#Papa terzo

[ghouliebabies-art]

Terzo 💜✨

[b0vine-bby]

him.

[revelisms]

A big prosey ramble on Terzo, Omega, and messy love, because I haven't been able to get these two out of my head recently.

WC: 1k | Suggestive themes, complicated relationships, existentialism, dysfunctional family dynamics, hurt/comfort

There's a pact one signs, once the Gate has been handed what it's due:

When the old tongue has been spoken, and the dark psalms sung; the Devil's touch fishhooked through a human eye, and its Sight wrenched to nothing, a blinding everything, an All few could endure;

Once the lines of the Undead have marked them: sanctioned them as the Unholy, the Half-Living, the Above and Below: draped them in silks fit for kings and gloves for killers;

A prophecy so ancient one could choke on the dust off its words.

Their fate will devour their Will, like a shark waiting to feed—and chain any of scrap of agency left, like a dog.

Few would dare to deny it.

Terzo, though, has never been one to play by the rules. 

Even now—with the Sight of what is yet to come thorned about his mind: every rut and stone he could walk known as well as the blood-bitter sting of his own spite.

It's why he twists crowds around the points of his fingers, for those scant hours of freeness; hunts for lovers' touches in hands his rooms will rarely welcome again; wanders the paths of his own head more than the gravel beneath his feet. 

Why the sight of his brother's summoned Unnamed—the First and the Last, the End All-Be All, the One (his One)—had left him stuttering on his heels.

He could see it. Hell beneath, see this:

The two of them, trapped in the maws of a forest fire; in a promised somethingness.

A path veering off course like a runaway train.

A doomed light at the end of a self-made tunnel.

And this—

(Demon-claws at his waist, his shirt shucked to the floor, the chain at his neck clapping to his skin like a noose—) 

This is a loophole. Legalese in a contract penned in his own blood. A selfish want fueled by a hunger to be seen, to be known:

To be shoved back wontedly, greedily, in a music room spidered with dying light, and feel the brand of those otherworldly hands on him—thighs and ribs and lungs, dragged through the hair that silks down his stomach, through the beat-beating valley that puffs beside his heart:

To let himself shiver and sigh and roll his head back, bite down the burr behind his teeth, beg—

"Cardinal—"

A voice like Hell itself. The keyboard clanging beneath his hips. 

"Come here," he growls back.

They shouldn't be doing this. 

He knows the superstitions. Growing up in these halls had spoonfed him with it: the crumbling of the Gate that had nearly been; the fear that even lesser ghouls, under the right circumstances, could usurp the Exalted's power.

It had happened, once before. The Bloodline only had so much demon-magick in it, after all.

This one knows it, too.

"Cardinal."

He doesn't care. He's lightheaded. He's lonely. 

The chipped varnish of the piano's edge whines beneath his nails.

"Shh—shh. Not here, eh? Not—ah—not now." 

He wants to peel back the point of that silvered mask; to drown in those eyes, blue as the tainted Heavens. Wants to feel his teeth on his neck. 

"Not—" 

His fingertips stipple over Omega's shirt—and tug. 

A switch flipped. A permission devoured.

That clawed hand plummets. Melts his breath to liquid. Sparks an addiction without a goddamned cure.

The first line crossed of countless. 

(Countless more, now, and countless still—until Nihil Nihil always Nihil—

Don't think I don't know what you're doing. All the mages can damnwell smell it on you.

Terzo, fox-grinned, steel in his eyes: And?)

And maybe that's all it had started as. All it had ever been.

A middle finger jabbed in the face of their All-Father's millennium-soaked paranoia. 

A foolish, spiteful clinging to a promise he'd already stripped from himself.

(If nothing else—even if the world burns—you can still have me. And I can still have you.

I can still have you. Can't I?)

So he'd thought.

Papa, now—and the world's a stage, burning, purple-bleeding-black, a stranger's hands combing through sweat-dampened hair on sheets that don't smell like him, and he shouldn't want it to. Saints, he shouldn't want it to.

But he's tired. His head is spinning. He's lonely. 

"Papa?"

He brushes a callused thumb over their temple. "Shh—shh. Not here, mh?" His fingertips glide over the glitter at their back: splay a slow touch between their shoulders. "Not right now," he rumbles, eyes closed. Their hair tickles his mouth. "Not..."

Sometimes, these curious souls press, prod. Try to dig beneath the points of his own mask: to look for the man tucked away in the corner, that doesn't want to speak, to open his eyes from the lull they've found themselves in. Not yet.

This one doesn't.

After a long moment, Terzo sighs: a buoy their body floats on, weighs down like a blanket of sunlight, like lead. "How are you feeling, darling?" The words come lazy and low, tucked into the soft space behind their ear.

The breath he's given in response is boneless, satiated. "Good," they whisper.

He hums. "Good." His thumb skims over their temple, again. "Very good."

Another performance due, soon. Another mass; another ritual. The robes shaken off the floor, the paints reapplied, the stage a handful of moments without deafened expectation.

(Why do you care what he thinks? Omega had snuffed at him once, lounged out like a god in their dressing room.

Terzo hadn't been able to say it, then. Still couldn't, now. 

That one day, his father's passive threat of this ghoul's banishment would come to fruition—one day, his reign would fall—one day, the only ones left would be the rat, and Sister, that old, bullish bastard, and he—

Satan. He'd always loved him, hadn't he?

Why do you care?

The doomed light at the end of the tunnel.

He'd twitched a half-painted smile. Looked away. Don't you know?)

"Terzo?"

He blinks. Dredges himself out of the paths of his own mind: focuses instead on the moon-silvered river of this priestess's fringe. Heat is still beaded between them, tacky where their hands shift. There's a trace of perfumed oil on their neck. 

He noses further into it, lays down a kiss. "Mnh?"

Their fingers slide unhurriedly through his hair. Weave a gentle knot—and tug.

A switch flipped. A permission devoured.

He lays down another kiss, and another. Their breath melts to liquid beneath his hands. Sparks an addiction without a cure.

"Please," they hush. "Don't leave yet, please—"

His lips catch at the veins that flutter through their throat. His palms lost in the valleys of their waist. "I won't."

The touch of their mouth feels like love, almost. A flicker of soft lashes, bumped noses, lungs haggard and starved.

Their fingers scrape at his shoulders. Cling, and claw, and beg.

Against their lips, he gravels it again. "I won't."

Another line crossed of countless. 

[bribinart]

this guy am i right

[lyzpuffs]

Them = me heppi ✨🥹

[jackdaw1426]

Little Dads.

[southofsadness]

i’m cackling at the idea of a clergy member hitting terzo’s decapitated head with a hammer because they “just gotta make sure”

[madpatti]

[ryuzatodraws-backup]

You’re still my winner

[thymelessink]

Just uh...thinking about Terzo's hands in the baptism scene...

They look so big, expecially around her waist...

[kabukiaku]

kofi commission for Bloodysyren. AFTER SO LONG- Thank you so much for your support and patience. I got carried away with the colors and sparkles here. It became a full-blown magical girl transformation. 🫣💜💖💛

[blanchebees]

Papa III sketches from few months back

Tip jar

[xruiiii-blog]

✨Them✨

[piepie-li]

did some fanart for the boys.....

[wolves333]

We don't talk enough about him

cr:YouTube

My fav Air Ghoul <3

chAir/Zephyr my bbg♥️

[finncaron]

Queen of spring by leyendecker but terzo is my queen 🙏