the look of utter pleasure melting his expression, she decided she couldn’t keep her vow. Blushing, she gripped him harder in retaliation, which earned her a gasp. 

“Please, darling, I- o-oh,” he whispered, trying very hard to glare at his assailant through the haze of lust that clouded his gaze.

Craving the gentle sounds escaping him more than her conscience could fault her for, she began moving her hand a little more purposefully with each step, rubbing him through his pants in a gentle rhythm until an uncharacteristically weak hand caught her wrist.

“N-No. No more.” He looked simultaneously aroused, angry, and pleading; he was far too close to the edge to conceal anything. “I beg, darling.”

That settled it. Slowing her pace to nothing, she ceased her teasing to instead hold him gently as her face buried itself into the warm crook of his neck. They stood there in the darkened street for a peaceful moment, no sound breaking the silence aside from the distant sounds of the commercial district and Zhongli’s panting breaths.

“My apologies. I got carried away,” she murmured into the fabric of his collar. Her breaths ghosted across his collarbone and made him shiver, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Can you keep going? Should we stop here and rest?” 

He exhaled shakily, relieved at her change of heart. Had she known just what fantasies of taking his wife against the nearest wall, decorum be damned, were currently making his blood run hot, he was sure she wouldn’t feel near so much remorse for her earlier actions. 

Against all odds, they arrived at their doorstep in one piece. To the empty Liyuean night, they appeared to be a newlywed couple returning from a nice night out on the town, though the husband looked to have had a few drinks too many by his mannerisms.

Zhongli fumbled with the key in his breast pocket with his other hand braced against the doorknob, almost dropping it in his uncharacteristic haste. His companion gently took his hand in hers and guided it to the lock, sliding it open with a click. A gentleman even in his current state, he ushered her in ahead of him before passing through the familiar doorway.

That disciplined façade was dropped as quickly as he could shut the door behind him. Barely remembering to turn the lock behind him, he slumped against the wall of the entryway, panting.

Sensing his inability to move on his own, she took his arm and half-carried him to their bedroom, cheeks heating from the very vocal response his body gave to her touch. He’d moan for her again like this when he was feeling better, she vowed, already planning her method of attack.

He slumped onto their freshly made bed as she propped him against the headboard and watched through clouded eyes as his wife started to undo the lacing of her intricate gown. 

Feeling his gaze on her, she gave him an apologetic smile as she worked on removing her clothing. “I’m sorry, dear, I promise I’ll be there in a moment. This lace is so delicate,” she murmured, glancing down at it as if certain it would tear any second now.

She had meant to attend to him straight away, but she couldn’t bear to ruin the beautiful dress he had picked out for her, nor the jewelry that had caught her eye on their honeymoon so long ago. They were gifts from him, pieces of his love, and she could feel that love in his gaze whenever he saw how she treasured them; she knew how much it meant to him that she treated them with such care.

On most nights such as this, Zhongli would be the one removing them from her body with a tenderness that spoke to his patient nature. Tonight, however, her husband’s low and breaking voice called out from where he lay on silk sheets behind her, less composed than she had ever heard him when she wasn’t performing some act of pleasure on him.

“Please, my dear, my-my gem, I-” He swallowed thickly, biting back another moan that rose in his throat. They were getting more difficult to swallow by the moment. “I need- I won’t last much longer without-” 

The desperation in his tone nearly made her fold, but she was determined not to ruin his gifts. No matter how he moaned, she thought.

As she pulled the dress over her head and moved quickly to hang it up, she heard a rustling of fabric behind her and the sound of clothing hitting the floor. By the sound of it, he’d succeeded in removing his coat, at least. 

Her name fell from his lips like both a curse and a prayer as a tie and pin clattered onto the nightstand.

“Ngh- You...” he cut himself off, panting, as he unzipped his pants enough for the impressive tent in his boxers to spring out of them. “Leave me no- ah! - choice, then.” He was palming his cock with abandon now, working himself desperately through the damp material like his life depended on it. She turned from the closet just in time to see him finally ridding his erection from its confines and gasping as the cold air met his flushed, weeping head.

If he had been suppressing his sounds of arousal before now, no longer. They tore from his throat like an erotic music box, some high and needy, some like the rumbling of far-off thunder.

He tore his gloves off in annoyance, apparently not getting the friction he sought, and discarded them to the floor in a way she’d never seen him do as he stroked himself faster, chasing release. 

It didn’t take long to work up to his peak, with the state he had been in all evening. His head was thrown back against the headboard, incoherent sounds forming at his lips, and in that moment, his wife thought him the perfect picture of a debauched god.

“Zh- Dear, I...” Half-conscious, she dropped the earring in her hand onto the dresser and took in the finest piece of art she’d ever seen before her. It was certainly something to witness a man like him in his moment of sheerest vulnerability. Knowing how much he needed her touch just then, she forsook the rest of her jewelry and rushed to him.

It was her name on his lips as his hips began to buck wildly and his breath hitched, tears forming in golden eyes trained on her as she knelt next to him. She pressed her forehead to his own, caressing his face and murmuring words of praise.

The knot snapped all at once, his whole body twitching and flushed and heavenly. 

She held his face as he came down from his intense high, breathing heavily and holding her gaze through half-lidded eyes. An impressive amount of release decorated his bare chest, while some had landed on the unbuttoned dress shirt that still clung to his shoulders and arms. His beautiful face was covered in a thin sheen of sweat as she kissed him softly, carefully, his lips red from abuse by dragonlike fangs. Before she closed her eyes, she mentally burned the image into her brain forever. 

Humming quietly as his breathing began to steady, she retrieved a towel from the cabinet of her nightstand and began tending to his slicked stomach and hands, gently cleaning the remains of his pleasure with care. Bent over his chest, she felt arms around her waist pulling her up, some of his usual strength having returned to him after his initial release. She let him. Straddling his lap in her lace undergarments, she settled herself against his hips as she helped him remove his shirt and let it fall next to the bed.

Another obstacle between them having been removed, he pulled her in by her jade necklace, meeting her lips halfway in a soft, passionate embrace. Momentarily satisfied, he shifted to target the side of her neck, trailing a line of burning kisses until he got to the offending piece of jewelry that had kept her from his side for so long. 

As his warm lips met cold metal, Zhongli brought up an elegant hand and expertly unlatched the chain, laying it on the nightstand with far more control than she would have expected of him— though she caught the subtle shake in his hands as he pushed his legendary self-control to its limits.

It had been mere moments since he had come, but his body was already responding to her proximity, cock hardening at an amazing rate as she started to rock her hips against him. He groaned in response, hands coming up to grab at her thighs, feeling the effects of his rut kick in yet again. 

A bead of sweat rolled down his abdominal muscles and through the neatly-trimmed trail below his navel before disappearing into gold-hemmed boxers. She watched its progress, in no hurry to quicken her pace, and migrated her fingers from his flushed cheeks to the amber strands of hair that stuck to his forehead. Smoothing them back, she smiled at him and massaged his scalp with her fingernails, eliciting lovely sounds from her husband’s parted lips. 

He took the opportunity while she gazed at him so lovingly to capture her lips with his own, elongated canines nipping at her as she deepened the kiss. 

Once his wife had succeeded in lulling him completely, her hand dipped between them suddenly to grab at his length and Zhongli gasped prettily into her mouth. She smirked against his lips. Fingers dancing along his shaft that flushed a beautiful gold with arousal, she teased him enough that she could feel his heartbeat rabbiting against her hand and his breathing hitch in his throat.

Taking pity, she finally moved her forefinger up to his sensitive head and swirled the bead there into his soft skin, slowly building in intensity. Before he could wince from the overstimulation, she resumed a rhythmic pace on his shaft that caused his head to fall back against the headboard with a thunk . Finally, finally, she had her hands on him and he was getting the friction he needed so desperately all evening. He could cry from relief.

Then, just as he started to feel the knot in his abdomen build once more from her steady attention, she pulled her hand away with a butterfly kiss to his nose and he whined, pulling back from her with a pitiable look in his eyes. 

“-Really, darling?” His words spoke to his annoyance at being denied, but his face betrayed him, as did the breathlessness of his tone. “ Please stop teasing or I’ll- ah- ”

She cut him off with a gentle kiss to his tip that forced him to inhale sharply. Her grin was akin to a Chesire cat’s. “Or you’ll what, dearest?”

Zhongli huffed gently, his hips rocking against hers traitorously. He made no reply.

She placed a hand lovingly to his chest, tracing the markings that streaked his torso from collarbone to hip. They flushed gold under her wandering touch, thrumming with power and arousal, as well as barely-contained anticipation.

As she finally brought her eyes up to his, gaze swimming with endearment, he allowed himself to hope that his torment was over for the evening. His wife’s more teasing tendencies surely must have been satisfied by now. She did love him, didn’t she? She must feel some sympathy for her partner of so many years. She must.

“Now, let’s get you out of these pants, hmm?”

Oh, thank fuck.

His last thought was of gratitude before she helped him kick off his trousers and his mind finally, mercifully, went blank.

◇◇─◇──◇─◇◇─◇──◇─◇◇─◇──◇─◇◇

Later that night, when the hormonal effects had mostly subsided and he lay with his exhausted wife on his chest, playing with her hair while she rested, he made a few mental notes in whatever part of his brain was lucid. 

One was to buy a calendar for his office. The second was to evaluate the removal time coefficient of a gift before buying it in the future. The final was to invest in a more durable set of sheets.

And if any other thoughts crossed his mind before he succumbed to his own exhaustion, they were lost to the Liyue night.

｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─ ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─ ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆｡ﾟ

A/N: this is my first work on here! thank you for reading! <3

[berenwrites]

For Love – Steddie Flashfic – PG

A/N: Had a totally different fic in mind when I opened my doc to work on it, and this happened, so I hope you like it. Don’t forget to check out all the other great fics at @steddiemicrofic too💖.

Written for prompt: CHARM | 548 words | rated: PG | cw: none

Steve’s current position seemed oddly familiar, although this time it was claws at his throat, not a broken bottle, and he was being held against a tree not a wooden wall. Eddie didn’t look that much different really. His teeth were sharper, his eyes were darker, and he seemed incredibly strong, but Steve could still see Eddie underneath.

“Long time no see, Sweetheart,” Eddie said, voice deep and resonant.

It had been two months-ish. They were almost ready with the plan to end Vecna for good. Steve had been patrolling to make sure nothing had come through the rifts, looking out for demodogs or demobats, not dead friends.

“You don’t look afraid enough, Stevie,” Eddie said, leaning in close, “anyone would think you like this.”

Contrary to some peoples’ opinions, Steve was not an idiot. On their last adventure, he had seen the way Eddie had snatched glances at him when he thought Steve wasn’t looking. He could also guess how Eddie would assume he would react to something like that. The taunt was designed to make him worry about more than his life.

“Let me go and find out,” he said as best he could with fingers wrapped around his throat.

“Gonna run, Big Boy?” Eddie asked, leaning in close. “You won’t get far.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” he replied, staring into those dark eyes.

Eddie laughed, something between what Steve had heard before and a guttural hissing noise.

“All the more fun for me,” Eddie decided with a toothy grin, and the pressure on Steve’s neck lessened.

He could have run. Animal instincts looked at the predator in front of him and told him to, but he didn’t.

“Screw it,” he said, and as Eddie stepped away, he went with him.

Bringing up both hands, he took Eddie’s face between his palms and leaned in to kiss him. He held nothing back. None of the loss or need that had had months to percolate and grow after he had done some soul searching, realising what might have been. None of the passion he had used to charm so many girls, but never felt coming back. Because there was something else they had discovered since last time. Music brought people back because music touched something deep inside, and there were other ways to reach that too.

Maybe this was the way he would die, but Steve had to try. He put everything he was into the kiss, all his hopes, all his dreams, all his love. He might not have known Eddie properly for long, but he had listened to Dustin, to the other boys, to Wayne, who had refused to leave town, and he had learned.

Falling in love with an idea, a memory, was so clichéd, so very him. He hadn’t realised it, not completely, not until Eddie had come out of the darkness at him. Maybe the Upside Down had finally driven him mad as desperation filled him.

Eddie’s skin was cold against his. Eddie’s body was frozen. Eddie tasted like ash.

But Steve could not let go, would not give in. If there was a chance, he had to take it for the sake of them both.

And finally, after seconds that felt like eons, Eddie’s arms pulled him close.

[cuubism]

A little headcannon that has been stewing in my head for a while and has absolutely no proof from the cannon

Death has wings right? What if Dream used to have wings too but when his kingdom got invaded for the first time(that story he tells in the Overture) the invaders cut his wings off. That's the part of the reason why he crafted his helm and why's he so dependent on it. They took his wings so he took their skull and a spine, an eye for an eye kind of situation. Also, that's when Dream first started employing a raven. He still has scars on his shoulder blades that follow him to any form he takes. He's ashamed of them, sees them as a sign of weakness, a reminder of his failure and his flaws and goes to great lengths to cover them up. That's about it, but I'd love to hear what you think of it^-^

(Plus: Hob gently running his hands over the scars, showing Dream his own ones and reassuring him that there's nothing broken, or wrong with him)

NO BUT THIS IS SO ANGSTY I LOVE IT. i love suffering

i feel like a permanent injury like that would have to be done to dream's core essence, such as it is, rather than his 'physical form' - i don't know if dream's physical form in the waking world or other realms can even be hurt like that. it would have to be like, something that deeply wounds the dreaming, or the concept of dreaming, or just like the deepest core of dream as an 'entity' rather than it being a physical wound. (this is leading me on a mental tangent about injuries to large groups of dreamers also injuring dream, like, extinction events and such, but that's for another time).

you managed to rope me into it, congrats XD

content warning for blood, gore, violence, Things Done That Can't Be Undone, etc.

--

There is not much, in his long life and memory, that Dream is able to forget. Thoughts do not drift into irrelevancy, into the past, the way they do for humans. He is able to hold much, all at once, in the cavern of his mind, eons of all that has happened hovering close enough to touch. It is a heavy weight more often than it is an aid.

But he forgets, sometimes, with Hob.

With Hob, the rare points of their contact stand out as singularly bright stars in the nebula of Dream's existence. All else within him fades. When Hob takes his hand Dream feels clear as a desert sky, when Hob kisses him for the first time, Dream is floating free in a great salt lake, hanging weightless.

He forgets.

It's only after, bodies pressed together with pleasing heat and sweat-tackiness, Hob tracing patterns over his back, that Dream begins to remember again.

"Dream..." Hob's fingers stutter over his shoulder blades. His voice catches with the hesitance he has often displayed with Dream since their reunion. I think you're here for friendship. Dream feels the echoes.

He kisses Hob's throat, tastes the salt tang of his skin, hides his face away there. The weight of embodiment returning. "Ask your question," he says. "I swear not to part from you now."

"Is this from...?" Hob's fingertips dance up the raised arcs of scar tissue over his back. Pain sparkles in the wake of his touch like the sharpness of a hand-drawn tattoo in the permanence of its inking. As humans imagine it. Dream is not truly physical and could not bear such a mark. Except for this.

"No," he tells Hob. Blame for many of Dream's recent ordeals can be laid at Roderick Burgess's feet, but not this one. "Much older than that."

"Oh." Hob keeps tracing the scar over Dream's right shoulder blade. The touch aches deep in Dream's being where those wounds originate, but he does not tell Hob to stop. Even like this, Hob's hands bring him back, and back, and keep him here.

Hob is waiting, leaving an opening for him to elaborate. Dream is not yet sure whether he wishes to.

"It is not a pretty story," he says.

Hob strokes through his hair. Dream keeps his head tucked under his chin and so feels each word as it's spoken. "Neither of us is a pretty story, darling. Tell it if you want to."

Dream has not spoken of this in many years. There are those in the Dreaming who have served him for millennia whom he has not told. He has taken lovers, had them see the scars during their lovemaking, and still not relayed the story.

"When I was young," he begins, "and still coming into my power, the Dreaming was invaded. My borders were not as strong, then. My realm, less populated. Ancient beings, older than I was at the time, hungered for my realm. Sought its power for their own."

"Older than dreams?" Hob asks.

"In their universe, there were no dreams," Dream tells him. "Perhaps it is what drew them to me."

"Alright. Wow." Hob sounds thoughtful. He rubs Dream's back, between his shoulder blades where it doesn't hurt. "Go on, love."

"I fought them. But the collective unconscious of this universe was young and undeveloped, as was I; I had not mastered all elements of my domain. I fought, but inelegantly, and struggled to counter dreamless beings when all my power was in the unconscious. They were wholly anchored in the present; I, in the space between seconds; we were poorly suited as combatants."

"What did you do?" Hob asks, quiet. He can sense, Dream thinks, the direction this is going, that Dream would not be so hesitant to tell the story of scars born of victory.

"I did not know," Dream admits, equally quiet, still shamed by it, his own failure, and its branching repercussions, "what to do. And the Eldest God, he who had first rent open the walls of my realm, pounced on my uncertainty, captured me, held me--"

The memory, never forgotten, always just within reach should he turn towards it, rises again -- the silk-smooth black sand on the shores of the Dreaming, crushed into his cheek; the warm waters lapping at his mouth, nose, eyes, drowning him; the impossible weight on his spine of the impossible dreamless creature holding him down, arms wrenched behind his back, the feral animal growl that had escaped him, the equally animal panic beating under his ribcage, the fragile spun dreamstuff of him held in the sharptoothed maw of cold reality, his wings--

"Dream?"

Dream comes back to himself. Comes back to Hob. The overwarm flannel sheets. The soft press of Hob's body. He's tapping something on Hob's arm, and hadn't realized he was doing it. It's the rhythm of an old song from before the time of men, the electrical beats passed along root chains from tree to tree to tree, all the way across the great forests that now exist only in scarce patches on the earth.

Dream shifts ever closer to Hob's body, slips a knee between Hob's thighs to tangle them, bare skin to bare skin, limb to limb, root to root.

"I had wings, then," he says.

--his wings, flapping frantically in the face of the thing that pinned him, feathers catching and tearing on jagged armor, held to the ground the way a creature of flight was never meant to be--

"Oh," breathes Hob. He touches the long scar over Dream's shoulder blade again and pauses there. The pain catches the story to Dream again like a hook and holds it there as he continues bleeding it dry.

"The Eldest God dug his claws into me and tore the wings from my body." Dream's voice doesn't shake but he does not manage more than a whisper. "I am not a physical creature, Hob, understand this, I cannot be so easily harmed, it was not a physical form that was damaged, rather, the Old Gods came from stone and earth and it was stone they harnessed as their claws, ancient stone to carve into my being and tear out my wings from the essence of me, root and stem, flesh and bone, air and feather and starlight."

All of this comes out in a continuous rush, and Hob kisses the side of his head, says, "Breathe."

He can still feel, if he but thinks back, the tearing of the claws. A cold so bright it felt like burning. His face ground into the sand to muffle his scream, the howling whiteout of pain overtaking all other noise, the crack of his shoulder joint as it was broken. Star stuff spilling out over the sand - Dream hadn't even known he could bleed until then. Hands that should never have touched in the first place releasing him. Collapsing, disarmed, to the ground. Every limb on fire, the ones that were left.

"Dream."

He lost himself, and found himself again some time later curled in the shallows of the Dreaming sea, seeking shelter from the cold in the warm waters. Face half submerged, breathing as much salt water as air. Blood still spooling around him like leftover paint whirling in a water glass.

"Dream."

Even in those warm waters, he was shivering. Dream doesn't think he's ever been quite warm since; that cold latched itself in him somewhere and never left.

Hob's voice, now, against his ear. He's curled himself around Dream while Dream wasn't paying attention, Dream's back to the warm protection of Hob's chest. "You don't have to finish if you don't want to."

Dream will not leave a story unfinished, not even one such as this. "When I had regained my strength enough to fight back," he continues, "I was... not in control. I knew only survival. If the Old Gods had wished me to understand their world, they succeeded. I abandoned my powers and fought with my hands and my claws and my teeth, and I tore the Eldest God's skull and spine from his body. Both of us would be maimed, I thought; if he would have my dreams then I would have for my own the backbone upon which he held his earth. I listened to him scream. I watched each rib pry up from his chest and snap, my hands slick with his blood, his with mine, and felt nothing but the raw satiation of a wolf setting upon meat. I have told you, Hob." He takes his first breath in a while and feels it rattle, hollow, around his ribcage. "It is not a pretty story."

"No." Hob's hand finds Dream's against his middle, tangles their fingers, holds him. His breath is shaky in Dream's hair, words more so. "No, darling, it's not. I'm sorry."

They rewrote the story of the Dreaming, Dream recalls saying to Destiny, after. Before he had come to know, truly, what Destiny was. Kneeling in his garden, blood still draping his raw back like a shroud, Dream had sought meaning, answers, reason. Foolish, in retrospect, to even consider asking for succor.

Destiny had said that the Dreaming had seeped too far into the Waking world. That what had happened was a necessary rebalancing.

Had Dream not been forbidden from physical violence against his siblings, he would have bitten off one of Destiny's hands with his own sharp teeth and asked if he felt more balanced then.

"Now you know what vicious creature you lie with, Hob Gadling," Dream says. The words are heavy in his throat, but he can't find it in himself to slip from Hob's hold. Now you know the jagged turn at the beginning of my story.

He wonders, sometimes, what the Dreaming might have been like had it continued on the other branch of Destiny's forking path. What he might have been like. There is so much space between a winged creature and a once-winged creature. The entire sky.

"I know." Hob bites at the back of Dream's neck, light but sharp, then kisses that same spot. The nip of pain is unexpectedly soothing. Hob too knows what it is to bite and claw and writhe and maul. “I know. I’ve known your darkness, honey. Don’t you worry.”

“They fled me,” Dream tells him. “The Old Gods. After. I did not understand why at the time.” He had stood, bloodied, shaking, over their Eldest one, bones grasped in his hands, and watched them disappear. These beings that could still have shredded the Dreaming and swallowed it, but chose to run. “Now, I imagine it is like the way men will flee from an animal that is so much smaller than them but has gone rabid. The wrongness. The danger of irreparable madness. They saw me ruined and wished not to catch it, saw the Dreaming—”

This wound has dulled over time and become but a throbbing ache at the base of his skull, a reminder of something missing. But it never disappears.

“The Dreaming, changed, from what they had wanted.”

Dream’s back has never been quite right, since. His anatomy is meant for two sets of joints, not one. But it is only a fitting marker of the permanent damage done that day.

“Changed?” says Hob, so gentle now, lips brushing his skin.

“There was once more,” Dream says. “The collective unconscious was once more… collective.”

“Wait. D’you mean…?”

“Yes. There was more interconnection between minds when I was young. There were not human minds in the sense that you would know them, not yet. But there was communication, and knowing, back then.”

Vestiges of it still linger. In the vast underground networks of the trees, the paired spins of distant atoms. The matched steps of lovers finding perfect synchronicity in a dance. But—

“That was sundered with my wings.”

The cold that had washed over Dream when that realization hit had been worse than the pain of losing the wings in the first place. How he had failed the dreamers under his care. Let things fracture and tear and separate when they were meant to be together.

Hob sighs against the back of his neck. “I’m so sorry, Dream.”

“I am sorry,” Dream says. “It should never have happened.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” Hob agrees, and it’s sweet pain sliding between Dream’s ribs, for Hob to press his fingertips to the rawness of him and say, yes, failure, failure, I see it now.

But Hob kisses the point of his shoulder, the ever-tense muscles of his upper back, the hard curve of his scapula and the calcified line of another almost-joint, lost to time. His lips find the uneven scar tissue and press there, which is its own sweet pain, but sliding towards sweet, a sharp bite to kissed lips.

“It shouldn’t,” Hob whispers, and the words vibrate to the core of him. Hob does not see his failure, will not; Dream had forgotten Hob’s charity towards him, how he will see the blood on Dream’s hands and wipe it away instead of asking how it got there. Dream’s failures have stolen something from him he does not even know to miss, and still.

Now Dream does wish for Hob’s hands slipping under his ribs. Hob would find the aching wretched thing within him that had been loosed that day and hold it in his palms, wash the blood from it with careful strokes. Would that Hob could have held him then, submerged him deep in the waters of the Dreaming sea until the dark and the warmth and the strong hold of his arms had soothed the flayed and violated creature that Dream had become back to sanity. Before the gnashing rageful part of him had turned predator and fully grown its claws.

Perhaps there is succor to be found, after all. How quickly Hob Gadling has become it.

“I wish that I could have…” Hob sighs. It sounds mournful, longing. “I don’t even know. Helped you. Held you. Futile, I know.”

“I would not have you feel badly. It is long past and cannot be undone,” Dream says, as if Hob’s words don’t mean more to him than he could possibly know.

“Nothing can, sweetheart,” Hob says. His hair brushes Dream’s shoulders. It is terribly soft now, in this day and age. Dream suspects it was not always so. Human lives have rarely been soft on their bodies. He appreciates the softness of Hob’s body now, and how it cradles him. Dream himself has long been unchangeably hard-edged. “But I would still help you.”

“Sweetheart,” Dream repeats. Dream might have been sweet, once, at the end of a different story. “You would call me this, at the end of this tale?”

Hob turns him so they are facing each other once more. A tear has gathered in the corner of his eye, and slips down to wet his pillowcase as Dream watches. Tears for Dream. Warm salt water. He smiles at Dream anyway.

“You’re my sweetheart. My dear one. You think I would think anything about this other than sadness for you?”

“Dear one,” Dream echoes. “Always good to me, my Hob.”

“‘Course.” Hob squeezes his hand. Hands that too have known violence, but soft for Dream, always. “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?”

“Only what you have already done,” Dream says. “Be a cavern where I can shelter from the cold.”

Hob kisses him, hot and lingering, and pulls the blankets up over their heads.

[argisthebulwark]

Time Moves Slow - Miraak

sfw, gn reader, mention of canon typical blood/injury Summary: After returning from Sovngarde the Dragonborn finds that a handful of hours for them has been years for those in Tamriel and reunites with their loved one. Others Linked: Vilkas, Brynjolf, Farkas, Teldryn, Cicero

While the Hall of Valor echoed with hundreds of voices you sat completely speechless. As the many toasts and speeches would recount, you'd slain Alduin. The World Eater had fallen to your blade. Resplendent foods and an endless river of ale flowed throughout the hall as eons worth of heroes spoke of your deeds. It was unreal.

It took some effort to soak it all in - your body wanted nothing more than to rest but you fought against it. It felt wrong to sit at the head of such an esteemed table as the Last Dragonborn without Miraak at your side - he was the First, after all. You should've done this together.

You committed the event to memory. Hours slipped into what had to be nighttime in Tamriel but you were steadfast. If he couldn't be present for such a day you would recount every last detail to him. It was a single day, surely your memory could withstand that.

With a stern reminder about mortality you began the lengthy exit. Shaking hands and exchanging farewells with history's most storied heroes was an odd experience but you forged onward, memorizing each name. Miraak would surely have input on those he'd known personally.

"Thank you all for your help." Your throat constricted with the telltale threat of tears. Too many eyes were on you. "Truly I could not have done this without you."

The harsh clang of metal cut through the nice moment. All attention turned to the commotion outside the Hall's hefty doors - another clash of weapons, a hefty grunt, a shout to stop. Hand hovering over the hilt of your sword your heart leapt into your throat. Your tired body couldn't handle another battle.

"Stop, intruder!" Tsun's voice rang out as the Hall of Valor's doors blasted open. You were relieved to see a man falling into the Hall - far easier to handle than a dragon.

The intruder was a wreck. Gashes sliced through the mess of his robes and you spotted quite a few wounds while he collected himself. He was no spirit, no mist clung to his form as it did the residents of Sovngarde. As you drew your weapon he straightened, desperate eyes seeking yours.

"There you are." Miraak's smooth voice melted all tension from your body. Stalking through the Hall of Valor he tossed aside the bloodied mask, bruises marring his face. He never spared a glance for the rest of the room as he closed in on you, split lips cracking into a rare smile.

Ungloved hands grasped your face when Miraak's lips fell to yours. His kiss was bloody and urgent, drowning out the whispers from all those in the Hall of Valor. Grabbing at his unfamiliar robes you dragged him closer, desperate and bursting with questions.

"My heart." He murmured, kissing up the side of your face. "You're safe. You're alive."

Your cheeks burned at his shameless display of affection. A few mutters guessed his identity but none were brave enough to step forward.

"How are you here?" Miraak chuckled against your skin at the question, seeming ignorant to the hundreds of onlookers. Greedy hands tilted your face up to his - he looked the same but changed, new scars and a few creases making him appear older.

"Mal Dov." He muttered, an old petname that still made your heart flutter. "You have no idea how long I've searched for you."

"Dovahkiin." One voice commanded attention above the rest. You turned to the speaker, a warrior clad in heavy armor glowering at you both. "You know this intruder?"

"Yes." Miraak's smile curdled into a snarl. The two glared at one another, hardly taking notice when you stepped between them. Miraak placed a protective hand on your shoulder - that caught the warrior's attention.

"Do you know what he is? All that he has done?"

"I've hidden none of my deeds, Hakon." Miraak's voice was pure venom. The hero's eyes turned to you and your stomach churned.

"Is this true, Dragonborn?"

"Yes." Another wave of whispers erupted through the crowd. Miraak's fingers curled into your armor, dragging you closer.

"And yet you," Hakon paused, disgust clear in every word, "you care for him?"

"I love him." It was likely the wrong thing to say but there was no denying it, not when the simplest touch of his lips made your heart soar. Miraak seemed pleased, a possessive kiss placed to your temple.

"We thank you for your deeds today, Dragonborn. But you must leave this place." Hakon paused again, his disappointment evident. "Due to these actions I ask that you do not return."

Walking out of Sovngarde with Miraak at your side felt right. He clutched you close, whispered promises and apologies washing away the stress of the day. He was relentless, switching between apologies and rushed stories of how long he'd followed your trail.

Upon returning to Skyrim you became acutely aware of every ache and pain Sovngarde had spared you from feeling. Miraak hauled you onto his back, waving away concern over his injuries when he carried your exhausted body toward home. Finally it seemed you would both be able to relax.

After making camp beneath a grove of trees Miraak snored at your side. His story of how long you'd truly been gone made no sense but there was no other explanation - he'd searched everywhere and found nothing, breaking into Sovngarde after years of fruitless travels. Curling into his side you made peace with your decision - you'd give up every afterlife in existence to be with him.

[silverryu25]

i would love to see sci-fi day 6 star wars with the prompt “Have you forgotten how it all ended last time?” :)

Nonny... I have so little knowledge of Star wars but... this kinda hit a plot bunny so I hope you like! XD

DAY 6 - Star Wars + “Have you forgotten how it all ended last time?”

Tag warnings: implied suicide (briefly and in a "I should have done it" way)

---------------

It was peaceful.

Nothing was happening today. Just like yesterday. And the day before. And before that.

It's been years, though it felt like eons, since anything changed here. No one ever came to this place, not since he got here and made it his home. His aura permeated into the ground and the air, making it inhospitable to anyone and anything.

It was exactly what he wanted.

What he deserved.

What he imposed on himself.

But today... today he felt the emptiness. It slithered into his thoughts, his mind feeling as if it was crawling with his past sins. He could even feel them crawling down his back, making him feel restless. So instead of meditating or just trying to sleep through the fog of negativity that enveloped him, he decided to expend some energy.

The loneliness and emptiness was replaced by rage as he swung his lightsaber.

The flashes of red spread all around him, digging into the piles of old abandoned wreckage of AT-AT walkers, AT-ST transports, cloud cars, AAT's, AAC-1's and many, many more. A graveyard left after many battles. Abandoned to rot and decay, just like he was. Just like he earned through his own stupidity and greed.

Now here he was, adding to that destruction. If he let himself think deeper about his actions he might have realized how symbolic the destruction he was spreading around him was to what he was doing to his own mind and soul. But he didn't. He never did. Thinking would mean acknowledging the guilt that festered in his soul and that would break him because he would have to think about.............

With a roar of rage he swung his lightsaber, splitting the largest piece of wreckage in front of him. He continued swinging until he couldn't anymore. Until all his energy was depleted and all he could do was fall on his knees and pant. Breath coming in harsh desperate gulps, air his body didn't really need to live but his mind needed to drown out his own thoughts.

He wouldn't let himself think.

He couldn't let himself think.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans for him

Just as his breathing stilled and he started focusing on the rage that he forced to burn inside himself, he felt it. A stab in his soul, as sharp as a lightsaber slashing through his ribs and directly into his corrupted soul.

Dread. Fear. Guilt. Fear. Anger. Fear. Hate. Fear. Longing. Fear. Desperation. Fear. Need. Fear. Lo- Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear.

He could feel his eyelights extinguish as the fear took over everything else. He was spiraling so fast, so hard, so completely, that he didn't even notice the soft footsteps making their way slowly towards his kneeling form from the back.

The soft taps of slippered feet felt like hammer strikes into his soul.

He wanted to flee, but he couldn't. His legs wouldn't move. Wouldn't lift him from the desolate ground he deserved to dust into.

Then they stopped and there was only silence left.

Silence except for the rush of his magic into his skull. It was screaming fear to him.

'run away!' His mind screamed at him. 'hide! don't let him see you! don't let him see what you became'!

But he couldn't.

The silence stretched forever, neither of them moving. Neither of them wanted to speak first. Neither of them knew exactly what to say. He didn't know how much longer his soul could take this silence, how much longer he could keep himself from falling apart. Or worse.

Thankfully, mercifully, the other spoke first.

'red.' His tone was gentle but carried the weight of Red's world in it.

Red felt his whole body shiver from that one word as it came from his mouth. It was like lightning struck his very soul, making his whole body quake. It was time...

"heh," his voice cracked, he hadn't used it for anything but screaming in rage for years. "yer finally 'ere."

There wasn't an answer, only calm silence and cool refreshing magic combined with a powerful force washing over Red's frame.

"wha'? not gonna talk ta me before ya finish me off?" Red barely kept his voice from cracking. "ya changed sans."

The name felt so sweet as it left his teeth, even as bile rose behind them at the implication of his own words. Sans was here to do the one thing Red couldn't make himself do. The one thing Red should have done to atone for his crimes. The one thing he should have done to save Sans from himself. He should have ended it before Sans had to dirty his hands.

There was no reply and Red didn't expect any.

So he just sat there, accepting.

Waiting for the final blow that would free him of this horrid world that took the only thing that he ever truly loved from him. The one thing he was cursed to love but not have. The only thing that made living worth it but was forbidden to him.

Waiting for Sans to end their curse forever.

Waiting for his final judgment for daring to love.

Love wasn't allowed for a Jedi. It would consume them. But Red was weak, he let love enslave him, let it make him want more than he was allowed. It was a crack in his soul that left him open to his inevitable fall into the dark side.

Red loved Sans and he would love to die by his hands.

He waited for the sound of the lightsaber, for that gorgeous blue glow to shine from his back and stab through his soul.

Instead, a pair of skeletal arms grabbed him from the back and pressed him into a bony chest.

He froze in place, unable to process what was happening.

The warmth from the embrace felt both incredibly painful and wonderfully familiar. He could feel his magic gathering on the edges of his eyesockets. Was Sans trying to torture him before he ended it? He wasn't that cruel before, but Red definitely deserved it after everything he had done.

Suddenly, he felt Sans' body shake as it pressed impossibly closer, hugging him even tighter. Was Sans... crying?

"s-swe-," Red almost slipped up, but he wasn't allowed to call Sans pet names, not anymore. "sans?"

All he got in return was an unintelligible mumble from the teeth pressed into his shoulder.

"wha'?"

"..." Sans moved his head to the side, facing away from Red. "you idiot."

"...?" Red was too stunned by the emotion in Sans' voice. What was happening?

"why did you leave?!"

"wha'?" Red tried turning around, but the arms around him held him firmly in place. "wha' da ya mean? ya know what i did an-"

Sans grabbed his shoulders at a speed not even Red could keep up with and twisted him around. Their feet tangled as Red's body was twisted and Red fell backward, Sans landing on top of him, still holding his shoulders. Their faces were close. Too close.

"i don't care about that!" Sans yelled and Red's sockets snapped wide open. He never saw Sans yell before. "why did you leave me behind you moron?!"

Silence followed Sans' question as they both stared at each other. Sans' eyelights dug holes in Red's, emotions Red didn't think he would ever see in them burning like two supernovas.

It didn't feel real.

“sans," Red was almost sure he was hallucinating. "have ya forgotten how it all ended last time?”

Instead of a reply, Sans glared at Red, eyelights burning impossibly hot with an emotion Red would never have dreamed he would see in those beautiful white eyelights. But before Red could fully process what he was seeing, Sans leaned down and pressed his teeth to Red's.

A spark of magic spread from the contact and through Red's whole body. He could feel his own magic and force ignite. His whole body felt as if it was burning. As if it was alive again.

The moment Sans pulled back Red let out a whine. It wasn't enough. He needed more.

"i don't care." Sans breathed out, before he closed the gap between them again and deepened the kiss.

It felt magical.

It felt unreal.

It felt like a lie.

But Red didn't care. 

Reality could go fuck itself.

Sans was here and Red would never let him go.

---------------

This got a bit long >.>

For anyone confused about what the hell is going on (cause I have no idea how clear I managed to make it ^_^;;;): Red was a Jedi, he fell in love with Sans, the dark side noticed and used that love to get Red to work for them. Red did some very bad things for the Sith... but when he ended up in a battle where he almost hurt Sans he ran away. And hid on an abandoned planet. But Sans found him >:3

Hope you like this! And I hope I didn't butcher the Star Wars lore too bad XD

[kallie-den]

True Renaming

A lesbian witch makes a mistake and accidentally summons an incubus instead of a succubus... but decides that she can fix "him" with just a few tweaks to the demon's true name

This force-feminization story was written for my patrons, based on the results of one of the polls I regularly run on Patreon!

If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon!   For less than the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can get   immediate, early access to everything I write - along with exclusive stories and the ability to vote on what I write next. Your support helps  me keep writing and is greatly appreciated   <3

---

Ardat, incubus, took a moment to stretch as the brimstone smoke cleared, savoring every little sensation that came with being incarnated in a physical body - the cool air, the sound of his own heartbeat, the little strains of exertion as he experimentally lifted his arms. It had been too long. Far too long. Ardat had existed for eons, but summonings were becoming rarer and rarer. Now, finally, he was free to roam and corrupt the Earth once more.

Well, not free. Not yet. He had been summoned into a magic circle; a ring of symbols and salt that kept him bound to the spot. But that was merely a minor inconvenience. All Ardat needed to do was convince his summoner to lower their guard a little, and he had plenty of experience with that.

He was, after all, a sex demon.

Now that the smoke had almost cleared, he could just about see them. Ardat stroked his goatee, attended to his short, tufted, black hair, and plastered a winning, charismatic smile on his perfectly formed face. He struggled to keep it there when he noticed the expression his summoner was wearing.

Overwhelming frustration and disappointment.

That was a surprise. Ardat had been greeted in many ways - with awe, lust, shock, self-righteous contempt. But who would be disappointed with a sex demon they’d bound to their will and summoned from the bowels of hell itself?

A woman, for one. A goth, for another. The look of utter, icy disdain on her face looked like it was fixed there permanently, accentuated by her jet-black lipstick and thick, immaculate eyeliner. She had long, silky, black hair - plainly dyed - with layers of deep blue visible underneath, and her clothing was all fishnets, lace, and asymmetrical, flowing folds of black cloth. Her look was - in Ardat’s opinion - a little tacky, but she undeniably carried it off well, and her figure was on the softer, rounded, better-endowed side. Aradat certainly liked that. More for him to enjoy.

“Master,” Ardat said, his voice a low purr. He offered a low, theatrical bow. “Might I have the pleasure of your name? All the better to serve you, of course. Although I must confess a slight, ulterior motive. I desire to confirm my suspicion that your name is just as lovely as you are.”

It was a good line, and one that had made many would-be witches blush throughout history. So, Ardat had been hoping for a better response than an angry, disgusted: “Tch.”

He tilted his head, confused. “Excuse me?”

“It’s Lenora,” she said, with an air of clear reluctance. “I guess.”

“Have… I done something to offend you, master?” Ardat asked cautiously.

Lenora groaned and made a gesture like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re an incubus.”

“Of course.” Ardat took a moment to refresh his grin. “I am Ardat of the Second Circle. I am accomplished in pleasures far beyond the average mortal ken - and I am at your disposal, body and soul.”

Lenora simply rolled her eyes. “You don’t get it. I’m a lesbian.”

Ardat’s smile immediately faltered. “Then… if I may ask… why did you-“

“Because you were meant to be a succubus!” the witch exploded. “I wanted to get my mind blown, and I found an old grimoire talking about this ancient sex demon. ‘Ardat of Ur’. A succubus! And now I get… you.”

“Ah,” Ardat said awkwardly. “Well, gender and grammar in ancient proto-Sumerian can be a little tricky.”

Lenora glared daggers at him. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

“Master, I’m sure you know that labels are just words,” Ardat attempted, making his voice a thrilling, husky growl and arching his back to present his bare, sculpted chest to the witch. “Whatever you may consider yourself, why not try allowing me to please you? I’m sure I could find a way to change your feelings. Everyone’s a little flexible, under the right circumstances. Maybe you just haven’t found the right man.”

From the look on her face, he immediately knew he’d chosen the wrong tactic. “Gross,” Lenora spat, even more disgustedly. “Try that again, and I’ll banish you before you can blink.”

“Wait!” Ardat said hurriedly. “Don’t send me back! Not when I… when I have so much to offer you, that is.” He tried to sound simpering and pleasing; maybe she’d like that more. “I could easily help you to summon a demon a little more fitting for your tastes. Now, if you’ll just let me out of this magic circle, I’ll-“

Lenora snorted a laugh. “Nice try. But no. Part of the reason I’m so pissed is that, as you well know, I can’t attempt this ritual again until the next lunar-venusian conjunction. Which is also the reason I can’t afford to send you back to Hell.”

Hearing that gave Ardat the twinge of hope he needed. “Then, surely there must be some service I can perform for you, master,” he purred. “Simply name your heart’s desire, and I will happily provide - for the right price, of course.”

“I don’t think-“ Lenora abruptly broke off, and then started thoughtfully at Ardat. Hope swelled in his demonic chest. “Actually,” she began thoughtfully, “maybe there is something I can do with you.”

“Yes?” Ardat asked, cautiously optimistic.

“I do have you here, even if you’re not quite right,” Lenora mused, pacing across the room. “And I do still have an itch I could do with scratching.”

Ardat let out a filthy laugh. “I’d be more than happy to assist, master,” he purred. “I knew you would prove to be open-minded.”

Lenora threw him a dangerous look, but it faded from her face almost immediately, replaced by a wicked, satisfied smirk. Somehow, that worried Ardat much, much more than her anger.

“Open-minded? No,” Lenora said. “I’m just going to fix you.”

“F-fix?” Ardat’s worry was growing.

“Fix,” Lenora confirmed, grinning. “Succubus, incubus, how different can they really be? Anyway, that whole thing is way too binary to be real. I’m sure it can’t be so hard to turn one into the other.”

“Turn into-“ Ardat let out a nervous, incredulous laugh. “Very funny, master.”

“Oh, I’m not joking.” Lenora’s grin was steadily taking on a crooked, malevolent quality. “I’m a witch. A damn good one. You wouldn’t believe what I can turn people into.”

“That’s not the problem,” Ardat explained, sighing. “Demons aren’t like people. Who we are - our bodies, our personalities, our genders - aren’t, for want of a better word, malleable. They are unchanging; ontologically fixed to specific lingua-symbolic entities - better known by your kind as our ‘true names’.”

It was a little surprising that a witch capable of summoning a demon didn’t know that much, but Ardat wanted to make sure to nip this absurd notion in the bud. He needed to guide Lenora towards something he could truly tempt her with.

“Your true names, huh?” Lenora laughed and reached for an old, leather-bound book resting on a nearby table. “Like, for example… this?”

She flipped it open to a bookmarked page and held it up for Ardat to see. It sent a cold shiver down his spine. His true name was written in the pages.

Most people wouldn’t have recognized it as such, or as a name at all. It wasn’t in words - English words least of all. Instead, it was a complex, intricately-interwoven symbol, expanding to fill an entire page of a huge grimoire with headache-inducing artistic and geometric figures. And yet, it was his name. ‘Ardat’ was the corresponding vocalization, although, from a demon’s perspective, it was crude to the point of ugliness in how little information it truly conveyed. The symbol on the page in Lenora’s book told and defined everything about the incubus, from beginning to end.

Which was very, very bad.

Knowledge was power, both figuratively and literally. It didn’t mean Lenora could pull off the kind of insane transformation she seemed to be set on, but knowing Ardat’s true name meant there was plenty she was capable of. He was going to have to tread extremely carefully.

“Where did you get that?” Ardat hissed.

“It’s from ancient Sumeria,” Lenora answered, throwing him a smug, nasty look. “You see, my ancient proto-Sumerian is actually fucking great. I just misinterpreted one little part of your true name. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. I had to pay a pretty penny for this grimoire, though. Time to see if it’ll all be worth it.”

“That…” Ardat sighed, exasperated. “You still can’t turn me into… well, into anything! That isn’t how this works. True names might be written in ink, but I can assure you, they’re metaphorically set in stone. There are only a handful of artifacts in existence with the power to change them.”

“C’mon.” Lenora started giggling. “You can’t just set me up like that twice in a row.”

Ardat’s heart sank. “S-surely you don’t-“

This time, she reached for a small, wood-carved box and opened it. Inside was a candle that looked ordinary at first, but when Lenora lit it with a well-used lighter, the wax started to glow with an unnatural, purple phosphorescence.

“An ur-candle,” Ardat whispered reverently.

Fuck.

“Let’s take it for a spin, shall we?” Lenora said. She set the grimoire bearing Ardat’s true name down on the table and lifted the ur-candle menacingly towards it.

“Wait!” Ardat called out in alarm. He’d only heard whispers about what was about to happen, but those alone were enough to terrify him. But he fell silent once Lenora tipped the candle, and allowed a little of its wax to drip onto his true name.

Ardat froze. He could feel something; an unnameable sensation that held him in its grip and made his head feel like it was going to split open. It was as if something was touching his very soul, especially when Lenora picked up an iron stylus and used it like a pen to move the molten wax around on the page. Disconcertingly, the ink underneath it, dried for thousands of years, started to bubble up and move with it. And just like that, his reality was rewritten.

It only took hold slowly, with the first changes beginning after the wax on the grimoire’s pages had already set, but its pace quickened rapidly after Lenora held up the book for Ardat to inspect. His true name, the sigil that was the incubus’s very being, was different now. The changes were slight and subtle, and to most people they would have meant nothing. But to Ardat, it was everything.

Only, that was no longer his name. The sigil now sounded out as something different. It would be-

“Aridat,” Lenora pronounced, in a strong, clear, commanding voice. “Your name is Aridat.”

Aridat’s head sheared, and they shook their head in futile denial. “N-no.”

“Your name is Aridat,” Lenora insisted.

“My name,” Aridat grunted through gritted teeth, straining to hold on to at least this, to at least the word, “is Ard… Ar… Ari…”

“Your name,” Lenora repeated patiently, “is Aridat.”

“My name is Ari… dat,” Aridat found themself agreeing, a pained look on their face. “No, it’s… my name is Aridat… Ard… Aridat.”

The new sound was such a small thing, like a breath, and that made it so poisonously easy for it to slip in between the consonants, making its presence felt only in how much softer their name suddenly sounded as it left the incubus’s lips.

“Aridat,” Lenora nodded. The grin on her face was now one of lurid, sadistic fascination. “Good.”

“My name is… Aridat?” Aridat was losing their conviction. It was hard to remain defiant when reality itself had turned against them. They could feel an immense pull toward acceptance like a lead weight on their shoulders.

“Aridat,” Lenora repeated again. The witch tilted her head, amused. “You’re even starting to look like an Aridat.”

Her comment drew attention to something Aridat had been trying to convince themself wasn’t real: the way their body suddenly seemed just as molten and pliable as the wax of the ur-candle, ready to be changed, reshaped, remolded. The sensation was almost imperciptible, though. So subtle it was almost like nothing was changing at all. Aridat had to force themself to truly notice what was happening to them. Their face was softening and rounding out, and their goatee fell from their face in wisps as it disintegrated into nothing. Aridat’s hair had grown inches in seconds, and their body lost its overbearingly masculine silhouette as their shoulders narrowed and their hips widened. They even became shorter.

Ardat had been manly. Strong. A straight woman’s fantasy brought to life. Aridat, it turned out, was androgynous. Even elfin.

It just went with the name, somehow.

“My name… is Aridat,” they said slowly. This time, Aridat’s voice was heavy with acceptance. It felt good to embrace it, just like it felt good to breathe after forcing yourself to stay underwater.

Their name was Aridat. It just was. And they were a them, apparently.

“Fuck,” Lenora breathed. “That was so hot.”

Aridat, still recovering from having their identity rewritten on a spiritual level, was shaking with rage. Reality had changed but, crucially, history hadn’t. They still remembered what they’d lost. They’d been Ardat. They’d been manly and strong. Now, just looking down at their body was accompanied by a hot lick of bitter humiliation. And it was all because of this accursed witch. If not for the magic circle marked on the ground, Aridat would have had their hands around her throat.

“Aridat,” Lenora said, “how do you feel?”

The worst part, the very worst, was the way their new name being called felt. It made their ears prick up and instinctively caught their attention. Aridat was their name now, and like it or not, they answered to it.

“I… feel…” Aridat replied slowly. How did they feel? It was impossible to say. Their head was a swirling mass of contradictions. Memories that didn’t match reality. Old instincts that didn’t match their new personality, which seemed somehow more passive. More pliant. “I… don’t know.”

“That makes sense.” Lenora nodded thoughtfully. “It looked wild. I’m sure feeling it is even crazier, even though I was trying not to scramble you too badly. Although…” She looked Aridat up and down pointedly. “Maybe I wasn’t ambitious enough.”

Hearing that made Aridat’s blood run cold. “W-what?”

“Don’t get me wrong!” Lenora held up her hands in mock sincerity. “You look great, really. Normally I wouldn’t be so picky. I can roll with androgynous. But tonight I was really looking for something more on the ‘succubus’ end of the spectrum.”

“Fuck you,” Aridat hissed.

“I’m sorry!” Lenora’s grin was already breaking through her face. “This isn’t an exact science, you know. But now that I’ve tested it out, I think it’s safe to say that we can push this just a little bit further.”

“Wait!” Aridat begged as she lifted up the ur-candle again. They couldn’t let her change them any further. This was bad enough, but at least their old identity, their old name, was still within sight. “Stop, you can’t-“

Lenora ignored them, and tipped more enchanted wax onto their true name.

Aridat immediately felt it again; that terrifying sense of displacement as their true name began to flow like fresh ink. It was ice-cold and shockingly intimate, and made them uncomfortable aware of all the ways they were being changed. It made them feel thin; so thin that they’d fold like paper under their own weight.

The sensation doubled when Lenora took her pen to the molten wax. This time she was more daring and less careful, streaking the wax and ink across the page in huge strokes. Aridat felt each one in their soul, even as they felt that name, newly-given, already beginning to slip away.

Once she was done, Lenora looked up. She was clearly proud of her penmanship, and looked at the incubus thoughtfully.

“Your name,” she said, in that slow, deliberate way, “is Aridata.”

Aridata’s heart skipped a beat. “C-c’mon,” she whined. “It’s n-not.”

“Your name,” Lenora said again, more firmly, “is Aridata.”

As futile as it might have been, Aridata couldn’t help but try to fight it. “My name,” she struggled. “Is… Ar… Aridat.”

Even that, though, was surrender, and they both knew it. Aridata still remembered the name ‘Ardat’, but she couldn’t bring herself to claim it. Not anymore. It wouldn’t feel right. She wouldn’t sound sure enough. But hearing her insist she was ‘Aridat’ now brought a maddening smile to Lenora’s face and made the demon feel weak.

And the way it came out of her mouth was just as bad. ‘Aridat’, but with a new openness at the end; a hint, a wisp, a breath of something yet to be sounded out.

“Your name is Aridata,” Lenora insisted simply.

Her words rippled over Aridata, making her shiver with their rhythm. “My name is Ari… Aridat… a… Ari…”

She was on the brink. Both of them knew it.

“Your name is Aridata.”

“My name… my name is… A-Aridata.”

As before, it was an incredible relief to say it. Aridata. That was her name. A-ri-da-ta. It sounded so different now. So light. That treasonous little ‘a’ appended to it, a whole syllable of femininity, opened up the entire name, making the harder consonants before it a mere prelude.

Aridata. It was a girl’s name.

Aridata knew what that must mean. She reached up and touched her face, and found it different. It was her face, and it wasn’t. It wasn’t changing; an old, defunct reality was simply washing away, revealing a newer reality that might always have been there. Aridata’s face was softer now. Less angular. She had wider eyes, petite brows, and a far less pronounced jawline. But that was absolutely nothing compared to what was happening to the rest of her body. Suddenly, Aridata had wide hips and curved thighs and, most distractingly of all, the distinct swell of breasts on her chest.

“Wow,” Lenora commented, wolf-whistling. “Now that’s more like it.”

“Fuck. You!” Aridata spat, and was shocked at how girlish her voice sounded. She couldn’t manage the same level of vitriol and spite as she had earlier.

“Maybe, soon.” Lenora giggled. “You know, that outfit suits you much better now.”

Aridata looked down at herself and almost choked. She was wearing the same clothing as before - black, tight-fitting, leather pants, and nothing else - but with her appearance it felt very different. She had gone from suave seducer to something much more butch, or perhaps tomboyish. Her hair, now mid-length, fit with that too. The whole thing felt like a pointed mockery, and that should have made Aridata violently angry.

Instead, it made her blush.

It was something about her chest. Having breasts, even small ones, made being topless feel very, very different. It made Aridata feel exposed; she was suddenly conscious of the air on her skin, and even more conscious of Lenora’s gaze on her body. Everything about it was undignified. Even succubi preferred tempting, alluring, suggestive clothes to simply going topless! Instinctively, Aridata moved to cover herself and started looking around for a stray item of clothing she could use. Only the look of mirth in Lenora’s eyes stopped her.

What was she doing? Aridata wasn’t some kind of blushing maiden. She was… a man? That didn’t sound right, even in her own head. But she knew she had to try and keep hold of that version of reality.

“What’s the matter?” Lenora teased. “You weren’t shy like this before. Isn’t that interesting?”

“Hey!” Aridata huffed. “That’s not-“

She broke off. She’d huffed. Since when did she huff? That wasn’t like her at all. Except it was now. Even her mannerisms were suspect. The things Lenora could do with her candle and Aridata’s true name went far beyond the superficial. Her mannerisms, her personality, her memories - all of them could be rewritten with no more than a stroke of a pen.

“Don’t worry,” Lenora said mockingly. “I enjoy you being more ladylike.”

“I’m. Not.” Aridata had to fight to keep her voice deep and even. “I-I’m a man.”

Lenora just looked at him pityingly. They both knew how false it sounded. Aridata’s voice was too high, too light, and the inner convictions of her nature were telling her otherwise, robbing her words of their conviction.

“Uh-huh,” Lenora replied, deadpan. “And who’s gonna believe that?”

“I…” Aridata spluttered. “I…”

“Then again,” Lenora added, making no attempt to hide her mockery. “Maybe you have a point. This look is good, but it’s not really what I was after. It’s more ‘female incubus’ than ‘succubus’, if that makes any sense.”

Aridata’s blood ran cold yet again as she realized what Lenora was hinting at. “N-no, wait!”

She wasn’t expecting Lenora to tilt her head and look thoughtfully at her. “OK. I’m waiting.”

“I…”

Aridata found herself speechless. She doubted anything she might say could dissuade Lenora, but there was too much at stake not to try. However, she wasn’t going to beg. She wasn’t. Aridata - Ardat, Ardat, she reminded herself - never begged. She tempted, she offered, she bargained, but she never begged. That just wasn’t how this was supposed to go. So… what could she offer? There was only one answer, however stomach-churning and humiliating.

The former incubus did her best to strike an alluring pose that showed off all her feminine assets. It came to her worryingly naturally, and she was effortlessly able to bend forward, back arched, chest pushed out, hips swaying, and put something approaching a suggestive half-smile on her face.

“I…” Aridata said falteringly. “I could… please you. Like this.”

She just had to hope that would be enough for her lesbian captor. Perhaps it almost was. Lenora had the look of someone flipping a mental coin. Once she made her mind, though, her eyes glinted wickedly, and Aridata knew she’d lost.

“Close,” Lenora conceded. “But I think we can do better.”

Before Aridata could argue, she once again tipped the ur-candle’s wax onto Aridata’s true name.

This time, Lenora didn’t even wait for the wax to settle and congeal before she started speaking. There was eagerness in her eyes, put there by unquestionable arousal.

“Your name,” Lenora announced, “is Aridatya.”

As she spoke she made it so, using her stylus to draw the wax across the grimoire’s page in big, thick strokes, obliterating the reality Aridatya had only just been growing accustomed to and replacing it with another.

“It is not!” Aridatya tried to insist. “My name is… is Ar… Ari… um… Arida…”

It was getting harder and harder to fight it. Her head was a swirling morass of different names, all of them so similar, all of which felt right and all of which felt wrong. But a new one had just appeared, echoing like a gong, sounding more and more right with each passing moment.

“Your name is Aridatya,” Lenora repeated. She sounded so firm, so sure, whilst Aridatya wasn’t sure about anything.

“My name is… Aridatya?” it came out like a question, and so Lenora nodded in agreement.

“Your name is Aridatya.”

Aridatya found herself nodding too. “My name is A-Aridatya.”

She just couldn’t bring herself to say anything else.

“That’s right.” Lenora’s stylus was still moving across the page, etching details in ink and wax, inscribing all the details of Aridatya’s soul.

“Aridatya…” Aridatya said it slowly, testing how the name felt on her tongue. Her name had become so long, so luxurious. That little ‘y’ made it sound even more feminine, and somehow fancy. Perhaps even exotic.

And… that was her, wasn’t it? It seemed to suit her perfectly, even though she would have struggled to say why. Did that mean she was exotic? Fancy? Feminine?

No. No, of course not. Ardat had never been those things, and that should have settled the question. But it didn’t. Ardat wasn’t real. Not anymore. There was just Aridatya.

Aridatya balled her hands into fists and scolded herself. She couldn’t let herself think that way. She was an incubus. A man, as remote as that now seemed. She had to remember that. She had to remember that none of this was right. She had to.

“It’s quite a name,” Lenora remarked, finishing her handiwork with a flourish. “Aridatya. I think Aridatya is very, very confident in her femininity. Don’t you? Aridatya sounds like a real girly girl to me. The kind of succubus who really revels in it.” Her smirk turned crooked once more. “At least, that’s how it looks in my handwriting.”

“W-what?” Aridatya was stunned as she felt changes washing over her. Nothing was more unsettling than feeling her reality alter. The changes themselves kept slipping beneath her notice; rather than experiencing the transformation directly, it was like she was always noticing the way reality had always been.

In this case, that meant noticing that her hair was longer, and that she was now wearing something different - a long, flowing nightgown, tailored to accentuate a body that was far, far more feminine than she remembered. Those were Aridatya clothes, apparently. It meant noticing that her face was slender and lips full, and her eyes adorned with smoky, sultry makeup. But more than that, it meant noticing how she felt.

It meant noticing that she liked it.

“No!” Aridatya cried out, desperate to give voice to her disgust before it fled. “That’s not right! I hate this.”

“You do?” Lenora feigned surprise, but couldn’t hide her amusement. “But you’re so pretty now.”

The heat, the warm glow of praise that Aridatya immediately felt, was dangerous. Preening was instinctive, as was posing pleasingly and shifting her weight from side to side to accentuate her hips. It took precious seconds for Aridatya to catch herself and plaster a scowl over the thin, devilish smile that had come naturally to her face.

“S-shut up,” Aridatya snarled, torn between forced resentment and reflexive pride.

“C’mon,” Lenora wheedled. “Aren’t you everything a succubus is supposed to be?”

That was a potent compliment, poisonous and sinister in how affirming it was. A succubus was supposed to be beautiful, feminine and seductive, and Aridatya felt like all of those things. So it was undeniable, wasn’t it? She was everything a succubus was supposed to be. The only thing telling her was the faint memory of deeply-buried false reality, fading by the moment.

“I’m an incubus,” Aridatya tried to insist. “Not a succubus. An incubus!”

“Aridatya,” Lenora said pityingly, “do you think anyone seeing you now, anyone at all, would believe that?”

The succubus’s cheeks turned crimson. She looked away and cast about for anything she could use as ammunition. There was precious little left, but Aridatya’s thoughts quickly turned to what was between her legs. It had always been the very pride of her manhood.

“Oh, I see.” Lenora giggled. “You’re thinking about that, are you?”

Now, Aridatya paled. Had it been that obvious?

“I was thinking of letting you keep it, you know,” Lenora remarked, lifting the ur-candle again. “But if you’re going to be difficult about it…”

Aridatya truly turned as white as a sheet as she watched one single drop of wax fall onto the page.

Compared to before, it was nothing. Lenora was careful and subtle with her stylus, too. All in all, the change she made didn’t even amount to a single letter. It was an accent at most; a simple change in pronunciation, barely audible. Aridatya was still Aridatya. But it was enough, and after several horrid moments of anticipation, the succubus felt a new reality wash over her.

And it brought with it a cunt between her legs.

Aridatya gasped and whimpered at the sudden, aching loss which drove home just how much dignity and power she’d lost. Her name, her face - those things were precious, yes, but losing a part of her body that was so symbolic and fundamental for an incubus was even more of a violation. With her hips and thighs still shifting to accommodate her new anatomy, Aridatya squeezed her legs together, hoping to feel something solid between them. Instead, she just felt a sharp, shock of pleasure race up her spine from the unfamiliar stimulation to her new, sensitive pussy.

It was humiliating, and worse, the demon couldn’t suppress a low whine of pleasure. Lenora, of course, just laughed at her plight.

“My, my,” the witch commented. “Enjoying yourself already?”

“Shut up!” Aridatya huffed. She was incandescent with shame and rage, and she couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t hide. Couldn’t flee. Couldn’t stop what was happening to her.

“C’mon,” Lenora giggled mockingly. “Don’t you kind of like it?”

Aridatya had to look away because the truth was that, on some level, she did. Somehow, having a cunt instead of a cock just felt right. It made her feel more like herself, perversely; desirable and sexy in all the right ways for a succubus like her. Knowing that she’d been an incubus minutes ago and had a dick seconds ago didn’t help. It made her seethe with rage and burn with humiliation, yes, but it didn’t make having this body feel any less deliciously affirming.

So, instead, the contrasting emotions inside Aridatya - new and old - were forced to curdle and mix together as reality fought for a stable configuration. They became complimentary, mutually-reinforcing. Her humiliation became a pleasure all of its own, sinful and tempting, spiking her arousal even higher. Her anger, directed so singularly at Lenora, twisted and became a very different kind of craving, one that was predatory and carnal.

A succubus’s hunger.

It was a heady, dizzying cocktail of feelings to be struck with, and it made keeping Aridatya’s identity straight harder than ever. Instinct was taking over. It infested her body language, making her pose and preen and smile, directing all of her hellishly tempting appeal straight at Lenora. The witch was clearly amused and enticed in equal measure.

“Wow,” she remarked, cocking an eyebrow. “Maybe that was the magic ticket. Feeling a little more agreeable now?”

“Absolutely,” Aridatya replied, her voice a vicious purr. She was desperate. She couldn’t let this go any further. She needed Lenora to let down her guard.

“Fascinating,” Lenora breathed. For a moment, occult curiosity took over, although the color in her cheeks made it clear her interest was far more than just academic. “I suppose it is the lynchpin of the succubus/incubus distinction - in some schema, at least - so it makes sense it would have rather dramatic ripples.”

“Dramatic,” Aridatya echoed pleasingly. She bent forward, showing off her new assets. Her tits had become impressively large and pert, and it was dawning on her that she could use that. That she knew how to use that. “Hey, so how about that itch you needed scratching?”

“Yeah?” Lenora couldn’t help but stare, Aridatya noticed with pleasure. “You’re interested.”

“Oh, I just can’t wait to sink my teeth into you,” Aridatya cooed. She giggled. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

The plan, of course, was to seduce her, and then, once she released Aridatya from the magical circle, subdue her and force her to undo all the changes she’d made. At least, that was what Aridatya was telling herself. In truth, it was rationalization as much as anything else. Beneath it all was a simple, heartbeat-drum of need and desire, driving her towards Lenora’s warmth.

"Wow,” Lenora breathed. She wasn’t so quick-witted now. Aridatya could tell she was succumbing to her own desires, now that her summoned demon was in a form far, far more agreeable to her tastes. “But… sink your teeth into me? That sounds a little…”

“C’mon.” Aridatya tried to affect a high-pitched, feminine voice. It came effortlessly, and she was as dismayed at that as she was pleased with her success. “You can trust me. I just want what you made me want.”

Lenora almost went for it. Almost. But in the end, she pulled back and shook her head. “I wish. This version of you is pretty great, if I do say so myself. But… I can tell this isn’t going to be a good idea.”

“N-no.” Aridatya’s smile faltered.

“Perhaps I’ve been going about this the wrong way,” Lenora mused. “It’s not enough to make you a succubus. Not anymore. You’ll still remember what I did, at least a little, and you’ll still want revenge. I need to address that.”

“My… memories?” Aridatya was aghast. How could she fight that?

But Lenora shook her head. “No. Something deeper: your past.” She lifted the ur-candle and toyed with it in her hand, an egomaniacal smile playing across her face. “A true name is such a potent thing. It contains everything about you. Even your very history. Change that, and there’s nothing to remember.”

“Wait!” Aridatya called out, as Lenora started to tip the candle, but she already knew that wouldn’t stop her. Her next word tasted like bitter tears. “P-please!”

She didn’t beg. For all that had changed, that remained true. But this was her limit. This was the end. And so, Aridatya begged.

It didn’t matter.

This time, the way Lenora altered her true name was anything but subtle, even if it was artful. Using her stylus, she worked wax and ink all over the grimoire’s page, inscribing a fresh pattern that seemed to make the entire sigil shift into a bold new configuration.

“And,” Lenora murmured as she worked. “Why not push a few other things a little further, too?”

The sight made the succubus’s head throb, especially when Lenora looked up at her and said:

“Your name is Arideniya.”

“My name is… is Arideniya.”

This time, Aridenya didn’t bother to fight it. She just let her new reality wash over her, and accepted whatever her new self turned out to be.

It felt good, as it turned out. Arideniya couldn’t even perceive the changes as they occurred. Each one etched itself into her memory and her past, as if things had always been that way. Aridenya was left completely, blissfully ignorant of the fact that once, maybe, for a different version of herself, things had been very, very different.

Her tits had always been this huge. Her cunt had always dripped enticing wetness down her thighs when she was turned on and hungry. She’d always been a succubus, a woman, an embodiment of female sexuality, ready to feast on any mortal who came within reach. And when they were around her, they wanted to be feasted on so very, very much.

Arideniya didn’t just feel feminine. She felt powerful, and she took to her power like it was second nature. She stood tall, practically filling the room from floor to ceiling. Her horns were a crown upon her head, and her clothing was royal robes, no less revealing and suggestive for their grandeur. As the wax dried, Arideniya looked down at Lenora like a queen looking down at someone presenting themselves as tribute.

“Master,” the succubus purred, her tone anything but submissive. “Allow me to show you true pleasure.”

Lenora started to sweat from sheer temptation. Her magic circle offered scant protection against the raw, mind-bending power of Arideniya’s presence. She was overwhelming in every sense. She was any mortal’s fantasy given form, and Lenora was far from immune.

“W-what,” the witch struggled to say. She was drooling, but her mouth sounded painfully dry. “This isn’t… I didn’t mean to…”

“Oh, yes, you did,” Arideniya countered. “This is exactly what you wanted. Exactly what you summoned. I’m all your handiwork, Master. It’s time to enjoy me. Time to take down this silly little circle.”

Lenora twitched abruptly, like she was struggling not to obey. Temptation was overriding her reason. Arideniya’s wicked grin widened. She had no particular animosity towards this mortal - but she needed to feed, and she liked to drink deep.

“I don’t u-understand how…” Lenora stuttered, flustered. She took a single step towards Arideniya, taking her perilously close to the magical circle’s boundary, before something seemed to click in her head. “Oh. Oh! I know what I did wrong.”

She stepped back, and hefted the objects in her hand - a leather-bound grimoire and a strange-looking candle. Arideniya’s eyes flew wide as she noticed it. The object seemed to trigger a memory from another life.

“Is that a-“ was all she managed to say before Lenora once again tipped the candle wax all over the grimoire.

This time, Lenora wasn’t artful or sparing. She poured as much wax as she could, obliterating almost all of the succubus’s true name in a single gesture. The succubus was rooted to the spot as a strange, unearthly sensation swept through her, making her mind flash white and robbing her of all sense of self and purpose. The sensation only grew stronger when Lenora started writing with her stylus in wax and ink, replacing some of what had been blotted out and altering what remained.

“It was obvious, really,” Lenora murmured as she worked. “I was too focused on what I wanted to change. Lost sight of the big picture. I was adding, each and every time. More letters, more sounds, more changes stacked on top of changes. I made a name that was impressive. Magnificent. Powerful.” She grinned. “But I think this will do the job just fine instead.”

The succubus standing before her just stared, dumbfounded, struggling to comprehend the meaning of her words.

“Your name,” Lenora told her, slowly and deliberately, “is Aria.”

“My name…” Aria echoed, “is… Aria!”

She brightened as she said it. It felt so right, and the rightness of it made her giggle a pretty, air-headed giggle. Aria licked her lips and arched her back, and reached up to jiggle her own, massive tits experimentally. Doing that made her giggle even harder.

“Maaaaster,” she drawled, pouting. “Don’t you wanna, like, fuck me?”

Lenora laughed. “No need to worry about hidden agendas now, I think,” she said. “So - time to make a contract?”

“A contract?” Aria snorted. “That stuff is soooo boring. Um… let’s see… I’ll give you whatever you want if you’ll, like, make me feel good?”

“Deal,” Lenora announced. She stepped forwards and used the tip of her shoe to erase the boundary of the magical circle on the ground. As soon as it was broken, Aria bounced on her, kissing and squeezing and groping with overeager lust.

Lenora laughed, and her laughter soon turned to moans. It was time to get that itch scratched.

---

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[mxlissaliss]

Gleam Reaper (RoR Hades x Fem!Reader)

⚠️ TWs/CWs: Mentions of drugs , harassment , dead bodies , implied suicide and manipulation ⚠️

Words: 4,4K

Part: 1/3

Notes: Reader here is far from a saint. Here lays a twisted woman with too much power and little to no supervision. It's okay, Hades loves y'all anyway and is all in for the chaos.

Also, it's a kind of platonic-ish relationship at the moment. Might need to see how I lead it to a romantic halt in the near future. First time writing something like this btw, hope you like it if it even reaches anyone :P

***

Red lights, obnoxious music, sweaty people and drugs; that's the perfect recipe for either a great party, or a disaster. And in most cases, it's both.

When you are the God of the Underworld, you grow familiar with the many ways mortal lives end, especially young ones. Tragic to most, any other Tuesday to Hades. After all, eons of experience can toughen anyone's heart and make even the most appalling situation just an everyday occurrence, and a party like the one he had just sneaked in was full of these fateful events.

As he loved to say, death was always around the clock, which was a literal sentence when it came to his job. He leaned against a wall with his arms folded over his chest, an amused expression on his otherwise stoic face. The place was a complete mess, and it was easy to see.

Right next to him lied a deceased young man on the cold floor, eyes and mouth open dismally. The poor lad drank some spiked booze from a nearby table, and it seemed that he was quite the lightweight. Or perhaps he had already done drugs prior to that incident and ended up overdosing. Either way, he took note of that corpse as the first one of many to claim that night.

‘Hm, I wonder how they can talk to each other when I can barely hear my own inner monologue? It's absolutely deafening in here.’ Hades thought as the DJ turned up the music to a further level, and he swore that the speakers were about to catch on fire.

Though, more distracting than the ear-splitting tune in the background was that most of the women around would stop dancing to occasionally throw suggestive glances at him, a kind of visual language that Hades knew pretty well. No God could ever be a stranger to seduction, and he was well aware of the effects his divine appearance had on mortals; his tall stature and broad shoulders caught everyone's attention the second he stepped into the place. He was the highest individual in the room, a quality that only added more charm to his already handsome features. Perfectly chiseled chest and torso that paired up heavenly with the black, tight sweater he was wearing to appear more human-like in his attire, those well-defined arms and athletic legs that couldn't be completely hidden under his gray pants, a sharp jawline, snow-white skin that looked so soft yet untouchable, that godforsaken greek profile and moist, rosy lips. Breathtaking.

But his never-ending beauty was only enhanced by his silvery, wavy hair that looked somewhat messy despite being nearly styled. It moved graciously with each step he took, his slim fingers running through it every so often to brush it away from his forehead as his deep violet eyes searched carefully for his next victim. Oh, how divine he was, and he knew it.

“Help, someone…” The desperate cries of a young woman could be heard from the nearest bathroom, and his sharp ears caught the pitiful plea with ease even through the loud noise. The door was cracked open, and he could catch a glimpse of what looked like your local high school bullies cornering a younger couple with ease.

What a sad sight, humans really seem to not know better sometimes… Aha, there it was! All he had to do was turn his head to the opposite direction and he saw it, yet another dead person on the floor. Well, almost dead. It was a woman convulsing mercilessly on the ground as a group of panicked people tried stop the seizure by holding her limbs still. What a stupid thing to do. They were just making it worse and more agonizing for the poor lady. But it was not Hades' place to intervene, and even if he wanted to, he would not. When death knocks on your door, there is only so much any God other than Thanatos can do.

Besides, the more people that died, the more souls his domain would possess. So he smirked slightly to himself and turned back, walking away to the opposite direction. That summed up two deaths already. The night was looking good so far, and it was only starting.

But even after countless minutes of searching, he couldn't find the person he was looking for; the “Gleam Reaper”, as he liked to call you, since you were like a precious jewel shining among the dark grip of death. A gorgeous, gorgeous woman usually dressed in stylish black clothes, with fancy and neatly polished nails, always preying on mean mortals in the brink of death. You were once a human that died at a party when a group of browbeaters took advantage of your vulnerability, and then things got out of hand. A mess of a party, just like the one the King of the Underworld had just attended to with the purpose of finding you.

He had the honor of meeting you once your soul made it to Helheim. From what he could grasp, you were not the nicest person to walk on Earth and had earned a first-class flight straight to Tartarus, plan that he was about to execute. But you were awfully calm and accepting of the situation, and for someone that had just learned that their final destination would be the worst place to be in the Realm of the Damned, your peace and quiet was nothing short of intriguing to Hades.

———

“Y/n S/n, eh? Aren't you afraid of the Tartarus?” He asked in an icy tone that served well to hide his amusement. The God came off as uninterested and aloof. Nevertheless, the glimpse of curiosity in his eyes did not go unnoticed by your own sharp ones, something that you used to your favor.

“I regret nothing.” Was all you said.

And surprisingly, that was all you needed to say. You knew it when he kneeled down to cup your face with his thumb and index finger, gently pressing them deeper into your cheeks with the kind of glare you'd only see on someone that has pretentious meanings. “You have so many things to regret, yet I sense no mockery or dishonesty in your tone… Interesting.”

You scoffed, almost offended by his preying eyes upon you. It made you feel like a piece of meat under a lion's nose, and yet, that wasn't even close to enough to make you back off. “I am not afraid of you, God of the Underworld. You do what you want with me, I do not care.”

For the second time, the King of the Underworld was thrilled by your bold attitude. You were either the bravest girl to ever speak with him, or the most foolish and naive little thing he had ever seen. Whatever, that didn't matter at all. You were fascinating, to the point in which your constant way of glaring daggers at him seemed more like a ludicrous attempt of forcing him to let go of you than a move to save your already deceased existence.

And he loved it. He knew that Persephone, Thanatos and the other deities of his realm would love you and your snark.

“So that's how it is, very well. Welcome to the Underworld, Y/n. From now on, I'll make sure that you live as freely and comfortably as possible in the cold embrace of the dead.”

———

Those were some simpler times… Well, not really. It was barely twelve years ago, a pitiful amount of time in the life of an entity that has lived longer than any other among his kin. But back to reality, he shook his head in frustration and kept searching for you.

‘Where is that stubborn lady? We always bump into each other accidentally in the Underworld, yet I can't seem to find her when I actually need something from her…’ He thought again, looking over people's heads endlessly but to no avail, much to his dismay. A swamp of people would have been an appropriate term to describe his surroundings. No matter how hard he tried to set his eyes on different corners, doors or gateways, dancing drunkards were always in the middle to block his gaze, unintentionally.

Now he was starting to get irritated about the amount of individuals cramping the room. And worse of all, he couldn't feel your presence anywhere close to him.

Why did he even need to talk to the Gleam Reaper? Even after a decade of knowing each other, you had never been close enough for him to be so persistent about his urges to see you. He didn't bear romantic intentions, that much he knew, for he already loved Persephone dearly… So, what was this strange craving for amity?

Right, that was it. He wanted a friend, that's why he came here in the first place. And in an opportunity, he made his way through the people to find a not-so-crowded space in the room and slumped down on a couch, paying no mind (or, at the very least, trying) to the annoying couple next to him that couldn't keep their hands to themselves. How inconsiderate, but first, he needed to sort out his thoughts to clear his head.

It's not like you loved to wreak havoc everywhere you went. Hades himself designated you as a deity of chaos at parties specifically, and he knew the reason why; you just liked to be troublesome whenever there were bad people in misfortune around you. Bullies, tormentors, stalkers, harassers… All of them were on your death list, leading it. Similar to what happened to you in your final moments, your Grim Reaper self always lured the lads in and then showed your true colors, by making them end their own lives with their own shaky hands as you watched their lives fade away, keeping them secured in your embrace as your slim fingers stroked their hair. He still couldn't tell if you really enjoyed their misery, or if you just pitied them.

The latter sounded more accurate to him. Perhaps that's why you only went after those whose days were already counted. No point in torturing a healthy and innocent individual when you could “free” a tortured soul from their torment, and you did it because said souls also tortured others. You hated those that would cause pain to others just to deal with their own.

Even though you were pretty much doing the same thing you despised the most now as a deity, you told yourself that you were their karma. That was your twisted mindset, and he was all in for it.

And so he remembered his brief encounter with Poseidon earlier that day. Time to daydream again…

———

The Tyrant of the Seas was never fond of those pesky mortals that Gods were supposed to watch over. Those creatures were ungrateful, worthless and useless, just as much as they were unhinged. The mere thought of humans made him feel sick.

And yet, there he was, listening to his eldest brother rambling about the possibility of hiring a mortal, the lowest form of life, as an assistant to reduce the workload. Hades was never one to complain about his duties nor his struggles. As the eldest, he'd always thought that it was his duty to shoulder everything on his own to keep his siblings safe, and his domain was no exception. No burden could ever be heavy enough for him not to carry alone.

Except for boredom, that is. Though, it was more of a consequence than mere mental strain. Persephone had recently made her trip back to Mount Olympus to reunite with her mother, and while Hades was well aware that the following six months were going to be just the same as the others, a strange feeling of restlessness was keeping him awake at night.

Actually, it had gotten him so distracted lately that he had been trying to read the same book for over two weeks now, stuck in the same page. A task that would usually take him two days or three at most.

“Utterly unnecessary.” Said Poseidon in his characteristic monotonous tone, cold blue eyes piercing straight into Hades'. What his brother had just proposed came off as both ridiculous and undignified, and he'd rather be struck by lightning than agreeing with him. Physical defeat would be way less humiliating, he thought.

“I might need a companion. Not a lover, for I already have my wife, but perhaps a friend to pass the time with me while I am at my office to make the silence more tolerable.” Hades spoke back immediately, already having anticipated his younger brother's protests. He was unamused at his reaction, and yet, somewhat disappointed by his disapproval.

The younger God didn't respond to the suggestion, remaining stone-faced as his eyes were set on his brother's. Typical Poseidon.

Hades sighed, leaning back on his throne before speaking again, “An assistant would be a pleasant addition to my everyday routine, don't you think?” Asked the King of the Underworld with a tinge of intrigue, trying to gauge a better response from Poseidon this time. “Someone to sign the less important papers for me, or deliver the weekly letters when I can't do it myself.”

“You can do it yourself. You must do it yourself. You mustn't rely on anyone else,” Poseidon said sternly, showing the slightest bit of frustration at the God of the Underworld's insistence. “You are a God, and Gods do not rely on others.”

“This is not a matter about reliance, brother.”

Well, no more words were said for the next twelve minutes, which gave Hades the impression that their brief exchange had ended abruptly with no hopes to be resumed. The albino twirled a strand of his smooth, silky hair around his index finger as a reflex, deep in thought and possibly unaware of his elegant fashion.

Sure, he understood Poseidon's point, at least for the most part; Gods have always been self-sufficient and naturally independent. Hades himself had been working alone in the Underworld for as long as his immortal mind could remember, assisted only by his wife during the span of months that she spent with him in the realm of the death. He's never had enough trouble to seek for help from anyone. Not when he was younger, not during the Titanomachy, and definitely not on his daily tasks since then.

So, why was he suddenly so adamant about hiring an assistant for the mere purpose of companionship? It didn't make sense to him, let alone to Poseidon.

On the other hand, he couldn't just ignore the feeling any longer, constantly nagging at the back of his mind. What was it, even? Was the routine he'd been keeping for eons finally catching up to his wit? Hades couldn't even recall the last time he had longed to do something exciting, other than contacting Beelzebub whenever he needed something from the Lord of the Flies. And the more he tried to find a reason, the more confusing it became. It was frustrating, that much he could figure out by himself.

And the awkward silence in the throne room was doing little to quell his impatience, so eventually, the God of the Underworld added something out of ennui.

“I'll go for a human, preferably deceased. That way I won't have to drag anyone down to the Underworld, as it'd be a hass-“ But Hades was interrupted by Poseidon standing up hastily, not even turning back to bid farewell. Surprised much? No, not really, Hades was expecting that, but he hoped that the Sea God would at least listen to the entire proposal. How arid.

Though there was no point in complaining, anyway.

—————

Ah, what a pleasant talk during some wholesome quality time with his little brother. Just remembering the way Poseidon's knuckles grope harder the edges of the throne's armrests at the mere mention of a human made Hades chuckle to himself. The Tyrant of the Seas could be quite comical without wanting to, but he'd never say it aloud if he wanted to make it out in one piece.

Perhaps the younger God was right, no? Even if he made friends with the Gleam Reaper, nothing would guarantee that those feelings would go away. Maybe time would tell…

‘Time to get out of here. Leaving my domain for a whim like this was an inadequate move on my reco- … Now, just what in the old world is this?’

Just when the King of the Underworld was about to take his leave, a familiar item rolled up to his feet; a pill, and not just any pill, but a psychedelic capsule. What an intriguing sight, Hades thought, so he got off of the couch and crouched down to carefully examine it, trying to see where it came from.

Judging by the nearby people's reactions and stares, it came from the balcony next to him. The glass doors were covered with wine colored tulle curtains, which distorted the view of the folks outside that were surely enjoying themselves among their own “privacy”. But one thing he was certain of is that the ergoline in his hands came from there, specifically, from the small opening on the left door.

And that was all he needed to know.

“Gotcha.” Spoke aloud the Undead God, smirking at nothing in particular as he rose to his feet and brushed off his knees, ready to head off the balcony. Being away from the music would help a ton.

He stored the pill in his pocket and opened the door fully to the terrace, breathing in the fresh air which felt heavenly. The smell of sweat and puke was clogging his nostrils back inside and he didn't even realize it until the fresh breeze cleared up his nose, allowing him not only to think a bit better, but also admire the scenery before him.

Glass railing that supported the kissing ladies leaning against it, marble flooring that looked spotless, elegant benches made of the same sturdy material, and a breathtaking garden filled with extensive fields of Lavenders. The calming scent of the flowers reached him through the cold, gentle wind of the night, relaxing him further. It was a welcome relief from the mess happening in the party.

It was actually ironic, having thrown a party that turned into pure chaos claiming soul after soul while being right next to a Lavender meadow. That sort of duality was appealing to him. Such was life, he thought.

“Care to explain what are you doing here, King?”

That voice, that tone, those hints of sweet notes in the speech…

He had found you. Or rather, you found him first.

“The Gleam Reaper herself, what a pleasant surprise. I was looking for you, Y/n.” Hades said, smiling softly as he turned to around to look at you closely. “I knew I would find you here.”

“Oh, really? How come?” You smiled back at him, e/c eyes staring into his very soul. For a clever woman like you, Hades had always been a mystery that remained yet to solve. His mind was like a chess board, or rather, a painfully complex puzzle that always seemed to be missing a piece just when you thought you've got it figured out.

And in more ways than one, that was exciting for your deviant heart.

“A crowded room with red lights, funky music and drugs, filled with dumb women, sad girls, high school junkies and men that are desperate for feminine touch…” Hades began smugly, making you laugh.

“… The perfect recipe for disaster.” And you continued, just like the first time you two met after you had turned into a Grim Reaper, a being that collects the souls of those who have perished to take them to the Underworld, to him. Those exact words marked your first ever interaction as immortal beings, and it felt like a breath of fresh air to know that he still remembered them to the letter.

As the sentence ended, the both of you shared a soft sigh, enjoying the comfortable silence that followed for the next five minutes, just gazing over the Lavender garden. Of course, until the Undead God voiced his intentions.

“You know, over the years, I have given you a kind of freedom that others could only wish for. You are a Grim Reaper, yet I have allowed you to be selective with your victims and even the times when you wish to work, and the others, when you just want to slack off. But I've let you rejoice in such privileges because I find you interesting and deserving of my special treatment… So, I came here to ask something of you, Y/n.”

“Then speak, and do it quickly so I can go back to minding my business.” Your tone shifted almost dramatically. One moment you were all in for a good laugh, then your intonation became serious and your words clever. That's just how things worked around the God of the Underworld.

“Alright, I'll go straight to the point.” He said, running a hand through his hair, “I want you to come visit me in my palace, specifically, my office. I've been longing for a companion for quite a while now, and I can't think of anyone else better than you to fit that role.” By the end of the proposal, the albino's violet eyes took on an almost empty look, one that you knew was not idle in the slightest. “What do you say, Gleam Reaper?”

“…” You didn't respond for the first few seconds, seemingly unfazed by his request. But that was okay, he was used to Poseidon and other Gods doing just that every time so he was willing to be patient.

Still, something about his sudden petition seemed off to you. Why would the King of the Underworld, Ruler of Helheim and the Dead, the very Dark God himself want a friend? Because you could see right through him, and whatever kind of “help me with my paperwork” crap he was most likely going to come off with didn't even stun you in the slightest. If anything, it was confusing.

“Two questions. First, why? And second, why me?” You finally answer, leaning back against the mirror-like railing with a raised eyebrow.

Hades simply shrugged, probably just as confused about his own request as you were, “First, I have been feeling quite lonely lately, dwelling in my endless work with only the company of my cockatoo, and occasionally Cerberus when he's not guarding my palace.” He explained, now twirling the same strand of silvery hair in that characteristic manner of his, which you interpreted as him being deep in thought.

“And second?” You asked again, both curious and impatient.

“I think that your presence would be soothing, but if you ask me why, exactly, I might not be able to tell you just yet. I'd rather not think of it as hope, but intuition instead, so to say, a hunch.”

“A hunch? The cunning God of the Underworld is relying on a hunch, of all reasonable excuses to seek for a friend?” Even though you tried not to, an inevitable cackle escaped your pretty lips. Now that was just too humorous to be true. Oh, but you knew that he was being serious, and that was easily the funniest part. “Fine, I'll think about it later. It sounded more like an entreaty than a request, given how humbly you asked for it.”

“I'll take that as a yes, then.” He said with a self-satisfied expression, before turning back to walk toward the doors. It was time to leave for good.

But before he did, Hades stopped in his tracks, not bothering to look back at you. “Before I go, tell me, where are they? I know for a fact that you weren't here just enjoying some alone time and a cigarette.”

“Aha, you witty God.” Just like him, you just shrugged, seeing yourself in the reflection of the doors and using that to raise a hand and point a finger to a certain direction. Hades followed with his eyes through the reflection on the glass and his gaze landed on a not so far away spot; the roof of a small house next to the building they were in, made out of red tiles that looked quite old.

And then, he saw it.

A pile of dead bodies put one on top of the other, almost threatening to slip off of the tiles and fall down grotesquely, much to the disgrace of any passerby underneath. He recognized them almost immediately, they were the ones harassing a couple in the bathroom just half an hour ago. The last bits of humanity in him felt uneasy at the sight of those people tormenting the poor lovers that just wanted to leave, but Hades was way more focused on finding you than questioning his own moral compass.

Now, their flesh was already rotting even though they had died less than an hour ago, something that he knew was only possible because of your wicked abilities and will.

And the more he stared at the scene, the more details he found, and one of those was the fact that every single corpse was holding a needle in their right hand, already used and broken needles.

So that was your doing, he must have known.

“You still prey on broken individuals that wish to find inner peace by making others miserable. They have always been your favorite kind of soul, haven't they, Gleam Reaper?”

No more words were needed, for he just waved a hand to bid farewell and walked past the doors and out of the balcony. You didn't expect any less from him, whatsoever. That's why he came here, because he knew exactly what you would be doing.

You could only watch him walk away and disappear between the crowd, and scowl lightly at his whole drama of having been searching for you when he could have easily found you among mere mortals. Still, you grinned widely knowing that your next visit to the Underworld was going to be quite intriguing. You'd never turn down such a plea, and it was exhilarating.

Then, your eyes moved back to your “masterpiece” of remains and smiled, answering his tacitly rhetorical question with opaque eyes. “What can I say, it makes me feel like home.”

With that, you knew your job was done for the night. Therefore, time to leave as well.

You could only wait in anticipation for your next meeting, and whatever it may bring to the table. Hopefully something worth your precious time.