#If you want context feel free to ask otherwise simply perish

[lemonsdaily-artdump]

@virlandil​ and I do this back and forth fanfic thing to draw pics to. Maybe one day we’ll post the whole thing, but here have my latest contribution.

TW Violence/stabbing/knives/blood

"First lesson"

"Now, worm, you will not speak unless I directly tell you to."

‘What is this, some fucked up game of Simon says?’ The unbidden thought popped into Jack's head and he couldn't help the nervous laugh that bubbled up. The cold blade pressed harder against his throat, and his pulse raced.

"Something funny?"

All thoughts gone jack - as gently as he could - shook his head. Even with that small movement he felt the sting of the blade cutting into his skin. Not deep, but it was sharp and he was sure he was bleeding. Chase's grip in his hair remained firm, pulling his head back a little further and jack could feel his breath against his ear. He felt a shiver shoot down his body, time seemed to slow as he was held there, Chase intent on inspecting the cut on his throat.

In actuality the moment only lasted a few seconds, and he was released. The sudden cold was jarring. He put a hand to his throat trying vaguely to remember how to stop a cut from bleeding. A swift kick to his back pushed him forward to his hands and knees, wind knocked out of him.

"Get up"

Jack, gasping for breath, trying to keep down panic, stood up. He risked turning around even though the instruction was not given. Instinctively his eyes were racing around the room hoping to see some chance of escape. Old habits die hard.

"Strip"

"What?" Before the word was even past his lips his brain caught up to the situation, but Chase's reflexes we're faster and the sudden stinging slash against his thigh almost surprised him.

"First warning, Spicer. Now strip or I will cut these clothes from you"

Jack hurried to undo his jacket and take it off along with his shirt. Getting caught for a moment with all the fabric around his head and shoulders till he could wiggle his arms out enough to finishing pulling it over his head. ‘don't think about what's happening' was the mantra he had to tell himself as he kicked off his boots. Shit his thigh hurt, but a quick inspection inside the gash of his blood stained jeans showed the cut was not deep. 'don't think about what's happening' his hands were shaking as he undid the buttons and zipper.

"I'm surprised you have so little scarring, given how many battles you've lost" Jack about jumped out of his skin. Apparently chase had taken to circling him and jack felt very much so like a trapped rodent.

'does he expect me to strip fully naked?’ he didn't know what to do.

"How about we change that"

This was one pain he hadn't experienced before and for a moment he was almost proud that he didn't scream, too shocked and high on adrenaline to know what to do right away. But then Chase wrenched the knife out of his side and jack screamed. There was the pain, deep and burning. He couldn't breathe, could barely think of anything. He only vaguely felt the press of chase's hand to his side to steady him, just under the wound. Could barely register the cool touch of chase's pauldrons against his forehead – hadn't even realized he had slumped forward so much. His limbs felt cold, as if all the heat in him had condensed into that one spot.

Jack didn't know how long they were like that, or if he had spoken or not during it. He was snapped out of shock by the feel of the knife against his navel. Dread creeping up from his gut, following the line up his torso that the knife point slowly made. Once again the pressure was feather light, but the blade so sharp he felt it's mark left in the thin cut as Chase was slicing him from navel to neck. His hand followed after the blade running along the length of the wound, and his eyes trained intently on the small drops of blood beginning to ooze from it. At the end of the trail he left his hand against jack's neck – grip firm, but not choking.

“You learn well, Spicer.” His eyes snapped up to Jack's and the distinct feeling of primal danger that prompted in Jack was unreal. Looking a predator dead in the eye. “Continue” Chase's voice was steady, quiet and low as he stepped away to give Jack space again. His limbs felt sluggish and heavy as again he fumbled with his pants. Looking down on himself he expected to see rivers of blood running down his chest and was surprised only to see smears. His cuts still hurt, but the active bleeding was done.

Chase had been healing him after each cut.

This was not a comforting realization, it only cemented the deep instinct of fear. He was prey being toyed with before a meal, and now he stood completely bare before Chase.

[darkpoisonouslove]

“Seventeen Years Are Nothing When Love Is Forever”

@darcyinstilettoes requested an alternative ending to “Seventeen Years Are Nothing When Hopelessness Is Forever” so here it is. Less angsty as you can probably tell from the title. Or at least with a happy ending.

“We can still have everything, Griffin,” Valtor tried, his voice almost shaking and his eyes looking like they were made of water that would never let them harbor flames capable of destruction. He looked almost hopeful and it pained her to know he was victim of the same trap that held her prisoner, for they both knew better. They both knew they were hopeless.

“Valtor...” she trailed off as she didn’t want to be the one to shatter what purity was still left in him and allowed him an emotion that had nothing to do with destruction. She couldn’t be the one to kill the last part of the human she knew was there side by side with the demon. How could she take herself away from him again after she’d done it once already and it’d brought nothing but agony to both of them?

“Why can’t you chose me?” Valtor asked, his hands only closing into her clothes and she couldn’t tell if that was meant to take away from the strength of the accusation in his voice or add to it when the desperation was coming through loud and clear and she couldn’t tell what was the purpose of that. He could be trying to be truthful with her. Or he could be doing it in some attempt at manipulation. But if it were the latter, he certainly wasn’t doing it according to the book. Lysslis had taught him to tear into what was one’s most sacred treasure or most feared consequence and he was doing that but he was letting himself be vulnerable as well, and that certainly hadn’t come from his mothers. It was his own course of action and she had to hate him for making her dare hope against all logic, against all knowledge, against every fact he’d ever given her to support the thesis that they were hopeless.

“I can ask you the same question,” Griffin said because she could play a game just as well but she didn’t want to. She just wanted his honesty like she’d once had it, wanted him to tell her clearly what had changed since he’d been spewing venom in her face and aiming his magic to kill her. That had been real. As real as his rage always was when he was practically woven from it without her love to pull out the heart buried deep inside that angry ocean. So she had to know what had brought out the softness instead. She couldn’t let herself believe she was joining someone that simply wasn’t there. She couldn’t a love a ghost, couldn’t give her love to something long gone and risk having it taken away when it was the only thing keeping her standing, the only thing she had left.

“I am here, aren’t I?” Valtor asked as if he could see in her head and he couldn’t do that now of all times, couldn’t make her feel like nothing had changed when she needed to hear that it would be different. She couldn’t risk coming back to him just to be faced with the same impossible choice once again. They’d already been through that hell once and she needed him to give her a guarantee they wouldn’t have to do it again because she wasn’t sure she could trust him to come looking for her another time if she had to leave him once more. She hadn’t been sure he’d ever want her by his side again–had thought for a fact that he wouldn’t–but had fantasized about it anyway and she couldn’t let him shatter even that to pieces because reality had always let her down but at least in her head and in her heart she’d been with him and she couldn’t let him take away even that last safe haven that was the only place she had as a shelter from the cold, harsh world she was left in without his flames to keep her warm.

“And what next?” she asked because the present was like a net she was suspended in and couldn’t get herself out of and the past was already destroyed. She needed some promise for the future that would make her jump into what could very well be her nightmare that was much worse than death. “What if I say yes?” she asked, trailing a dangerous line when she let herself taste the agreement, especially in the context of being his again. It was far too tempting for her to lay it out there so casually and she needed to be careful not to fling herself over the edge into a chasm of despair. She couldn’t let herself see their love become a dark void that swallowed everything in its way just like a black hole.

“Say it and you’ll see,” Valtor urged so softly that even she didn’t know if it was the demon in him tempting her or the human giving her his word. And that was different than before when she’d known exactly who she’d been facing and the novelty of it had her heart skipping beats just like it was ready to skip all her doubts and land in his hands now that he was giving her something other than the hopelessness they’d been trapped in all the way through their relationship. But he’d always been so good at deception and it was hard to shake all the corpses he’d left behind while still looking like a blessing in her eyes from her mind. “Have a little faith in me, Griffin,” he said and it sounded like a demand but she could see the plea beneath. She could see him, just like she always had.

“The last time I did the world almost perished,” she tried to hold on to the last rational thought in her head but it was impossible when he was already moving to let go of her and she had to keep him there. She couldn’t let him be the one to leave her because she knew she wouldn’t go look for him. She hadn’t in all those years she’d been missing him and he’d come the moment he’d been free to do so. Clearly, he was the only one who could bring them back together. And he was trying to. If she’d just let herself believe him. “I want to. I do,” she said as she held his gaze as ardently as her fingers gripped at his sleeves like hooks trying to fish out the soul in him to the surface so that it’d keep his arms around her and she was relieved to feel him allow it. “I’ve always wanted to,” she admitted and he wasn’t pulling away so at least he didn’t think she was lying. Even if he didn’t quite believe her either. “I never wanted to leave you,” she said, hoping it would prompt him to pull her back towards himself and press her so close to him she wouldn’t be able to leave even if she did her best to push him away.

“Then why did you?” Valtor asked and she couldn’t find enough breath to explain even when she’d always wanted to but he’d never given her a chance. He hadn’t tried to hear her out and she’d assumed he’d made up his own mind when it came to her motivations on the matter and would never let her convince him otherwise. And now that he was doing it she was terrified that he wouldn’t believe her, she was terrified her words would only push him away when he couldn’t understand them, couldn’t understand her.

“Can you trust me when I tell you it was never because of you?” she asked, knowing it was a lot to want trust from him after her betrayal, after she hadn’t trusted him to confide her feelings in him and have him understand to eliminate the necessity to run away from him like a traitor to their cause  and, worse, to their love when that was the one thing she knew she would never stop believing in. No matter how much suffering it would cause both of them. She couldn’t make herself give up on the feelings she knew they shared. “Can you trust me when I tell you I wanted you more than my life?” She had because he’d been her life. And she’d had to throw it all away for her conscience. She’d had to choose between killing the love in his eyes and killing the one in her own and it had been an unfair punishment for finally daring to love with all of her heart. They’d both been punished to know love as something painful instead of as their life force and for that she would be forever bitter at the universe and even the beauty of the stars on the night sky couldn’t earn her forgiveness. Yet, she’d kept giving them all her admiration when they’d been all she’d had left, when he hadn’t been there for her to gift it to him.

“Your actions speak of the opposite,” Valtor said, still holding on to her but just barely, just by the hope that she wasn’t lying to him about her love and that had always been so fragile in his heart when it’d been filled with taunts about his worth and how lovable he was. And she had to be careful now if she didn’t want to bring them down just like she’d always had to tread in their relationship like it was a house of cards with just a trick of magic to hold it together, and it was unraveling the moment reality stepped in with its reminder dark magic was undesirable and had to be abolished. They’d unraveled, just like that. Like they didn’t both have a will of iron to survive all their lives with their hearts of glass. It’d been painful to be cut in so many pieces from the inside of your own chest and she didn’t want to cause that to either one of them again.

“And your actions are making me afraid because if I lose my common sense and come with you, a lot more people will suffer than if I just refuse,” she said because she couldn’t allow herself anything but honesty right now. It would scare him much faster to know she wasn’t telling him the truth than it would to have to convince her in his intentions. He’d always been good at using his words. And he’d loved a challenge. It might have been what had kept him coming when she’d kept refusing his advances and she hoped that part hadn’t changed after he’d gotten to learn what it felt like to be in her arms without having to do anything to earn her love.

“Why do you care about others more than you care about us?” Valtor asked as his own grip tightened on her in his despair to understand and it left her paralyzed in fear that would break her much worse than he could if it was proven justifiable when there was nothing to understand. Just a fact there that she couldn’t hope he’d ever be able to accept but she did anyway because giving up would be even more painful.

“Because it’s who I am,” Griffin said, knowing she could very well be putting an end to everything between them. She’d left him with an unanswered question the previous time and he hated to be kept out of the loop. He’d kept following her around, tempted to get the answer she hadn’t surrendered to him. But now that she finally gave it, she didn’t know if he’d have any more reason to keep coming. “Can you love me, knowing that? Knowing that I picked something else over us, over you?” she asked as it was the moment of truth and the real test of their love. It was easy to love someone who had all the same views as you. But they were different, their desires clashing and their moral compasses pulling them in opposite directions. And she didn’t know if they’d be able to overcome that when it was just trying to put distance between them.

Valtor looked at her for a moment that felt far too long with the infinite fear that she’d never be able to breathe again that it carried. “I have for all these years, haven’t I?” he said slowly as he raised his hand to stroke her cheek but she couldn’t even wait for that when he’d proven his love could change and adapt to persist through the obstacles the universe kept throwing in its path.

She pulled him into a kiss, her hands cupping his face and bringing it closer while her tongue entered his mouth to let him know how much she’d missed him, not to take from him. She didn’t want to take, even if she had no oxygen left. She just wanted to give him everything that had been building inside her for all these years and especially for the past few minutes as her soul had been slowly revived when his had returned to complete it. They’d lost so much time and she couldn’t even make herself care about that if she got to have his body pressed against her to help her erase the traces of freezing loneliness left all over her form and especially her chest that was now burning from the lack of oxygen but it was the sweetest feeling when his breath was entering her system willingly and his hands were pressing her closer to him. He didn’t seem afraid of all the edges of her being that he didn’t know how to navigate when his weren’t the same and she knew that even if they bled now, they’d be right there to heal each other again.

“I love you,” she heaved out as she pulled away just to do that, tears spilling from her eyes now that she could finally say it again and hear the sound echo around them, the force she’d used to get it out through her breathlessness contained in it and not allowing anything to mute it. Just like she wouldn’t allow anything to pull him out of her grip again. He was free now. Free from his mothers, free from Omega, free to be by her side. And he’d given her the freedom to choose him again. She sure as hell wasn’t letting anything take him away again.

“I won’t let you drown in these tears, Griffin,” Valtor said as he cupped her cheek as his initial intention had been and brushed the water away from there to prevent it from falling into her lungs when all it would do was make them burn worse instead of soothing the ache that the lack of oxygen was causing her when it stopped her from kissing him again. “It won’t be like last time, I promise,” he said, and heavens help her, she believed him and leaned into his being when she knew he’d done the same.

[transcredwaters]

UHM i'm not gonna ramble (i lied i did. a lot.) because I cannot explain my train of thought in any way that matters - under the cut bc it's got the identity of the Exarch mentioned and idk if everybody who follows me knows about that yet. I know even squeenix themselves spoils it - constantly - but just in case . gurgles .

"She Wants Me (to be Loved)" feels like such early-on exarchwol (at least in Miz's story) IT'S JUST SO. . . HBGN. it's such a cute upbeat song but I just !! It makes me think of Rahamiz quite a bit.

Miz is like. Oblivious to Raha's feelings at first. There's literally a journal entry where they take G'raha to see the stars and doesn't get that he's longingly staring at them.

"I decided to take the Exarch out today. I wanted to show him the night sky- I can only imagine living in light for so long, he'd want to see it again.

Though I guess. . . He has seen it as of recent, but perchance I simply wanted the outing; his company.

For a while, it was just us staring up, before I started to ramble. And I continued on. . . Talking and talking about all I knew. And I worried he might not have been listening, but when I paused to check on him, he was staring at me, a soft smile on his face, and a strange look in his eyes. . . His ears were wiggling, and I knew the whole time his tail was swishing back and forth, but he quickly shot up when he saw I was looking at him, looking away and pulling his hood up.

I couldn't help but wonder if I'd did something wrong, but he clarified otherwise, and after a moment, pulled his hood back down and asked me to continue talking- commented that he liked hearing about it.

Was there something more going on ?

Seven hells if I knew."

I also illustrated that entry once, though I had him looking up instead of at Miz, but still. He's not subtle about it.

BUT LIKE . song. This line . Right at the start

"I know you know, I'm not too discreet walking around, heart on my sleeve"

G'raha truly does wear his heart on his sleeve like he is blatant about there being something going on - almost reminded me of how Haurchefant is. The rant he cuts off by going "Splendid !" lives in my head rent free. But like. Haurchefant is super forward and open and right in your face about it while G'raha is "I like to drop hints that I love the WoL" "I love the WoL." Still very forward but he's at least attempting to be subtle and failing absolutely miserably.

It's also kinda painful to think about because of how he loves O'miz so SO dearly but there's that whole 'I cannot allow him to love me back, for when I perish, I will do naught but harm him.' aughghg

literally cannot stop thinking abt this bit in the context of them;

"I can't stop feeling, I want her love But all my dreaming is not enough So in the morning, the sun will rise and I'll wake up and she won't be mine"

Like . The song is about her not liking the narrator back and Miz does eventually catch feelings but it still all applies in the case of rahamiz because Miz is fucking OBLIVIOUS so all the denial with "And I'll wake up and-" and the brief accepting of "And I'll wake up and she won't be mine" especially considering Raha pushing Miz away while also being sooo goddamn blatant - i'm just so HGHGH these two

Both are probably pushing each other away at least once too. Both because they don't wanna hurt the other but gods .

The mutual pining becomes obvious . Like . Very .

ANYWAYS I'M GONNA SHUT UP NOW THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A QUICK RAMBLE ON HOW A SONG REMINDS ME OF THEM AND I WENT ON FOR FAR TOO LONG