#Threaded Socket Rings

[sobbingscripter]

Tags: [mlw][mdni][exbf!Rex][semi-public][handjob][cum eating][attempted murder][choking for non-sexual purposes][pining][semi-blowjob][facesitting][oral (f! receiving)][missionary][condom][mating press][cowgirl][nipple sucking][i am probably missing quite a few in my taglist but it's 4am and i lost the note that had all my rex people on so :3 my bad][spitting]

"She's his emergency contact."

"Mark, you can't just call a stranger. How— how'd you even know his password?"

"It's just 8-0-0-8-5. It's not that complicated."

"What even is that?"

"It's 'boobs'."

The whispers hush down into a silence as you step into the GDA hospital room, your shoes are soft thuds on the tiled floors. The hospital smells sterile. A mixture of Life Buoy soap and hand sanitizer that makes your throat and lungs tingle and you stuff your hands into the pocket of your hoodie.

Brows scrunched into a frown as you stand beside Rex's bedside.

Your expression is the image of solemnity.

Eyes soft, lashes drooping and pouty lips tugged down into a little frown, your fingers clutching and picking at the loose threads in your pocket.

And a voice is quiet.

"I'm... Uh.. I know this isn't the time but what lipgloss is that?"

Rae's voice is quiet, bespectacled eyes focused on you and that stupidly magnificent gloss on your lips.

"It's... Uhm... 'Coochie Juice'." You internally cringe. "And I took a lipliner that's just a bit darker than my lipline."

"And how did you—"

"Overline just the Cupid's bow, and the curve of your bottom lip. Blur it out just a little, but don't fill in the corners. And then put on the lipgloss."

"Okay, thank you so much."

You go back to staring down at Rex. You never thought you'd see him like this.

Eyes fluttered shut, his head wrapped with blood soaked bandages and an IV drip feeding him fluids. His heartbeat is steady, vitals linked up to the screen beside him and you feel your expression crumple, your hands moving to cover your face.

Choked sobs slip from you and you hear the quiet 'we'll leave you two alone', before the others slip out of the hospital room.

And you swallow, inhaling sharply.

And by natural instinct, your gaze drifts towards where the plug of the ventilator remained stuffed into a wall socket and your glossy lips purse. And you reach for the head of the plug, fingers grasping snugly and you contemplate.

Is it worth it?

He's a hero.

He cheated on you with Eve.

He's a person.

He cheated on you with Eve.

This counts as murder.

He cheated on you with Eve.

Is this what you really want?

That last question stumps you and your hand slips from the plug, and you instead, plant yourself in the seat at his bedside, your eyes teary and your lashes becoming wet with each blink.

"I wanna kill you so bad." Your voice is tiny, cracking as you bring your hands up to rest on him, fisting at the hospital blankets and your vision becomes even blearier.

"You fucking asshole." You sob. "I hope you die. I hope you see the fucking light at the end of the tunnel, before you're dragged to Hell. Kratos style."

Your heart's clenching and you're resting your head on his belly, feeling the way each breath he takes makes those washboard abs constrict and flex. And somewhere, shame's lost on you and you're lifting his hospital gown.

Staring at his abs and the way his muscular hips form that delicious V shape and you let out a low, unattractive sob.

"Why didn't you get ugly?"

You think you're convincing yourself when you see the way the corners of his lips quirk weakly, dimples making a faint appearance in his chiselled cheeks and Rex takes a breath.

"Because..... I could never be ugh—" Rex is cut off, a sharp gasp ringing from him when your hands wrap around his neck.

That tinge of sadness leaves you, and the sound of his voice irks you in a way that's downright demonic, and Rex gasps. His vitals are spiking, and your eyes are narrowing.

"Die, you cheating bast— oh, ewwww."

You grimace at the tent beneath the blankets, lips tugged into a disgusted frown as you glare at him, and emerald eyes peer at you from beneath long lashes. Long, brag-worthy eyelashes that flutter and curl perfectly.

And Rex grins. Cocky and so fucking full of himself.

"Good to know it still works."

And he grasps at your hand, calloused fingers brushing over the soft flesh of your palm, tracing the lines before he looks at you. And God, you lose all respect for yourself at the way your heart stutters, breath caught in your lungs and he sighs.

Soft and sweet.

"Baby..." He murmurs softly. "What happened?"

"You got shot, I think. I wasn't really paying attention after they said you're hospitalized. I blew up a balloon and it made it difficult to listen. But..." You swallow. "In your head. Like, the back."

Rex lets a little laugh bubble from his cracked lips, before he glances at you.

"Why're so you mad at me? What... What year is it?"

His voice is soft, and your lungs constrict.

Before you remember who it is.

"Don't bullshit me." You huff, tugging your hand out of his grasp. "I know you don't have amnesia."

"Ah... Shit." Rex grunts before shifting, resting against the cushiony pillows. "Almost had you though, huh?"

The grin is charming, glinting even and he raises one of those perfect brows as he waits for your answer. But all that leaves you, is a low, annoyed groan. Before you push yourself up from your seat.

"I'm gonna go tell your friends you're—"

"Wait." Rex reaches for your arm and if you wanted to delude yourself, you'd say that you could see desperation flickering behind those emerald pools.

"I— uh..." He swallows hard, and your gaze moves towards where the monitor is showcasing his racing heart. "When I'm out, can we talk?"

You really wanna say no. But...

"...no."

Rex stares at you, a dead stare on his face like he wasn't expecting that.

"I'll just come over anyway."

Your glossy lips part for an argument but Rex looks pathetic enough right now. Tubed up, bruised and beaten.

"Fine." You grumble. "You dick."

And he grins. Dimples showcased in chiselled cheeks and his tongue runs across his bottom lip in an attempt to soothe the cracks and dryness.

"Speaking of dick..." His gaze flits towards the tent in the sheets.

"No."

"Please." Rex begs. "My team can't see me like this."

"Most of your team has seen you like this."

There's a dead quiet in the room, because you're right. Most of the team has seen Rex's dick, if not taken a ride on it.

"Please." Rex breathes out. "Help me out. It's been a week."

You drop back into your seat, rolling up your sleeve dramatically and you let out an annoyed huff.

"You're giving me a handjob, not cleaning a horse's dick." Rex grunts.

"Basically the same thing." You grunt, your hand slipping underneath the covers as you scooch your chair closer.

"So... What I'm hearing is—"

"You're hearing wrong."

"—that you think I've got a horse cock."

You let out a low, annoyed groan, your hand tucking itself beneath Rex's hospital gown, and your hand wraps around the thick base of him. Your eyes shut tightly, and you begin to tug.

Not even sexy stroking, just tugging.

"Ow— open your eyes— ow, shit. What are you doing?" Rex shifts uncomfortably, brows scrunching with each pinch of pain and he glares at you. Your eyes are still squeezed tightly shut, brows furrowed and glossy lips pressed into a thin line.

"Pretending you're Marlon Brando in A Streetcar named Desire." You grumble out and Rex huffs, swatting away your hand.

"Well, he'd never want you if that's how you give a handjob." Rex grunts, shifting uncomfortably and he palms himself through the scratchy blankets of the GDA hospital, his lips tugged into a frown.

"He's dead." You remind.

"Yeah," he scoffs, "and it's cause you can't give a decent handjob."

You purse your lips because you don't wanna laugh at one of Rex's jokes. You need to internally remind yourself that you don't think he's funny and that you hate him, as you cross your arms over your chest, giving Rex a lazy glance.

Watching as he, very dramatically, gathers his bearings.

"So, can you get off your high horse, and give me a proper tug job?" Rex scoffs and you suck on your teeth.

"I don't owe you anything, Rex."

Your brows furrow into a frown and you watch the way Rex stares at you, bringing a fisted hand up to his mouth and he coughs. He coughs like a toddler forcing a cough.

"But I'm sick." He whines softly and you let out a peeved groan.

"You're not sick, you've been shot."

You're griping, complaining but you're shifting, spitting into your palm and sliding your hand back beneath the sheets and Rex's brows furrow, body going slack against the piled up pillows and he shifts.

"Fuck, just like that." He breathes out, hands moving to shift at the covers, his head tipping back when he feels the way your manicured and soft fingertips trail over that leaky divot, his cock pulsing in your hand. And Rex groans softly.

"Missed your tiny racoon hands." He murmurs, and you snort, pressing your face into the nearest pillow, as your shoulders shake with laughter.

And God, Rex would be lying if he said hearing the sound of your laughter wasn't something so refreshingly familiar.

The cadence of your snorts, wheezes that manage to slip from glossy lips and he watches as you straighten up again, swallowing away all evidence of giggling and Rex raises a hand. Moving it to cradle the side of your face, thumb brushing along the apple of your cheek.

Your heart begins to pound, the only sound in the room being the ever increasing beeping of his heart monitor, and your eyes flick towards the screen. The beats increase steadily. And you swallow hard.

"Shit, I really wanna kiss you." Rex breathes out. "Can I?"

"No, you're not putting your community lips on me." You scoff, with a snort of laughter and he groans, head tipping back.

"Fuck, why're you so mean?" He rasps out a laugh, his hips bucking into your fist and his eyes squeeze shut.

"Because you cheated." "Ow. Ow. Ow. Loosen the hand, Juggernaut." Rex breathes out, his hand curling around your wrist and his movements stutter when he presses calloused fingers against the warm flesh of your wrist.

Feeling your pulse thrum just beneath his digits, feeling the heat of your skin against his and his dick twitches in your grasp.

Hazy green eyes watch you, heavy lashes fluttering and you take in the bruising on his face. A swollen eye, a cut on his lips, a broken nose. He looks fucked up.

"You know," you lick your bottom lip, "I always thought that seeing you look like shit would bring me closure. But... Looking at you now..." Your eyes soft, your thumb brushing against his sensitive tip and Rex moans quietly.

"Mhm?" He sighs, chest heaving.

"I realise I need to watch you die."

Your voice is eerily steady but it's not enough to make Rex's cock soften, in fact. Calloused fingers dig into your wrist and he looks at you, full lips parted to let out pants.

You know he's just so... Pliable now that he's under a crazy amount of painkillers, but still enough for him to be coherent.

And he's so pretty too. With his pretty emerald eyes, and gingery strands that poke out from where his head's wrapped in gauze.

"Just suck the tip, please." He whimpers.

"No!" You hiss. "I'm not fucking blowing you."

And he whines, letting out an obnoxiously loud cough.

"But I'm sick."

You grit your teeth, eyes flickering towards the door of his room and you let out a huff, standing up abruptly. Your sneakers make thuds across the tiled floor, and your movements are aggressive as you yank the curtains shut.

"I really fucking hate you, Rex." You grit out, plopping back in your seat and the legs of the chairs scrape against the linoleum as you scooch closer, lifting his hospital blankets and you stare at his cock.

Beads of precum rolling down the length, prominent veins protruding from behind the tanned skin and he twitches under your scrutinizing gaze.

"I know baby, and I'm sorry." He pants, shifting with excitement when he sees the way you lean forward, and your glossy lips wrap around his flushed tip.

"Fuck, m'so sorry for cheating." Rex's hands fist the sheets, his head falling back against his propped up pillows and he feels the way your tongue swirls, tracing the veins and your eyes flick towards him.

And that has him coming undone like a fucking ball of yarn.

The way your lashes flutter, the way your lipgloss leaves the prettiest ring around his cock and the way your eyes soften just a bit when his hand comes to rest on the crown of your head.

All of that, has Rex spilling into your mouth. Sweet cum painting your tongue in velvety ribbons and he groans. Low and breathy, and he frowns when you pull away with a pop, your cheeks puffed and filled.

He watches, his breaths bated as you swallow, licking the corner of your mouth before you lift yourself from your seat, stuffing your hands into the pockets of your hoodie.

"I'm gonna go tell your friends you're awake."

⋆⭒˚.⋆🌿🌿⋆⭒˚.⋆

"What are you doing here, Rex?" You fold your arms across your chest, resting your forearms on the windowsill as you stare down at Rex, booted feet planted firmly on your grass.

"And how the fuck do you even know where I live?"

"I used the GDA resources." He calls back, before reaching into his car window, turning up the volume and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing. Instead, leaning out of the window, eyes glued on Rex.

He healed up pretty nicely in just a week. The only evidence being a scar that bisects his otherwise perfect eyebrows. Voluminous gingerish strands remain pulled back into a bun, his undercut fresh and his trusty face framing pieces remain doing their job.

"I'll stand here every night for the rest of my fuckin' life to prove that I want you back." Rex calls to you, emerald gaze fixed on your form. On the way your pendant dangles, on the way your lips purse. Before he speaks up again.

"Well... Maybe not every night. I got shit to do. But every night this week?" He scoffs. "I'll do that shit."

You try not to snort at the sound of Seal, biting down on your plump bottom lip, as Rex stands with his arms outstretched. Powder blue Henley snug against his physique.

"BABY! I COMPARE YOU TO A KISS FROM A ROSE ON THE GREY!"

He begins to fumble the words, and you can see the frustration on his features, brows furrowing and you snort.

"You don't know the words." You snort, resting your chin in the palm of your hand and Rex huffs.

"Okay, fine." He folds his arms across his broad chest and it's kind of hard to take him seriously with Seal as his soundtrack.

"Of course I fuckin' don't. I'm not a sixty and my dick still works. But you know the words." Rex licks his bottom lip.

"I'm— okay, I know I'm a piece of shit but I'm a reformed piece of shit. I don't wanna die a cheating dick." And he shifts on his feet. "I'm new and improved."

And you huff.

"Yeah, this time you won't get caught."

And Rex glares at you.

"I won't go to prison if I knock the shit out of you." He seethes.

And he lets out a huff.

"Okay, I'm not entirely changed. But I'll make it up to you. I swear on my life, your life—"

"Bitch, leave my life alone."

"Well, I don't want it to be only on my life. You know that's shit's pretty worthless."

And there's a silence between you.

"I swear on Mark and Eve's collective lives."

And you snicker.

Before chewing on the inside of your cheek, watching as Rex shifts around on your lawn and you let out a breath. Heavy and your cheeks puff out when you do.

"Please." His voice is quiet, gaze lowered. "I know I'm," he huffs, "like.... A dick, or manipulative or a serial cheater and like, self-serving, judgemental and I—"

"You're ruining the moment, Rex."

And he sighs.

"I just," he swallows hard, "I don't wanna fuck up again. Not with you."

There's the softest silence between you, and you watch him. He looks so pathetic. Maybe your closure was needing him to beg, needing him to play Silk Shirt R&B loud enough for your neighbours' porch lights to flicker to life.

"Park your car in my driveway." You speak softly, before shutting the window and you don't need to look to know that shit-eating grin's plastered on his face. Dimples in sunkissed cheeks and you hear the slam of his car door.

⋆⭒˚.⋆🌿⋆⭒˚.⋆

"Yeah, m'sorry." Rex groans, his arms hooked around your thighs, your knees dimpling the pillow beneath his head and your hands clutch at the headboard like your life depends on it.

Rex's tongue drags along your slippery cunt, a mixture of spit and slick making it glossy as his nose bumps against your clit. The friction just enough to make your hips move, wriggling and writhing on his face, your forehead braced on the hand holding the headboard while your other sinks into his hair.

And he groans, lashes fluttering, cock straining against his jeans and he feels the fabric strain even tighter than it usually is.

You're coating his face in your mess, whining when he sucks your folds into his mouth, your hand fisting at his hair.

"Shit, keep doing tha—" Your hips lift just a bit and Rex groans under his breath, forcing you closer and his words are slurred as he speaks.

"Fucking sit." He breathes out. "Lemme show you how sorry I am."

He pushes his tongue past your puffy lips, the intrusion makes you buck, toes curling in your socks and you shiver. It's a sensation that makes your body buzz, electricity crackling just behind your skin and Rex is content.

So, so very content.

The warmth of your plush thighs on either side of his head, you're sitting on his face and riding his nose like it'll earn you a prize. His hands grip your fleshy thighs, and he's trying to touch everything, palming the fatty mounds of your ass when he circles your clit.

The messy and whiny mewls leave your glossy lips, your head lolling and your brows bunching into the cutest little face he's ever seen. Especially with the way your pretty lips part and your thighs shake.

"Fuck, Rex, I'm—"

"Shhh, just give it to me." He tuts you.

And your body convulses, nails scraping along his scalp while your other hand grips for dear life, a whimper slipping from your lips and you nearly shriek when he keeps sucking on your clit, teasing the sensitive bud before lapping at your cunt. Savouring the taste of you before dragging his tongue up, all the way up to your swollen clit.

Rex has you on your back quicker than you can blink, your thighs spread and his calloused thumbs part your plush and glossy lips, watching the way your cunt flutters and he stares at you.

Watching you eagerly.

One hand reaches over his shoulder, grabbing the fabric of his shirt and he pulls it over his head, tossing it aside and he's even more glorious.

Sculpted pecs, razor sharp abs and golden skin. Dog tags hang just below his clavicle, catching the low light of your bedroom.

And his tongue drags over his teeth, his, canine poking into the wet muscle and you watch through half-lidded eyes as his hand unbuckles his belt while the other reaches into his back pocket.

Pulling out a condom and he bites down onto the ribbed foil edge while he discards his jeans and briefs.

"Do you just keep— like, carrying condoms with you?" You question, your chest heaving as you watch him, and your heart clenches at the way his grin widens, as he rips the condom with his teeth.

"Nah." He hums. "Only when I think I'll get lucky."

You watch the way he slides the condom onto his length, pinching the latex at the tip before his hands move to your thighs, calloused thumbs pressing circles into the flesh.

"And you thought you were gonna get lucky?" You cock a brow.

"I knew I was gonna get lucky." He abruptly tugs you closer to him, your thighs strewn lazily across his and he leans forward, veiny hand wrapping around his thick base. Watching the way your belly dips inward when he taps his latex-coated tip against your sloppy folds and he nudges himself at your entrance.

Pressing a kiss against the curve of your jaw as he pushes into you.

"Real fucking lucky."

You feel the way your breath leaves your lungs, your saliva pooling in the back of your throat, gummy walls fluttering around him. Your belly caves, it feels like your stomach touches your spine and he sighs when he feels the way your fingers rake through his hair.

Nails scraping against his scalp before he lifts himself up, hands moving to cradle your hips, palming the fat there with an adoring expression.

Before he swallows.

"Spread that pretty pussy." He coos sweetly, and the huskiness of his voice does something to your self respect.

It makes it disappear.

And your fingers are spreading your pussy, sensitive and glossy tissue exposed to the slight chill in your room and Rex spits onto your clit, his eyes on yours and he makes a sound in the back of his throat when he sees the way your brows twitch. Your cunt clenching just a bit more.

"How many inches are you taking, baby?" He breathes out, hand moving to rest on your waist instead, savouring the softness of your skin beneath his palms.

And you shudder. "Five..."

Rex's expression falls. And his eyes narrow, emerald gaze hardening and you watch the way his tongue pokes at his cheek, the slight bump visible.

"You think you're real fucking funny, huh?" He huffs, grabbing two of your pillows and he wedges them beneath your ass, manhandling you like it's his job.

"Yeah, I'm funn— holy f-f-fuck...—!" The wind's knocked out of you when Rex begins to pummel into that gooey spot that he found with damn near godly ease.

Your hands are pushing at his lower belly, nails leaving streaks down the tawny skin, pulled taut over sculpted abs and you're whining. Writing and trying to get him to slow down.

Because it's just too deep.

Too much.

And your brain fizzles with an idea to at least score yourself a few seconds to gather your pearls.

And you poke him in the belly button.

And Rex pulls out, brows knitted into a glare as he stares at you. Bewildered, hands moving to protect his navel and he just stares.

His brain short-circuiting and you let out a breath.

"What the actual fuck was that?" He can't even laugh as he stares at you.

"It was too much." You breathe out, winded and you lift yourself, resting back on your elbows as you stare at Rex, eyes narrowed and your body far too overheated for just a few thrusts.

And Rex's brows raise.

"Oh... Shit, you haven't been fucking?" And he blows out a breath, resting his palm on your mound and you feel the way your airways constrict when his thumb nestles between your folds. Sweet circles pressing onto your clit and you swallow.

"No, I've been busy." You hiss back, lashes fluttering and your head tips back, lips parting. And Rex coos.

"It's okay, baby." He sighs, carding his free hand through his hair, before gently pushing your thighs further apart.

"You just couldn't find someone to replicate my stroke game."

And you huff when you feel him slowly push his cock into you, guiding your leg onto his shoulder and he kisses the arch of your foot. Sweet and so, so reverent in his actions.

"Mhm." You hum. "I couldn't find someone to disappoint me the way you did."

"Don't make me choke you with this condom." Rex scowls, before pushing into you, brows knitting at the way your cunt squeezes at him, the lewd squelch makes his heart pound, and the annoyance at your biting remarks melts into nothingness when your hand rests on the nape of his neck.

And he swallows, guiding your other leg to his shoulder and Rex has you folded in half.

One veiny hand grasping the headboard, the other keeping your hips anchored to the bed as he slowly pulls out. Inch by inch leaving you until only his tip remains in your spasming cunt, and Rex sighs, pushing back into you.

"S'it good?" He questions you quietly. "No pain?"

"No pain." You nod.

And then he begins fucking you into the mattress.

The backs of your knees remain caught in the crooks of his elbows, warm hands gripping your hips and pressing you into the soft, puffy sheets, his hips smacking against yours in a way that's brutally unforgiving.

You watch through hazy eyes, nails digging into his bulging biceps, gaze flickering between his ecstasy-ridden face and where he's splitting you in half.

"Yeah," Rex groans softly, "keep watching."

He pants out a moan, head lolling and you watch the way his Adam's apple bobs.

"Watch me bust this pretty pussy open."

And he spits down your clit, the warm saliva making your belly clench as the glob trickles down your sloppy folds.

And Rex grins, his jaw clenching and he bites down on his bottom lip, watching with lovey-dovey eyes as your hand finds its way between your thighs, fingers sloppily teasing your clit. And he breathes out a laugh, chest heaving and dog tags bouncing off his toned chest.

"DJ Bean-Flick's in the booth, huh?" He snorts, the sound of his laughter echoes in the quiet of your room, turning into a whine when he feels the rhythmic spasms of your cunt. Milking him while your legs shake, your orgasm ripping through you like some kind of tidal wave.

Pussy gushing around him, glistening in the dim light and he groans, pulling out of you and he manhandles you.

Aggressively, roughly forcing you to sit up and he rests back against your headboard, lounging, and he pulls you onto him, guiding you to straddle him. And he watches the way you sink down onto him, inches disappearing into you and he moans at the sight.

Your hands move to rest on his broad chest, your hips lifting slowly, before you slam back down, and Rex tuts you.

"Lean back, baby." He huffs. "And on your feet."

And you groan, following his instructions with petulance.

"You sound like an expert." You breathe out. "You have a —hah— confession, Rex?"

And he snorts, hands move to grasp the headboard, you watch the way his biceps flex and he snickers.

"Why would you wanna hurt your feelings like that?"

Your face falls and your eyes narrow, arms moving to cross over your chest, lips pressing into a thin line.

"This is your audition back into my life, by the way." You frown at him. "Just in case you didn't know."

And Rex grins, a laugh slipping past his perfect lips and he rocks his hips up into you, the action so abrupt that your hands immediately move to his chest to support yourself.

"That's what you get when you try to start shit with me." Rex brags. "You mess with the bull, you get the horns. You taught me that."

You scoff. "Well, I taught you wrong. It's, 'you mess with the bull, you get covered in bullshit'."

There's a silence between you and Rex stares up at you.

"Please don't shit on me. I know I've got a strong stomach but—"

"I won't shit on you." Your laughter bubbles so easily from you, lips curling and your cheeks flushing deeper. Your dainty hands splay on his chest, your hips rolling against his, face hovering just above his and you let out a wistful sigh.

"I can't do it on command anyway." You add and Rex laughs. Loudly.

Dimples deep in his honeyed cheeks, hands gripping the headboard tighter because your hips keep rolling against him in that was that has him pressing against the plug of your womb, and you have the nerve to make him laugh too.

"There's something fucking wrong with you." He breathes out, before his arms move to wrap around your waist, bringing you closer to his torso and Rex's feet find purchase on your bed, his lips pressing against your pulse.

Before trailing lower and lower, until he finds the neckline of your shirt and he huffs.

"Take this shit off."

There's something so lovely about watching the way the muscles in your arms move as you pull your shirt overhead, and his eyes catch on a pretty pendant.

Not the one you've been wearing so boldly, no, one you've kept hidden so neatly underneath your clothing.

A pretty, cursive 'R' that dangles lower than your other necklace, and Rex's gaze flicks up to yours, his throat tightening and his belly blazing with warmth and a feeling that might make him come faster if he acknowledges it for too long.

"You still wear this?" Rex hums softly, bringing up a hand to brush his thumb over the letter.

And you purse your lips, "Fuck you."

"I didn't even do shit." He snorts before pressing a kiss over your collarbone, nipping at the skin before he hums.

"Grab the headboard."

Rex doesn't wait for you to have a steady grip before he's fucking up into you, bruising your cervix and grinding your swollen clit against his gingery happy trail.

Lips wrapping around one of your pert nipples, hot and wet muscle dragging against the nub and your brain turns to mush.

Coherence and any thought of self-respect leaking out of your mouth in broken moans and a cacophony of mewls as you're kept in place. Unable to do anything but take everything Rex gives you, taking every thrust, every suck and every 'fuck' that's breathed against your skin in a steamy puff.

And Rex swallows hard.

Teeth tugging on your other nipple, and he just loves the way you look.

Fucked out, your tongue lolling and your eyes finding permanent residence staring at your brain with the way they're rolling back and Rex feels his orgasm approaching faster than ever.

The burn just below his navel, the tightening of heavy balls and he whines.

"Fuck, m'gonna nut—"

He pants, like a dog, burying his face in your neck once he's deemed your nipples swollen enough and his teeth sinks into your shoulder. You feel so good.

He can feel every ridge of your gummy walls, he can feel the way your slick cunt milks and spasms around him like it's got a personal vendetta against him.

And Rex ruts into you.

Chasing that elusive dragon of an orgasm, the warmth of your body seems so much more intense than it did at first and Rex's heart pounds.

And when he feels that dam burst, his hands are bracketing your hips and he's lifting you off him, pearly cum spraying across your cunt, a shredded condom around his shaft and you're whining at the warmth.

Hips twitching and your face pressed into the curve of Rex's neck, inhaling that smoky musk, your brain a puddle.

"D—did the condom break...?" You sigh, and he nods, swallowing audibly.

"At least now I know I can't use two year old condoms." Rex sighs, lowering you back down onto his body, his still-hard cock resting in the crease of your ass and it takes you a while to register his words.

Your head raises and your eyes narrow.

"Was that condom expired?"

"Pfft. No." Rex huffs. "It expires next month."

⊹🌷♡taglist♡🌷⊹

@lucky-beheaded ; @jasontoddswhitestreak ; @queen-of-gotham ; @tamaranblaze ; @enchantedstarfish ; @sophsthebest ; @supersecretxreadersideblog ; @feral010 ; @keeeenbeeaan ; @strawbiemilk420 ; @l1zard-l3ague ; @coldvirginbitch ; @allycat4458 ; @couldeatthatgirlforlunch ; @heavenequals ; @blckbarbiedoll ; @custardpuddingprincess

[mxchibomb]

Content. MDNI 18+

friend of jolyne! reader who has a crush on her dad. friend of jolyne! who selfishly meets her dad in his office after she falls asleep.

 pushing your tired legs over his big shoulders made your stomach drop and your cunt pulse. he was in great shape, washboard abs pressing against your soft tummy and his thick arms bulging while he towered above you. 

 you whined needily as he slid his red, wet tip against your sopping hole. he only spread your wetness along your sensitive, puffy folds.

 you were dripping in your own slick, squelching disgustingly as he bullied his way into your tight pussy, pushing past the ring of muscle with a girth you've never experienced before. a whimper ripped from your throat as he took his time to bottom out, pulsing veins dragging against your hugging walls. ohー he was so big. fat, pudgy tip pushing right up against your cervix when he finally made his way all the way in, forming that cute little tummy bulge you knew all too well with him. you always seemed so innocent around jolyne until you had him stuffing you full of every inch he had. and you've never felt so filled.

 black hair wet with sweat, his usually pulled back hair falling forward. dew drops of bodily secretions hanging off its threads and his skin in a film of clear wetness. he was so hot. beautiful.

 "so.. tight." his thick eyebrows scrunched, cerulean eyes peering at your weak body in his secure hold. your ankles wobbled with his harsh thrusts by the sides of his head, nails digging crescents into his nape as you held on for dear life.

 "jotaro- too good, fuuucckkk.." he wasn't scared to tear at your poor body, his sweet little rag doll. relentless thrusts having your whole body jerk and you call out his name each time he slammed against your squishy, soppy walls. your poor, aching throat struggled to keep your cries at bay, eyes reaching all the way into the depths of their sockets.

 "any louder and jolyne will find out you're fucking her father." it was half genuine, half teasing. you could hear that naughty barely smirk of his. jotaro was a little nasty. mocking you for being so loud on that fat cock of his. and with a cock like his came arrogance.

 " 'm sorryyy. fuucckkー"

 you felt your muscles stretch as his calloused hands pushed your shaking knees all the way to your ears to pound into your loud cunt, pushing the limits of your weakened body. you've felt him deep, now you felt him deeper. his wide hips pushing into the backs of your thighs roughly and his pelvis hitting yours with echoing 'plaps!' it hurt, but it hurt so good. and you were just soaking him.

 "god, yesss. 'm cumming !" 

 "you're makin' such a mess." he grunted huskily, taking note of the loud sloshes of your dewy pussy soaking into the towel he put underneath you on his office couch. he could feel the pulse of you around him, your slick creating a thin sheen of liquid along his shaft and a white ring around the base.

 he was seemingly unphased, but you could see the panicked bob of his adams apple as he swallowed and his neck strain to contain his wild grunts as he feverishly fucked into you. your greedy cunt squeezed him so deliciousy, tugging and pulling to just keep his cock inside of you.

 your mouth was just as dirty as your pussy, with slobber pooling out of both, a wet tear falling from your cheek.

 " 'taroooo" one more time, you could feel it coming. he leaned down, eager lips chasing your soft, pink pillows of a drooling mouth. flavored by cigarettes and expensive beer, spit swirled in a nasty kiss, tongues dancing in a needy tango. your hips swirled underneath him and your thighs shivered, heaving against his hot mouth.

 "cummin' again !" your high pitched, whiny pleas muffled against his spit soaked lips. 

 "i know." he stated like a fact, the slightest of coos cheering you on to let go. your fingers dug deep against his scalp, tugging harshly at his black semi curls.

 "oh fuck" he inhaled sharply as you squeezed him like a vice, clenching cunt in a bear grip. "with a pussy like this, I would've given you a baby if i didn't have jolyne. she's just pulling me in." fuck that sounded good and if you thought you couldn't get any wetter, that phrase alone started another series of loud gushes. you whined, squirming away from him in sensitivity. "she likes the idea of that." he hummed with a low chuckle rumbling in his chest. he was talking to your pussy like she was talking for you. he always knew what you liked, what got it going.

 "maybe next time." he purred, interrupted as a groan tore itself from his throat. his soaked cock pushed into you a few more times before pulling himself out to slam his heavy weighted cock against your sticky folds. thick, heavy cream flew out in short spurts to decorate your twitching clit like a splatter painting. he panted from the physical exertion, coming down from his high as he massaged his slowly softening cock against your white painted slit, threatening to push his cum inside of your exhausted hole.

"still going shopping with jolyne tomorrow?" he asked, soft kisses kissing over your shiny skin covered in both your sweat and his. you hummed tiredly in a yes, arms falling from his nape to rest gently upon his broad built shoulders. "i'll send money to your account."

 you shook your head in complete exhaustion, tapping your fingers against the pink star on his left shoulder to remind yourself to keep your consciousness.

 "don't need to do that." you whined softly as his strong arms lifted you from your position, your legs finally falling from the high position they were once at. a large hand came to sit you upright, but your poor, tuckered out body only slumped back against the back of the couch. hiding his smile, he ruffled your hair.

 "i'll get you some water. we need to get you back to jolyne's room."

trying out new writing styles until i find one i like <3

[bullet-prooflove]

Stitches: John Nolan x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @cosmic-psychickitty @ravennaortiz @lovebookheart @youlooklikeasixtiesqueen

Companion piece to:

First Case - For John it's love at first sight.

Cake - John's surprised when you remember his birthday.

Culpability - John tries to reach out after he finds out about Robert Ortiz.

Bad Timing - You and John have always had bad timing.

Forget About It - You and John share a heated moment in the breakroom. - Companion piece to Bad Timing

The Deepest Cut - Rosalind forces John to make a confession.

Prequel to:

More Than Life It's Self (NSFW) - John reminds you of his feelings for you at a crucial moment.

Scars - John loves you and all your scars.

Out of Your League - John has always thought you were beautiful.

Rainy Days - John wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain... and you.

Vest - You're there for John when he's shot in the chest.

Disco Ball - An undercover operation causes John and you to start a conversation.

The days after Rosalind’s attack are a haze for you, a mixture of pain and morphine induced nightmares including red haired psycho path cutting into your skin. You can still feel your flesh splitting under the blade, hear her voice as she taunts you with that breathy, melodic voice of hers.

“You’ll bleed out before anyone finds us.” She had told you as she had leaned back against the table supporting the phone and ring light, livestreaming your trauma. “And John, he’ll get to experience every moment of it.”

In your dreams you don’t turn the tables. You don’t manage to dislocate your thumb to get yourself out of those handcuffs. You don’t wrestle the knife from Rosalind. You don’t stab her seven times in the chest until she stops moving. You just sit there and take it. Every slice, every cut, every horrific word she says. You absorb each and every one.  

 The only constant throughout is John. The light pressure of his hand holding yours, the gentle cadence of his voice as he reads out stories from the newspaper or tells you about his shift.

It’s on day three you finally ask him the question that’s been burning in your mind.

“How bad is it?”

Pretty fucking bad is what you deduce from the expression on his face. You haven’t looked in the mirror since you were admitted to the hospital, truth be told you’ve been too afraid because the rest of your body, it’s a terrible mess.

“You have to remember that it’s healing.” John tells you as you hold out your hand for his phone. “There’s still stitches and…”

“Just give me the damn thing.” You say impatiently.

You can tell he’s holding his breath when your thumb presses the camera button, you can see it in the way his jaw sets and his gaze focuses on your reaction as you look at yourself for the first time since the attack.

“Shit.” You whisper because Rosalind she did an excellent job of disfiguring you.

The scar she’s left, it winds from the corner of your left eye socket, over your cheek bone and down towards the dimple at the edge of your mouth. Thick black stitches hold your face together, each thread a violent contrast against your skin. That slice, it’s deep, you’re lucky you still have the use of the muscles underneath.

“Ok.” You say quietly, tilting the camera to examine the damage from a different angle as the left side of your mouth tips up. “I can still smile, that’s something right?”

“Yea.” John says because the sight of that smile, it still lights up a room for him even with the disfigurement. “It’s certainly something.”

Love John? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Before you join the taglist make sure to read the rules here as you otherwise you won't be added.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[sterifels-blog]

Ornithomancy

part 1 of sheriff!john price x widowed!reader (fem)

🔗 masterlist

ornithomancy – the practice of interpreting the actions of birds to predict the future

────────────────────────────────────

There is a bird carcass by the well.

It is fresh, dewed with the evening’s breath, a mosaic of snapped bones and feathered ruin, the head twisted backwards as though it had tried to watch itself die. Its beak gapes, a tiny thing, glossy as obsidian, open in a silent note that will never finish.

You kneel.

The hem of your dress dampens in the dust, dark and silt-heavy, the scent of clay thick in the cold air. Two fingers press against the fragile chest, and you feel it—hollow, brittle. A thing no heavier than a secret. The ants are already at it, threading into the sockets, dismantling it piece by piece with an artisan’s patience. They know.

Everything here is meant to be devoured.

The chickens are restless. Claws scratch against the dirt, rhythmic, a slow percussion to a hymn only they understand. Their eyes, dark pinpricks of ink, stare from behind the slats of the coop, unblinking. Their small heads twitch, angular, wary. They know, too.

You lift the bird, curling it into the nest of your palms.

It weighs less than the ring you pawned last summer, the one that left a ghost of gold around your knuckle, the one that kept slipping loose from your fingers. You had never been thin enough for it. Or maybe you were never meant to wear it.

It had belonged to him, after all. Him.

The house behind you is an echo. A hollowed-out gourd, carved into something that only mimics a home, its walls flaking like old scabs under the weight of wind and time. The wood swells and shrinks with the seasons, like the lungs of something dying slow. The house breathes. Creaks. Expands under the strain of emptiness. No man inside. No voice to fill it.

Just you.

Just the birds.

You scatter seed as the dawn bruises the sky a bitter purple. The chickens rush forward, a tide of hunger on spindle-legs, wings flaring as beaks dart, sharp and eager. A robin lands nearby, its chest a furious red wound, its small feet flexing in the loose dirt. It watches you, wary, its head canting to the side in that erratic, clipped way—tiny heart hammering, all instinct, all hunger.

You can still hear his voice in the grain of the wood. The walls have been pickled in it, his laughter soaked into the floors, his anger pressed into the beams. You hear it when you scrape a knife across the cutting board, when the wind slithers through the cracks in the windowpane. You hear it in the rustle of his old coat hanging by the door, in the scuff marks his boots left against the threshold.

Two years.

Two years, and he is still here, in the most subtle of ways. In the rot of the wood. In the rust of the nails. In the hinge that groans when you push the door open, in the bite of the cold against your empty hand.

You had loved him once.

Had pressed your ear to his chest and listened to the slow, steady thrum of his heart, convinced it was a thing strong enough to last forever.

But you know better now.

Forever is nothing but bones in the dirt.

The well groans when you haul the bucket up, the old rope peeling in your hands, fiber by fiber, until it’s no longer rope but the suggestion of it—faint, unraveling, on the verge of forgetting itself. The water sloshes, heavy, thick with the scent of iron and stone. You dip the dead bird into it. Hold it under until the dust floats away, until the feathers slick back, revealing the small, pale frame beneath.

A burial, of sorts. Not one he would have bothered with.

Your husband never cared much for birds.

They were things to be shot from the sky, to be plucked and gutted, to be eaten and discarded, their hollow bones tossed into the fire, curling in the heat until they crumbled to nothing.

He had been like that. Always eating, always consuming, his hunger a cavernous thing that nothing could quite fill. Money, drink, the warmth of your body beside him in the night—none of it had ever been enough. A famine in the shape of a man, gnawing on whatever he could steal. Whatever he could gamble.

You wonder, sometimes, if the earth felt the same when it swallowed him.

The sun is rising now. The world stirs, stretching its limbs. The chickens are quiet, their bellies full. The robin is gone. Only the sky remains, an open maw of crystalline blue, swallowing the last of the night. The wind moves through the brittle grass, a slow sigh, the whisper of something distant, something inevitable.

You let the bird sink.

And the water closes over it, black and endless.

───────────────────

The house is hungry.

You feel it in the walls, in the way they exhale cold breath into your palms when you press against them. The wind seeps in, shivering between the splintered beams, licking at your ankles where the floorboards gape open like missing teeth on fleshy gums. It groans, soft and tired, settling in the night’s embrace. A carcass picked clean, nothing left but frame and sinew, waiting to be swallowed by time.

You don’t light a lamp.

The dark is kinder, in its way. It doesn’t show the dust creeping like moss across the furniture, doesn’t carve out the jagged edges of a home long since abandoned by warmth. Shadows soften the ruin, allow you to pretend—for just a moment—that nothing has changed. That he might still walk through the door, shaking off the cold, muttering about the damn horses again.

But ghosts don’t open doors.

And if he’s haunting anything, it isn’t this house. Men like him don’t linger. They rot.

The chair by the hearth still holds his imprint, worn smooth by the weight of him. You don’t sit in it. Can’t. It feels like trespassing. Like pressing your hand into wet cement and realizing it’ll never wash off.

Instead, you stand by the table, fingers brushing the lip of an empty cup.

He used to leave coffee rings on the wood, dark crescents where the heat bled into the grain, branding the surface. You hated it. Would scrub at them with vinegar, with salt, with the raw scrape of your nails—anything to make them disappear. But the stains remain.

Some things never wash out.

You remember the last time he sat there. Back curved, arms braced against the table, head in his hands. A man crumpled, worn at the edges, a candle burning too hot at the wick.

“I just need time,” he’d said.

You had watched him, waiting for something—anything—that would make you believe him.

“Just a little more time.”

He was always borrowing time. Hoarding it. Spending it in rooms where men made gods of luck, pressing his fingers into the green felt of a poker table like it might forgive him for the sins he carried under his nails.

You should have known, then, that he was speaking of time the same way a dying man speaks of air. Not as something he had, but something he was running out of.

And when it ran out—

You breathe.

The stove is cold. You haven’t cooked in days. The hens have gone to roost, their soft murmurs drifting through the cracks in the coop. Outside, something moves through the grass, a slow rustle, a whisper of life in the stillness.

A fox, maybe. Or something else. You don’t look.

Instead, you reach for the kettle, pour water into the metal basin by the window. The pump’s been temperamental lately, giving nothing but a cough of rust some mornings. You’ll need to fix it. One more thing to do. One more thing to mend.

You scrub your hands, nails digging into the beds of your fingers, scraping away the dirt, the cold, the ache. It doesn’t help. Doesn’t unmake the quiet that’s settled into your bones, curled against your ribs like a waiting thing.

A woman alone is a carcass waiting to be stripped clean. You dry your hands on the apron hanging from the peg.

Outside, the wind shifts. A change in the air. The night pressing in.

And the house—

The house is still empty.

[aghw18]

Read from right to left*

He doesn't really like nor dislike it, he just doesn't mind

The main light in the living room wasn’t on.

Whatever was on the TV didn’t matter—its flickering cast shifted glows over the two of them.

Gilga was shirtless, hair undone, slouched on the couch with one leg propped up.

His whole body was loose, like some beast that had just shed its skin.

Nödt sat beside him, holding his hand like he was taking something apart.

He was digging at Gilga’s fingernails, lifting the cuticle, peeling at hangnails.

Slowly, carefully—like he was unraveling a thread wrapped around a nerve.

At first, Gilga didn’t react.

Not because it didn’t hurt, but because he couldn’t be bothered to stop it.

There were a lot of things he couldn’t be bothered about.

Until Nödt got to his ring finger.

A thin bead of blood welled up at the knuckle, and Gilga jerked his hand back, face twitching.

“Shit! It hurts! What you doing you idiot?!”

He frowned at Nödt, like he’d just remembered he was a person and not a puppet.

Nödt looked up.

His eyes, above the mask, were black as water, calm enough to spill.

He didn’t explain.

He just said—

“But you don’t mind the pain, do you?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a structure check.

He already knew the answer.

The light from the TV hit Gilga’s face.

He wasn’t wearing his prosthetic—on the left side, his eye socket was sunken, the lid thick and slightly raised, the hollow like a half-closed mouth.

The light flickered on and off across the gap, like it was responding to the words.

He didn’t reply.

A few seconds later, he offered his hand back, palm up, like handing over something that didn’t matter.

Nödt resumed working on it.

Gilga kept watching TV.

Like nothing had happened.

Like maybe everything started right there.

[lordkingsmith]

A snippet of chapter two of little daughter of the moon

@optimisticmakerdaze @augment-techs

She remembered meeting Tony better than knowing her mother. She had forgotten most of it, really, but the imprints of the memories were still there whenever she bothered to search back. She remembered being called Selena Keller better than ever being Selena Repulsa.

So falling through a wormhole and hearing it out of….a space pirate's…? Mouth was. A strange start to her morning.

"Spike Skullovitch, Olivia Hart, Selena Repulsa, do you three know why you're here?"

"Keller." She corrected pragmatically as she stood up, brushing her coat of dirt and adjusting her work shirt. Orange, same color as Jack's preferred shirts. She'd grown up wearing primarily his hand me downs courtesy of Shirley Sullivan. She'd become partial to the same style Jack preferred, with a little bit of flair courtesy of Elizabeth and Tony. "Rita didn't raise me. I was raised by my father." She paused. "Also. Detective. I didn't suffer through that test for nobody to use my title!"

The problem with being the same profession as Tony was when people heard 'detective Keller' they looked at him first. She knew it'd change given time but it still stung.

There were two other people with her, about her age. Young man in gold and black and high end fashion on her left. His hair looked like he regularly stuck fingers in electrical sockets. Spike Skullovitch was accurately named. On her right a young woman with dark skin and mouse brown hair in green joggers, green zipper hoodie and a pink joggers shirt. Olivia Hart. Selena stared at her for longer than would have been considered polite.

The pirate leaned forward on his seat. Eyes every shade of blue behind thick glasses frames, so was his mouth. His hair a lank straw blond with silver threading it.

"I need you three to do something for me."

Selena folded her arms. Her lips thinned into a severe line. Olivia got up as well finally and also folded her arms. "My mom always said never give into bullies"

"Funny" Spike was also on his feet. "My dad always said the same thing."

The pirate didn't seem very impressed. "What about an old friend cashing in a favor?" He asked.

"Who's the friend?" Spike asked suspiciously. The pirate grinned.

"Billy Cranston ring a bell?"

Selena inclined her head. She smelled a trap.

[sarkyfancypants]

Reap what you sow - Chapter 1: Echoes

Conquest x OC

CW: Invincible comic spoilers / graphic violence / very slow burn

SUMMARY: A war-hardened warrior, weakened and indifferent to threat or ally, Conquest confronts a mysterious stranger. But instead of battle, he is thrust into a surreal, mind-breaking experience that tears open his guarded psyche, exposing thoughts long buried—and a frailty he can no longer outrun

[<< / >>]

Word count: 5,712

The stranger watched from the side with an unreadable expression as the towering Viltrumite wriggled his way out and forced himself onto his feet, dirt cascading from his shoulders and pooling below him into dunes. His once-imposing figure was almost unrecognizable now—his silver hair, now long and messy, hung in knotted strands, and a full, scraggly beard clung to his jaw, dried blood still matted into his mustache. Despite his still imposing bulk, Conquest looked significantly thinner; the definition in his muscles had dulled, and his suit hung slightly looser around his frame. Dark red rings circled his glassy eyes, making them bulge slightly from their sockets, lending his face a hollow, decrepit look like a fresh corpse.

“Conquest? ” the stranger muttered.

The name cut through like a blade. Conquest’s head snapped up, teeth bared in an alarmed snarl. He lurched forward, only for his legs to fail him, sending him crashing back to his knees with a frustrated grunt.

“Easy there,” the stranger cooed, their voice a velvet murmur, threaded with amused whimsy. “You’re in really bad shape. How are you feeling?”

“What’s it to you?” Conquest growled, his voice strained.

“Oh good, you’re lucid!” the stranger huffed a soft laugh. “I admit, I’m surprised. After all this time, you’re still able to talk.”

Conquest’s expression darkened as he studied the stranger through narrowed eyes. Their features were veiled by the blinding sun sinking behind them, with the light rendering the details elusive, but the silhouette was clear enough—they were tall, poised, distinctly male. Dark, fitted garments clung to a broad, well-built frame, while the long tail of his coat hung from the waist like a flowing mantle, swaying in the wind.

With a slow tilt of the head, the stranger began circling him, with uneven steps, marked by a limping gait that somehow retained a certain elegance. One hand rested neatly behind his back, the other gripping a sturdy cane that tapped out a steady rhythm with each stride whenever he leaned into it. Now and then, he paused, as if measuring the white-clad behemoth with quiet, deliberate scrutiny. 

“I believe you have questions,” the stranger prompted with a deep exhale. “Unfortunately, I probably don’t have the answers you’re looking for.”

Conquest spat. “What do you want?”

The stranger crouched, one leg wobbled lightly while he shifted his weight. Conquest blinked as the man’s features became clearer; Long and slick black hair draped over his shoulders with silver streaks parting from a widow's peak, curving into pointed tufts at the sides of his head, reminiscent of ears or horns. Sharp features worn with the quiet wisdom of a man tempered by years. 

“I came here to collect .” 

Weary crimson eyes, burning through black scleras, scanned Conquest with patient intent, the curled corners of his neatly kept mustache lifting in a restrained grin, touched with quiet irony.

“Though I expected to find a corpse –”

The words barely left his mouth when his cane clattered against the stones. His body slammed into the ground with enough force that it shattered. Conquest’s fingers clamped around his throat, tightening with an unrelenting grip.

“Who sent you?” Conquest hissed. “Was it them ? Where are they?”

“I…I dont–” the stranger gurgled. Eyes rolling back, struggling to keep focus as the pressure increased.

“No matter. I’ll make this quick,” Conquest’s jaw clenched, teeth gritting. “I have a war to catch up on.”

The stranger wheezed, and his body began convulsing.

It all happened in a matter of seconds. The pallor of his skin grew ashen, the veins beneath it darkening, spreading like ink in water. Then, like melting wax, his flesh began to dissolve.

Conquest’s eyes widened. He felt it and couldn’t comprehend what transpired—the body in his grasp losing substance, muscle sloughing away in ribbons of black, eroding sinew unraveling like smoke. Bone was the last to go, his skeleton crumbling and merging into the soil beneath them, vanishing as if it had never been there at all.

His fingers curled into nothing.

A voice—playful and calm—spoke from behind him.

“Oh, that war.”

Conquest’s blood ran cold, and he snapped his head around.

There, standing just as composed as before, was the stranger—completely intact, his suit unruffled, his cane idly tapping against the cracked earth.

Conquest’s gaze switched back to his empty hand . His brow furrowed, and a puzzled huff escaped his nose.

“That war ended about… three years ago, I think,” the stranger twirled his mustache idly.

Conquest stiffened. “ What? ”

“Ah, and Viltrumites roam the Earth now. So there’s that.”

“So, we won ?”

The stranger quirked an eyebrow, letting out a low chuckle. “Not quite. From what I gather, there was a truce. The Viltrumites were given… rules.��Learn Earth’s ways. Interbreed. Behave, ” he quipped, gesturing with his hand, accentuating each word with a refined flair.

 “No more interference. No more conquest … Your people seem to have changed .”

The casual, almost flippant tone sent a spark of fury through Conquest’s chest. His blood boiled at the implied contempt. Besides, the very thought of the Viltrumites stooping so low— domesticating themselves for the sake of survival—was enough to make him sick. Disgust curled in his gut, tangled with something darker, something bitter.

“You’re lying.”

“I have no reason to lie to you. Much has changed since the war ended. Took me years of picking up the pieces from scarce information and hearsay just to find you on this remote planet.”

He paused, his gaze drifting as if reliving the journey. Breath catching for just a second.

“When I learned about your fate, I had to come see it for myself.”

But as he mused, the stranger sensed a sudden shift in the air in the way Conquest’s amber eye bore into him. His smirk faltered, his muscles tensed as an intuitive chill crawled down his spine. His once-relaxed stance grew rigid, shoulders squared, heels digging into the floor as if bracing for something inevitable.

Conquest took notice. And chuckled.

“Scared?” his voice was low, a promise of violence waiting to unfold.

The stranger said nothing. But Conquest could feel it.

And it thrilled him.

“Not so cocky now, huh?” Conquest sneered. He hunched with a prepared stance despite the aches gnawing at his fractured body from lingering injuries. A wild gleam lit up his eyes, crazed excitement curling his lips into a grotesque grin.

“When I’m done with you, I’ll bring retribution to that backwards planet. I’ll turn it to ash—seared flesh and bone will be paving the fields. A shame, really. You won’t live to see it.”

“I’m sorry,” the stranger demurred. “But I can’t let you do that.”

Conquest’s crooked grin widened almost as if he were hoping to be met with resistance.

“Now I want to tear you limb from bloody limb, and I’ll make sure to take my time with it. Come then, pest . Make your move .”

There was a brief moment of silence. Conquest stood tall, eager for the confrontation, confident in his physical might regardless of his current state. The stranger, on the other hand, remained still, his expression serene but his eyes sharp, calculating. He was not prepared for a fight at all, even less a fight with a Viltrumite. And not just any Viltrumite. He knew about Conquest. Hell, Conquest was the reason why he was standing on a deserted, desolate planet in the first place, but not for the reason presented to him at that moment.

Things were just a lot more dire than he anticipated.

He closed his eyes, letting out a resigned sigh.

“Very well.”

The air whipped violently at near-sonic speed. Like a bullet, the stranger dashed with startling momentum—Conquest barely had time to register the danger. Not a blow, not a strike, but something ached inside him as the scene slowly came into focus. A foreign, twisting sensation that sent a nauseating ripple through his nerves, causing the towering Viltrumite to stagger backwards, dropping to one knee, his arms sluggish as they tried to reach for something, anything . His fingers finally found his torso, pressing against warmth—wetness…

Blood .

It took a moment for Conquest’s gaze to follow, to understand .

Behind him, the stranger straightened, rolling his shoulders as if shaking off the effort. His movements were slow, deliberate. Something twitched in his hand as he held it up to his face as if studying it. 

The mortifying sight of the Viltrumite’s still-beating heart resting in the stranger’s palm brought him a profound sense of terror.

His breath came in short, pained gasps, his body trembling, trying to reach for the man, unable to find the strength to grab him. His mind rejected sight, and his muscles struggled to function against the impossible. Conquest tried to push himself up, to pounce at the stranger, and tear his head off his shoulders—but his limbs felt numb, cold, as his vitality was draining .

The stranger watched him with serene defiance and morbid fascination.

“Scared? ”

There were only mere seconds—maybe minutes—for Conquest to come to terms with his situation before he expired. The fact that he was still conscious was miraculous in itself. The stranger toyed with the bloodied organ in his grip, rolling it between his fingers as though testing its weight.

“So this is what it feels like…” he purred. “To hold someone’s fate at your fingertips. It is… invigorating, and yet so terrifying.”

“W-who… ? ” Conquest squeaked, his words failing to make their way out from his mouth. 

“I’m called Hyde .” the stranger responded matter-of-factly. “Bounty hunter, curious collector. Anyone already dead is more fortunate to meet me than the living.”

Conquest heard Hyde but barely registered his words over the ringing in his ears, his vision flickering in and out of focus. His fingers twitched, still reaching, still wanting to wrap around his throat despite the tremors racking his limbs. 

Hyde chuckled at the sight, savoring the moment. He paced in front of the weakened Viltrumite, who still fought to stay at least centered, and crouched so he could be at eye-level with him, entertained by the way he grimaced.

“I’ll tell you a secret. Were this any normal circumstance, you’d be dead by now.” Hyde lifted the waning heart, turning it lazily in his palm before applying pressure to it. 

“Truth is, this is just your imagination. ”

With a firm squeeze, the heart gave out in his hand, bursting like a balloon, the blast so deafening it made Conquest recoil. 

By the time Conquest opened his eyes, the sky had already turned dark as dusk settled over the barren land, and the stranger was nowhere to be seen.

Conquest’s lungs burned, his pulse pounded erratically in his ribcage, and he impulsively reached up to his chest, clutching at the fabric of his suit. There was no entry wound, no blood. Baffled, he grumbled with relief, shaking his head as if to rid himself of the lingering haze. It was nonsense. Some kind of delusion probably caused by the lack of oxygen in his brain for...

Three years, was it?

Could it really have been three years? It was impossible. His efforts to reason the illogical sent a dull ache pulsing through his skull, his temples throbbing in protest.

“You should sit down."

A voice slithered into his ears like an unwelcome whisper, and instinct took over before logic could catch up. Muscles tensed, his body turned on autopilot—his arm swung along, shooting a fist forward with bone-crushing strength, colliding squarely with Hyde’s face. The impact sent the man flying. His body twisted midair, flailing, before crashing violently into a boulder. Dust and debris kicked up in a cloud, obscuring the aftermath. The ground where Hyde had stood had caved from the sheer intensity of the strike.

The world went silent for a moment with just the gentle clattering of rocks shifting. 

Hyde's form emerged from the pile of fallen rubble.

Slow and clumsy, he wobbled forward with knees buckling, blood dripping in thick streams from what was left of his face. Half of it had been obliterated —bone exposed, teeth visible through the torn flesh, one eye completely missing. Yet, despite it all, he still moved.

"Nrghk... that—" Hyde gurgled through mangled lips, spitting out a thick clump of gore. To Conquest's surprise, split flesh began knitting itself back together. Skin stretched, bone reformed, raw fibers laced together as if being stitched by invisible hands. In mere moments, his face was whole again, only streaks of wet blood remaining as proof of the damage.

Hyde rolled his jaw, stretching his neck with a crack.

"—was very uncalled for."

Hyde’s crimson eyes flicked up to meet Conquest’s. No anger. No fear. Just mild irritation beneath the lingering pain.

“Consistent with what one might anticipate from your kind,” he expressed with exasperation.

Such a statement dug into Conquest like a thorn. He would have laughed at Hyde’s attempts to demoralize him, but this time, for some reason, it only fueled his ire.

Without warning, the Viltrumite launched forward, a blur of speed and raw power. Hyde stood firm, bracing himself. This time, he was ready.

Their fists met with an explosive force, the collision rippling through the air like a shockwave. Hyde winced as his heels scraped against the dirt while he was driven backward, feet digging trenches into the ground.

Conquest pulled back to throw another strike, but Hyde caught the movement and vanished just before the punch could land. He reappeared behind Conquest, driving a sharp elbow right into the back of his skull, making the Viltrumite’s vision blur for a fraction of a second—a rare yet infuriating sensation. Hyde moved to follow up with a kick, but Conquest recovered too quickly, snapping around and catching the man’s leg mid-motion. With a feral grin, he swung Hyde like a ragdoll, hurling him across the battlefield. Hyde hit the floor hard, rolling several times before coming to a stop. He groaned, clutching his thigh as a sharp pain flared through his leg.

He barely had time to recover before he heard it—the telltale rush of air, the unmistakable whistle of something plummeting toward him from above.

Hyde rolled onto his back, catching sight of Conquest diving heel-first, aiming to crush him. Instinct took over. He threw his arms forward in a desperate attempt to brace.

The ground exploded beneath Conquest’s feet, a crater forming instantly, kicking up shards of stone. He eagerly awaited seeing Hyde’s mangled body, but nothing was there.

He was unsuccessful again.

Frustrated, Conquest snarled, eyes darting around, his patience already growing thin. 

"Quit wasting my time and face me!"

From somewhere unseen, Hyde’s voice echoed.  I don’t want to fight you."

"Coward! "

"What is the point of fighting me? Your efforts won’t make any difference. The universe has moved on."

“Quit talking!”

“Quit struggling.”

Conquest spat on the ground, his lip curling with disgust. He was done listening to Hyde’s nonsensical ramblings. The longer he lingered, the more the words scraped against his mind like rusted metal. The whispers, the warmth in the voice, the absurd sympathy—it all grated on him. With a scoff, he dismissed the thought and launched himself into the sky, intent on leaving the wretched place behind.

Then—everything shifted.

He wasn’t soaring through the atmosphere into space. He wasn’t even moving. Conquest found himself falling instead, his body spiraling out of control. The ground rushed to meet him as he crashed down, tumbling in an undignified heap. He growled in frustration, pushing himself up. Something was wrong.

He blinked—and the landscape had changed.

Gone was the barren wasteland. In its place, a city manifested before him, strikingly familiar, yet uncomfortably foreign. Ruins of what used to be a utopian paradise stood like frail husks of their former selves. Above, a thick fog enveloped the sky, barely allowing light to break through. Wind howled through the empty streets that seemed to stretch endlessly as the sickly sweet stench of decay clung heavily in the air. Bodies lay scattered, some piled like discarded refuse, others slumped where they had fallen. All of them wore the same distinct white uniform.

Men. Women. Some were barely adults.

Viltrumites.

Conquest stood still, the weight of the scene pressing down on him. The silence of death settled into his bones. His hands curled into fists, trembling—not with fear, but something close to it.

This wasn’t an illusion. It felt like a memory.

He began to wander through the liminal spaces of a place that only pretended to be the home he once knew. The distant echoes of fighting and screams filled the eerie quietness of the environment. Conquest caught glimpses of ghostly figures, flickering like shadows—some soaring through the air, others colliding with one another, their clashing made the buildings around him shudder, glass groaning in their frames. All the while, limp, gored bodies rained down from above.

“Do you think any of this was worth it?” Hyde’s voice slipped through the silence, untethered to any form. “Even at a time when your people were on the brink of extinction… You, without hesitation, still risked it all. You still culled your own kind."

“I was merely weeding out the undesirables and the weak,” Conquest declared unamused. “It was necessary .”

“Was it? Even now, when your numbers have critically been reduced, hanging by a thread—”

“What's your point ?”

"Your approach to achieving strength is deeply flawed and counterproductive.” 

"It doesn’t matter! I would kill them all again if I had to purge every impurity from the face of the universe—"

"That is going to take a while."

A figure came rushing towards Conquest, smashing him through several structureless buildings and walls that seemed to materialize out of thin air. His eyes locked on the attacker—another Viltrumite, though something was very wrong. 

All of its features were missing.

Unnerved, Conquest wrestled with the faceless being for several miles through the apocalyptic battlefield before finally gaining an advantage against it, grabbing it by the neck and crushing it against the ground with a sickening crunch. Its body dissolved through his fingers into a pile of unnatural dark red gunk that hissed and steamed.

A second figure tackled him, this time a female Viltrumite. Her face, blank, just as the previous attacker's. She clung to him, beating him in the head over and over with her bare fists. Conquest groaned, socking her in the jaw and tangling his fingers through her hair, flinging her off of him with unfathomable force, her body disintegrating as it hit a wall, leaving behind a dark red splatter.

One after another, more and more faceless Viltrumites descended upon him in a relentless swarm of death. 

They all piled onto Conquest, fists hammering like meteor strikes against his skull, boots slamming into his ribs with thunderous cracks. He roared, teeth bared, grabbing one by the back of the neck and slamming him into another like a battering ram. Elbows shattered jaws, fingers gouged through bone and flesh. 

Bloodied and drained, he could barely hold them back. His head throbbed in time with his racing pulse, muscles screamed, each movement heavier than the last. It felt like it was never-ending. With each dead Viltrumite, another appeared. Vile red ichor accumulated, creating a mass of black stains that evaporated into thick pillars of smoke that climbed up into the darkening sky. 

“You look tired.” Hyde taunted.

“This—” Conquest panted, lifting a lifeless Viltrumite by the leg before it withered. “—this is nothing. I’m actually enjoying myself.”

“Are you really?”

Conquest faltered—just for a second. A fist grazed his jaw as his timing slipped.

“You can lie to yourself, like it’s going to change anything,” Hyde’s tone was quieter now, threading through the chaos like a whisper inside of his ear.

Blows rained from all sides now—one clipped his knee, another cracked against his back, as he cried out in pain. His footing slipped, boots skidding in the blood-slick concrete. He grunted, losing balance as hands clawed at his shoulders, forcing him to his knees.

“Why do you persist?” Hyde’s tone shifted—not mocking, not indifferent. Something firmer, sharper. “The Viltrum Empire isn’t a force of progress. Such primitive ideologies only hold you down."

“We are perfecting the universe. Civilizing it. Strength comes from order. Order comes from strength. It’s what survival demands."

“It's animalistic!”

Hyde’s voice boomed like a furious titan hurling punishment from the heavens. It echoed across the ruinous landscape, broad and resonant, as if the very air quivered beneath its weight. The shift from patient playfulness to seething rage struck Conquest like a lightning bolt. For the first time in a long time, he cowered—a twinge of fear chilled his core as if an unseen hammer of judgment was descending, and he was the anvil beneath it.

Thunder cracked overhead like a divine war drum. A flood of red light washed over the land as the faceless entities all exploded into black puddles, dissolving into smoke trails, snaking their way up to join a growing mass of black smog. Structures buckled and crumbled into ash. The ground beneath Conquest split apart and gave way, hurling him into a yawning abyss.

Animalistic.

That word grated on the edge of his mind.

To his people—his leader —Conquest was nothing more than a beast—a weapon. A mindless, rabid force, thrashing through existence with nothing but violence and hunger in its nature. He’d worn that title like armor, wore it proudly. It was all he had ever known in his life.

So why did it sting now?

He plummeted through the void, time stretching and warping, until suddenly, his descent halted. He was suspended in nothingness. Conquest twisted his head slowly. No ground to stand on nor a sky above. Just the crushing silence of a space that might’ve been empty…or simply too dark to know.

Despite the constricting stillness of the void, Conquest could still move. His limbs responded, but the air—or whatever passed for it—was thick, oppressive, like swimming through smoke. Each inhalation felt like dragging fire into his lungs, and he had to draw long, full breaths just to keep himself from going lightheaded.

Anxiety simmered low in his gut, rising with every pulse. The sensation took his mind back to that final battle with Invincible—the sensation of fingers closing around his throat, his windpipe getting crushed under pressure, the helplessness he felt no matter how hard he fought to release himself from the boy’s unyielding grip. The memory clung to him like a phantom pain. He swallowed hard, sweat beading on his brow, slipping down the ridges of his face and dripping from his jaw. Still, he pushed forward, gliding through the nothing, unsure if he was even moving at all. 

The Viltrumite spotted Hyde’s form standing in the distance, sparking a fiery determination to defeat him, no matter the cost, even if it was the last thing he ever did. But the shapes flickered at the edges of his vision, always there, always distant, vanishing as soon as he blinked, reappearing whenever he turned his head. Desperation led him to rush aimlessly towards phantasms. He surged faster and faster, chasing each fading form, until one finally stayed in place. Motionless. Waiting.

He began speeding, eyes wide with madness, but it took a fraction of a second for him to look away when a bigger object shot toward him like a bullet through the dark. Conquest jerked to a halt just before impact, air tearing from his lungs.

His stomach dropped.

There, hovering inches away, was himself, like staring into a reflection on a mirror with no glass.

And he hated what he saw.

Bulging bloodshot eyes, ringed with shadow, locked onto him. The pupils were cloudy, unfocused, as if barely tethered to life. His skin was a ghastly shade of pale, tinged with purple, veins protruding along his temples and neck like roots crawling from rot. A dark, angry bruise spread around the base of his throat, vivid and repugnant, a haunting echo of his final moments. His uniform was smeared with dried blood and caked soil.

What stood before him wasn’t alive in any meaningful sense. It was his body—freshly ruined, grotesquely preserved. He was looking at himself as any other unfortunate soul he had left for dead.

“Gaze upon the face of a conqueror,” Hyde intoned, voice low and ceremonial, thick with mocking reverence. “Whose arrogance carved the path to his own ruin.”

Conquest's throat clenched. The words cut deep. His jaw quivered, crooked teeth clicking together in a stutter of tension, sensing the remaining strands of his iron composure threatening to snap and unravel a fragility he didn’t know existed. He could feel his mind fraying at the edges, caught in the trap Hyde had built for him. And worse—he could feel himself slipping into it.

He didn’t want to give in.

But he didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.

Eyes squeezed shut, a low whimper broke from his throat—shameful and involuntary, which morphed quickly into an enraged growl, winding up his metal arm and driving it through the chest of his phantom double. The illusion shattered like brittle glass, the void fracturing around him in a burst of blinding light.

He braced instinctively, arms shielding his face from the falling shards. They didn’t cut—just poured on him, weightless, revealing flickering windows into a different location. A blanket of cool grey veiled the sky, leeching the blue of its vibrancy. Patches of green dotted a vast, open field, distant from any civilization. The scent of damp soil felt like a welcoming change. However, as he recalled the location, the change was far from comforting.

His last mission on Earth.

“PAY ATTENTION! ”

A nearby snarl jolted Conquest from his stunned daze, prompting him to search, blinking until the scene emerged like a mirage.

There he was—or rather, a version of him—straddling Invincible, pinning the boy to the ground as he choked in agony. Nearby, crumpled like a discarded doll, lay the red-haired girl in pink. Her body was inert, torn open where Conquest had driven his hand clean through her midsection.

He remembered that moment with haunting clarity. Mark’s distressed calls for help, his heart-wrenching mourning as he knelt beside the girl's lifeless form. It was raw. Human. Vulnerable. The sight of their bond was revolting. All Conquest wanted was Mark’s attention on him—take more time to indulge in the futility of his resistance. Not his pathetic grief. A waste of energy, he thought at the time. A distraction.

But now, standing in the shadow of that memory, Conquest saw it for what it was.

He had been the one distracted. For a moment…he’d almost forgotten he had a mission.

He hadn’t wanted to win. Not yet.

He didn’t want that fight to end so soon. It was the most joy he’d felt in years.

A moment of weakness—one that cost him his victory.

A harrowing revelation was yet to make an entrance. Conquest saw it coming and braced for it—but dread still surged in his gut like acid. He wanted to turn away, to reject the memory—but a force took hold of him like a dream, dragging his gaze forward, making it impossible to ignore what unfolded before him.

Kneeling on the ground, his former self loomed above Mark, hand clenched around the boy’s throat. Mark stared up at him, bloodied, battered, eyes wide with fright. 

“I am so lonely…” the double whispered, voice hoarse as it grazed the young man’s ear. “All the other Viltrumites are scared of me.”

Conquest flinched, shame flooding him like fire through his veins. To hear those words—to hear himself admit such things—was unbearable.

“No one talks to me. No one wants to be my friend—They think I’m unstable…”

Each confession tore at scars he’d buried beneath centuries of rage and discipline. Wounds he learned to ignore—festering in silence, twisting inside him until he forged them into something useful, as he honed his anguish into a ceaseless appetite for bloodshed—a hunger that only quieted in the suffering of others.

“I am a victim of my own success. Conquest … I don’t even get a real name. Only a purpose. I am capable of so much more, and no one sees it.”

The present Conquest bowed his head in grim contemplation, his expression remained stone-like, brow furrowed, teeth gritting. At this point, he was enduring the shameful exhibition. His thoughts drifted to the Grand Regent. Thragg would have flayed him alive for such a pitiful display, he thought. The humiliation was castrating. Only now did he understand the cruel mercy of his fearsome reputation. Without it, his head would’ve been on a pike the moment he stood before Thragg empty-handed.

"Some days I feel so alone that I could cry—but I don’t. I never do. Because what would be the point? Not a single person in the entire universe would care.”

Conquest growled. He covered his eyes with a trembling hand as he exhaled in strangled huffs, holding himself back from shattering. Agony churned within him, thick and corrosive, as the longing for something he knew he could never have carved through him, eating him away from the inside out. 

It was then that realization settled in—if Hyde's words were true, then he was done for. No longer relevant. His purpose, his name, everything that had once defined him had been taken away, leaving him hollow. Obsolete. 

He stood at a crossroads: too proud to seek solace in humans, too disgraced to return to his kind.

At that moment, Conquest wished he had died as he was meant to, because at least it would have been a more dignified end than living to watch himself become a forgotten relic.

“Take it to your grave.”

The voice faded as the figures began to petrify, with the wind blowing them away like sand along with the world around them. A white fog engulfed Conquest, and the air hummed—a cool, gentle breeze caressing his skin as if trying to comfort him. But it only made him feel dirty, as if it was taking pity on him.

From the fog, Hyde finally emerged, walking from behind with slow, cautious steps. His heels echoed as if they were inside a cathedral. He observed Conquest, who remained rigid with his head down and hands balled into tight fists.

“I see you, Conquest,” he said gently. 

His mouth hung open for a moment, trying to find the words to alleviate the moment, but none felt appropriate. He pursed his lips, moving closer. He reached out to the titan, his hand hovering before pressing gently onto his arm.

“It… It is not too late to—”

“ENOUGH!”

The world around them stood still in deafening silence. Their eyes locked—wide with shock, disbelief, a storm of harrowing emotions neither had time to process. Everything was happening so fast, yet dragging on in slow motion.

A lump tightened in Conquest’s throat, watching Hyde’s expression relax with heartbroken understanding. There was not a hint of fear or a plea for mercy.

Only disappointment.

Something tapped on the floor, wet and heavy. Conquest’s arm was nearly elbow-deep through Hyde’s abdomen, driven so forcefully the man was nearly split in half. His hand shook violently as it held whatever was still tethered to his insides.

The illusion fell apart in an instant, like a theater curtain dropping to the stage, and they found themselves right back to where they had started—back to the barren red wasteland as cosmic twilight bled across the sky—violets and silvers swirling in slow, silent reverence.

“I… see…” Hyde whispered weakly. His face contorted as unimaginable pain flared, sending his senses reeling into a frenzy. “It was worth a try.”

“At least you’ve stopped talking,” Conquest spoke flatly, his tone meant to cut, but it lacked the weight it once carried. “How’s dying working out for you, hm?”

It took a moment for Hyde to respond through the agony, blinking slowly while trying to focus on the other man's expression. He huffed with a resigned smile.

“It’s… never easy,” he inhaled sharply, air pushing slowly through his nose. “But it’s always humbling…”

Conquest held up Hyde’s broken body, never taking his gaze away, his eyebrows drawn tightly and his expression sharp, almost cold—but the way his lip quivered, along with the tremble in his exhale, said more than his glare ever could. Deep inside, he expected Hyde to disappear again, to pull another trick… he was only met with shallow, irregular gasps, unraveling into sighs.

Hyde’s head lolled forward, resting gingerly on Conquest’s shoulder, slowly fading in and out of consciousness—not so much as wounded prey, but a child dozing off after a long day of play.

“You’re… very warm…” he murmured, his voice sweet as honey, faint as a draft.

His arms fell limp at his sides, his features soft and peaceful.

Hyde expired. 

A sick weight twisted in Conquest’s core—vile, oppressive, and impossible to ignore.

He had obliterated entire planets, wiped out civilizations, watched the light fade from the eyes of countless living failures—and he relished every second, every whimper, every scream. 

But it wasn’t the same with Hyde. 

He had nothing personal against Hyde. The man was a hindrance, nothing more. He felt no guilt, no pity—only a hollow discontent with the outcome. A meaningless victory, devoid of satisfaction. The experience had been so strangely intimate that it left him stripped bare, exposed in a way he couldn’t name.

With a sickening squelch , Conquest yanked his arm free from Hyde’s ruined ribcage and let the body fall like dead weight. The calm on Hyde’s face unsettled him. Were it not for the gore, one would think the man was merely asleep.

Something was wrong. All of it. And he couldn’t understand why. 

He felt sick to his stomach, his limbs throbbed with fatigue, his throat was parched.

Conquest sank to his knees beside the mangled corpse, weighing his next move. With a low grunt, he dropped onto his back just feet from the aftermath, gravity anchoring him as if the weight of the moment had tripled, crushing him beneath exhaustion—or perhaps, his thinning mental stability.

For the first time, he allowed himself to rest. 

Under the vast sprawl of infinite stars, he felt excruciatingly small.

To be continued...

[<< / >>]

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

vaggie wears an eyepatch, the animators just forget to draw the strap part = 99.9% certainly true

vaggie stitched her eye socket shut with red thread = thought that won't leave my head

like. cross stitch, y'know?

also i do not like how unsettling it is, realizing the usually white markings of an Exorcist's mask turn RED when they DIE

meaning vaggie's red crossed out eye really makes her look a lot like a dead exorcist

fitting i guess. that part of her is dead and all, but... mrrr

tho... add the stitched shut mouths aesthetic... exorcists as lady soldiers obeying, vaggie disobeying, losing an eye... stitching shut the part of her that past that didn't want to see what she was doing but eventually did... a stitch in time saves nine, Pride the ninth ring of hell where the sinners life... you could make a metaphor out of that

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Platonic Stobin Mind-Reading AU Part 1

Steve doesn’t notice anything is wrong at first beyond the obvious. His ears are ringing, his eye’s so swollen it feels like it’s going to pop from its socket, and his lungs don’t seem to expand fully before the pain in his ribs makes them shrivel back into themselves. 

The injection site pulses, like the viscous blue liquid is still squirming its way into his brain, writhing around its synapses to force his tongue to wrap around words that only hold the truth. It doesn’t make sense. But neither do demogorgons or demodogs or the way thoughts have been leaking out of his ears since Hargrove bashed his skull in with a kitchen plate.

He doesn’t feel truthful. If he was truthful, he’d be telling Robin about the blood slowly pooling into his sock, or how he’s pretty sure she’s the best thing that’s happened to him since Dustin Henderson showed up uninvited at his house and derailed his life. Instead, he listens to Robin come up with more and more outlandish ways that this drug will kill them. It’ll erode their brains until there’s nothing left. Their organs will explode. They’ll have to keep talking until they slowly dehydrate and die. Steve hums along, thoughts trailing along too slow to keep up with her. 

The mystery drug isn’t helping. He’s got that same giddy feeling he remembers from Friday night blunt rotations in crowded backyards, surrounded by his usual brigade of assholes. The likelihood of overdose or dismemberment ia much higher than they usually are when he feels the way, but hey, the company is better.

The overhead lights are trailing along in his vision, his cheekbone is throbbing with every invigorating heartbeat, and Robin’s head is shaking with laughter where it’s resting firmly against his own. 

Then they’re being interrogated and even as Steve talks, a little voice in the back of his head is screaming at him to shut up. He doesn’t, can’t think past the drugs and his exploding eye, and the way he’s pretty sure if Robin moves her head away from his own he’ll explode.

Then noises and screaming and Dustin fucking Henderson.

They’re running.

They’re in the back of a cart.

They’re in an elevator.

Steve experiences each in little snapshots of coherency between laughing with Robin, and holding Robin’s hand, and–he can’t seem to think past Robin. It’s like Nancy all over again but more. Concentrated. The way he can only seem to think right now when it’s in tandem with her. 

Then movies and popcorn.

Then water and a lightshow.

Then the bathroom. His thoughts are coming faster now, almost completely formed before they flit out his ears. And Robin is there. He still can’t think past her, and this is what love is like, isn’t it? The way he feels right when he’s sitting next to her. 

But even as he’s confessing he can feel a little worm squirming through his stomach, uneasy with his words as they settle between them. And as Robin drops her secret between them like a gauntlet, Steve feels the squirming feeling ramp up into gut-churning fear. He doesn’t know why he’s afraid, or how he can almost feel himself glaring at the back of his own head in Mrs. Click’s class sophomore year, or the way he can perfectly remember how Tammy Thompson’s hair curled in the diluted sunlight of the classroom when before this moment he didn’t even remember her name. 

It doesn’t matter, when He’s got Robin across from him, curling in on herself more with every second he doesn’t react.

The feeling ebbs into something softer as they make fun of a singing voice he can only barely remember. Something slides into place in the moment, like the weight of her skull on the back of his head while they’re tied back to back. Like the wisps of her hair tickling the side of his face. Like legs pressed together in a bathroom stall.

Then, Dustin fucking Henderson, and everything goes a little too fast after that. They survive by the barest threads of their little sailor suits. Billy dies. Hopper dies. 

Steve goes home.

Part 2

[yarnery-hooks]

Hfth Mort crocheted clothing patch - full tutorial with photos and text

This pattern uses US terms. The Mort Applique doesn't have to be a clothing patch. You could probably turn it into a brooch or something else as well. (I used yarn I already had for this project so I used chenille for the eyes which was unnecessarily difficult but does have a nice almost fiery result)

Abbreviations

chain - ch

mc - magic circle

r - Row/Round

slst - slip stitch

sc - single crochet

hdc - half double crochet

dc - double crochet

_ inc - two crochets in one stitch

_ dec - regular decrease (you could also do an invisible decrease)

Materials:

Crochet hooks: 4mm and 6mm

Darning needle

sewing needle (and white thread)

A light weight white yarn

A light weight black yarn

A light to medium weight green yarn

A medium weight red yarn

Pins for sewing (optional)

scissors

Skull

(number in square brackets refers to the photo image for the step) I recomend using a tighter tension for this part. this is a 4mm hook

[1] mc and ch 2

R1: [2] 9dc into mc [3] ch5 [4] dc into mc [5] ch 3 [6] dc into mc [7] ch5 [8] tighten ring and slst into second ch of the first ch2

R2: [1] ch and 9sc (one into each dc) [2] 6sc into the gap created by the first ch5 [3] slst into the dc before the ch3 [4] 2dc into the gap created by the ch3 [5] slst into the dc after the ch3 [6] 6sc into the gap created by the second ch5, slst into first ch of round and fasten off (leave a long tail to sew with)

The Eyes

(number in square brackets refers to the photo image for the step) You need to make two of these. I used a light to medium weight chenille with a 4mm hook. The eyes will be much larger than the sockets, this is fine because when you sew them together the eyes will have more dimension. You do not have to use chenille yarn for this.

[1] mc and ch1

R1: [2] 4sc into the ring, tighten ring and slst into first sc. fasten off

Make 2

[3] place the eyes behind the sockets of the skull and sew them with white thread (It's best to start by the nose of the skull and sew down into the hole of the socket rather than across to the next stitch to make your stitches less visible)

The Helmet

(number in square brackets refers to the photo image for the step) Using a light weight black yarn and a 4mm hook. You want to keep your first lines of chains loose because you need to use your 6mm hook in the base of it later.

[1] ch 11

[2] R1: Starting from the second chain from the hook, 1hdc into each chain (10) ch 1 and turn

[3] R2: 10 hdc across (10) ch 1 and turn.

[4] R3: hdc dec, 6 hdc, hdc dec (8) ch 1 and turn

[5] R4: 8 hdc across (8) ch 1 and turn

[6] R5: hdc dec, 4 hdc, hdc dec (6) ch 1 and turn

[7] R6: hdc dec, 2 hdc, hdc dec (4) ch 1 and turn

[8] R7: hdc dec, hdc dec (2) fasten off

The Base

(number in square brackets refers to the photo image for the step) Using a medium weight worsted red wool and a 6mm hook (the thicker wool helps give dimension to the finished piece)

[1] Attach red yarn into bottom corner of the helmet

[2] R1: ch 1, sc into same stitch then 8sc across and sc and slst into last stitch (12) ch 1 and turn

[3] R2: 12 sc across (including into the first ch 1) (12) ch 1 and turn

[4] R3: sc dec, 8sc across, sc dec.

[5] fasten off

[6] embroider black yarn through the centre row

Use the long tail of the skull to sew the skull onto the helmet. then weave in the loose ends.

And it is finished and ready to be sewn on or turned into a brooch.

[noacfapologyst]

night love confessions — matty healy

summary: after a night party, matty has the idea (or the need) to confess his love to you.

warnings: some kind of mention about get drunk, alcohol, drugs and substances (but nothing very explicit) nocturnal melancholy, sad atmosphere and some mentions of touches.

wordcounter: 3,4k

a/n: hey everybody! this is my first au and even i'm scary i really hope you enjoy and like the story, maybe then could put this into a general universe, but idk, it depends i think if it works and if the people like it. anyway, thanks for giving the chance to read it. last thing, english is not my first language so if something it's bad i apologize for that too.

hope you enjoy it 🖤

The bottles that are opened, the containers that fall to the ground, the footsteps of shoes, the music that resonates through the speakers and deafens your ears.

The group of guys you're looking at, the smile one of them gives you at the end of the track. The adrenaline when listening to the band's new song composed by your friends, the lights that make you lose, you feel everything in slow motion.

You drum your fingers on the red disposable cup, before pouring the harsh liquid down your throat and feeling the traces of the rest on your tongue. There is a silence on you, but then you return to the ring with a small scream of happiness, which perhaps multiplies the state you are by a third.

You don't know how many glasses you've had, enough so that your sobriety is hanging by a thread and the hangover of the morning with your head exploding is too evident, but you know that this time nothing else has been mixed. Last time the story didn't end too well, jumping over security fences outside an abandoned club to end up with a sprained right foot and several bruises is not something you want to repeat two weeks later.

— Does anyone know where the hell Matty has gone? — George exasperates, raising his voice over the speakers. Everyone looks at each other confused, without having a clear answer. — God, this guy is going to give me a bad headache one day. —Although he is drunk and has red eyes, he is at his most sane. — You are surprised and turn your expression into an "o".

— He was here a few moments ago, I swear. — Ross responds a while later, moving up to follow him into the crowd.

You sigh a little tired, lately it has become the same routine and with regret inside you decide that you should abandon the staring contest with the black-haired man who is a few meters in front of you.

— I'll bring him back in a moment, let me take care of this. — You pronounce with difficulty, slurring the words and pouting.

— Well, if you can't find us we're probably outside. — Brown hair appears behind George, and even though you know you know the girl, you don't remember her name. You just know that from time to time she and your friend go to some bars .

— She's right. I need to sleep right now. —Ross exclaims, running the fold of her fingers over the sockets of his eyes. — Find him and then we'll leave.

You know Matty well enough to know that when he separates from the group, there are three places he can be doing: 1) In the outside or inside courtyard smoking some kind of cigarette, it's always a different edition so you don't know what you'll find. 2) In the nearest bathroom, with a card in hand and light white tints under the nose and nails. 3) Flirt with the first person you meet at the bar, spending the little money on drinks that will later be deposited on his bed.

— And if you don't find it, what? —Adam asks, in a tone of total concern.

— I will do it, I promise.

— Just... let us know when you get home, girl. —George closes the conversation and everyone else nods at his request, shakes their heads in response and greets them with a "yes, goodbye" in the air.

You hate a little, a lot, the rock superstar life that your entire band has led, it has been like this for years, but especially since they managed to make their first album become famous so quickly, and have devastated the sales stands and the lists have them in their heads. In fact, while you're debating where to start looking for it, Girls starts playing through the speakers. Great, the world makes fun of you with good satire.

It doesn't matter that you don't have clarity to think, your body moves for you and makes its way through quite a few people, until you touch a wall that has two exits: the bathroom and the courtyard. You breathe and try to lower your level to one less, until your instinct kicks in and you know you'll find Matty smoking.

Then you go out to the inner courtyard with the frost freezing your back. Adam was right, you needed your jacket that you left at his house a few hours earlier. The wind makes your eyes turn to glass in a sense, but you don't plan on giving up when you know you're committed to finding and bringing it home in the best condition possible.

You find it almost at the end of the place, away from the main entrances, which catches your attention. He has his leather jacket over his knees, which leaves his arms unprotected despite how thin they are. He's frowning, and when you get closer you see that he's exhaling and inhaling with a thoughtful expression, there's something troubling him even though you can't figure it out.

You reach his side of him and look for a small place to sit, he still has n't realized that someone else is with him, he's still absorbed.

— No girl today? What a loser. — You wake him up and make him jump in his place. — The boys are gone.

— Shit, girl. You really scared me.— He puts his hand on his chest, exactly on his heart. He gives you a half-shot of his eyes, they're freshly red, and you grimace silently. — She's gone too.

— Who? — You cross your legs, and your fishnet stockings catch on a tile out of place. — Shit, they were new. — You moan and realize that you are freezing.

— Luckily for you, buying another one is not difficult. —Now you are the one who frowns while exhaling a considerable amount of smoke.

— Are you okay, Matty? — You don't know why you use his name, but sometimes it helps to bring him back to reality. You look at him when he shakes his head and laughs sarcastically, his curls are out of control and half of them are hanging over his forehead, but he has not bothered to fix them, his white t-shirt he has small red wine stains on it. You can't help but worry about him even if you don't know what you're really into, he's one of the people you love the most and seeing him so subdued burns you more than the glass you drank ten minutes ago. He starts to close his eyes and breathe easier, or so you think. — Hey, I'll take you home, come on.

— Honey, look at me. It's a fucking party and I'm smoking alone. — Speak in the deepest voice, seriously about the subject. Well, that hurts. — Come here. — He hits the jacket that falls on her knees so that you can rest your head there.

He knows that you will not refuse, perhaps because the jacket will keep you warm, because you are tired or because you are very busy and worried. About him you will do everything he asks. Then he drops his head there and slowly rests his legs on the pavement.

Matty's head is about to explode, and not necessarily because of the amount of cocaine he has consumed, although a significant part of it is a factor. He's grateful to have his head against the wall, although he doesn't remember how he got to that position. because he knows that otherwise he would do anything that would ruin the whole environment, no matter how small and silly it was. Lately he's screwed up more things than he's done right, but maybe this is what he longs for most in his life, that when all this terror and this endless nightmare is over (he's more convinced that it won't) you'll still be there, close to him, to support his head or lean on him.

Silence becomes your best friend over and over again. All he wants to do now is cross his hands below your waist and hold you for as long as he is allowed. But he doesn't, his hands are dirty and he couldn't afford to dirty his girl like that, he feels in the depths of his being that if he touched you even a millimeter he would ruin you to the core.

Basically the same feeling he had about himself several weeks ago, he couldn't take the responsibility of taking away all of your shine and everything that characterizes you as his favorite person. He is drugged and drunk, perhaps more than ever, but in this same hazy state he has discovered that perhaps the reason why he continues doing things without stopping is because it is a barrier to his feelings, it inhibits him from being able to think rationally and from being able to feel, It makes him believe that everything is possible, except being able to have you.

You remain motionless on his lap when you begin to close your eyes and he takes the opportunity to look at you, giving himself every detail, capturing the scene forever in his memory: look at how your locks fall on your forehead, how your chest rises and falls every time you you breathe, and the subtle smile on your lips that is the product of drunkenness that also causes a satirical laugh and then dies in its own tranquility. He also notices when you open your eyes, noticing his determined look and you raise an eyebrow in question.

— I need to die, now. Can we go now? — You whisper, also struggling to hold the moment for as many minutes as possible.

— One more and we'll leave, love. — The nickname causes a cerebral shock throughout your cortex, but you hide it with the freezing air that runs through there and you pass him the lighter that has fallen on the floor.— I'll wake you up... maybe in seven minutes? I can't count. — The two laugh and for a second they hold each other's gaze, shining and reflecting on each other.

— Promise? — You ask, and you raise your little finger.

— Promise. — He intertwines them and it's convincing enough for you that you soon go back to sleep, leaving your hand outstretched. Matty has no intention of breaking that contact, so he takes it upon himself to enjoy the seven minutes like this, usually blowing out some hair that obstructs her view of him.

When he is halfway through the fateful cigarette, he lets out the longest snort of the day. He feels the same as he did in Robbers' video. No, it's nonsense. That song was never written for you, but maybe he's relating it to others.

Oh, but it's automatic, the scene where he's on her lap in timeout, the thought that he could never let you go even if they were apart, everything he's begged for you to stay and all the times you haven't. was able to turn back. All those times when he was the cause of your suffering, when you ended up in the hospital due to his failure, when he wasn't there the day your father left, and how later you said he was fine and that it didn't matter.

Maybe you'd actually sum it up to something like I love you, don't you mind? Because nothing could happen above that, you loved Matty as if he were your other half and even if he meant suffering more than anything else, you accepted it because you preferred to have him than not. But you knew that those opportunities were nil, nothing more would happen with him and the almost kiss a few weeks ago had made it clear.

On the other hand, Matty had started to cry. The taste of the tobacco was now a mixture of salt water and nicotine.

— Time to leave. — He says it slowly, extinguishing the remains against the cement and drying the trace of his face.

They both get back together after a while with some effort. Then you extend your hand to him so you don't lose him in the crowd when you have to cross it. It takes some effort, but you manage to breathe in the fresh air and see the light from the post outside faster than you thought.

—Can I sleep at your house today? My house is...complicated. — The hands of you two let go as both begin to walk along the brick pavement of Manchester. There's a small ringing in your ears but you nod, he's not in the state to show up at his house.

— Yes. — Your direct word calm him to the point that he adopts a calm that does not allow him to see a loose cable in the street and trip over it. — You can't walk, at least not like this. — You say, reaching out to him with concern. — Here we go, big boy.

You grip his wrist tighter, trying to provide some stability, until he changes his grip and runs his hand around your waist, wrapping it around it and pulling you as close to him as he can, seeking to get you inside of him. When he moves his fingers he notices the temperature of your skin.

— You're cold, put on my jacket, please. — He brakes and looks at you defiantly, without losing that tone of chivalry.

— It's okay, we're close to my house. — You comment without paying attention to his frown. Then you see the light about to be left at the beginning of the block and break your hold under his watchful eye.

You run, always holding on to him until the central point of the park that you are crossing. Since you have his hand in yours, you spin him around a few times while neither of you can stop laughing.

They both feel like they are floating regardless of any other part of the world or any other matter. If they both touched their hearts they would discover that it is stronger than ever.

He caresses your cheek and takes the opportunity to smudge an eyelash. Then they melt into an embrace completely overflowing with desperation, love, affection, and the need to freeze there forever. Eternity in this line sounds incredible.

— I'm very glad to have you. — You murmur in his ear, and then you give his a kiss on the cheek. You don't need and don't want him to answer, so you decide to run to the door of your house and wait for him there.

Tomorrow he won't remember this, so it's okay, you tell yourself.

Tomorrow he'll remember every part of this, living it second by second, then it will all come flooding back to Matty breaking him deeply.

Then he arrives at your front door and between some silly jokes and some tripping objects, like your brother's toys or some discarded slippers, you make it to your room, although you need to use your supporting weight to carry Matty inside.

— I'll bring a glass of water and a hangover pill. — You tell him and disappear from your own room.

You go down the stairs and it seems that you also go down to reality.

What the fuck are you doing? What has happened and why hasn't you stopped sooner? You put your hand to your head in frustration and drink water, then fill another glass and look for the pills. Tomorrow you will not only have discomfort from the drink.

You return to the bedroom, opening and closing the door carefully. The scene petrifies you, he is sitting on the white back of your bed, taking up as much space as he can. Then he looks at you, and smiles at you as if he were a child who had just been caught being mischievous. You feel like you could die of lovey-dovey right now.

— I'm going to the bathroom to put on my pajamas. — You open the closet and take out the largest T-shirt you can find, then the pijamas that are clean. — Use this. — You stretch out your arm and he catches the shirt along with a pair of shorts, internally you wish he would finish before you leave the bathroom.

Being used to the routine, taking off your clothes and removing your makeup doesn't take you more than five minutes, just enough for him to scan every corner of the room after changing with quite some effort. He smiles when he sees the box full of Polaroids of you and the entire band, and then feels like he's dying a little more when he sees the self titled car at the head of your furniture.

You open the bathroom door and he needs to swallow hard to keep from stumbling. Even in your pink heart pijamas you look just as spectacular as you do in your black miniskirt and boots.

—You seem very....funny— You scan it and you laugh when you see how short the clothes you gave him are. Then you realize that the mattress is not here, but you don't want to go out and look for another one. —Does it bother you if we sleep together? —It's nothing you haven't done, but it still requires a certain degree of difficulty to ask.

He denies sweetly and moves away as far as he can when you get on your bed, there is an unbearable barrier between the two of you.

So, he lets it out. Something internally takes over him.

— You are my favorite person in the whole world, my love. — He try to whisper it because you force yourself to believe that he thinks you're sleeping. He doesn't manage to whisper it anyway, and you hear his voice begin to crack and his heart begin to pour out. Your greatest fear comes to light when the way he speaks condemns it, you've seen too many movies to know what's coming.

No. He can't do this to you, you can't bear that tomorrow he will forget about this entire night and you must pretend that for a moment it makes sense that he also loves you the same way you do. You want to believe that he dreams of you too.

— Don't do it, Matty. Please do not do it. — You say to him with all your strength, while a swirl of water begins to grow in the sockets of your eyes. —Just... don't.

— Why? — He whimpers and staggers in his speech, he's taking it all on herself not to show you that he's breaking into miles of pieces.

— Because you're high, very high. Tomorrow you won't remember anything about this night and you won't be able to pretend this never happened. — You turn slowly, and then you wipe away the first tear that runs on his eyelid. — I really wish things could be different and that you would make this confession when you're not high.

For a moment he stops talking and you think you've won the battle and that there is a temperance that calms the threat. But he falls apart.

— I love you. I've always loved you and I can't stand another damn minute without telling you. — Tears simply fall down both of their cheeks and soak the pillowcases. You shake your head non-stop in a negative way.

He can't just let go now, at the moment when you're most emotionally vulnerable, so that tomorrow he can go off with the first girl he finds. In the long run it has always been like this, he gets over it and you are still there with a broken heart and forever devoted to him.

—Go to sleep, Matty. — Your request breaks him a little more, the tone destroys him although it is not very strong. — Do not make it harder.

He shifts uneasily, but he also understands that he can't force you to feel the same way. What he doesn't know is that if he just said he wouldn't leave tomorrow, you would run into his arms.

But he doesn't do it, nor does he close his eyes to fall asleep. He's there, watching your every move still. You sigh, unable to bear it anymore, maybe tomorrow you will suffer from it but maybe if you let go now it will be easier to overcome.

— I love you too. The same way you do it. — You kiss his head one last time and murmur one last goodbye before turning to sleep. — And it's been an ordeal for me all this time, because you feel it more when you're high and I feel it more when I'm sober.

Apparently your brain works fast and allows you to fall into some dream where this whole story is happier before reality can attack you.

And that's how they finally fall asleep, the both with their hearts in each other's palms, with more scars than before.

Finally, everything gets comically better when you wake up a few hours later and there's no sign of Matty in your entire room.

Just make out that the glass of water is empty and the pill is not there. You laugh sadly before going to sleep without letting yourself cry again, he doesn't remember anything from the night before.

i won't apologize for this. however, thanks for reading <3 let me know what you thought or if you liked it.

Etiquetas: @cxcx75

[amaris-whisperer]

MOONFIRE l Aemond Targaryen x Reader (EP.3 - Storms upon the Veil)

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x OC

Episode III — “Storms Upon the Veil” Some storms are not weather, but the breaking of fate through flesh and flame.

--

The sky over Rhaelyria split with thunder.

Storm clouds gathered like a dark tide, rolling across the horizon in vast swaths of ink-black menace. They stretched like spilled ink poured over parchment, thick and heavy, blotting out the setting sun’s last golden fingers, turning day into a bruised twilight. The clouds moved with a slow but inexorable power, driven by winds that whispered of ancient wrath. They curled and twisted as if alive, writhing like serpents in the sky, heralding a storm unlike any seen in decades.

Below, the land of Rhaelyria lay cloaked beneath this unnatural shadow. Jagged mountains carved the skyline with their broken teeth, ancient and timeless as the earth itself. And there, atop one of the tallest peaks, the fortress of Rivendale rose like a shard of forgotten history—its towers steeped in old magic, gleaming with veins of crystal that caught the fleeting light of lightning and fractured it into ghostly rainbows before the rain could wash them away. The stones seemed to pulse faintly, as if the very bones of the world beneath had been laid bare, and now trembled in warning.

A chill cut through the air like a knife, thickening the breath of anyone who dared to stand beneath the gathering tempest. The Veil—the thin membrane between realms, between what was seen and unseen—was taut tonight, stretched dangerously thin. Every soul felt it deep in their bones: a pressure like drowning in cold water, a whisper curling and twisting through the wind like a forgotten language, almost lost but never quite gone. It spoke in riddles, half-formed and fleeting, promising change, upheaval, and fire.

Emberyn stood at the heart of the courtyard, barefoot and unyielding.

The ancient stones beneath her feet were worn smooth by centuries of footsteps and forgotten ceremonies, carved deep with a ritual circle that had not been walked upon lightly for generations. Tonight, it was alive with power. The storm wrapped around her like a living thing, rain soaking through the long folds of her ceremonial robe, which clung to her slender form with the weight of water. The fabric was dyed a deep midnight blue, threaded through with shimmering silver strands that caught the flickers of lightning overhead and traced their own fleeting patterns of light — like veins of moonlight fractured by the storm.

Her dark hair plastered to her skin, framing a face set with fierce determination. Her eyes were closed, lashes wet and heavy, as she lifted her hands to the sky, fingers trembling not from cold, but from the raw power she sought to summon and control. The ancient runes etched in a ring around her glowed faintly, responding to her breath, her whispered words, and the beating of her heart. Each syllable she breathed was a thread in the fragile tapestry of the Veil, binding it, holding it steady.

But the storm was not patient.

Across the courtyard, beneath the looming archway carved from the same obsidian-streaked stone, Aemond watched.

His presence was a shadow against the crashing tempest, rain streaking down his broad shoulders, soaking the black leather that clung tightly to his lean, muscular frame. His silver hair was darkened and heavy with water, trailing down his back like a cascade of molten metal dulled by storm clouds. The sapphire set in his eye socket flickered with the cadence of lightning—alive, hungry, and cold as the ocean’s depths. His face was a mask, chiseled and unreadable, carved as if from ice. But beneath that frozen surface, a fire roared in his chest, fierce and unyielding.

He had come here for one reason and one reason only: to observe. To assess the strength of Rivendale and report back to Rhaenyra. To ensure that this distant, rebellious land would bend to her will. To see if Emberyn—youngest daughter of a line dying like autumn leaves in winter—was a threat or a tool.

But day by day, watching her, feeling the pulse of her magic and the unbreakable flame in her spirit, he realized she was neither. She was a splinter in his skin, sharp and irremovable.

Emberyn did not flinch under his gaze. She never softened her voice for him or bowed before the weight of his power. When others fled like frightened leaves in his wake, she met his eyes with a fierce blaze that could rival the storm itself. He hated her for that. Or so he told himself. Perhaps, in some hidden corner of his heart, he admired it.

Tonight, that stubborn fire was tested beyond endurance.

The ritual dragged on. Hours seemed to stretch and twist under the pressure of the storm, every breath drawn with increasing difficulty as the Veil thinned to a dangerous edge. The very air around Emberyn rippled and shimmered with a surreal distortion, curling like smoke, refusing to settle. The runes carved in the stones beneath her feet flared brighter and brighter, blindingly so—far beyond the glow they should have held.

Something was wrong.

A sudden shudder passed through Emberyn’s frame. Her breath caught in a sharp gasp. Her back arched slightly, her mouth parting as raw, unfiltered power burst around her like wildfire licking at dry brush. Her hands spasmed, fingers twitching involuntarily, as the invisible forces she tried so carefully to command began to spiral beyond her control.

Aemond didn’t hesitate. Before thought could even form, he stepped forward, the storm lashing against him as though trying to tear him down. Rain pelted his skin and armor like cold spears, thunder shaking the very stones underfoot, but he moved with certainty. In three long strides, he crossed the courtyard and stepped into the glowing circle.

The moment his foot touched the boundary, the air thickened like molten glass. It resisted him. His skin burned as if touched by invisible flames, his lungs constricted, breath shortening. It was a battle of wills—the Veil itself pushing back against his intrusion, warning him away. But Aemond pressed on, unyielding.

Emberyn did not see him at first. Her eyes remained closed, her mind swimming in the swirling chaos of power, voice trembling and cracking as she tried desperately to finish the incantation that was the only tether to sanity she had left. Her skin glowed faintly in the stormlight, veins aglow with golden light that pulsed just beneath her damp flesh.

He reached her just as the wind screamed through the courtyard like a beast released from some ancient cage.

“Enough,” he growled, voice low and sharp as broken glass. His hands gripped her arms firmly, halting her trembling fingers mid-air.

The raw magic that surrounded her surged and snapped between them like a live wire. Sparks cascaded from her skin where his fingers touched, tiny bursts of fire igniting and fading in the storm. Her head jerked toward him, eyes snapping open wide, fierce with a mixture of fury, shock, and something else — something vulnerable and raw.

But she did not pull away.

“Aemond—” Her voice was a whisper caught between plea and challenge.

“You’re unraveling it,” he said, his tone grim. “You’ll tear it open.”

“I can fix it—” she insisted, voice desperate.

“You’ll burn through yourself before you do.” His words were an unyielding truth, harsher than the storm around them.

The Veil screamed. Not in a way the mortal ear could hear, but like a psychic rending—an agonized tearing of the thin membrane separating dreams from waking, the living from the dead. It clawed at the edges of the world, shaking the courtyard with an unseen fury. Rain turned sideways, whipped by forces beyond natural understanding.

Aemond pulled her closer, his arms locking around her with fierce protectiveness as the runes beneath them exploded into a blinding cascade of light. The heat of her body seared through the storm’s chill. She gasped, trembling against him, her strength bleeding away in waves.

The world cracked.

And then—

Silence.

The tempest halted as abruptly as it had begun. The courtyard was plunged into an eerie stillness. No wind stirred the soaked banners. No raindrops fell. Only the steady pounding of two hearts, frantic and uneven, beat against each other in the hush.

Emberyn sagged into his chest, utterly spent, her arms falling limp. He held her tight, fingers digging into the fabric of her robe, unwilling to release. His breath was ragged, the storm’s fury replaced by a storm of his own inside. The scent of smoke and rain clung to her skin, a volatile mixture of fire and water, power and fragility. He could feel the trembling force within her, barely contained, wild and dangerous.

“You should have waited,” he said softly, voice hoarse from more than just exertion.

“There wasn’t time,” she whispered back, eyes still closed, voice fragile yet resolute.

“You risked everything.”

“So did you.”

His jaw clenched, muscles taut beneath wet skin. The storm had passed, but the tension between them remained, crackling and sharp as broken glass. A long, heavy silence stretched out, broken only by their ragged breaths.

His hand moved, hesitant at first, then with a growing need to feel, to confirm that she was real and unbroken. The heat radiating from her was not just magic—it was the essence of her, fierce and consuming.

“You can’t protect me from what I am,” she whispered, eyes opening to meet his. Sapphire and gold, ice and flame, locked in a moment suspended between war and peace.

“Then I’ll burn with you.”

Far above, perched in the shadowed eaves of the high tower, a raven watched with eyes too old for feathers, the blackness of its gaze swallowing the faint glow of dying light.

And far below, deep in the restless bowels of the mountains, something ancient stirred, opening one great, unknowable eye.

[skyheld]

🚶 Ameridan

send me a 🚶 and I’ll introduce you to an NPC in my muse’s life. | accepting | @starkhvn

The first empress of Orlais watches the knight seated across from her with the distant, collected gaze of someone who has been married to the center of the world for nearly two decades and managed not to fade in its shadow herself. The firelight shimmers on the gold rings weighing her fingers, closed lightly around the slender stem of an emerald-encrusted goblet. Heavy plaits, bound with gold thread and as thick as her upper arms, have been carefully arranged to fall across her shoulders and into her lap, gleaming like her jewelled belt. Anyone would shrink in her presence, or feel themselves grow by her blessed radiance. But the knight does neither. He looks at her without fear, eyes pale and piercing, his face bare save for the tattoos traced upon his skin.

The last mage who got this close to her was already dead. She took him down at a thirty-yard distance, but walked over to pull her arrow out of his eye socket and to see if a mage's face was any different from that of someone born uncursed. There was no difference that she could see then, and there is no difference that she can see in the knight—except, of course that he is not human. An elven knight from across the Waking Sea, a mage walking free with the emperor's blessing, a dragon-hunter with a wolf shadowing his every step. That would be enough to make the court buzz with excitement, but there is more.

He is more. Clever, brave, well-spoken; lively in conversation without ever seeming superficial. He has a presence that is hard to look away from, something that draws the eye even in a crowd. She can see why Drakon likes him.

Which brings her to the reason she sent every servant and guard out of the room for this conversation.

"His Imperial Majesty our husband tells us you refuse to go behind our back", she says, her voice level as though she's speaking of the weather. "And that you would not entertain the thought of asking our permission." She gets the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen, a flush touching the tips of his ears. He is no master of the masked Game the nobles play. That has not stopped him from doing well at court; his honesty is both refreshing and startling, and his confidence makes him no easy target despite the bare face he shows the world. Now, the reaction betrays him. "We see you understand", she continues. "Before you start making apologies, let us assure you we did not send for you to accuse or condemn you for the feelings you evoke in our husband. Your stance is admirable. However, it means we must lay awake at night listening to our husband's sighs over what he cannot have. In trying to protect our honour, you are giving us a terrible headache. So, though you did not ask for it, we are giving you permission."

The surprise is expected. Area wonders how he can bear to sit barefaced in front of her; without the heavy mask resting on the bridge of her nose, the pheasant feathers catching every little draft, sweat beading underneath the leather backing, she thinks she would go mad. But though his gaze leaves hers, he doesn't even turn away.

After the surprise, she expects gratitude. It happens, when one has been married to the center of the world for nearly two decades. Instead she is reminded of another reason Drakon likes him: even with the emperor of Orlais, the sun itself, Ameridan has never been afraid to speak his mind.

"I do not want Your Grace's permission." The goblet is placed on the table between them with a hard thunk, and when he looks at her again, the disapproval and insult is plain on his face. "If not for your honour, then for mine."

She blinks. It was long since anyone spoke against her so openly. "You do not want him?"

"Not like that."

"His Imperial Majesty strongly indicated there was mutual affection."

"He is married."

"We are telling you you have permission-"

"I do not want it. I will not be his—illicit lover, stealing moments in hidden alcoves off the garden path. I will not demean myself like that."

Area, first empress of Orlais, sets her own goblet down. She adjusts a ring on her finger until the stone is centered. She flattens a single hair that has escaped the gold ribbons around her braids, and smooths out her gown before letting her hand rest in her lap. The heavy fabric pools at her feet, its pattern iridescent in the light of the fire. No one knows how to make such fabric anymore. It was made in a small artisan village in southern Tevinter, which was wiped out in the hundred-and-twentieth year of the Blight. She wears it as a reminder of what they've all lost, and what they gained. The old world for the new one. For herself: freedom for power.

"He is married, yes", she says, and her voice changes. It is no longer the empress speaking, not fully. "He was fifteen, I was sixteen. He needed my father's military strength. Out of six daughters, he picked the one who was good at archery. Archery!" She laughs, bitter. "We were children. We knew nothing of what makes a marriage. If we could share hunting stories, surely the rest would come naturally. But it never did."

She knows she has said too much already, that these are the sort of secrets one takes to the grave and beyond. Yet they spill from her painted lips regardless of decorum, heedless of the Game.

"I am… fond of him. But I will take him to bed only for the purpose of giving him an heir. I see no reason why he should not have another. I have no jealousy in me. We are human. Humans called to higher purpose, yes, but why should we deny ourselves such simple pleasures so long as we do not compromise that purpose?"

"You are asking me to..."

"Drakon could have anyone. Anyone else would have leapt at the opportunity. Whether because they felt honoured or obliged to, or because of personal ambition, they would not have hesitated. But it is you he wants, and you..."

"I turned him down", he says. "And I suppose that makes it easier for you, because if I had asked your permission you would have had to grant it, for fear that I would still go behind your back if you did not. If I had asked the choice would have been mine. Now the choice is yours."

Maybe it is that. Her eyes close briefly behind the slits in her mask. But it is also that you may be the only person in the world sincere enough to truly love him.

"I am sorry", she says, the phrase strange in her mouth, almost forgotten. "People such as us do not have the luxury of doing things the usual way. All that we do is strange and unnatural, even love." She lifts her gaze to look out the window. Its shutters are closed. No one knows how to make such glass as the old empire did, either, and what can be made is needed for the chantries Drakon builds across his empire, so their castles are either drafty or dark. How can the Divine Age feel so painfully vulgar? Why must they still deal with such pettiness as drafts and love?

She draws a breath. The next moment she is the empress again, collected and remote, her face a mask behind her mask.

"You need not tell us your decision", she says, reaching for the little bell on the table to call the servants back into the room. "We will notice, as our headaches will either pass or worsen. We shall not speak of this again either way."

[dandelion-blues]

#2 PJO One-Shot

The Blood of Gods

Now on Ao3

Liquid seeps into the soil.

The clash of metal ringing all around.

Red, a mortal’s plight.

To live such a short life.

Oh, Warrior given a moment of glory,

Of spilled blood for the Gods' need for gore.

Their armor dented,

But their hearts race free.

Free, but they're bound in chains.

A pretty golden chain for thee.

Scars among their bodies,

Proudly displayed battles won.

The battle a stage to be viewed,

Laughter and cheers or boos and jeers.

An arena of entertainment!

Gods clap, thunder follows.

Gods cry, rain falls.

Gods smile, and the sun sears.

Gods! Gods! Gods!

They must cheer.

Blood offered for Gods.

The immortal’s lips stained red.

Is it blood or wine?

The gods love it all the same.

Only in death can they be free,

But even death is ruled by immortal beings.

Thus, mortals left forever at the Gods' whims.

Lesser, worthless, insignificant things.

A bug to be crushed under their heels.

Their lives and deaths sacrificed to the Gods!

To bow before their superiors!

Kissing the dirt! It’s where they belong!

Grovel before the Gods’ magnificence!

Mortal’s eyes don’t deserve such beauty!

Eyes burned from their sockets, if they ever saw.

For Gods’ true sights are monstrous beings.

“A God is such a magnificent being.” A cloaked person hums, their voice rasped like a snake’s. Their voice deep yet soft, somehow echoing in the dark tunnels.

“You can’t run, for a God is all-seeing.” Their words lowered in pitch towards the end. The words lifting through the air like a discordant melody.

“You're lucky if a God notices thee,” the voice raised to a high mocking tone. Laughter heard in the shadows following the cloaked individual.

“But your luck runs foul in three,” The voice turns somber, a spool of thread weighing down their scarred hands.

“Oh great Gods, I pray for your blessing!” The voice laughs, the thread turning red in the dim light of the tunnel.

“Oh, blessed! A child of Gods through their caressing.” The voice low and dark, their eyes glowing bright in the darkness. Their body shaking with barely concealed rage. Shouts of anger heard behind them.

“The child sent off to war,” the voice shakes, tears building in their eyes. Great blonde hair falling from their hood as they bow their head. But still, they move forward steadily and with purpose. The marching of soldiers stomping behind.

“Hoping for the child to be one Gods’ adore!” The voice breaks, and the string tightens in their hands. Winds are felt in the tunnels, the damp air becoming heated. Sad whispers heard in the wind.

“The child brought before the Gods,” the voice now has an anticipating edge to them, as the dark tunnels light up at the end. The voices behind quieting down to a humm, the tension savored like the build-up before a storm.

“Now a man to settle the odds,” the voice whispers dark and menacing, a jeer at the end of his song as he reaches the end of the tunnel. The man’s voice echoing down the tunnel, but quiet to the open air.

The thread carried in his hands now bright and golden in the bright light of the sun, and it splits and weaves onwards to the giant figures beyond the person.

The person sighs and pulls his hood down as he faces the giants, the gods. The thread attaching to each of their chests where a heart would be if they had such things.

The person's hair shines golden as the string and is accompanied with the bluest eyes, the color of sapphires. The man’s rage was shown clearly to the world. A young, pretty teenage face sneers.

The gods, however, don’t notice the speck of a person entering their great home. The home of the gods, Olympus, that casts a great shadow over the insignificant lives down below.

The person's knuckles turn white, drawing great shining blood from his hands. Red and gold, now marring the great thread. He breathes in, and he yanks the thread down, and down go the gods from their false thrones. Groveling before the person’s feet.

The person, the demigod, smiles and sings, “Now it’s time for the gods to bleed.”

“Son!” A god yells in shock, their voice portraying a mask of hurt, but the demigod knows better. Gods don’t feel. Gods are monstrous beings disguised in mortal skin. Monsters who play good and just, but still kill children all the same as the monsters demigods fought in vain. The monsters demigods, children, had to fight to reach camp just to survive.

Survive only to live to fight in the gods’ name. Only living for their parents' glory. Then, the so-called good gods, their parents, just watched as their children reached their demise. Laughing at especially gory deaths, sneering at ones who never gave them glory. Forgetting all their children just the same regardless.

Still, the gods don their great beautiful masks again and again. They seduce and rape mortals just to leave them with children in a broken home. Homes always left yearning for the gods’ addicting touch, a mortal never knowing how to go back to the way they lived before. The gods felt like destruction; they felt like creation; they felt like everything. The gods gave the mortals a taste of divinity to ensure that the mortals were theirs (forever a possession to the gods). That their mortals would remember them, worship them, in every possible way.

Children loved by mortals because of their reminder of the gods’ divinity, but the children would always fall short - living to an impossible standard unless they were lucky enough to be blessed. Blessed to forever be on the run from monsters and always used for Gods' quests.

Children abused because a parent decides to take their anguish out on children who resemble the rapists who hurt them.

Children abandoned because a mortal couldn’t bear to even be near an ounce of divinity again.

It’s all much the same because of the gods’ left mortals broken after they had their ways.

The Gods, though, couldn't possibly be evil, the children naively believed. The Gods were good. They were just. The Gods were their parents. The mortals were their parents, too.

It’s a game for the Gods. They’ve played it so many times before. The Gods gave a moment of attention to their children. A smile behind a sneer. A laugh behind a gag.

Emotions, a plaything, for the Gods to toss around when they need to. Emotions used to manipulate their children into loving, into worshiping, their parents.

To be the most entertaining. Children into soldiers. Sibling fighting against sibling, for Gods don’t pay attention to more than one demigod.

The Gods were everything for the demigods. These were the demigods’ other parents, so surely they were better than the mortal ones. The Gods had to be because the demigods had no one else to give them a chance. The demigods were too different to fit in with the mortals, so surely the immortals would appreciate them, would love them.

All the demigods had to do was fight and win. It’s what they were born forced to do. To receive just a word from their parents, a moment of attention. Why are their hands stained red?!

But why doesn’t it feel like enough? Why do the demigods still feel so alone? More of their friends are dying. More of their siblings are dead. Where did they go? Are they finally free?

A pyre burning. Another child is gone. Who will be next? Does it even matter? The gods their parents never would come.

No more, the person in the cloak vowed. No more children to be forced to be the gods’ child soldiers. No more children to be left, not knowing what a parent’s love is.

Gods don’t deserve their worship and love. They never did.

The demigods are done serving the gods. No longer will they be tossed around for the gods’ whims.

And so, with these gods at their feet, the neglected children, turned child soldiers for these so-called gods were finally ready to end their immortal ruling. The gods, no the monstrous beings, at their feet tried to plead for their useless lives, but the demigods laughed as they descended on them.

Mercy, the demigods said, as if the gods ever done such a thing for them.

No, and screams filled the air, and gold has never looked so beautiful.

Notes:

Who though? Who dares speak up? Does it really matter when the gods will finally meet their demise at their hands.

Blonde hair and blue eyes match a lot of demigods after all 😁

Also, I purposefully capitalized Gods in some places, and not in others, to represent the worship and idolization, or mocking like in the song, before the gods fall in the eyes of their children.

My tags unfortunately don't include all the options for who this could be, but don't let that hinder your imaginations running free.

First - Next PJO One-shot

[sheepwithspecs]

Echar Agua al Mar: Chapter 1

|| DP Coco (2017) || Rated T ||

Ao3 Link

For Imelda, trying to prevent Héctor from coming back into her life is like throwing water into the sea: pointless. With her family keen to accept the strange musician, and a challenge she can hardly refuse, she soon finds herself caught up in the continuation of a romance decades in the making. [Updates every Saturday]

Author's Note:

A lot of people wanted this one back, so I took the time to sit down and rewrite it properly. I plan on writing a proper ending, but it will be finished as-is (with no added chapters). I don't plan to write anything else for the DP-Coco fandom, so please accept this reworked fic as a celebration of my short, but meaningful time here. As roughly as it ended, I still would not trade those years for the world. I met some of the best people in that fandom, many of which I am still in contact with as friends and mutuals.

I want to take the time to thank each and every reader who has reached out over the years asking about this fic (as well as other DPC fics). The fact that you remember my work fondly means more to me than words can really describe. I wanted to finish this for you, so it's my fervent hope that you enjoy it just as much, if not more, as you enjoyed the original WIP. Please don't stop reaching out, either! In this day and age, it's rare to get reviews on fics anymore. If there's something you enjoyed, no matter how small, I promise that it would make my day to hear it!

The Rivera family was in distress.

Before the last Día de Los Muertos, they had been perfectly content with their lives—if a skeletal soul could indeed be called "living". They had a certain pride in being the best shoemakers in the Land of the Dead, and in death they worked much as they had in life: hard. But now production had slacked off unexpectedly; the twins fulfilled the quota of only one man, Julio made more mistakes in one hour than he had in nearly twenty years, Rosita polished at a tortoise's speed, and even Victoria made simple errors, growing frustrated as she was forced to thread and rethread her needle.

If Mamá Imelda saw them, she might have gloated that her ban on music was well and just. It was music—or the lack of it—that kept the family working at a plodding pace. They'd had a taste of the tunes, a bite of the proverbial apple, and now they were tempted for more. They heard rhythm in the steady ringing of the twins' hammers, in the swish-swish of Victoria's needle, in the scrubbing of Rosita's polishing brush. The Rivera harmony, so easy to recognize, to hum along to… if they weren't in the habit of suppressing those same urges.

But the family matriarch was nowhere to be found downstairs, and could not scold their behavior from the living quarters on the second floor. It was early afternoon, and so Imelda was in her bedroom, hiding… though no one would have dared suggest such a thing within earshot.

"Mamá Imelda can't blame us now," Julio murmured. "Not when she herself sang at the Sunrise Spectacular. In front of everyone, too." It was a conversation they'd repeated over and over again for three months.

"It's true," Oscar added. "She sang again, and so beautifully! But if she heard us…." He was irritated, more with himself than with his older sister. He hated working as though he were a greenhorn cobbler. If he could only finish the day's quota, he could spend the rest of the afternoon tinkering on inventions with his twin. But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't stop his foot from tapping along in time with his hammer.

"Then let her hear us," Victoria huffed, squinting over the rims of her spectacles. The needle was mere inches from her eye sockets, shaking slightly as she aimed. "Maybe that will be what makes her come downstairs for a change."

"She won't." Felipe looked over his shoulder, shaking his skull at his great-niece. "Not so early in the afternoon. Not before…" he trailed off, gazing pointedly at the clock just above her elegant bun.

"And so? Why not sing?" Victoria lifted her eyes from her work, pushing the spectacles up her skull with one dainty finger. "If there's no danger of her coming down." She sighed as the twins shook their heads in unison. "Oh, if my mamá could see us now. She'd have a good laugh at us all."

"Ah, he's coming!" Rosita announced suddenly, rising from her chair at the window. She let the unfinished shoe in her hand fall to the table, the brush tossed aside as she raced for the door. Everyone paused in their work, following Felipe's eyes towards the clock.

"Right on schedule," Julio said with a smile. "By the way, what will today's excuse be? The corner store?"

"No, we used that one yesterday."

"A walk?"

"We used that one two days ago." They stared at one another with growing concern, each racking their brain for some useful idea. Finally Rosita shook her head, shrugging helplessly at Julio. He blew out a low breath, hands stuck deep into his pockets.

"You say something," Oscar muttered, elbowing his brother in the ribs.

"Why me?" Felipe gulped. "You know I can't think under pressure!"

"Neither can I!"

"I'll say something." Victoria stood as well, brushing bits of thread from her apron. The twins sighed in relief, dropping their hammers simultaneously to the workbench as everyone in the room turned towards the open door in anticipation of their daily visitor. A moment later, there was a self-conscious knock as a man stepped just past the threshold. He was dressed in ragged clothing—espantapájaros, Victoria often muttered under her breath—with his sleeve barely hanging by a thread and shoeless as the day he was born. His gold tooth glinted in the afternoon sunlight as he grinned sheepishly, his hat clutched in nervous hands.

"Hello, Héctor," the Riveras chanted in unison, the start of their new daily routine.

"Hello, everyone." The hat brim began its revolution as Héctor's anxious fingers began to twist. "I've come to… I mean: is Imelda at home today?" The twins shared a sympathetic wince. Rosita's fingers clacked against her cheekbones as she raised her hands to her face. Victoria looked around the room, adjusted her glasses, and scowled.

"This has gone on long enough!" she declared, ignoring the shocked gasps from the rest of the family. "Of course she's here! She's been here every day for as long as you've been coming."

"Ahaha… I, uh… I thought that might be the case." Héctor sighed, looking down at his bare feet. "There's only so many times someone might go to the markets, after all." He looked so pitiable, dashed hopes and guilt and shame, standing in their doorway like a beggar searching for alms. Rosita clucked and guided him to her empty chair, inviting him in properly now that Victoria had broken the routine.

Héctor had given them all of a month before showing up out of the blue, hoping to speak with his wife. Of course, they had all been under strict orders after day one to not let him inside. If he asked, they were supposed to offer some excuse as to why Imelda was not downstairs with the rest of the family. Every afternoon she avoided the workshop like the plague, waiting until he had come and gone before venturing downstairs to complete her portion of the day's work.

This left the rest of the family with no choice but to scramble and find sixty days' worth of excuses to feed him, along with their best what-can-be-done expressions. They would have much rather invited him in, treated him as one of their own, and marched him up to Imelda's room without a word of protest. But the family matriarch's orders overruled any personal attachment to Héctor. At least, it had… until today.

"So." Héctor placed his hat on the table, linking his fingers politely in his lap. "She asked you to cover for her."

"She did," Victoria answered for them, "but this is getting out of hand."

"Even though you knew we were lying, and that Imelda didn't want to see you… you still came every day?" Oscar asked curiously, running a finger over his thin mustache. Héctor managed a one-sided shrug, smiling sadly. "That's pretty stubborn of you."

"Imelda's just as stubborn as you, though," Felipe pointed out, leaning against the workbench. "She won't come downstairs. Not even if you come every day for the next century."

"Victoria?" Julio waved his hand in his daughter's face, a frown twisting his mustache. "Go upstairs and ask Mamá Imelda to come down. For your Papá Héctor's sake."

"No! No, don't bother her. If she doesn't want to see me, then…." Héctor stood quickly, scratching at his thin goatee before offering them a much happier smile. "Tell me, how much would I have to pay for a pair of genuine Rivera boots?"

"What?!" Rosita shook her head in dismay. "What on earth are you talking about? You're family, of course they'd be free—" Oscar and Felipe immediately bent, each studying one of his feet.

"Come now, I'm willing to pay something—"

"No, Héctor." Julio crossed his arms. "Rosita's right. Family doesn't pay for shoes. But, eh…." He glanced warily at Victoria. "What do you think Mamá Imelda will have to say?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. You can leave her to me-e-e—!" Héctor jerked his foot away from Oscar, the appendage flopping loosely as he hopped off-balance. "Hey, watch it! That tickles!"

"But—"

"Listen: Imelda is your mamá. Of course you will do as she says, and don't ask questions. That's the way it should be. But she's my Imelda." His eyes twinkled. "I know how to deal with her. You can leave that to me. I just thought that since I have no plans to stop visiting my family, I might as well have a proper excuse of my own." He leaned in, motioning for them to join him. They huddled around him, close enough that their heads were nearly touching.

"As far as you're concerned," he whispered, "I've given up on seeing Imelda. I've accepted that she doesn't want to see me. And if you do see us together, just… y'know." He smiled again, but this time the expression was far more playful. "She's my wife, isn't she? Act natural."

"Natural?" Oscar parroted, only to get thumped on the skull. "Oh, right! Natural!" They all chuckled, save for Victoria's modest headshake. Héctor nodded and they broke apart.

"I'm sure boots take quite a while to make, yes?" He asked in a much louder tone, directing his voice towards the stairs. "Especially custom boots for your Papá Héctor!"

"You're right!" Julio agreed just as loudly, winking at Rosita. "Custom boots take a very long time!"

"Yes! Weeks!" Rosita giggled.

"Then I'll leave you all," Héctor nearly shouted, taking his hat and waving it with a flourish, "to your work!" As he jammed the hat on his head, there was a soft sound… almost like the rustling of skirts at the head of a grand staircase.

"Come back tomorrow for a proper sizing," Victoria advised, one eye on the stairs. "That way, we won't have to second-guess ourselves once we begin."

"Understood!" He winked once more before turning, offering a little wave over his shoulder. "See you tomorrow, everyone."

"Adiós, Héctor!" The Riveras waved him out the door, looking at one another before stifling their laughter. If Héctor was volunteering to take the brunt of Imelda's anger, they were more than willing to sneak around and help them any way they could. After all, her mighty arm was often the only thing that kept them in line, and something about Héctor's goofy charm made him hard to resist. Maybe that was what she had meant, blaming him for Miguel's naughtiness on Día de Los Muertos: his mischief was catching.

"It's all right, Mamá!" Julio called at the foot of the stairs. "He's gone now." There wasn't a full thirty seconds of silence before Imelda was among them, eyeing them all suspiciously with her usual motherly intuition.

"It took longer than normal to make him leave this time…." She trailed off expectantly, waiting for someone to explain. Without batting an eye, Victoria took over.

"We ran out of excuses and had to think of something else." It was a lie by omission, but it rang enough of the truth that she felt confident staring directly into her grandmother's eyes. "He stayed because he wanted to order some boots."

"Boots?" Imelda repeated, her mouth pursing in distaste. "What sort of boots?"

"Custom boots," Rosita explained. "He's tired of walking around in his bare feet."

"And you accepted him?" For the first time, Imelda seemed unhappy about a potential sale. "Why? Now he has an excuse to come inside and—anyway, you should have turned him away," she fussed, running both hands over her immaculate hairstyle and patting it into place nervously.

"It's our fault," Oscar spoke up, hands clasped in false penitence. "Felipe and I couldn't turn him down."

"We haven't made a custom order of boots in so long. We were excited, Imelda."

"We didn't think, and he is—"

"—like a brother to us, after all."

"It's not just anyone," Rosita pointed out gently. "It's Papá Héctor. We can't refuse him."

"Papá Héctor?" Imelda groaned. "Since when is he— Never mind." She crossed her arms, staring out the open door. "I can't even blame you for it. A Rivera has never been able to turn away someone in need of shoes. Even if it's him. And it's only for a few more days."

"Maybe a week," Julio corrected her. "Or more. We have a lot of orders…."

"Ay… heaven help me."

Héctor sat at the edge of Shantytown, kicking his feet off the ledge as he thought. People passed by, shouting greetings to him from the docks, but he was far too lost in his own mind to pay much attention. As was the case lately, his thoughts were focused on one goal: Imelda.

Admittedly he was out of practice, and quite rusty when it came to the art of courtship. In the olden days, back when they were alive, it had been more a scheme of getting her to notice him at all. He had even rejected the help of his best friend, afraid that Ernesto might catch her eye before he could ever hope to. That was good: he hadn't needed him then, and certainly didn't need him now.

Most of his ideas for getting back into her good graces were the same as his former exploits: serenading by moonlight, offering her gifts, winning her over with his irresistible charm… he no longer had the dimples she so admired, by he was still quite handsome, if he said so himself.

The real question was: would she ever indulge him?

Probably not at first. He frowned, staring up at the city lights dancing above him. He'd given her a full month, slipping away after the Sunrise Spectacular and biding his time. Imelda could hold a nasty grudge—he had firsthand knowledge of that. Years of bitterness would not disappear overnight, just because they'd had one song together, one small adventure with their living progeny. Before Miguel had come, he'd given up hope of reaching her at all.

But.

That's for murdering the love of my life!

The thwap of the huarache against bone rang over and over in his head: a sound of hope. He was the love of her life! Even all these months later, he still couldn't quite believe it.

I still have a chance. I'm the love of her life.

It was that mentality that had him coming to the Rivera household day after day, standing awkwardly in the doorway and asking to see her. He could tell that the family was willing, even if the woman was not. There was pity in their expressions as they lied to his face, telling him that he'd just missed her, that she'd gone for a walk, or to get more thread, or to deliver a rush order of shoes.

Imelda was a stubborn woman, that was for sure. But he was a stubborn man. Year after year he'd gone to that dumb bridge, knowing full well that he would not be able to cross. Compared to that, romancing his own estranged wife would be a piece of cake! He planned it out in his head, days of shoemaking and nights of wooing. She'd be begging him to stay within the month. Maybe. Hopefully.

It was a foolproof plan… so long as she didn't call for Pepita.

[emerald-onion]

Witch Of Fables: Two Birds In A Cage (W.I.P)

A/N: This is not the full fic, naturally, just the part I've written because I need the validation that it's good enough (and shameless self-promotion, duh.)

The royal garden has always been a place of wonder, but when winter has wept her last tears and lent the neverending snowstorms to spring's gentle hands, its beauty truly transcends.

The ever-vigilant statues diligently watch over passing workers, standing tall and proud, not once straying from their duty. Crawling vines have made a home in the towering pillars, unfurling their dew-heavy leaves to grasp onto threads of sunlight. A pleasant breeze sweeps across the pristine stone road, trailing the faint fragrance of trickling water and newly bloomed roses.

Were Cross a poet, he would describe this as something that comes straight out of a fairytale. But he is not a poet. Cross is a knight, and the only appreciation he has toward the garden is the peace it grants him from the castle's bustling noise.

Unfortunately, his peace does not last long.

"Imcoming~!"

It is purely thanks to years of training and instincts that Cross manages to twist around and catch the overexcited blur of black and white that is his best friend without tripping over and getting himself a faceful of dirt. Frisk, the little menace that he is, only giggles, the sound rings like buttery sunshine and golden meadows.

"His Highness!" Cross screeches through the pounding beats of his SOUL. "You can't keep doing that! One day, I won't be able to catch you in time and-!"

"Frisk."

His thoughts swerve so abruptly off track that Cross has to reign them in before they can plunge into the gaping ravine of bewilderment. "What?"

"We're friends, aren't we? Ever since we were kids, too." The Prince peers at him, petulance tugging his lips into a pout. "Then call me Frisk! His Highness is so formal!"

"I can't possibly do that!"  He denies it with all the vehemence he can muster. "You're a Prince! One of the Eks Empire's future! Not to mention someone I'm supposed to protect! There's no way I can treat you like a- like a commoner I meet on the side of the street!"

"Well, if that's what it takes." The Prince grins, stubbornness curling at the corner of his mouth. "I give you permission to treat me like a- what did you call it? Right. A commoner you meet on the side of the street."

"Y-You can't just-" He splutters.

"Aren't I the Prince? One of the Eks Empire's future? Shouldn't you follow my order?"

"His Highness-"

"Frisk."

"But-"

"Frisk."

"I-"

"Frisk."

Wide sockets meet half-lid eyes. Ones filled with incredulousness, the others, determination. 

Finally, Cross heaves out a sigh, resignation weighing down his shoulders. "Frisk."

The Prince beams, and it is so beautiful and blinding that any irritation he may have immediately flinches away.

Then his friend has to go and utterly ruin it by smirking mischievously. "I don't know why you still try. We've gone through this song and dance a thousand times before, and you've always lost.

"Clearly." He mutters, clearly not bitter. Nope. Nuh-uh.  Not at all.

Frisk laughs, humming wind chimes and twinkling birdsong. His friend has always been more in-tuned with Cross's feelings than himself.

In an effort to salvage his dignity, the knight tries to nudge the conversation in a different direction. "Why did you need me, anyway?"

"Can't I visit my best friend?" Frisk's smile tells him that he knows what Cross is doing but lets it slide out of amusement. "I miss you, you know!"

"Forgive me if I can't bring myself to believe you, Your Highness." He responds dryly, picking the suspicion hidden between the words and dropping it onto the Prince's lap.

Said Prince, the mature fifteen-year-old that he is, sticks out a tongue at the callous reply flung at his face. "Fine. I was bored, and I needed someone to bother. Satisfied?"

"Someone to bother? And you picked me?" Cross casts a glance at the surroundings. "Where is the demon brat?”

"He's busy with those stupid lessons again- wait a second." Realization clicks into place, filling up a picture of utter vexation. "Chara isn't a demon brat!"

"Could have fooled me." He shrugs, faux nonchalance draping over his shoulders.

Frisk jabs a finger at his chest, a valiant effort to distract him from their twitching grin. "Take that back!"

"Or what?" He grins back, unable to stop the playfulness bubbling inside his throat, threatening to burst open and flood his mouth with uncontrollable giggles.

"Or..." A pause, light and fluttering. "Or I'll make you!"

And that is my cue to bolt.

The bubble has burst for earnest now, laughter spilling from his teeth as Frisk chases Cross over a flower bush, past squeaking gardeners, under a grapevine.

And straight into someone's back.

Once again, Cross has to thank his knight training for its admirable attempt at regaining his lost balance, then Frisk crashes against his back and all three of them are sent tumbling upon the ground. He groans, blinking back the dizziness that creeps into his vision, and finds himself staring at an ink-stained face.

An unfamiliar ink-stained face.

In an instance, the knight has gotten back on his feet. Anticipation and dread twist his stomach, a coiling snake readying its venom.

Only the Emperor's closest circle is allowed into the inner palace, for it's here that he guards his most important treasure: the existence of the two Princes. The thought claws its way through the muddy depth, an unfaltering vessel upon the turbulent ocean of his mind. Paranoid, perhaps, but not to a young boy who had lost his parents to assassination, not to a father whose sons had gotten kidnapped by child traffickers.

But Cross has never seen this person before.

That means they are an-

"Intruder." The handle of his sword is heavy and reassuring on the tip of his fingers. "State your purpose."

"Whoa whoa whoa! No need to be so hostile!" The intruder scrambles to deny, panic rolling off of them in waves. "I'm not here to hurt anyone! Honest!"

"As if I would believe that." He snarls. The snake bares its teeth. "And you didn't answer my question."

"Geez. Chill out, won't you?" They grumble, entirely ignoring the blade brushing against their neck. "If I wanted to do something, do you really think you could stop me?"

A bonebrow twitches. "You must understand that statement only incriminates you further, yes?"

"What do I have to say?" They hiss, annoyance leaking over the edge. "That, as an intruder, I would never be amateur enough to let you catch a glimpse of my presence? That I can just drop one of two explosions on top of the castle instead of sneaking around? That it isn't hard to mess with your memories now that you know of me?"

"Are they trying to convince you or not?" Frisk whispers, bafflement tickling at the back of their question. "The more they talk, the more suspicious I'm inclined to be."

Cross has to agree. At this point, the strange intruder does not even seem to notice them anymore, continuing to rant about inefficient and boring tactics and I'm a witch, not a cheap novel's villain, nearly knocking over a nearby vase when they wildly flair their rumpled robe around.

That is, until they are interrupted.

"Ink!"

Surprise takes root at the crack of the intruder's expression before unfurling its brilliant petals and delight emerges from the blossom. With a beam that thaws away any infuriation, Ink joyously greets.

"Old man! You're finally here!"

And the Sun of the Empire, the youngest ruler in history, His Majesty XGaster himself scowls. "Finally here? We agreed to meet inside the greenhouse, my friend!"

"Huh?" The intruder taps their cheek, eyelights a question mark and an hourglass. "Oh, yeah! I forgot!"

His Majesty sighs. The same sigh he used to give Frisk when the child Prince told him that yes, Chara and he tried to sneak out of the castle. Again.

"What am I going to do with you?"

"Introduce me to your kids, preferably!"

The Emperor blinks, surprise filling up his sockets before realization trickles in as they land on Frisk and him. Unconsciously, Cross's back straightens, apprehension rising to meet that familiar attentive gaze.

"My friend, this is Frisk, our great Empire's youngest Prince." Everyone can hear the way his voice protectively curls around the name, a dragon protecting its hoard. "This is where I have to correct you, however, for Cross is not my offspring."

"Cross... Cross... Where have I heard that name before...?" Ink snaps their phalanges. "Right! He's the mentee you always talk about!"

The knight has to bite back a squawk. His Majesty talks about him? Him?

"Yes, he is." The Emperor agrees. The squawk stuck inside Cross's throat triples in size. "As one of the only skeleton monsters left, I took it upon myself to nurture his talents."

"I see, I see." Ink sagely nods. "So he's still your kid, then!"

The Emperor flushes. (What the actual fuck?!) "He's most certainly not!"

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, old man."

Cross can see Frisk gape at Ink in awe and wonder. Cross must resist the urge to do the same. It is not every day that someone has the courage (or stupidity) to tease their strict and straight-laced Emperor so effortlessly, after all.

"Dad," the Prince perks up, inquisitiveness tucked at the corner of his words, hoping to find out more about this weird stranger who has done the impossible. "Who is this?"

His Majesty wastes no time to grasp the diversion. "Ah, yes. Children, this is Ink. They're an old friend of mine."

"Very, very old." Said friend giggles as if they had told a particularly funny joke. As if a sword had not been pointed at their neck a mere moment ago.

Wait.

Cross has pointed a sword at His Majesty's guest.

Cross has pointed a sword at His Majesty's guest.

"Sir!" The knight scrambles to gather the pieces of his rapidly fracturing composure. "Please, forgive me for my transgression! Had I known you were such a distinguished figure, I would never have provoked you!"

"Don't worry, C!" Ink easily waves him off, their smile is the perfect portrait of the laughing sun. "You aren't the first person who wants to give me a good stab, and you definitely won't be the last!"

How very ominous. And concerning.

"As much as I would like to continue this conversation," His Majesty interrupts before the curiosity bubbling inside Cross's ribcage can tip over and a thousand burning questions spill out. "I believe it's time for us to go. We have significant matters to attend to."

"Nah."

The casualness of Ink's dismissal immediately halts the Emperor on his track. "Excuse me?"

"Nah." They repeat. "We can catch up later, old man. Go hang out with your family."

"But-"

"Just go, won't you?" The sunlight in Ink's smile softens into a warm hearth. "Family is important."

His Majesty pauses. His Majesty considers. His Majesty relents. "Very well. If that's what you wish, I’ll gladly oblige.

Someone dares to order the Emperor around? And he actually listens???

Cross and Frisk share a look. The confusion between them is perfectly clear.

Who the hell is this Ink?