#a bit of blasphemy I guess

[tenderlywicked]

I wish I had someone to talk about religion without  a) the risk of being pulled into a sect; b) the risk of being told I should be burnt at the stake for blasphemy. Because I keep finding rather interesting things in the Bible. It so happened that I reread The Book of Job (after having watched Good Omens 2, obviously) and stumbled over a phrase I hadn’t paid attention to before.

"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them."

Not only they are on speaking terms and Satan is invited to a family gathering, so to speak. He’s also called a son of God. One of God’s sons.

They say you shouldn’t take literally what’s written in the Bible. But there’s no indication what things should be taken literally (like virgin birth or ascension) and what things shouldn’t. So… Satan offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world was actually a brotherly gesture, huh?

[monsterbisexual]

jesus n judas sure were doomed by the narrative :D <3 but did not kiss on the lips :'( </3

[cigaretteparfum]

that Al-Khidr post i made the other day still plagued my mind with religious thoughts because i saw a post saying "who came to your mind when i say 'michael'" and immediately i went, "mikhail."

[miquella-everywhere]

Rating the Demigods based off their Homes

Technically Leyndell is not Morgotts house but his moms, which he inherited after escaping the sewers she threw him into, but he also runs the place like the navy runs a ship, so everything is in perfect working order. Nobody has any clue who he is and I appreciate his commitment to the bit. 8/10 really cool scenery but could definitely use some dusting and giant dragon corpse removal.

The Moghwyn Dynasty is every health inspectors worst nightmare. General unsanitary setting and blood swamps, Albinaurics captured and forced to assimilate against their will, along with several war medics, and also Mohg has the body of his shriveled up half-brother in his freezer. But overall the ancient civilization that lived here before Mohg had pretty okay taste, especially since they built their city under an underground starry sky. 10/10 but only because the health inspector died and Mohg forged the health report.

Godrick snuck in after his failings at the Shattering and just straight up claimed the place as his own, so Stormveil technically isn't even his house. Also his presence alone is so rank that thorns have started festering outside of the castle. 8/10 to the Stormlords cause they've got sick sense of style, but 2/10 to Godrick because he is a literal home invader.

Radahn does not give two shits about architecture, he clearly made Redmane based off of every other fort in the Lands Between and chose function over fashion, which is fair I guess, but also kinda boring. At least he strung up the all of the swords in Redmane and gave it some flaire. 4/10 because Redmane is so basic, plus minus 1 point for the tetanus hazard.

Raya Lucaria had an architecture course as an elective and Rykard committed himself to his GPA and developed his own aesthetic. He graduated top of his class and Rennala baked a cake for him. Best day of his life. Then he went up to Mt. Gelmir and was like, "I should totally make this place my house," and then he did because nobody had the balls to stop him. 10/10 for his commitment to the blasphemy aesthetic. And props to Tannith for doing a great job keeping the foyer the cleanest place in the Lands Between, but also 1/10 for the backyard being a general crime against humanity.

Ranni follows the rule of, "if it aint broke dont fix it," which is exactly why she broke everything else in the world and then returned to her childhood home after the Shattering. Caria could definitely use some bedrooms though because where the heck does everyone sleep?? Or do anything else for that matter???? Caria: Bathroom? Never heard of it. 6/10 because the sparkly magic bits in the air are super cool but Caria Manor definitely should've been a legacy dungeon.

Miquella attended both Leyndell and Raya Lucaria architecture classes, excelling over everyone and beating Rykards score in the final exam by exactly one point, and yet has no idea why Rykard is so pissed at him. Then after disowning his dad he had the great idea to try and build a treehouse but grew his own tree first because he's an over achiever and has gifted kid syndrome. 10/10 because the aesthetic is elegant and immaculate, and everyone who has depression is trying to get there for free therapy.

Malenia went to architecture school with Miquella because she had nothing better to do and slept through every class. The most she did there was break up Miquella and Rykards final exam squabble and also couldn't care less about architecture because she's fuckin blind. Rates the Haligtree architecture 10/10 because even though she's blind, she's sure that Miquellas sense of style is very pretty. But also rates it a 2/10 because Miquella keeps stubbing his toes and tripping on the carved stone flooring even though he insists everything is fine.

The Land of Shadow is less of Messmers house and more of his eternal timeout corner. He was so dedicated to his mom that it honestly weirded Marika out and she essentially put him there and then completely forgot he ever existed. -10/10 because the parental abandonment is so real

[hollowgears]

SHOWDOWN!

"If you're ever in the desert of the underground you better watch out! In the wild east lies a city full of criminals and outcasts who bow down to no one!"

Their sheriff is just as insane as the rest of them, always itching for a fight, the spotlight hog of the wild east, North star! If there's one person the scoundrels of the city listen to it's him, after all no monster can argue against a gun pointed at their face

Still- rumors say that the cruel sheriff actually has a heart behind his act, the monsters working under him act with a lot of respect, many rebels say that he gave them a home safe from the royal guard when no one else would...maybe there's still a heart of gold behind that rude exterior? Who knows!

Thoughts and extras:

Woah! I can't believe I finally got this done!

Starlo was a challenge to design for sure, his canon look is already so good! It was hard to make it different while still looking like something starlo could wear

My art has definitely improved quite a bit since starting this au (god I already feel like I need to redraw martlet!) and I wanted starlo to feel special as he was the first design that really...clicked y'know? I look at it and go: that's my boy!

Working on the au has also been a blast, and I can't thank you guys enough for the support, every reblog or fanart makes my days so much better

But enough about that! Let's talk of the star boy!

As you can see I struggled quite a bit with his outfit (this is not by far the first attempt I made at him) in the beginning I almost took his poncho away! The blasphemy!

Well I guess even now it doesn't exactly qualify as a poncho...but hey close enough

Starlo uses three guns, although only two of them are seen most of the time, in this au starlo actually gets a proper genocide fight, and that's when he pulls out the big guns! (Haha get it-)

He would also have a special type of attack, yellow bullets that cause bleeding (think like karma damage) however the number of these types of bullets he fires is completely dependent on your LV

I'll answer any questions y'all have about him on asks- trust me I'm always itching to talk about these silly guys...

Perhaps ceroba would be next? Although she will take a while, god my wrist needs a break! (And the pile of studying I have to do keeps growing larger...)

[nebbyy]

How do you think Baldwin would react if reader got into a heated argument with someone to the point it was getting really bad?

King Baldwin x reader - Defending your honor

A/N: eheheh I see you guys really yearn to see Baldwin losing his temper, huh?

I can't lie I've been thinking of a similar scenario too lately, I guess you can't help it when he's so perfect in every way, shape or form🙈

Painting is "Orestes pursued by the Furies" by Adolphe William Bouguereau btw :))

Warning: mention of disrespect towards reader but nothing is actually specified!

He's intervening right away

He's got the wits to shut anyone's mouth, and he isn't afraid to embarrass whoever it is that is disrespecting his perfect wife

Whether it's a snide remark, a direct insult or an order for them to shut their mouths if they don't want any consequences for their outrageous behavior

If it got really really bad, like you said, I can actually see him lose his temper

Maybe the person arguing with you took it too far by directly insulting or belittling you, and that would cross the line for him

He'd jump up from his seat, pushing his chair down to the floor in the act, while looking dead in the eye unfortunate fool who dared to disrespect her highness the queen of Jerusalem

"If you dare to speak to your queen in such a tone again, your tongue will be your next meal!"

Everyone is shocked. You are shocked, his knights are shocked, your own rival is shocked (and mostly terrified)

Baldwin is a bit surprised with his own rush of wrath, too, but he doesn't give any hint of his surprise

While his servants waste no time putting his chair back in place, he keeps standing menacingly, eyeing the culprit of such blasphemy against his wife

After a few apologies from the person, Baldwin would hiss through gritted teeth: "It is the queen you have to apologize to, you miserable"

And that tone somehow manages to be even more threatening than his previous yelling, maybe because everyone knew that in that moment he was in his right state of mind, and that he was able to make whatever decision he wanted to punish the man before him, without ever regretting it

He wouldn't calm down until you give him a sign that everything's alright, then he'd drop the subject but it would still cling to him for the rest of the day

He loves you more than words can express, and he will never, ever be able to just stand silently there and observe someone disrespect you like that

[your-averagewriter]

“I’m gonna marry this woman.”

Summary: Cooper has a job to get to and (y/n) ends up looking after Janey for him when Barb isn't free leading him to realise that she's the woman for him.

Word count: 1.6K

Warnings: swearing, kissing, saying God not in the religious way (blasphemy I guess)

-

-

Cooper wraps his arm around my waist as we walk through the park, Janey holding his hand on the other side. Cooper and I have been dating for over a year and at the start he tried to keep our relationship separate from Janey as he didn’t want to make it too overwhelming for her after the divorce but now it’s been a while since we were officially introduced.

“There’s an ice cream truck over there.” I point out. “Janey, do you want some ice cream?” I ask, looking over to her.

“Yeah!” She smiles.

“Coop, do you want one?” I ask and he shakes his head. 

“You girls treat yourselves.” He says and then a ringtone comes from one of his pockets. “It’s work, I’ll be right back.” He gets his phone out and looks at who it is before walking a little bit away.

“Come on, Janey.” I invite. “Let’s get some ice cream.” I say as she takes my hand, which always makes my heart warm a little. “What flavour would you like?”

She examines the board of ice cream flavours before announcing her choice. “Toffee, please.”

“Good choice.” I smile, before walking up to the ice cream stand and buying her toffee ice cream and a strawberry one for myself. “There you go. Don’t drop it.” I pass it to her gently as she takes it and we walk over to a bench, sitting down and waiting for Coop to finish his call.

“What’s daddy doing?” She asks, enjoying the ice cream.

“Oh, he just got a call from work, maybe a new acting role.” I say and she smiles. “He should be back soon.”

“Did you know I used to act with daddy sometimes in the ads he used to do?” She says proudly.

“Oh really? Wow, you’re a little superstar.” I smile, Cooper walking back over not long after.

“How was the call?” I ask, as he walks over. “Any good news?”

“Mixed. Mixed.” He repeats.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, the good news is they wanna hire me.”

“That’s great, Coop.” I interrupt, jumping to my feet and wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling him in for a hug with a bright smile.

“You haven’t heard the bad news yet.” He warns, pulling back with a slightly frown. “They need me on set in an hour to sort out some sizing and contract stuff.”

“What’s wrong with that?” I ask.

“I already called Barb and she can’t take Janey for the afternoon so I can’t go.”

“I could look after Janey for you.” I offer.

“I can’t ask you to do that.” He says.

“You’re not asking, I’m insisting. If you’re okay with it of course.” I smile as his hands find their place on my waist.

“If that’s alright…” He gives in after a few moments with a hint of a smile. “God, I love you, woman.” He says, pressing a kiss to my lips with a full grin now. “I’ll go check with Janey, if that’s alright. I’m sure she won’t have a problem with it, she adores you but I should anyway.” I nod, letting him go.

“I’ve got a job I gotta go to, sweetheart and mommy can’t look after you for the afternoon. Is it alright if I take you girls home and you stay with (y/n) for a little while?” She nods quickly with a smile, a resounding yes making Cooper chuckle.

“I think that’s a yes, (y/n).” I laugh.

“Let’s go then, we don’t want you to be late.” I say with a smile.

---

“I should be back around 5:00, 6:00 at the latest.” He reassures me.

“Babe, don’t worry about it, we’ll be fine, take as long as you need.” I press a kiss to his cheek. “Good luck. We’ll see you later.” I press a kiss to his other cheek and wave with Janey as he drives away. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go inside. What do you wanna do?” I ask, taking her hand as we go inside. 

“I wanna show you my room and my stuff.” She drags me towards her room, picking up various toy cowboys and horses that they ride. “You have so much cowboy stuff? Does your dad buy them for you?”

“Yeah. We’ve got matching cowboy outfits.” She says before diving into her draws and pulling out two matching outfits, one clearly an adult’s size whilst the other fits Janey. She begins to put it on above her clothes and I drop the cowboy hat on her head gently. “You should put daddy’s one on so we can match!”

“Really? You don’t think he’d mind that I was stealing his clothes?” I tease with a small smile.

“Isn’t that his jumper you're wearing?” She giggles.

“I guess you're right, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” I say, putting the outfit on until we look like matching cowboys.

After a while of playing, I make some food for the both of us and a portion in the microwave for Cooper as it nears the time he said he would be home. Some tomato pasta that we eat while still wearing cowboy outfits. I chuckle as Janey gets some of the pasta sauce around her mouth, passing her one of the tissues to wipe her mouth with.

Cooper stands outside, about to open the door but looks through the window seeing Janey and I eating the pasta. A smile almost fills his face as he tries to cover his smile, mumbling to himself.

“I’m gonna marry this woman.” He whispers, sounding more like a stereotypical cowboy than ever before opening the door and walking in. “How’re my two favourite girls doing?” He grins as Janey runs towards him as he opens his arms to hug her.

He mimes the tipping of a cowboy hat at me with a small smirk and I shake my head, silently saying ‘don’t ask’ but smiling softly.

“How did the job go?” I ask, walking over to him by the door, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“Good, first role I’ve got in a while.” He mumbles. “Just an ad but everything counts.”

“I’m so proud of you.” I smile, hugging him tightly, Janey doing the same despite not entirely understanding the context.

---

Cooper pours two glasses of wine, expensive wine, a celebration if you will after Janey’s gone to bed. Janey went to sleep in the cowboy outfit and made me promise not to take mine off so, being a loyal woman, I happily keep it on.

“Cheers to you, baby.” I smile, lifting my glass into the air as he does the same, clinking the glasses.

“Cheers.” He laughs, taking a sip before putting his glass back down on the coffee table. “I wanna ask you something and you gotta promise not to freak out.” 

I’m intrigued, sitting on the edge of my seat already smiling slightly but nervous. “Is it bad?” I ask, the anticipation now killing me.

“Nah, nothing bad, sweetheart, I promise.”

“Okay. I can’t promise I won’t freak out but I’ll try not to.” I say, watching him intently as he leans before kneeling on the ground in front of me. “Cooper, what are you doing?” I laugh with a smile. “Get up, you’ll spill the wine!” 

He kneels with one leg up, the other against the floor.

“(y/n) (l/n).” He starts and I’m still confused by what he’s doing. “I don’t have a ring but I thought this was the perfect moment to ask, will you marry me?”

I stand up, hand over my mouth, entirely shocked as I look down at him smiling up at me.

“Cooper, this better not be a fucking joke.” I warn, tears collecting in my eyes as I look down at his serious yet smiling face.

“It’s not, darlin’ I promise. After seeing you with Janey today, dressed up as cowboys making her pasta I just knew you were the one for me. I only regret not getting you a ring and asking you sooner.” He grins.

I stand absolutely frozen, standing up in front of him as a tear goes down my cheek.

“Why would you propose to me while I’m dressed like a cowboy?” Is the first thing I say, slightly muffled by my hand and he just laughs.

“I had to.” He kneels before me, without a ring but with all the right words. “Will you marry me?”

“Yeah, yeah, Coop, of course.” I say, overwhelmed with emotions, happiness being the dominant one but tears still in my eyes. “Oh my god.” I say as he rises to his feet wrapping his arms around me as I wrap my arms around his neck, as close as we could possibly get. “I can’t believe you.” I mumble into his shoulder.

“I love you so so much and so does Janey, you’re just so perfect for me.” He says and I could swear I hear a voice crack.

“I love you too. I can’t believe you though. What am I gonna say when people ask what the proposal was like? That I was dressed like a cowboy?” 

“I think you’re worrying about the wrong things right now, sweetheart.” He chuckles.

“I know. I can’t even begin to process the fact we’re getting married.” I press a kiss to the side of his neck. “Oh my god, I love you. I love you. I love you.” I place a kiss for everytime I say ‘I love you’ and he just smiles, taking the kisses.

“I must be the happiest man in the world right now.” He says with a grin as wide as his face.

-

AN: I hope people aren't getting bored of Fallout fics because I am not.

[kiame-sama]

Results on the poll are in and the majority wanted Romantic Yandere Zestial with a rival. (I was honestly surprised, but seeing as romantic and platonic were so close, I'll make it platonic to slow burn romantic)

Warnings; Yandere temper, Yandere behavior, Yandere relationship, yandere v yandere, Sin Eater reader, Gender Neutral Reader, slow burn platonic to romantic yandere, rival yandere, surprise rival yandere, violence, blasphemy, reader gets one hell of a backbone (only for a bit), God, yelling in the presence of God, brief surprise guest appearances, lucifer and others call reader young/kid (mostly affectionately),

~~~~~~~~

Zestial felt a small playful grin tug at the corners of his mouth as he watched his wayward charge curiously poke around his home. The halls of his manor had been rather quiet and the change to having company was certainly a welcome one. Despite his long life and the many lovers he had entertained in the past, he felt a true connection to the Sin Eater whose very soul he held claim over. They were not only a novelty in their soul's unfortunate proclivity to violence towards sinners but they did not immediately fear or despise him upon meeting.

"(Y/n), thy curiosity is truly an endearing quality."

His grin only widened as he noticed the way you startled at his sudden presence. Though he didn't wish harm or misfortune upon you, he was still a sadistic overlord who adored the fearful looks others gave him. You looked up at the tall arachnid that loomed over you, relaxing when you realized it was just Zestial poking fun.

"Hi, Zestial. I was just-"

"Being the curious nymph thou oft remind me of."

"I guess? Anyway, Carmilla wanted me to come over and talk to her about the exterminations. Apparently during the last one, the angels were looking for a Sin Eater down here."

This made a deep frown pull at Zestial's lips, feeling a kind of anger take over his being at the idea of an exorcist getting their hands on you. His change in temper was easy for you to notice as Zestial often seemed pleasantly aloof excepting for when he was angry. Zestial was certainly unhappy at that moment.

"I see... And, did Carmilla share with thou the intent of this angel?"

"No. I think that's what she wants to talk with me about."

"I shall accompany thou in thy to visit Carmilla. I, too, would like to know how oft these angels seek thy presence. The attentions of Exorcists are oft a negative omen."

"Okay. I'm sure Carmilla would like to see you too. She always seems more comfortable when you are there with me."

Zestial hummed at this, well aware that his presence often put Carmilla at ease whenever she interacted with you. She still didn't trust you because of the many unfortunate interactions she has had with Sin Eaters, so having Zestial nearby calmed her. So long as you are still on Zestial's leash, she trusted you wouldn't act out of turn. She figured she could always call upon him should your hunger get out of hand while nearby. The deal you had with Zestial also kept you safe from Carmilla as she would not dare try to slay a soul he had claimed.

~~~~~~~~

"Wait, so I was supposed to die when they threw me into Hell, but now they want me back? How does that fit in with Heaven's logic?"

"I'm not an angel. I wouldn't know."

You frowned and pondered what you had been told. It was confusing, but it did make it easier knowing that though Carmilla may dislike you, she didn't like the angels talking about you. According to Carmilla, the angels expected you to be slain shortly after throwing you into Hell. The fact you were still alive upset and irritated them.

"If Carmilla's informant is correct, it twould seem they shall be searching for (y/n) specifically. I refuse to be one to allow these feathered nuisances to harm a hair atop thy head. They shan't have you."

You noticed the way Carmilla slightly frowned, glancing to the side as Zestial swore to protect you. Her clear respect and somewhat attraction to Zestial had been weighing on you as you didn't want to drive a wedge between the two seeing as they obviously had gone through quite a lot together. The most you could do was hope that Carmilla didn't dislike you for befriending Zestial even though she clearly disliked that you were a Sin Eater.

"Ms. Carmine? Though I know you likely told me this for Zestial's benefit, I still appreciate you letting me know about all of this. Thank you."

Carmilla seemed surprised at first before her eyes somewhat softened from her typical hard glare to a gentle expression. You had only seen her use that expression when talking to her two daughters.

"Don't be so quick to trust anyone in Hell, Sin Eater. If you weren't Zestial's soul, I would have killed you myself."

"I know. That doesn't mean I can't be thankful to you for your help."

The smallest of smiles pulled at Carmilla's lips for just a moment before she returned to the hardened expression she usually wore.

"Take care, (Y/n). I can see why you were sent to Heaven first before they betrayed you and sent you here. Heaven may want you dead, but I won't let them have their way."

~~~~~~~~

Extermination day was a brutal yearly event in Hell that always seemed to be more violent than the year before it. Zestial insisted you remain inside his estate with the curtains drawn while he left to an overlord meeting, making it clear he wanted you nowhere near the angels. You weren't keen to argue seeing as the angels were likely going to be gunning for you the moment they noticed your presence.

What you hadn't expected was the frantic knocking at the manor doors. Desperate souls in hell trying to escape the extermination going on outside. They were willingly to do anything, even sell their souls to the ancient being Zestial just to have a chance at escaping the angels.

Though you wanted to open the doors to let the poor sinners in, Zestial had been more than clear that you were to leave the doors sealed. However, those on the other side of the door did not take kindly to you not offering them sanctuary as the door suddenly caved in, a large axe blade sticking out of the door.

The body of a sinner fell into the doorway and a frighteningly familiar figure entered in. His large horns and dark mask looked identical to when you saw him at the gates of Heaven. He sneered as he removed the axe from the poor sinner he hunted down.

"How d'ya like that, demon bitch? Try and fucking run from me and I still got you!"

It was while he was taking in his surroundings he realized you were standing there, your gaze filled with terror and confusion. He didn't seem to recognize you at first before his smile became manic and sadistic.

"Found you. Did you know, you are one tough unlucky fucker to find. But Sera heard you survived, so I gotta drag your ass back to Heaven. Just had to screw up your one job, right? Now the Big Man wants your ass in His office, so You're gonna be a good little bitch and don't fight."

The fear coursing through you set you on edge as you took a step back from the man. His mask covering his face made him seem like more of a monster and set actual fear into your heart. You did the only thing you could think of, hoping beyond hope that he would answer you even if he was in a meeting with other overlords.

"Zestial, please... Please help me!"

Your plea seemed to be unanswered for a moment as the man reached towards you with a grin of triumph. Right as it seemed his hand was about to grab you, you found yourself suddenly stumbling to the side and into a pair of arms.

"Woah there! You alright?"

You looked up at the sinner holding you only to pause in confusion. The person you saw looked far more human despite his pale white skin and bright red clownish cheeks. He watched you in confusion even as he steadied you on your feet and let you lean on him to find your footing.

The room you found yourself in was not where you had been only moments ago. It seemed like you were somewhere high up as you could look down at a fair portion of The Pentagram from the windows nearby. None of it looked familiar.

"Where's Ze-?"

You were cut off by a bright light that drew your attention to the windows on the far side of the room. Several overlords- Zestial included- and even a few rather intimidating looking sinners you didn't recognize were present in what seemed to be a meeting room. In the open space before the windows was a blinding light that faded only slightly as a being emerged from the light. The being was humanoid in shape, but you couldn't make out what their face looked like as light continued to shine brightly enough to obscure them.

"Come, Sin Eater. It is not ideal that I had to retrieve you myself, but I shall do what I must."

"Who-?"

"You may call me Father, Creator, or God. Whichever you feel has enough reverence."

"You're-?"

"The one creator of all things, Damned and Heavenly souls included. And you, young Sin Eater, have defied your odds to exist to this point. Now, come and we shall discuss your afterlife."

You watched in silence for a moment, feeling anxiety racing through you as you looked at this intimidating figure before you. There was a part of you that wanted to do whatever the intimidating man told you to, but another far stronger part wanted you to yell.

You wanted to yell for the injustice of it all. To yell for being thrown into Hell with no warning. To yell for the clear suffering so many other sinners endured. To yell at the cause of all this suffering and senseless slaughter.

You needed to yell.

"No."

"Excuse you?"

"I said 'no'. If you want me to go with you I need a few things first."

The Man scoffed slightly in an incredulous manner, folding His ethereal arms over His chest. Though you couldn't see His face, you could tell He was scowling to some degree.

"A bit big in your own shoes, eh? Fine. What is it you believe you can ask of God?"

"Save them."

"Who?"

"The sinners screaming outside, being slaughtered and cut down at your behest. Save them first, or you are nothing but talk."

"They made their choice. They are reaping the rewards for sinful life."

"Really? Then what was my time down here? What do you call it when you kick someone out of Heaven and send them straight to Hell? Is that not an injustice? Is that not an undeserved fate? I went to Heaven first, and this is what I got instead."

"And I am taking you back to Heaven, is that not forgiving of me?"

You frowned deeply, feeling anger bubble up in your chest as you slowly walked forward. Step by step you approached the Heavenly being that claimed to be God Himself.

"Forgiving for what? What did I do that needs to be forgiven?"

"..."

"You claim to be the Creator of All, yet you turn a deaf ear to those begging you for mercy. You claim to be loving and forgiving, yet my only crime was an affliction I did not put upon myself and I was still thrown into Hell. You claim to be all of these things yet you refuse to save those that need it most."

He slightly dipped His head, as if He were refusing to meet your gaze and your blood only burned hotter. This Man stood before you claiming to be divine and forgiving, yet He couldn't do anything you asked of Him. He may not see it, but as far as you were concerned, He owed you a bit of grace.

"No. I will not go with you. Until you can open your arms to the damned and forgotten, I will not go with you. Until you uphold the morals you claim to purvey, I will not go with you. Until Hell itself is empty and I am the last one standing, I will not go with you."

"You belong in Heaven."

"Not any more. Those here showed me more kindness than your supposed 'angels' ever did! These damned sinners showed me mercy when I didn't deserve any from them! I belong here. And until you can prove to me that you are more than just talk, I will go nowhere with you. I'll even spit in your face if I have to, to prove I belong here!"

The Man was silent for a long moment, your anxious nerves sparking wildly as you stood before your Creator and told Him to go fuck Himself. The words spilled from your mouth like water from the head of a river, flowing forward with no regard to the end destination. All you felt was rage.

"You may have me when you earn me. Until then, find someone else to preach to."

The silence was near deafening as He stood, letting your words soak in even as you glared into the blinding light that emanated from Him. No one spoke until the sudden crack of what could have been thunder, and with a pop He was gone from view.

It was then your nerves hit you, making your knees buckle and your body sink downwards as all you had said and done weighed in your mind. At the least, you forfeited your one ticket into Heaven and a peaceful afterlife. At most, you pissed off God Himself and made it clear that His words could never reach you despite His efforts. You were forsaken regardless.

"Well, holy fucking Hell. I sure as shit didn't expect that!"

The gruff voice of one of the strangers present drew you from your downward spiral. He had a heavy Aussie accent and seemed to be some kind of abomination cross between a jester and a Christmas tree. His greenish-yellow eyes were wide with surprise, as were the eyes of the rest that were present. Even Zestial seemed surprised.

A hand rest on your shoulder and you sharply looked up to see that same man from before watching you with a gentle gaze and warm smile. His red eyes seemed so full of understanding and compassion that you could scarcely believe he was likely a sinner.

"Not bad, kid. Not bad at all. Honestly, I'm surprised He didn't strike you down for what you said, but I can definitely say that I am proud of you."

"Thank you... I think? I just- I couldn't stand how he was so happy to let others suffer yet he still thought he was the merciful one. I- I'm sorry, I don't even know who you are and I'm putting all of this on you. I'm (Y/n) (L/n). I'm a-"

"A Sin Eater. Yes, I could tell by your soul. Not many of your kind down here, but hey, Hell has plenty of room for all. Lucifer Morningstar, pleasure to meet you, (Y/n)."

"... Morningstar..? Oh. Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry, Sir! I didn't mean to be rude, or intrude, or not bow. I was just calling for Zestial's help because that one angel who sent me here broke in and- I- I'm sorry, I'm rambling. I-"

"Take a breath there," Lucifer chuckled in a good-natured way, "to think, you'll spit in the face of God with no trouble but you apologize to me for not bowing when you didn't even know who I was. You've got some moxy, kiddo. I'll give you that."

He stood up again, holding a hand out to you which you gratefully accepted. It still felt like you were in an emotional limbo state given all that happened, yet you still found a bit of comfort and happiness bloom in your chest. Who knew Lucifer was such a chill guy?

"Gotta love a sinner who can stand up for themselves. Mmm. Takes guts."

A beautiful and deep baritone voice grabbed your attention and drew it to the owner of such high-quality brass pipes. Sitting with their legs crossed appeared to be a humanoid that was some kind of cross between a rooster and a Lion with three faces. They wore a finely decorated suit that seemed to glow in the low light as if they held some kind of light within.

"Guts? Talk about bringing the fire baby! Where you been hiding, Cutie? No way you've been anywhere near the other sinners with a soul that unique."

A female figured humanoid spoke up with a feminine voice, her figure much like a bee mixed with a fennec fox. Her stomach reminded you of a lava-lamp as the pink and blue colors within moved in a fluid maner. The group she sat among being the many you did not recognize.

Your eyes scanned the rest of the room where you had seen the various overlords prior, quickly finding Zestial among the faces. The relief you felt was quickly taken over with a sudden and fierce hunger.

Something about the way you or your soul looked must have changed because the overlords and even Lucifer reacted to the difference. There was something wrong with this hunger that made it different from your typical drive to consume sin. It was a deeper, more primal craving that seemed to only get worse with every passing second as you doubled over in pain from the crippling hunger.

"Damn Him! Of course He wouldn't let something like that slide. They're gonna turn feral unless they feed."

"Allow me to bare this load, your Highness. (Y/n) is still one of the souls I consider to be mine. The duty to feed should fall to me."

Zestial now stood, coming over to your side with several contracts in hand with the intention of curbing your hunger before it got too far. Before he could summon forth the sinners to feed you, another sensation overcame you that soothed the hunger significantly. A faint glow seemed to increase for only a second from Lucifer before fading back down.

"No need, already took care of it. Knowing Him it wouldn't have been a simple thing to quell. If anything, I would guess He made their sin-consuming affliction worse for talking back to him. It's possible that only a Sin can help them now. No offense."

"... None taken."

"Well, guess that just means I'll be seeing more of you, (Y/n)! I can tell we're going to get along just fine."

[igetnosleep]

The Night We Met

Second attempt at angst might try again with the next one. I'm glad you all liked "Finally home" I guess you people were rabid for something soft..makes me feel like I hold power here lmao. Also this is connected to "Finally Home" and "Comfort" since those kind of inspired me to write this...Strangers to Lovers cause I like that shit.

So canon typical violence (it's RE so not surprising) and happy reading!

You didn’t like Leon.

Maybe it was the situation or the fact that you couldn’t bear to separate yourself from him after you managed to escape Raccoon City but you didn’t want to stay away from him.

You’d so happen to meet the stupid blonde when you nearly bludgeoned him with a rusty pipe in the darkened halls of the police station. Too many fucking rooms too many of the undead trying to crawl through the windows, not enough sleep in your system to get through the night that seemed never ending.

All of this happening in the span of a day or two.

You’d seen your friend die in front of you by one of those..things. Now here you were with a man you’d just met who was supposed to be a cop.

“Come on, aren't you a cop?!” You hissed hearing the groans and shuffling through the halls as he held your hand like he was trying to guide you. You’d be kicking and screaming if it didn’t mean certain death. Leon only shrugged, looking to the side almost nervously under your scrutinizing gaze, “It’s my first day.” 

You blinked, staring at him, “The fuck did you just say?” you whispered a bit too quietly, too calmly for his liking. Leon didn’t need to turn around to see your face; he could feel your piercing gaze against his temple, almost debating if you should take him out with you.

“I said-”

“I know what you just said.” 

“Then why did you-” 

“Leon, I'm going to hit you if you don’t shut up.”

He promptly kept his mouth shut until you deemed it okay.

Leon didn’t have survival instincts like you’d expect him to. Always eager to help, always sticking to the rules, you’d even tried to reason with him but he wasn’t swayed, if it weren’t for the fact that you were in the middle of the apocalypse, you’d admire him, but you’d almost hit him before you jumped at the sight of the man on the other side of the jail cell turn into a bloody pulp by the..whatever it was as it walked away.

You never considered yourself kind, some of the things you did while finding a place to hide out would be considered heartless. You accepted that you’d never get into heaven, your tongue having spewed more blasphemy in your life time that you were sure that Saint Peter would smile kindly before pushing you down into the lake of fire before disinfecting his hands and going back to his post.

Leon believed in an afterlife. He liked to believe that his parents were somewhere better, somewhere kinder than the life that they were given. Something more peaceful than the death they had lived.

“You speak from experience?” You asked him, earning an expression you could only read as shame from him, you could picture the dog ears pressed against his head. The way he looked like he wanted to cry maybe it was him missing home, you didn’t blame him, you wanted to go home too. You sighed not imagining that this was how you’d spend the apocalypse squeezing the hand of a rookie cop in an attempt to tell him that it would be okay?

The halls of the police station and the foreboding dread in your gut, Leon was a good distraction from the constant stream of fear. You’d squeezed his hand and tried to imagine something better than whatever was trying to kill you at the moment.

You didn’t like Leon, you found him cute, like a puppy it was hard not to look at him and forgive him right away. His face was soft, eyes wide and hopeful. All he had to do was look at you a certain way and you wanted to pet him. You obviously wouldn’t because hello you just met the guy. He felt soft too, healthy and still had his baby fat.

He reminded you of a golden retriever, maybe even a labrador. Dogs were nice to think about. Now imagining him with dog ears made you smile a bit. A small bit of peace one he gave you while he was flattered by the attention you gave him he never admitted it though. With cheeks tinted red “That would be embarrassing.” the rookie cop thought to himself.

Leon liked you. Maybe more than he could admit at the moment. Maybe because he latched onto you faster than a baby chick would to the first thing it saw. He liked the way you latched onto him recalling the way Marvin side-eyed him reminding him to keep his head on a swivel. “Just because you found someone doesn’t mean you can have your head in the clouds, understand?” a quick “Yes, sir.” from him and he pulled you along with him.

Was that the selfish thing to do?

Drag a civilian along with him?

You were pretty, yes, he would never deny it, the way you did things the hard way because it was the only thing you could think of at the moment. But it did make him smile when he bothered you about it.

You looked cute when you pouted, cheeks tinted red in embarrassment. “Shut up. It was the only thing I could think of.” you whined as he laughed. 

Why’d he have to look like a ray of sunshine? Why’d he have to make you feel..happy?

You didn’t like Leon.

You didn’t.

You don’t.

“What did you do before this?” he asked curiously while you were stuck in one of the rooms waiting for the undead to pass by, his voice cutting you out of your thoughts. You looked up from the ground humming in thought.

“Tax fraud.” 

“Seriously?”

“No, you big goof. I was a barista, worked in a coffee shop, over…somewhere.” 

He noted the way your hand waved dismissively down the street from the police station right he noticed it from the fence. He fumbled around with his gun for a moment pretending to check the magazine while he pondered, maybe if he’d been here just a week early. 

Maybe he would have met you, how would you look when you smiled or laughed at a joke. 

He pushed the magazine back into place, shaking himself out of his thoughts. A weight settling on his shoulder had him tense, turning and looking over at you seeing you lean on his shoulder. Leon relaxed a small smile playing on his lips as he admired you. 

You leaned on him, your body relaxing just a moment as he offered his shoulder, he was thoughtful, you liked that about him. His hand came up to your back and gently rubbed circles between your shoulders. “You’re doing great.” he hummed, leaning his forehead against yours, you could only glare weakly as he was using those stupid puppy eyes on you. You poked the soft pudge hiding under the bulletproof vest. “Shut up.”

A small bit of silence left you two relaxed momentarily forgetting about the shuffling and the random thumps and bumps against the door.

Ada was someone you didn’t trust, she spoke to the point but in circles, never willing to give you a straight answer. In all honesty, if it were any other day if it didn’t feel like the world was ending, you’d be fawning over her like some sort of moron.

For fucks sake she was wearing heels during a zombie outbreak you internally felt yourself putting her on a pedestal practically forgetting about survival and choosing to trust this woman who looked like she was coming out of a fashion catalog.

Noticing your staring Ada, snapped her fingers at you and you stood in attention feeling your face burn in embarrassment. Great, now you look stupid in front of the pretty lady.

Leon didn’t hide his admiration for her, you couldn’t blame him, she had an air of confidence, independence, a person who you wanted to be with but couldn’t attain.

She was mildly amused by your poor attempts at flirting “You’d have better luck telling Leon those jokes of yours.” She hummed as you helped bandage her leg. You only looked confused “What do you mean?” “Come on, you're practically clinging to him giving him those eyes,” She gestured vaguely to your face, you’d still stared at her confused, she rolled her eyes staring at you in disbelief “You’re telling me you don’t like him?” You snort hearing it echo through the sewer “No.” she didn’t seem amused with you.

The train leading away from the city was melancholic and frankly bittersweet, you made it. Somehow you survived just when you were about to leave a note or something for someone to find on your corpse. Leon looked somewhat satisfied relaxing as he just leaned on your shoulder as the train went on towards an unknown location.

His hand gripped yours, fingers interlacing, a nap sounded perfect at the moment. His body was screaming for rest and you felt like a small piece of heaven. Your thumb swiped over his knuckles. “Go on. I’ll wake you up when we stop, okay?” He couldn’t say no to that.

The woman, Claire, stared at you from the corner of her eye. A clear need of an explanation was visibly wanting to pry you for an explanation.

“We met in the police station.” She deflated sitting down on the ground next to…Sherry? Her name was? Yeah she introduced herself to you almost enthusiastically in her tired state, fell asleep like a rock to the insistence of you and Claire. “Sorry we arrived in the city together and we got separated. I thought something happened to him.” She admitted their relationship, acquaintances, “Something almost happened, I almost hit him with a pipe.” Claire felt bad that she laughed at that.

The train stopped a few hours later and once you all reached civilization it was time to go your separate ways. Claire was looking for someone and whatever happened down in Umbrella she looked determined to investigate it. 

You understood why but after everything, you just wanted to suppress the memories and go on with your life and you agreed to take in Sherry. Claire looked like she felt bad but you waved her off, “I’ve got like five cousins her age. She’ll be fine.” you assured the redhead as she hugged you, she didn’t look like she was the maternal type anyway, she was younger from what you gathered about her talking about her brother. 

She should be able to find him without worrying about the safety of someone else.

A brief glance around your shoulder saw Leon looking exhausted, the mental fortitude he had to not break down crying was worrisome. You couldn’t blame him. You felt the same, what do you do in that situation now that you had to look after someone, you couldn’t cry or scream. No, Sherry wouldn’t react well to a breakdown. 

You offered your hand to the little girl and she hesitantly accepted as Leon led the way with a hand on your back as you managed to find a military base ahead.

Looking back, a part of him wished he had been more vigilant, maybe he could have protected you and Sherry. Instead you were both dragged off somewhere with blindfolds over your eyes. He fought against the men screaming at them to bring both of you back only to get a whack to the back of his head and he was out like a light. 

Leon woke up after the men had separated from both of you. Heart pounding his breathing erratic as a man in front of him commended him for making it out of Raccoon City alive. “Rookie with a hell of a first day.” wearing a crooked smile that made his stomach turn. 

Where were you? Were you okay? Did they hurt you?

They made him an offer. An ultimatum. They didn’t really give him much of a choice.

You had been sitting alone clutching Sherry close afraid of the men surrounding you, hands close to their weapons and their eyes wandering staring trying to get a read on you. Your leg bounced the heel of your shoe clicking against the ground, you were sweating bullets, heart beating rapidly. 

You tried to calm down. Nothing was working.

When you saw Leon again after what felt like hours you practically ran up and hugged him, his arms wrapping around you squeezing you so close you almost missed the way he was shaking. His face buried in your neck fingers curling around your shirt wrinkling the already ruined fabric. He only pulled away to kiss your shoulder whispering apologies into your skin. “I’m sorry.” 

It was like you blinked and he was gone, gone to whatever new hell they’d introduce him to. The government relocated you and Sherry, not together I’m afraid. 

You tried to live life like normal but nothing got rid of the nightmares. Dates ran away from your screaming like roaches to sudden exposure to light. New forms of comfort taken from scalding hot showers and wrapping yourself in blankets galore. You nabbed a pitbull from some dumpster. It didn’t seem to matter.

A part of you wanted Leon back. Someone who understood you, someone who'd give you a shoulder to cry on at the moment. You were ashamed to admit that you needed him so bad. It was only one night. One fucking night he didn’t sleep with you. Not like that anyway. Why did you feel so strongly for that dumb blond?

You didn’t like Leon.

You didn’t.

You didn’t.

Six years later you saw Leon again.

Standing at your door looking different from the rookie cop you met that night.

A frozen look of shock on your face as you stared at him.

Your mouth felt dry, your blood went cold.

Oh fuck.

You liked Leon.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Napoleonville [Chapter 2: The Jailhouse]

Series Summary: The year is 1988. The town is Napoleonville, Louisiana. You are a small business owner in need of some stress relief. Aemond is a stranger with a taste for domination. But as his secrets are revealed, this casual arrangement becomes something more volatile than either of you could have ever imagined.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), dom/sub dynamics, historical topics including war and discrimination, smoking, blasphemy, kids, parenthood, alcoholism, y'all know exactly who is in jail come on now, Pizza Hut, a wild ex-husband appears!

Word Count: 7k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @marvelescvpe @toodlesxcuddles @era127 @at-a-rax-ia @0eessirk8 @arcielee @dd122004dd @humanpurposes @taredhunter @tinykryptonitewerewolf @partnerincrime0 @eltherevir @persephonerinyes @namelesslosers @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @daenysx @gemini-mama @chattylurker @moonlightfoxx @huramuna @britt-mf @myspotofcraziness @padfooteyes @aemonddtargaryen @trifoliumviridi @joliettes @darkenchantress @florent1s @babyblue711 @minttea07 @libroparaiso @bluerskiees

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰🧁

Amir is sitting at the kitchen table and icing peach cobbler cupcakes; he has a single white flower from a dogwood tree poked through one of his cornrows. He wears a short sleeve button-up shirt with a kaleidoscopic geometric pattern, high-waisted khaki shorts, and eyeglasses with large rectangular, tortoiseshell frames. He has one leg crossed over the other and is kicking it absentmindedly as he works, a habit he’s had since long before you met him in your 9th grade English class. The microwave is humming. Walk This Way is blaring from the little pink boombox.

“Ho, I mean it this time, I gotta get the hell out of this town.” Amir uses a fork to place a small peach wedge—sauteed in butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla—atop the swirl of buttercream frosting, then sprinkles the cupcake with cinnamon before moving on to the next. “Guess what some inbred neanderthal swamp creature did last night. They busted a window out of my car again.”

“I told you to take that thing off it.” Amir has a homemade bumper sticker on his Ford Escort that reads, in holographic rainbow cursive: Fuck Ronald Reagan (not literally)!

“That war criminal can let 50,000 people die of AIDS but I belong on America’s Most Wanted for exercising my First Amendment rights?”

“I know you’re not wrong. You know you’re not wrong. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true. Bayard Rustin said that.”

“And I’m sure he was a very smart man, but he didn’t have to live in Napoleonville.” The microwave beeps, and you remove the sweet potato inside with an oven mitt and place it on the counter alongside the others. This is a trick you’ve learned: they’re so much easier to peel and slice once they’ve been microwaved a bit, thirty seconds for a small potato, one minute for a larger one. “You want me to ask Willis to do a stakeout or something?”

“He might be the one committing vandalism.”

You frown down at the sweet potatoes as you peel them over the cutting board and toss the skins into a bowl so Cadi can feed them to the squirrels later. You doubt Willis is responsible, but one of his friends very well could be.

Amir sighs, acquiescing, wistful. “Six months from now I’ll be in San Francisco.” Yes, he will; he’s been saving up for years. The thought of him leaving is practically apocalyptic. You can’t envision a future without Amir. It’s like the very worst version of when you’re a kid and some event—Christmas, your birthday, summer break, prom—is so glimmeringly monumental that whatever life will exist beyond it is incomprehensible, a haze of other people’s dreams and warnings. Surely you won’t exist in that timeline; surely you will dissolve away once that fateful checkpoint is reached and become nothing but sun and sand.

You don’t tell Amir any of this. You don’t want to make him feel guilty. Instead you tease: “You sure you don’t want to stay and get a job on one of those shiny new oil rigs?”

He laughs as he pipes buttercream frosting onto the last peach cobbler cupcake. His artistic talents far surpass yours, but you bring the baking techniques and recipe ideas. Still, you have always split the bakery profits—however meager they might be—equally. “Yes, how could I possibly pass up the opportunity to lose half my skin in an explosion caused by company negligence? Or inhale toxic fumes, or have my limbs ripped off, or fracture my skull? Or fall off a platform in the middle of the night and be eaten by a gator before anyone bothers to fish me out? I will surely regret all my life choices when I’m lying on the beach in Pacifica next to my new boyfriend who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

The front door opens. It’s Mr. Fontenot, the town pharmacist. You call out: “Hi there! Come right on in! We’ve got your cake ready. Blue velvet with marshmallow cream and topped with candied blueberries. We read up on how to make them just for you. So thank you kindly for the learning opportunity.”

Since you’re wrist-deep in sweet potatoes, Amir leaps up to retrieve the box. He opens it so Mr. Fontenot can inspect his order. “When you cut into it, you’ll see that it’s a dark royal blue on the inside. Cookie Monster blue, not robin egg blue, just like you wanted.”

“Will ya look at that,” Mr. Fontenot says, beaming down at the cake. Written across the marshmallow cream in blue icing is (in Amir’s most elegant script): Happy 8th Birthday, Corey! “My grandson is going to get such a kick out of a blue cake.”

“He sure is,” Amir agrees. “Now can I talk you into anything else for the party? Some peach cobbler cupcakes, perhaps? Praline brownies? A brown sugar pie? Homemade Fruity Pebbles Rice Krispie Treats? Kids love them…!”

You say once Mr. Fontenot has gone: “He works for the company, you know.”

“Huh? Who?”

“Aemond. He works for Jade Dragon. He’s an engineer.”

“Ho, you are obsessed with that man!” Amir says. “You’ve brought him up, like, four times already!”

“Yeah,” you confess, a humiliation that is futile to deny. Parts of you are still sore from what he did to you; other places are aching for more.

“And you didn’t even get to see the dick?!”

You shake your head as you cut the peeled sweet potatoes into haphazard chunks. Amir puts a pot of water on the stove so you can boil them until they’re soft enough to mash into filling for a sweet potato pie. “Didn’t see it, didn’t touch it…”

“Didn’t lick it, didn’t suck it?”

“Okay, that’s enough, Dr. Seuss. But no.”

“Secret dick, scar on his face, missing an eye…” Amir mutters. “Maybe he’s a veteran who lost his andouille in combat! Yes! That’s it! He was there when we invaded Lebanon or Grenada or Libya and now he’s horribly disfigured and can’t bear the prospect of your inevitable horror and rejection!”

“His andouille is definitely unchopped. I could…uh…tell. Through his jeans.”

Amir closes his eyes and presses his palms together. “Sweet baby Jesus, please send me a gainfully employed big-dicked blonde man too.” He looks at you again. “But he really wouldn’t use it?!”

“Aemond said he wanted me to trust him first.”

“Maybe he doesn’t trust you. Maybe he thinks you might be on the prowl for Shotgun Wedding #2. You should tell him he’s got nothing to worry about in that department. You’ve been on the pill practically since Cadi was born.”

You murmur: “And I will be forever.”

“I know,” Amir says gently, pausing to squeeze your shoulder before taking the sweet potato hunks you’ve sliced already and dropping them in the boiling water. “So! When are you going to call him?”

You startle. “I can’t call him! I called him the first time. Now it’s his turn to call me. I can’t call him again, that would be desperate. Right?” Right?!

“Does he even know your number?”

“He knows my name, and he knows about the bakery. The number is publicly listed, he can find me in the phone book.”

Amir groans. “Lord have mercy, just call him! Pick up that pink phone right there beside the refrigerator and press those cute little buttons and say, loud and proud: Come on over here, big boy, I want to see that traumatized war veteran dick.”

The phone rings. You trip over your own feet as you lunge for it.

Amir snickers. “Pathetic!” He takes over slicing the rest of the sweet potatoes.

“Hello?!”

You hear a deep, slothful drawl; Willis’ family have been bayou people for longer than the United States has been a country. “Hey sugar, you want to bring your favorite ex-husband some dessert?”

You sigh. “Hi, Willis.” From across the kitchen, Amir makes retching noises.

“So what’d ya say? I just had a late lunch and got to thinkin’ of you. Gave me a sweet tooth.”

“Um, I don’t know, we’re really busy right now.” Amir snorts; you’ve had three customers in the last hour. There’s usually a rush first thing each morning and then again around closing time.

“Ya ain’t got time for me? Well, alrighty then. Maybe I won’t have time for you when you need a wild hog chased off your porch or a flat tire changed out there on Route 401.”

This is the eternal dilemma, the balance you wrestle with like a boat in a storm: not making him angry, not letting him get too close. You and Willis don’t have a formal agreement for custody or child support. You’ve worked it out yourselves, and he typically doesn’t make it too difficult. You’ve always felt that appeasement is the wisest course of action. As the elected sheriff of Assumption Parish, Willis Boudreaux is responsible for all criminal investigations, court proceedings, and tax collecting. Even when he was just a deputy, he had plenty of friends at the little white courthouse in the heart of downtown Napoleonville. You’re better off working with him than against him. “Okay, fine, I guess I have a few minutes. What do you want?”

“Why don’t you make a professional recommendation?”

You glance irritably at the kitchen table. “We have brown sugar pie, peach cobbler cupcakes, praline brownies, lemon blueberry cookies, uh, I’ve got half a strawberries and cream cake left in the fridge…”

“Definitely the cake,” Willis says. “I love strawberries. Remember how you fed them to me on the beach when we went to Grand Isle?”

That was…what, eight years ago? Ugh. “Barely.” You like when Willis has a girlfriend; then he mostly leaves you alone. Tragically, he and his most recent fiancé Colleen broke up last month. “I’ll drive the cake over now.” You slam the phone receiver into the base before Willis can respond.

“Let’s kill him,” Amir says.

You laugh. “I’ll consider it.”

“We can feed him to that gator out in the tree row.”

You grab a flat white bakery box off the pile, fold it open, and fetch what remains of the strawberries and cream cake from the refrigerator. “You’ll get that sweet potato pie in the oven if I’m gone for a half hour?”

“Yup. Then I’ll start working on the brown butter oatmeal raisin cookies. Is the recipe…? Oh, I see it, it’s right here on the counter. Got it. Have fun with your awful ex-husband. You sure you don’t want to add a little something special to that cake? Windex? Rat poison? He sure looks like a rodent to me. That nose? Those eyebrows?!”

“Amir, he’s just French.”

“He should be exiled to Saint Helena.”

“I’m going to have to put my own ad in the Bayou Journal,” you say, smiling sadly. “Who’s going to run the shop with me when you’re in San Francisco?”

Amir winks. “Maybe your traumatized, half-blind, hung-like-a-horse war veteran knows how to bake.”

Outside, the gator is sunning herself by the gravel driveway. She’s only about five feet long and dozing with her muddy green eyes closed, jagged upper teeth on display, missing toes here and there, back scarred by boat motors. It’s 90 degrees and sunny, warmth flooding over your bare legs and arms: denim shorts, lime green tank top. You can hear cicadas, doves, chickadees, starlings, goldfinches, ospreys, the benign droning of bumble bees. You throw the white box in the passenger seat and start your Chevy Celebrity, yellow paint, wood paneling, brown velour upholstery. You crank down the windows—the air conditioning is broken, that’s one reason why Willis’ brother was willing to sell it to you so cheap—and turn on the radio: 867-5309 by Tommy Tutone. You pull out onto Route 401, headed northeast towards downtown Napoleonville.

You pass fields of sugarcane and soybeans, shacks and trailers, grass green like emeralds. The hot mid-May air, humid and stagnant, blows through your hair. If the ride was any longer than ten minutes, you’d have needed a cooler for the cake. You find a parking spot on the street outside the Assumption Parish Sheriff’s Office and grab the box containing half a strawberries and cream cake, probably just starting to get melty around the edges. Deputy Melancon is on his way out when you arrive. He holds the glass door open for you.

“Comment ca va, cherie? Is that for me? I hope so!”

“I think your boss would chew your arm off if you tried to get between him and this cake.”

Deputy Melancon guffaws as he ambles towards his police car. “Have fun in there! It’s a zoo today.”

“What…?” But now you can hear the noise coming from inside the building: howling, banging, Willis telling someone to sit down and shut up, his Cajun drawl lethargic and calm. Willis is not a yeller, and you’ve never witness him raise his hands in violence. The being a cop part of his job is the aspect he enjoys the least. But sitting around jawing with his deputies until long after midnight, regaling them with tales of supposed glory acquired while you were home with a screaming baby, scrubbing floors, fixing dinner, still bleeding eight weeks after birth, waiting—because it was all there was to look forward to—for him to walk through the door and shuffle to the couch and collapse there with an ice-cold can of Bud Light in his fist, dripping condensation down his sinewy forearm? That’s what Willis lives for.

Willis is at his desk and grudgingly plodding through an intake form. His sunglasses have been shoved up into his dark curly hair; his hat—which he loathes wearing—is resting atop a mountain of deserted paperwork. There’s a poster of Heather Locklear on the wall along with a dartboard with a cutout of Tommy Lee in the center. There’s a man in one of the three holding cells that you’ve hardly ever seen used. He has slicked-back blonde hair, an aristocratic wisp of a moustache, an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and tiny red shorts and thick foam rainbow-patterned flip flops. He’s the person responsible for the ruckus.

“I want my phone call!” the prisoner shouts as he beats his palms against the iron bars. “Hey! Hey, mullet boy! I want my fucking phone call!”

Oddly, the stranger has a British accent. Aemond? you think for a split second. But no; this man couldn’t possibly be related to Aemond. He is short, slouched, soft all over, uncoordinated and uncomposed, pathetic, petulant, innately pitiful. Willis ignores him. He speaks to you instead.

“Bienvenue, sugar. Ya got something sweet for me?”

Obediently—though not entirely willingly—you bring him the white box and set it on his disorganized desk. Willis produces a stack of Styrofoam plates and a Ziploc bag full of plastic eating utensils that he keeps stocked in a drawer specifically for such occasions. He opens the box and sighs euphorically, his eyes on the moist pink cake and layers of whipped cream frosting as if it’s the flesh of a naked woman.

“Hey!” the prisoner shouts, gripping the iron bars and pressing his flushed cheeks flat against them. “Hey! I like cake too!”

“Just what I needed,” Willis tells you, as if the man isn’t there. “Sit down, eat with me.”

“I really don’t have long.”

“Ya got five minutes, don’t you?”

I guess I do. You sit down but don’t take any cake. As Willis cuts himself a slice, you can’t help but watch the man in the holding cell. He stares back at you, a little ashamed, a little defiant, palpably weak. You ask Willis: “What did you book him for?”

“DWI,” Willis says with his mouth full of cake. “Driving While Intoxicated.”

“Huh. You don’t usually pick people up for that.”

Willis points at the prisoner with his fork for emphasis. “This one was very intoxicated.”

The man kicks the bars with his flip flops. “I want my fucking phone call!”

“Ya already used it,” Willis says pragmatically, and nods to something on the floor of the holding cell: an empty, grease-stained Pizza Hut box. The prisoner looks at it, regretful.

“I didn’t know I’d only get one,” he admits. “But also! You ate three slices of my pizza!”

Willis chuckles. “Consider it payin’ your taxes.” Then, to you: “It was tres bien. Meat Lover’s. Ya can’t argue with that.”

“Hey cake lady,” the prisoner says, his prominent eyes weepy, needful, a deep stormy blue. “Can I have a piece? Please? Please? I’m having a rough day here. My flip flops are giving me blisters and your redneck husband committed pizza theft. And I’m in jail.”

“Ex-husband,” you correct him.

“Good for you. Smart cake lady.”

Willis says: “You just settle down and I’ll drive you over to the parish jail as soon as I’m done with my dessert.” He shovels cake into his mouth; he eats like a gator, like a pig.

At last, you cut a portion of strawberries and cream cake—the whipped cream frosting turning thin and runny—and place it on a Styrofoam plate. Then you get up to take it to the prisoner. You have a soft spot for the freaks of the world. You and Amir, you know exactly what it’s like to be freaks.

“Don’t give him no fork or nothing,” Willis says around a mouthful of cake. “I can’t have him tryin’ to kill himself.”

“As if I’d give you the satisfaction, Sasquatch!” the prisoner flings back.

“It’s the Rougarou we got down here, son,” Willis replies, unbothered.

You set the plate on the beige linoleum floor close enough for the prisoner to reach out and drag it to his cell. When you step back, he retrieves the cake and eats it with his bare hands. “Oh, fuck, this is so good!”

You turn to Willis. “Cadi keeps mentioning some horseback riding camp that a bunch of her friends are going to this summer. Can we make that happen?”

“Are you kiddin’ me?! It’s over $300! That’s a new boat!”

“I think it would mean a lot to her.”

“Tell her if she grows her hair back out, maybe she can go next year.” Willis licks pink cake crumbs from his fork. “Why the hell’d she ever get it cut like that?”

You shrug, irritated. “Because she wanted to.”

“Never wears no skirts or dresses, doesn’t care about jewelry, always got dirt on her face…ain’t she gonna want a boyfriend in a few years? Who’s gonna take her out lookin’ like that? Who’s gonna marry her one day?”

“She’s ten years old, Willis.”

“She’s been spending too much time with your little friend, that’s the problem.”

You glare furiously at him, but are interrupted before you can say something unwise. The man in the holding cell has finished his slice of cake. He sucks frosting off his chubby fingers and then yanks on the iron bars in vain. “I gotta go home! I gotta feed my ferret!”

“Guess ya should have thought about that before driving 70 miles per hour in a school zone, Mr.…” Willis glances at the intake form to refresh his memory. “Targaryen. What the heck is that, Italian? Polish? It ain’t French, that’s for sure.”

“It’s Greek, you dumb hick.”

Willis jabs his plastic fork at him. “You oughta watch that, son, or you’ll catch yourself a nasty case of what the liberals call police brutality.”

“He’s a Targaryen?” you ask, stunned. The man in the cell peers back at you with large, ever-wounded, ocean-blue eyes, glassy but not entirely unintelligent.

“So what?” Willis says.

“Willis, those are the oil people. Jade Dragon, the new rigs on Lake Verret? The Targaryens own that company.”

“Well I’ll be damned!” he marvels. “Really? This bon a rien right here, his family are a bunch of millionaires?”

“Yes. And you should probably let him make another phone call.”

“Yeah!” the prisoner says excitedly. “Listen to the cake lady!”

“Alright, alright,” Willis grumbles. “Guess I don’t need no legal trouble.” He picks up the phone off his desk and walks it to the holding cell; the cord stretches just far enough. “Make your damn phone call, gros couillion.”

Mr. Targaryen snatches up the receiver, punches some buttons, and listens as it rings. “Hi. Okay, don’t yell at me. Here’s the deal. I’m at the Assumption Parish Sheriff’s Office and I need you to pick me up. Wait, I said don’t yell at me! Stop yelling!!”

“I really need to get back to the bakery,” you tell Willis as you make for the door. “I’ll see you around, okay—?”

“Hey, sugar.” You stop and wait for him to finish. He’s considering you in that way he does sometimes: mild, thoughtful, vaguely sad, how’d we end up like this? He should know, you’ve told him a hundred times, but that doesn’t mean he understands. “I’m supposed to be gettin’ a new deputy next week. When he shows, I’ll send him down your way, recruit ya another customer. Charge him a little extra if you want. He won’t know no better.”

“Thanks, Willis,” you say, and you mean it. Then you step outside into sun glare and the shrieking of cicadas.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s almost dinnertime when the phone rings. You’re heating up the turtle soup that Amir brought over earlier, stirring the pot as the sky outside turns from a crystalline blue—just like Aemond’s eye—to rust and amber and fool’s gold, as the twilight air breathes into the room warm and ancient. There’s a plump nutria nibbling on grass at the edge of the backyard. Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go pipes from the boombox. At first you’re too startled to race for the phone—too terrified that it won’t be Aemond, too afraid to get your hopes up—and you hesitate just long enough for Cadi to answer instead.

“Hello?” she says, and then: “Yeah, school was good.”

Everything sinks in you, heart, spirit, the sweltering pressure of blood ebbing in your veins. Oh. It’s Willis.

Cadi continues chatting away obliviously. “Uh huh. Not really. We learned about robber barons and cannons of Italy. Yeah, captains of industry, that’s what I meant. Uh huh. Yup. It was okay, I guess. Yeah. Today it was pizza, but it’s always shaped like a rectangle. Exactly, no crust. It’s weird. Pepperoni. I always sit with Michelle and Erica. Erica has this totally tubular book about horses she showed us. Yup. I like the Appaloosas the most. Uh huh. Okay, I will. Yup. Bye.” Then she hands you the phone. “For you,” she says, then resumes setting the counter: cups, bowls, spoons, folded Bounty paper towels, dinner for two. You never eat at the kitchen table. The table is reserved for business.

You raise the pink phone receiver to your ear with some uncertainty. What does he want now? “Willis?”

“No,” Aemond says, amused. “Though we’ve been to some of the same places.”

You try not to let the smile fill up your face. You fail. “You were asking Cadi about her day?”

“Evidently.” You don’t know what this means; you don’t ask. “When are you free?”

“I usually have the house to myself on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.” It’s currently Monday.

“Great. I’ll see you tomorrow. What time?”

“I should be done in the bakery at around 5:00.”

“I’ll be there at 5:01.” Then Aemond hangs up. So do you, your skull suddenly abloom like springtime, colors and promise and warmth. He’s going to be here in less than 24 hours. I really am going to see him again.

You turn towards the counter. “Cadi, what are robber barons?”

“Rich people who are mean to their workers to get as much money as possible. They don’t care about others. They just want more and more and more. They’re very greedy and are never satisfied.”

“So like the Rockefellers and Standard Oil,” you say, thinking back to your high school American History class. It feels like a lifetime ago, it feels like trying to catch lightning bugs in your bare hands.

“Yeah.” Cadi pours herself a cup of Tang. She’s wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt and green corduroy pants; her father would not approve. “Or Jade Dragon Energy.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Tuesday, 5:03 p.m., rattling cicadas and golden light like the lit coil of a stove burner. You’re still scrubbing dishes, and Amir is icing the last of the orange creamsicle cupcakes for the next morning. Aemond opens the unlocked front door and strides purposefully into the kitchen: ripped jeans, red t-shirt, Converses to match, Marlboro jacket. He is carrying a neon teal duffle bag that he drops on the sloping wooden floor where the living room meets the kitchen. He is momentarily taken aback when he sees Amir, then recalls what you told him about your friend who helps run the bakery. Aemond pulls out one of the kitchen table chairs and sits. He lifts the glass lid from a cake plate, takes the last peach cobbler cupcake for himself, makes unflinching eye contact with you as he licks the frosting off it with long, slow, sensual drags of his tongue.

Amir says: “Hey Scarface, that’s $1.”

“Amir!” you scold, mortified. But Aemond doesn’t seem offended. He smirks, extracts his black leather wallet from the pocket his jeans, and fishes out four singles. He slides them across the table.

Amir sighs. “This bitch can’t even count.”

“I’m sure he can count,” you say, smiling. “He’s an engineer.”

“He’s mouth-fucking this cupcake right in front of me, he’s clearly unstable.”

Aemond looks to you. His voice is low, imposing. “I need to know what your limits are.”

“Oh my God!” Amir squeaks, bent over the table and icing as quickly as he can.

“Okay,” you tell Aemond. You rinse the pearlescent soap bubbles from your hands, wrists, forearms. Then you step out from behind the counter and watch him, remember him, imagine what will happen next.

He gives the peach cobbler cupcake another lap. Buttercream frosting coats his mischieviously curled lips and then is swiftly licked away. “Can I spank you?”

“Yes.”

Amir mutters to himself: “Grandma is never going to believe this.”

“Can I tie you up?”

“Yes.”

“Can I bite you hard enough to leave bruises?”

You pause. “Only places that will be covered by my clothes.”

“And what should you say if you ever don’t like what I’m doing?”

“I just tell you to stop.”

“Exactly.” Aemond grins. His right eye skates from your face to your chest to your hips to your thighs to your ankles, drinking you down like the earth swallows rain, like the vines and cypress trees and Sanish moss of the bayou thieve sunlight and never give it back. His left eye doesn’t move at all, though this is not something you would notice if you didn’t know to look for it. “Good girl.”

“Done!” Amir announces triumphantly, completing the swirl of frosting on the final orange creamsicle cupcake.

“Can I pull your hair?” Aemond asks you.

“Yeah, I think so. Not hard enough to yank it out though.”

Aemond scoffs. “Of course not. I don’t actually want to hurt you. That’s what some doms are after, but not me. Not here, not with you. You don’t want real pain, do you…?”

“No, definitely not,” you say, relieved.

“Brilliant. Then we’re on the same page.”

Amir could leave, but he doesn’t. His eyes dart between you and Aemond from behind his large rectangular glasses, fascinated, scandalized, too astonished to move.

Aemond continues: “Birth control?”

“I’m on the pill and have been for years. I can show you the pack if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you. I saw them in your bathroom last time I was here. I’m in the practice of using condoms regardless.” He tilts his head impishly. “Can I fuck your ass?”

“Um.” You hesitate. This is uncharted territory, though you cannot say that you are entirely unintrigued. “Maybe one day.”

“Noted. Some people find the sensation, the taboo, the fullness…quite pleasurable.”

“Do you?” Amir asks flirtatiously.

Aemond gives him a lazy, ludicrously charming smile. “Well I’ve never been on the receiving end, but I’m game to give it a try if you are.”

Amir bursts out laughing, then says to you: “He’s alright. He can commit abominable sins with you, I guess.” He stands and shakes Aemond’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Kind of.” Then he saunters off through the living room and out the front door. After a moment, you and Aemond listen to his blue Ford Escort rumble to life and then the crunching of gravel as it rolls out of the driveway. From the boombox drifts Just What I Needed by The Cars.

Aemond licks the last of the frosting from the peach cobbler cupcake and says: “Now you’re going to be the cupcake.” He crosses the kitchen, kneels down in front of you, roughly yanks down your denim shorts. He presses his face to your royal blue satin panties—hastily purchased this morning while Amir watched the shop and changed into just one hour ago in anticipation of Aemond’s arrival—and inhales deeply, desperately, like a drowning man gasping for air. Then, through the sheer fabric, he begins to tease you: nudges of his nose, nibbles of his lips.

Your fingers tangle in his short blonde hair. Blonde like the drunk man in the holding cell, you think randomly. “Aemond, why didn’t you want me last time?”

“I wanted you. I wanted you then and I want you now.”

“But I disappointed you. You didn’t finish.”

“Oh, I came,” he purrs. “Went home, got in the shower, thought of you. It didn’t take long. I would have disappointed you terribly. Woke up in the middle of the night thinking of you. Tried to miraculously get some work done yesterday while thinking of you. Crawled out of bed this morning thinking of you. Are you noticing a theme?”

You smile as his tongue presses forcefully against the satin. “I might be.”

“How many times in your life has a man treated his orgasm as essential and your own as an afterthought, if he considered it at all?”

Oh God. That’s the fucking truth. “A lot more than once.”

“So consider what we did on Sunday as one little notch in the other column. Just restoring a bit of much-needed balance to the universe.” He hooks his thumbs under your panties and tugs them off. “Open your thighs for me,” he orders as he pushes them apart with his palms: large, smooth, artful hands. You brace your own hands against the kitchen counter as he buries his face between your legs, not lapping in a tentative, exploratory sort of way but feasting on you, drowning in you, lips and tongue and then fingers that skate up the downy inside of your thigh to taunt you, enter you, fuck you expertly yet leave you wanting more of him, all of him. Your nerves are on fire, your blood is simmering. Outside the birds of prey are emerging from their liars and battle-scarred gators stalk boldly through the green prehistoric wildness of the Deep South.

What happened to his eye? you think through the lust-pink haze, knowing you cannot ask him. Aemond respects your rules. You must abide by his as well. How was he injured so gravely? Who hurt him? Did they atone for their misdeeds, did they pay the cost?

Suddenly, Aemond stands and pulls you against him by your waist, rips your yellow tank top over your head and unhooks your bra, kisses you fiercely. His mouth is dripping with you, clean mineral longing; his right eye is gleaming, famished, not just lustful but half-mad. No one else exists. No one ever has or ever will. “Go to the bed and wait for me there.”

“No.”

He spanks you once with his open palm; the sound is sharp and exquisite. “Go.” And this time you obey, counting the seconds in the dusk-lit splinter of time before he joins you.

In Aemond’s duffle bag—among other things, surely—are silk scarves the color of sapphires. First he fastens one over your eyes as a blindfold. Then he ties one around each of your wrists and binds both to the same bedpost, low enough that while your hands are kept up by your head, you still have some room to maneuver on the freshly-laundered, wildflower-patterned duvet. “Not different posts?” you ask Aemond.

“No. Tying your arms far apart like that can cause cramps in your back and your shoulders. It can even make it difficult to breathe. I want you to be comfortable. I want you to be focused entirely on what I’m doing to you.”

You moan as his fingers slip between your legs and circle over the place that makes your muscles yearn and twist and tighten until you feel they might snap, until you can imagine every string of you breaking and dissolving from the prison of flesh into water, air, gravity, the eternal silent progress of time. He bites and sucks at your nipples, flicking his tongue over them, admiring them, praising them, ravenous for them. You are enraptured by the weight of him on top of you. Without your sight, everything else is more noticeable, more real: his warmth, his sweat, his every brush of skin against yours, his smoke and cologne and gasps and sighs, the grinding of his bare cock against your thighs as he makes you ready for him. And you beg for it long before he gives it to you.

“Roll over,” he commands breathlessly, and then guides you: your fingers clutching the scarves that secure your wrists, your elbows propped on the mattress, your back arched and hips angled up towards him, his lips murmuring against your shoulder, your cheek, the side of your throat. He’s telling you so many things, perfect things, delicious things you’ll never hear enough of: how beautiful you are, how badly he wants you, how well you’re doing. There is the sound of Aemond opening a condom wrapper, and a strange sorrow ripples through you. I wish I could have him raw.

One of his hands reaches around to stroke you, keeping you soaked and supple for him. The other begins to guide his cock into your aching, starving wetness. You stretch for him, you accept him eagerly…and then there is resistance. He stills immediately and tries a slightly different angle. Nothing. He could force it, probably, but he won’t. He recedes from you, agonizing emptiness, dire unfulfillment. I’m disappointing him, he’s too big, I’m too tight, too nervous, too inexperienced at being dominated, I can’t please him. You whimper: “Aemond, I’m sorry—”

“No,” he says, more ferocious than any words you’ve ever heard from him. You are not allowed to criticize yourself. You are not allowed to give up so easily. He leans down and whispers into the shell of your ear, his ribs against your spine, his heat entombing you: “Relax. I’m in charge now. I’ll take care of you.”

You want him to. You need him to. His commandment rolls through your blood and bones like a wave, loosening those last vestiges of anxiety, shaking grim psychological heirlooms from the highest shelves. You can surrender yourself completely to Aemond. He is worthy, he is safe, he is euphoria made flesh. His fingertips are still stroking you. He pushes your thighs just a little farther apart and—slowly, cautiously—eases his cock into your throbbing warmth. He hisses in a breath, though he tries not to break character, to show you that he might just be a little bit at your mercy too.

You moan loudly and shamelessly, letting him know you’re alright, more than alright, in ecstasy, in bliss, in torment, on the edge. When Aemond thrusts, he finds a place that’s never been hit so directly or so well. The climax is on you before you are aware of it, one of those swells that rises out of nowhere, capsizes the boat, fades back into the endless blue of the ocean. It jolts through your pelvis, your spine, your skull, and then evaporates like steam from a bathroom mirror. And now Aemond is trying to finish too, but something is off. He tries a few different rhythms, can’t seem to get it right. You think you can feel him beginning to soften. No no no, I can’t leave him unsatisfied again.

You look back, though you cannot see him through the blindfold; instinctively, you want to be closer to him. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing,” Aemond says. “Nothing, nothing, nothing is wrong. You’re perfect. You’re so fucking perfect.” He turns your face so he can kiss you deeply, his tongue in your mouth, swallowing you down, entangled in every way possible. And only then he is able to come: powerfully, trembling, crying out like he’s in the kind of pain that leaves scars for life.

He glides his cock out of you, and you can hear him snap off the condom. Then he unties your blindfold and your wrists. You reach for him, then stop yourself; he reaches for you—a reflex, surely—and then shakes the notion away and collapses beside you on the duvet. You both lie there panting, gazing dizzily up at the long shadows of centuries-old oak trees that cascade across the ceiling, minds drained, bodies spent.

After a moment, Aemond clambers off the bed to grab a lighter and a pack of Marlboro Reds out of his jeans pocket. Then he flops back down next to you, lights a cigarette, takes a deep, slow drag. “So, cupcake,” he says nonchalantly, exhaling smoke, hand shaking. “Where’d you get married?”

You laugh; this is ridiculous. “Why on earth would you want to know that?”

“I want to know things about you. Things other than your tits and your pussy. I mean, those are great. I enjoy them tremendously, and I plan to keep enjoying them. But I also enjoy you.”

You sigh. Aemond waits, puffing on his cigarette. “The parish courthouse.” Plain, boring, economical. “I wanted a wedding at Saint Honoratus, but…”

“Saint…who?”

“The Chapel of Saint Honoratus of Amiens,” you say. “It’s this gorgeous place in a town called Belle River on the other side of Lake Verret. Very small, very old, it’s a historic site or something, they can’t ever knock it down.”

“Why couldn’t you get married there?”

You shrug; how much could the details matter now? Someone needed to organize it, someone needed to decorate, someone needed to pay for food and drinks, someone needed to send out invitations, someone needed to care enough to make it happen, and that someone would have been you, just you, seventeen and broke and bedridden with morning sickness until noon every day. “It just didn’t work out.”

“Sounds like a lot of things didn’t work out for you.”

You raise your eyebrows. Aemond winces.

“Sorry. That was…not the way I meant to express that sentiment.”

You forgive him. You’d forgive him for anything right now, right here, in a bed stained with his sweat and your wetness and the seed you wish he could have spilled inside you. You taunt him: “Should we meet up at your house next time?”

He recoils, horrified. “No. Definitely not.”

“Why? What’s at your house? An abandoned wife and six tall, blonde, prominently-jawed children?”

He chuckles; he has collected himself again. “No. It’s just that…well…I have family in town currently. They’re staying with me while I get set up with the new job and everything. Quite a lot of people. And my family is…unorthodox.”

You wish he would stop using words you don’t know. That’s the hazard of affiliating with a highfalutin petroleum engineer, you suppose. “So they’re strange?”

“That’s a kind word for it.”

“I like strange people. I like you.”

Aemond smirks warily. “You wouldn’t like them. Just trust me on that.” He traces the border of your face with his fingertips, contemplating your secrets, tending his own like a nightscape garden. “Do you ever want to do something…not in your bedroom?”

You grin and he kisses you, nicotine and quelled desire; he can’t help it. You say when you break away: “What, like dinner or flowers or any of the other activities that were very clearly not a part of this arrangement?”

“Arrangements are flexible.”

“Are they?”

“This one is. Increasingly so.”

You ponder his proposition. “There’s this new restaurant I really want to go to. I’ve never been before, but it looks pretty rad in the commercials on tv. It’s up in Gonzales.”

“The same town as your illustrious Kmart engagement. How fortuitous. Pease continue.”

“It’s an Italian place,” you say.

“I love Italian.”

“It’s called Olive Garden.”

Aemond’s mouth falls open. He is bewildered, appalled. His cigarette smolders forgotten in the crook of his fingers. You might as well have told him you wanted to run over puppies with lawnmowers. “You want me to take you to Olive Garden? Seriously?”

You are wounded. “What’s wrong with Olive Garden?”

“Cupcake, Olive Garden is not real Italian food. That’s like saying Taco Bell is Mexican.”

“…Isn’t it?”

“Okay,” he capitulates. He smiles as he smooths your disheveled hair and touches his lips to your forehead. “It’s fine. We’ll go to Olive Garden.”

“Really?” you reply, beaming.

“Really. You’re free Thursday?”

“Unless Willis has to switch nights for some reason, yeah.”

“Then we’ll go Thursday.” Aemond rolls off the bed and finds a mug—Return Of The Jedi, Princess Leia and the Ewoks—left on your dresser to put his cigarette out in. He looks through the screen of your open bedroom window as the sky turns ever-darker, as the moon and stars begin to rise, and he breathes in the verdant, humid, ageless witchcraft of the bayou. “You have no idea what the last few days have been like for me,” Aemond says softly, his bare back turned to you, the ridge of his spine like a road cut through a swamp or a forest or a field of sugarcane. “You have no idea how badly I needed this.”

[blackshadowswriter]

Kneel At The Altar┃Matt Murdock

Summary: The one in which the Devil fucks you at the altar.

Warnings: blasphemy? (because I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to fuck in church), reader (me) having very unholy thoughts about Matt in church and Matt acting on those unholy thoughts, little bit of exhibitionism, smut: dom!Matt, kinda rough p in v sex, oral sex (f receiving), teasing, edging, praying while Matt eats you out AND fingers you (???), choking kink, praise kink, spanking, some degradation, marking, multiple orgasms, some overstimulation, dirty talk (not particularly in that order)

God, if you're reading this, stop here, it isn't for you bby 😘

Words: 7,691

AN: Would you believe me if I said that this fic idea formed in my head WHILE I was in church? I'm not even kidding, I got dragged to church, and I literally thought up this fic while sitting in church, half-listening to a sermon. This fic has been sitting in my drafts for a while now, and I guess the wait was worth it because I bring you 7k words of pure sin. My content warnings have never been this long before, and that's probably not a good sign (or it's a very, very good sign)

Tagging my wonderful @farfromstrange because you also inspired me to finish this, and our horny enthusiasm for this fic kept me going, ily sm girl 🖤

As you knelt in front of the altar on your hands on knees with tears in your eyes and the Devil himself between your legs, you wondered how you had gotten yourself into this predicament. 

It had started out so innocent: dear Matthew asking you to go to mass with him, swaying you with his plea of "I don't want to go alone, sweetheart, please" and that drowned puppy look in his eyes. For someone who couldn't see out of them, Matt could express a great deal of emotion in his eyes. 

You agreed to accompany him to Sunday morning mass and returned the victorious grin that had spread across his face with a fond one of your own. You weren't usually one for religious settings like this, but it was worth it to see Matt in that black suit with the white dress shirt—one of your favorite outfits on Matt. 

Half of the sermon fell on your deaf ears as most of your attention was on Matt, studying his gorgeous side profile and that stubbled jawline that you loved kissing when he fucked you. God, it felt even better between your legs. The thought of that sent heat flaring across your body as you squeezed your thighs together. 

Besides you, Matt cleared his throat quietly, nudging you in your side, undoubtedly guessing where your thoughts had gone. A faint blush rose to your cheeks when you saw that Matt's jaw was clenched tightly, a sign you had come to know meant that he was trying to control himself. The sight of that only spurred on further thoughts of Matt losing control and fucking you right there. 

Matt let out a quiet but ragged breath, and you knew he could smell the arousal between your thighs. His grip on his cane was so tense that his knuckles had turned white, his scars visible against his trembling fist. Your mouth went dry as you remembered those knuckles buried inside of you as you moaned for him just a few nights ago. Thighs clenching even tighter together, you bit back a grin at Matt's low hiss of your name. 

Subtly, Matt adjusted his pants next to you, and the discomfort on his face made you stifle a laugh. The quiet growl Matt rumbled in warning did nothing to dissuade you. You could feel the heat of Matt's body pressed against yours and bit your lip, recalling how it felt against your bare skin. 

Your fingers started to creep towards Matt's thigh, lightly skimming up and down the side of those muscular thighs that always caged you in when he knelt on top of you in bed. Faster than you could blink, Matt's hand flew towards you and caught your wrist in his tight grip. 

"Not here, for God's sake," he hissed in your ear. 

"Funny you'd phrase it like that," you murmured in amusement. 

Matt turned to glare at you behind his opaque red glasses, but the way he had to fold his hands across his lap to maintain some semblance of his Good Catholic Boy image in church (which you had come to realize was a total façade) told you he wanted it as much as you did. 

You should probably listen to him and stop before anything happened. What was the punishment for getting handsy in God's house again? You had a feeling you didn't want to know. 

But there was the slight thrill of excitement shooting through you at the risk of doing this in pubic. A sly grin slid across your lips as you tilted your head towards Matt's ear, letting your hair fall forward in a way that would seem to onlookers as though you were merely whispering something to him. Instead, you nipped at his neck right below his ear where you knew he was sensitive. Matt's entire form, every inch of thick muscle and power stiffened at the contact, and you heard him give the smallest, tinniest groan that no one other than you would be able to hear.  

Matt growled your name in warning, but there was no denying the lust burning in his dark eyes. His blank gaze had landed somewhere around your lips, and you wondered if he really was going to give into desire and kiss your right there. 

But then everyone started to rise around them to sing the closing songs, and the sudden movement snapped both of you out of whatever horny haze you had been in. You stood like everyone else, shoulders pressed together, forced to ignore the blatant lust coiling in both of you.

For now.

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"I'm going out," Matt whispered to you sometime late at night as you laid curled in bed with a book in hand while the shadow of the Devil stood behind you. 

At his words, you shut your book and rolled over to face him, eyes roving over the skin-tight black suit through which you could practically see every single ab. His black mask was held in one hand while the other came up to cradle your face gently. As much was you enjoyed Matt in his black lawyer suit, you decided that you enjoyed Matt even more in his black Devil suit when you could run your fingers across his broad chest and feel the almost burning heat of his skin underneath. 

You tilted your head up to study Matt's face. Whenever his mask was on, cloaking so much of his face in black, he felt like a phantom shadow that could disappear if you closed your eyes for a second too long. There was something sharp and fiery and dangerous about him.

You didn't mind of course. In actuality, you enjoyed it—enjoyed the danger of dancing with the Devil. 

"Okay," you said, sitting up to press a kiss to his soft lips. "Stay safe." 

"I will," he murmured, brushing his calloused fingers across your temple. "Stay in the apartment. Wait for me when I get back." 

You knew that voice—that low, possessive tone that dripped with promise for what was to come. A knowing smirk flitted across your lips as you hooked your legs around his waist to pull him nearer. "Yeah?" you challenged. "And what are you going to do when you get back?" 

Matt chuckled softly, and even though the mask was off, that sound right there was purely the Devil speaking. "Oh sweetheart," he purred. "That's only for me to know, isn't it?" 

That low, raspy voice he used rekindled that fiery want that had burned so dangerously in you hours earlier. By the time Sunday morning mass had been over, Foggy and Karen had called you both over for lunch in the office. The rest of the day had went by as normal with neither of you acknowledging what had transpired in the church outside of his promising smirks and your light, teasing touches ghosting across his body. 

Now, however, with the Devil ready to be unleashed, there was nothing stopping that eager, burning desire rearing its head in both of you.

Nothing except Matt's duty to the city. 

Fucking morals. You could just stay with me in bed, you thought about telling him. You might even be able to cajole him into staying if you could rile him up enough.

But no. You understood Matt's commitment to Hell's Kitchen even if you weren't too fond of the fact he got beat up every night. Still, it would be cruel to ask him to stop what he did just for you, just so he could hear the cries of those who needed him going unanswered in the merciless shadow of the night.

You weren't above asking for a little taste of his promise, however. "Tell me," you begged softly. "Tell me what you want to do to me."

That sharp grin was still on his face. "When I come back," Matt whispered in your ear, "I am going to fuck you into this mattress so hard that you won't be able to keep quiet." His fingers danced down the nape of your neck lightly, and you shivered. "And you're going to be screaming my name so loud, so everyone can hear who you belong to." 

"Oh my God," you whimpered, eyes rolling back at the promise. That heat coiling in your stomach lashed out across your body, spreading through you like a wildfire. It pooled between your thighs, making you clench them tightly together with a soft moan. "Matthew." 

The devilish smile that spread across his lips was absolutely sinful, a promise of the night to come. "But," he rumbled in your ear, his hand reaching down to grasp your wrist as he had in church. "You are not to touch yourself until I come back. Do you understand?" 

You whimpered again. 

"I said," Matt growled, "do you understand me?" 

"Yes," you whined. "But God, Matt, please...I can't wait that long, Matt, please—" 

"You will," he said sharply, "or you'll be punished." He released his harsh hold on your wrist and brought his hand up to trail lightly across your cheek, his tenderness a stark contrast to his rough dominance a few seconds ago. "You can do that for me, can't you, sweetheart? Can't you be a good girl for me? Can't you be a good girl and wait for me to get back to fuck you?" 

Fuck, not the praise. 

Your head fell backwards with a small shuddering moan, eyes falling shut as your thighs squeezed tightly together, a desperate motion to ease the ache in your core. "Matt," you whimpered. "Please." 

His low laugh breezed across your cheek, and Matt's hand disappeared from your cheek. "Be good," came his stern order, and then the radiant heat from Matt's body vanished, leaving you panting and desperate.

By the time your eyes had snapped open, the Devil was gone, melting back into the shadows into the night. 

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You tried. 

Oh God, you truly tried. 

You laid there in bed, body burning with desperate need as you tried not to think about what Matt was planning to do to you lest your predicament worsen. 

You tried to read. You rolled onto your stomach and flipped your book back open, trying to pick up where you left off. It did no good—the words wouldn't permeate the fog of sinful thoughts swarming in your head that screamed Matt, Matt, Matt. 

You thought about disobeying Matt and touching yourself, just to relieve some of that pressure building between your legs but quickly dismissed the idea. Matt would know if you did—he would smell the scent of your arousal on your fingers and instantly know what you had done. Even though the prospect of his punishment was excitement, tonight you didn't think you could stand his merciless teasing. You needed him desperately. 

Eventually, after nearly an hour of lying there, you got out of bed and slipped your shoes on. You would go for a walk around the neighborhood, you decided. The fresh air would help clear your head and calm yourself down. 

At least that's what you told yourself you would say if a certain Devil caught your scent and chased you down. 

And if you were really just hoping that said Devil really would catch your scent...well, that was no one's business, was that? 

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In an interesting twist of irony, you made it as far as the gates of Clinton Church before he caught up with you. 

You thought you had heard him behind you several times as you walked, and you knew he must have been letting you hear his small footsteps and scuffles on purpose. If he wanted to, Matt could move like a giant Devilish cat, leaping across rooftops thought the dark in absolute silence. 

But then you paused in front of the church, staring at the stained glass windows through which you could see the dark interior as you thought about that morning. You didn't even noticed the church doors slowly creeping open in front of your, too caught up in your thoughts. 

Suddenly, a strong arm snaked around your waist and yanked you through the doors into the dark church. The startled gasp that flew from your lips at the quick movement was quickly stifled by a large hand over your mouth, but you weren't afraid. You could feel the familiar, broad line of muscle pressed against your back, his body heat that always burned so warm a comforting feeling after the cold New York air. 

"I told you to wait for me," a low voice hissed in your ear. 

You bit back a grin, the tingle of excitement in your stomach growing stronger. "I was just going out for a walk," you said innocently. 

He growled behind you and dragged you towards the altar through the rows of empty pews. As your feet stumbled along, your eyes darted around the dark interior, sweeping for any sign of company. You shouldn't have been worried though—Matt had far more effectively scoped out the inside already to make sure no one else was there. 

"Kneel," Matt ordered when they reached the altar. 

You obeyed, dropping to your knees in front of the wooden table. The cloth that usually draped across it was absent tonight—perhaps being cleaned or for some other reason. It didn't matter. All that mattered right now was the man pressed against your back. 

"You've been a bad girl tonight," Matt mused, his chest vibrating against your back when he spoke. 

"Well, you were taking so long, so I thought I'd come find you," you replied sweetly, unable to keep the grin off your face this time. 

Matt hadn't told you that you could move, so you kept still in the position he had ordered you in—kneeling in front of the altar facing forward away from the warm frame of muscle and power at your back. Your eyes turned, almost automatically, up towards the massive statue of Jesus hanging from the cross as you silently wondered if Matt really was planning on taking your right in front of that statue. You decided you wouldn't mind if he did. 

Behind you, you could hear Matt pacing quietly, purposefully keeping out of your line of sight. He made a tsking noise. "So impatient," he tutted. "Perhaps I need to teach you the virtue of patience, don't you think, sweetheart?" 

You licked your lips slowly. "What does this lesson on patience include, sir?" you asked, emphasizing the last word with a smirk. 

His sharp inhale carried to your ears, and your grin widened. Your goal tonight was to rile Matt up enough that he would either forget about your disobedience or not care. So far, the plan was going great.

Then, his hand fisted in your hair and yanked your head back. Matt's burning form reappeared, pressed flushed against your back. His hot breath was in your ear suddenly, growling, "I want you to take these off—" his finger curled in the waistband of your pants and snapped them against your waist "—and get on your hands and knees."

When you didn't move at first, he landed a sharp hit to your clothed ass. You yelped, and his hand darted up to cover your mouth.

"Move, sweetheart," he ordered lowly. "And keep quiet. We don't want anyone hearing us here, do we?"

"No," you panted even though you weren't sure if you were telling the truth. His hand released your hair, and you scrambled to obey him, peeling off your jeans and tossing them aside before kneeling how he told you to. The position felt oddly exposed—you could feel cold air breezing across your naked legs and shivered.

"That's better," Matt murmured behind you. His bare hand—when had he taken off the gloves?—brushed against the back of your thigh, and you whimpered, instinctively pressing back against him. This time, when his hand came down your ass, you didn't have the denim of your jeans to protect you. The sound of his hand against the thin material of your panties echoed with a sharp crack through the church. You had to bring a hand up to fist in your mouth to keep quiet from the sting.

"So." He trailed a finger across the back of your thighs lazily, occasionally dipping them down to slide along the soaked fabric of your panties, taking pleasure in each of your hitched breathes. "You want to explain what that was about earlier?"

"I was just going for a walk," you whimpered, desperately arching back into him, but his fingers disappeared the moment you did. The next second, another sharp smack landed on your ass, jolting you forward with a small gasp.

"That's not what I was asking, and you know it," Matt said calmly. "I was talking about this morning."

A feeling of something—you didn't know what that was—ran down your spine, and you shivered, heart rate picking up at the memory of your little dalliance during mass.

"I don't know," you breathed.

Your heart skipped. Lie.

Another harsh strike landed on your ass. "You do."

"Fuck, Matt," you nearly cried, "please!"

"What are you asking for, hm?" Matt murmured, running a large palm over your stinging ass. "Tell me, sweetheart."

"Touch me, fuck me, anything," you begged. "Please, Matt, I've waited so long."

"Then you can wait a little more, can't you?"

"No," you panted, trying not to move, your body on fire. "Matt, please!"

He gave a thoughtful hum, fingers teasing you lightly through the thin fabric of your panties. Your hips bucked back instantly, a sharp whine leaving your throat at the touch. You tried to grind against his hand, but he yanked it away with a low, almost mocking chuckle.

"You've been naughty today, sweetheart," Matt purred. "Having such unholy thoughts in church—don't think I didn't know what you were thinking about. Tell me what were you imagining, hmm?"

Heat rose to your face, melting right along with the fire raging across the rest of your body. "I don't know," you stammered.

"Lie," Matt said, his voice darkly amused. His hand slid underneath your jaw and tilted your head back, so he could press his lips to the shell of your ear. "Were you thinking about me fucking you, sweetheart?"

A ragged moan fell from your mouth, a pulse of heat running across your spine. You let your head fall back against Matt's shoulder, arching back against him. The hand gripping your jaw stroked your cheek gently, a glimpse of softness underneath his dominating exterior.

"Please," you begged quietly. "I need it, Matt. I'll do anything, please..."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

He let out a quiet, considering noise, his fingers absently stroking your jaw with a gentleness that you had come to know precede the roughness. You whimpered quietly, begging him in your head to hurry up and do whatever the fuck he wanted to do so he could just fuck you already. Your body was aching with need, that fire in your raging to be satisfied.

"How well do you remember the Lord's Prayer?" Matt asked you abruptly.

You blinked in surprise. "T-the Lord's Prayer?"

"Yes."

"Um...kind of?" you said uncertainly. "Haven't done it since middle school." You felt the breath from his quiet laughter skate across your earlobe and twitched in anticipation of whatever he had planned.

"Here's what's going to happen," he said slowly, his tone dipping back down into the low timber of his Devil voice, the one that always sent shivers down your spine. "You're going to recite it for me as penance for your sins."

"I didn't—"

"Thinking about the Devil fucking you in church is a sin, sweetheart," Matt cooed. "You're going to need to repent if you want to get what you want."

"Y-you want me to pray."

"Yes."

"Right here. Kneeling in my panties. With you at my back, half grinding on my ass."

A sharp swat landed on your ass. "Hmm, it seems more like you were the one grinding on me," he chuckled lowly, dragging his finger along the seam of your underwear. "As for the panties, God might mind, but I don't think the Devil does. In fact, he prefers you praying like this. Go on, sweetheart. Say your prayer, and maybe I'll think about giving you what you want."

You drew in a shaky breath, trying to clear your head away from thoughts of Matt, fuck me already and remember the words of the prayer. This actually wasn't so bad, you decided. It was a bit of a weird request to pray, kneeling at the altar in soaked panties, but it was fine. All you had to do was recite the prayer, and then hopefully, Matt would be satisfied and finally give in to you.

Oh, how wrong you were.

"Okay," you started to say, the vaguely remembered words coming to the tip of your tongue. "Um...Our Father...who art in heaven...hallowed be...thy name?"

"Keep going," Matt purred in your ear, his hands sliding down from your face to lightly grip your throat for a brief moment, enjoying your shaky groan at the contact. He pushed you back down onto your hands and knees, hand running down to your waist and dragging sensually across your hips.

Whimpering at the touch, you bit your lip and forced the next words out. "Y-your kingdom come....and, um....your will be done—Matt, what are you—?"

For he had just hooked his fingers in the waistband of your panties and started to slide them down your hips. Your breath caught in your throat at the way the fabric slid against your most sensitive areas. "Don't worry about me," he murmured. "Just lift your legs up for me—there you go. Continue."

What the actual fuck? Did he honestly expect you to be even close to okay after that? He slid your panties completely free of your legs, leaving your soaked heat bare to him. You whimpered at the barely there brush of his fingers against your inner thigh, just a few inches away from where you ached for him most.

"Continue, sweetheart," Matt ordered.

You tried to take another deep breath and continue where you'd left off. "Okay, um...will be done...on—on Earth as it is in Heaven. Uh...give us this day our—fucking hell, Matthew—oh my God, fuck!"

You lurched forward, a strangled cry falling from your lips when you felt Matt's mouth suddenly close around your dripping cunt, tongue lashing mercilessly against your clit so fast and so sharp it nearly hurt. He kept up the torturous pace for a few seconds while you writhed and moaned, pleasure striking like lightning between your legs and arcing up to your back and across your legs. His mouth on you was both a remedy and fuel to the desperate need that had been kindling there all night. Your hands clawed at the carpet underneath you, fire burning across every nerve in your body as you shuddered and cried out for him.

Then, as suddenly as it came, his mouth vanished from your cunt in a heartbeat, and you were left just as empty and desperate as you were a few seconds ago.

"No!" you choked out, voice thick with fading pleasure and need as you tried to grind back against him uselessly. "Matt, please!"

He didn't answer your plea for a few moments, instead dragging his tongue across his lips and moaning softly as the taste of you. God, you were perfection to him, you always were. Matt wanted nothing more than to dive back between your legs and drink from you until you had nothing left to give him.

But half the enjoyment of the catch was the chase, and Matt was not done teasing you yet. He laughed darkly, landing another slap to your ass, gentler this time but no less firm. "I told you to pray, sweetheart," he reminded you. "I told you to pray and repent for your sins. And what do you do? Be a filthy little girl and start moaning for me? In God's house? What a dirty little girl you are."

Your mouth fell open at the sheer audacity of this man to accuse you of such a thing when he just fucking ate you out right in front of the altar. Still, there was no hiding the shudder that rolled through you at his words, and Matt gripped your hips firmer.

"You're going to finish your prayer," Matt ordered. "No matter what happens, and then we'll see if you deserve to get fucked."

"'No matter what happens?'" you repeated in a choked whisper. "Are you—you're not actually going to—"

Another hard hit landed on your ass, the sting only feeding the fire threatening to consume you. "Pray, sweetheart," Matt ordered. "Can't you follow a simple command?"

You swallowed thickly. "Y-yes, I can."

"Good. Then continue."

You whimpered softly, squeezing your eyes shut as you tried to ignore the burning, aching need for him between your legs. Where had you even left off on the prayer?

"Give us this day our daily bread," you stammered out. "And—um—forgive us our— oh God!"

Because fuck, his mouth was on you again, hungrily lapping at your cunt as you bucked against him desperately. His hot tongue dragged across your clit, and burning pleasure was scorching every inch of your skin. You threw back your head with a wanton moan when Matt circled the sensitive bud with a quick swipe of tongue that had you writhing in his firm grip.

"Matt!" you cried, molten heat rolling across every nerve in your body. Your hands curled against the carpet, desperately grasping for something to hold on to, to brace you against the raging fire licking at your insides.

Matt paused in his motions, pulling his mouth away for a second, but his finger came to replace his tongue, drawing languid circles on your clit that had you rolling your hips in desperation.

"I told you to pray," he told you again, quiet warning in his voice. "Don't make me remind you again."

A strangled noise fell from your lips. "Y-you keep eating me out, and you want me to pray?" you squeaked.

You didn't have to look back to know he had that feral grin on his lips, the one that always drove you insane. "Oh sweetheart, that was the plan from the beginning."

And his deliciously thick finger plunged into you with a sinfully slick noise that seemed to echo through the empty church like a reminder of the blasphemy taking place at the altar, and then you were writhing, whining, whimpering as Matt fucked you slowly with his middle finger. His purposefully slow, deliberate strokes had you moaning so loud, you thought anyone passing by the church might hear you. Each thrust of his finger inside of you stoked that deep, festering pleasure that burned in your very core, making you arch and cry out to a God too ashamed to answer you.

That was okay, you thought through a thick haze of pleasure. You didn't need God to answer you. You needed the Devil to fuck you.

Matt groaned, his eyes rolling back at the smell of your arousal. He dragged his tongue over his lips, bringing the delicious taste of you from the air into his mouth, heat rippling through him at that new sensation. Painfully hard and throbbing in his pants, Matt panted, desperately drawing another breath in just to drag more of your taste into him. You were exquisite. You were perfect, his good little girl, making such pretty noises for him. You were everything he needed and so much more.

His thumb dragged across your sensitive clit, sending jolts of fiery pleasure stabbing through you as that pressure started to build in your lower abdomen, fire coiling into a tight rope, ready to snap. And oh, there it was, sweet orgasm dancing within reach, so close but so far away. Half sobbing, you arched against him, desperately trying to get him to fuck you faster.

But then Matt's fingers withdrew suddenly, leaving you empty and aching, slick dripping down your thighs as a harsh sob left your chest. The burning edge of orgasm was already fading away. "Matt," you cried, "please! Please, Matt, please, you've been teasing me for so long—"

"Isn't that what you wanted?" he snarled, his hand fisting in your hair to yank your head back, so his lips were right against your ear. "Don't act like you didn't want this, you dirty little girl."

A wanton moan slipped from your mouth before you could stop it, before you could register the embarrassment. "I wanted you to fuck me," you groaned. "I need it, Matt, please."

Abruptly, he released his grip on your hair but not before delivering another harsh swat to your ass. "You want me to fuck you? Then do as I say," he commanded. "I gave you an order, sweetheart, and you still haven't followed it. You better finish that prayer before I decide to give you another punishment for not listening."

"I—I don't—"

Another hit to your ass. "Did you not hear me?" Matt growled, his voice all rough edges and heated ash drifting across your skin. "Or do you just enjoy being a brat?"

This, you thought vaguely, this should be embarrassing. The way he degraded you, the way he called you his dirty little girl, his brat—if it had been any other man, you would've beat the shit out of him. But oh, it was him, it was your Matt, it was your Devil whispering filthy words to you, and every single syllable sent another pulse of heat rolling through you like molten lava.

"This is your last warning," Matt said lowly. "Finish your prayer now, or I'll give you another punishment."

Your brain scrambled to comprehend what he was saying, or at least some part of your brain that hadn't shut down, that wasn't giving in to primal instinct to beg Matt to fuck you. Where the fuck had you even left off?

"...F-forgive us our trespasses as we forgive...our—no, uh, those who trespass against us. And, um, lead us not into temptatio—ah, Matt!"

God, this time it was two of his wonderfully thick fingers pushing into you abruptly, thick heat pulsing through you. Your hips bucked against him instinctively, seeking moremoremore. The words of the prayer died on your tongue, replaced by shameless whimpers and moans as Matt dragged them out slowly and then shoved them back in a harsh thrust, the tips of his fingers barely grazing that spot, deep inside of you. Desperate, keening cries tumbled from your mouth as you threw your head back, gasping and whining.

You—oh God—you needed more. Hot pleasure wormed its way through your body, consuming every other thought until you were left with nothing but primal, wanton need. Your arms trembled as you barely held yourself up, cunt throbbing around Matt's fingers achingly.

This time, when Matt pulled your hair back and snarled in your ear, his fingers didn't leave you. Instead, they continued their torturously slow pace even as he purred, "Finish the goddamn prayer, sweetheart, and don't make me ask again."

You knew better than to protest the unfairness of him making you recite a prayer while he fucked you on his fingers in front of the altar. You could barely summon a thought that wasn't fuck me, Matt, please, but you managed to choke out the next line.

"Deliver us from evil," you sobbed even as Matt brushed his thumb across your clit again, making you jolt at the sharp pleasure racing along the bud of sensitive nerves. "I—ah!—don't know the rest—" you stammered, desperate to reach the end.

"Lie," he chuckled in your ear. "Lie one more time, and that prayer is going to be the least of your problems, sweetheart."

Your head fell back against his hand, eyes falling shut as your needy whimpers echoed along the church walls. His fingers had picked up pace, and now Matt pressed them deep enough to just ever so slightly brush against your g-spot. Even that brief, barely there contact was enough to have you dripping and throbbing on his fingers.

"Finish it," Matt cooed in your ear. "Come on, honey, you're so close."

In both ways, you thought distantly in your muddled mind. "Please!" you cried.

"Finish the last bit, and you can come," he promised.

Well, that changed things. Spurred on by his vow, you blinked harshly, trying to put aside the scorching pleasure arcing through your body for a second.

"For the—the kingdom and—uh something about power and glory—is yours, uh, nowandforeveramen," you rushed out, squeezing your eyes shut, and begging, begging that it was good enough for Matt.

"Hmm," he hummed, considering. Should he make you redo that last bit? Technically it wasn't correct, and how he would love to hear you cry for him if he made you repeat it. But then you ground your hips back, trying to fuck yourself on his fingers with a strangled cry of "please, sir!" And oh, how he could deny that?

Matt didn't reply, but you heard him shifting behind you, the rhythm of his fingers pausing for a second. A half sobbed plea was forming on your lips, but it was chased away in a heartbeat when the glorious wet heat of Matt's mouth closed around your cunt again.

Sinfully loud moans and gasps tore from your throat, your head falling forward. Fiery pleasure almost too much to handle burned between your legs, coursing up through your entire body until your toes were curling and your hands gripping the carpet. Matt lapped at your clit like a man starved, all while his fingers resumed their motions, finally picking up pace, settling into a fast rhythm you so desperately needed.

You were racing towards your climax at a speed that would've been embarrassing if Matt hadn't been edging you all night. "Please," you choked out, tears streaming down your face from the sheer intensity of it all. "Please, Matt, you said I could come, I need it, please—"

And his hand that was holding on to you squeezed your hip, and that was all the confirmation you needed. Wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking, Matt curled his fingers inside of you just right, pressing down on that spot, and then you just fell. Off that high cliff you had been dancing to and from for the entire night.

The plummet was truly something else: your back arched, and a ragged cry—almost scream—was falling from your mouth, incoherent noises and words reaching Matt's ears as orgasm surged over you like a tidal wave, knocking you off your feet and dragging you under into a blanket of blissful oblivion. You swore you saw stars popping in the corners of your blurry vision, so much white-hot pleasure burning through you, it was almost incomprehensible.

Matt slowed the drag of his fingers but kept up soft little kitten licks on your clit as you came down until you were twitching and whimpering from the oversensitivity. But he didn't wait for you to fully recover before continuing.

In one swift move, he flipped you over into your back, and you got a glimpse of his powerful form leaning over you, his flushed face, his straining bulge in his pants, his lust-filled eyes burning into you before his mouth crashed against yours in a fiery kiss.

You could practically feel his hunger devouring you from that kiss from the way he claimed your lips, hot tongue pressing into your mouth the second you opened to him. His teeth lightly nipped your bottom lip, and your moan was swallowed by his tongue sliding against yours. Matt groaned into your mouth, his hips grinding down against you.

"Matt," you whined when he broke the kiss to let you come up for air. "Please, I need you."

He growled, the hungry sound nothing short of feral as he dipped his head to suck at your neck. The hot embrace of his mouth at your throat had you keening, tilting your head back for more, which he gave you, his teeth grazed the delicate, vulnerable skin. A low hum rippled through his form before he suddenly sank his teeth into your neck, nipping you hard enough to leave a mark. You gasped, body involuntarily arching up into him as Matt dragged his tongue over the spot he had bit as if soothing it.

"Wanna mark you, sweetheart," he moaned into your neck. "So they know who you belong to."

Jesus fucking Christ. This man was going to be the death of you.

"Fuck me," you begged. "I want it, Matt, please. Mark me, fuck me, make me yours."

Another feral snarl rumbled deep in his chest, and then suddenly, you were lifted up into the air before your back hit a cold, stone table.

Did he just put you on the fucking altar?

You didn't have time to think about that, however, because Matt was hurriedly unbuckling his pants, and the only thought left in your head was finally. Eagerly, you helped him shove those goddamn pants off his hips, licking your lips at the sight of his straining cock in his boxers before you yanked those down too, reveling in Matt's soft whimper. His cock was painfully hard, the tip bright red and slick with his precum that dripped down his throbbing length. The mere sight of his gorgeous cock had you clenching your thighs together as you wrapped your hand around his thigh girth, stroking him softly. The throaty moan of your name he let out sent shivers racing down your spine.

"Sweetheart," he groaned, eyes falling shut.

"Please," you whined, "I need you, Matt. I need you inside me."

"Fuck," he breathed, and his fingers curled around your hips, yanking you forward suddenly. With a gasp, you were dragged across the altar until your legs could wrap around Matt, who was standing right between between thighs, all that thick, powerful muscle cradled between your legs. Matt lined his cock up with your entrance and brought his hand out to cradle your face. "I want to hear you scream for me," he ordered. "I want everyone to hear who you belong to."

You whimpered, nodding frantically. "I—yes, Matt, yes, just please—just fuck me, Matt."

Even like this, flushed, panting, and as obviously needy as you were, he could still manage that cocky smirk as his finger brushed across your lips. "You asked for it," he chuckled and finally, finally pushed himself into you, inch by burning inch.

Your eyes rolled back into your head, your mouth falling open as slowly, he slid his thick length into you, the stretch of him in your cunt welcome after the emptiness of so long. "Matt," you moaned when he finally bottomed out, his ragged groan matching your own. God, he was so big, so thick, seated deep inside of you. His burning body molded perfectly against you, the endless expanse of lean muscle and soft skin glorious underneath your roaming hands.

"You feel so good, sweetheart," he panted, dragging his cock out slowly and sliding back in, his leisure pace driving you mad. "Ah!—fuck—you're so tight, baby."

"Want you," you moaned, arching into him. "Want you to fuck me. Fuck me the way I know you want to, Matt, please."

He let out another ragged groan, the hand cradling your cheek moving down to wrap around your throat, not squeezing but just holding for the time being. "Y-yeah?" he stuttered, trying to sound rough and in control but failing as he swallowed down another eager moan. You loved watching him like this, watching the way he fell apart in front of you, all because of you. "And what's that?"

You wrapped your legs around Matt's hips to let him grind deeper into your cunt, matching his heady pant with a needy whimper of your own. "Y-you wanna fuck me hard," you moaned out. "Could feel it, Matt, could feel the way you want it. Please, I—I can take it, I need you to—oh fuck!—fuck me rough. Take me, Matt, please."

His growl rumbled deep in his throat, and the large hand gripping your throat squeezed just once. Matt dipped his head down to place a kiss on your lips, sweet and gentle one last time as he purred against your mouth.

Then, he braced his other hand next to your head on the altar, and when he dragged his hips back, this time he returned to you with a vicious snap of his hips, slamming his cock back into you. A strangled gasp flew from your mouth as your hands scrambled against the altar surface beneath you, trying to find something to hold onto.

But there was nothing, nothing other than you and Matt and the fast, rough, almost brutal pace he set as he drove himself into you again and again. This pleasure was so much deeper and stronger than before, each delicious drag of his cock against your slick cunt sending sparks careening through your body until your brain felt overloaded with bliss. The sounds you two were making were nothing short of downright filthy: the slap of skin on skin as Matt's hips collided with your thighs, the slick noise of his cock gliding through your obscene wet cunt, the sinfully loud moans falling from both of your lips.

Matt's grip on your throat tightened when you clenched around his cock, and he growled, the sound thick and hazy with lust and need. He picked up his pace even more, fucking you so hard you knew you were going to feel it tomorrow, but you didn't give a shit. Worth it, in your opinion, if it came from Matt Murdock railing you like this.

"Matt," you slurred, half drunk on the pleasure he gave you. He stroked your jaw with his thumb, his blank eyes, dark with arousal and lust, focused somewhere around your lips.

"Fuck, sweetheart," he panted, his hips driving into you with animal-like need. "Y-you feel so good. So wet, so tight just for me. You sound so—fucking pretty getting fucked on my cock."

You whined, writhing beneath him even as his hand not gripping your throat pressed against your waist to hold you down. Every goddamn nerve in your body was screaming, burning, scorching with the pleasure that rolled across your body in throbbing waves. Matt adjusted his grip on your waist, lifting you up every so slightly but oh at that perfect angle that let him hit your g-spot with each thrust of his hips.

Your high moan, pitched almost at a scream, was the result as mind numbing pleasure sparked between your thighs with each harsh thrust. You clenched tighter around Matt, spurring his frantic thrusts on until he was pounding into you at a pace close to brutal, the obscene squelch of his cock diving into your soaked cunt echoing around you like an unholy melody, the chorus being your screams.

Matt leaned over you, panting roughly. You could smell the sweet scent of musk and sex in the air and see the way his pink mouth parted with each heavy breath against your throat. He lowered his head to drag along your cheek until his lips were pressed against your ear.

"Come for me, sweetheart," he groaned. "I can feel you, you're almost there." And you were for the second time that night, you could feel the cloud of your orgasm hovering right above you, pushed closer and closer by each brutal stroke of his cock inside of you.

"Come on, honey, come on my cock," Matt ordered, and you whined. "You're taking my cock so well, all you have to do is come for me. Be my good little girl and come all over my fucking cock."

That was all you needed. Your back arched off the altar, your hands shot out to grab desperately at Matt, your eyes squeezed shut, and your head was thrown back in absolute bliss. This time, orgasm rolled over you slower than the first time but even more intense. It scorched its way through every nerve ending in your body, consuming you like a blanket of fiery heat, making your vision go white. Distantly, you heard yourself scream—actually scream—as you descended into a blank state of pure, utter pleasure.

You could feel Matt's pace growing sloppy and frantic, short, desperate thrusts as he panted and groaned louder and louder until his hips stuttered against yours, and the most beautiful moan you had ever heard left his lips. He emptied himself into you, and you felt his hot seed spilling deep inside of your cunt even as Matt continued to grind into your tightness until every last drop of his spent was buried inside of you. He slumped over your body on the altar, both of your chests heaving in sync as you came down from your highs together.

Finally, Matt lifted his head from your chest and peered at you with his lovely dark eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked uncertainly. "Was that too much?"

You cradled his face in your hands, marveling how this wonderful, wonderful man was yours. "It was perfect," you promised, kissing him sweetly. "It's never too much. I love you, Matt."

"Hmm," he hummed contently into your mouth. "I love you so much, sweetheart. You're sure you're okay?"

"Oh I am absolutely glowing, Matthew. If I had known this is what you meant when you said you wanted me to come to church with you, I would've came ages ago."

═══════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ═══════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘═══════ ∘◦ ❈ ◦∘ ════════

AN: It's been a hot second since I've written full blown smut, so forgive me if it's kinda rusty. Although I feel like I should be asking forgiveness for this whole fic soooo 🤷‍♀️ I wanna say I need to go to church after writing this, but the last time I was in church, I came up with the most unholy smut fic idea ever, so maybe not a good idea (maybe it'll inspire another one though)

If you enjoyed, please remember to like, comment, and reblog! 🖤

My Matt Murdock Masterlist

[hades-in-bloom]

Al Dente

Leon S. Kennedy x Reader

summary: he might be of Italian descent, but he still can’t nail cooking pasta.

warnings & contents: assumed older Leon, but could be of any period; assumed age gap, but could be none; reader could be of any gender; fluff with attitude and smth that could be considered a prelude with grabbing and kisses; mentions of drinking; no pasta recipes, really, just stupid banter; a little bit of manhandling

a/n: am not Italian, so please let me know if I’ve committed any blasphemy. Also, this is one silly piece of writing because I’m de-stressing and can’t write anything serious, but am also obsessed with Leon tapping into his Italian descent. As always, proceed with caution and at your own risk; minors DNI! Masterlist

***

‘Oh, I swear…’ Leon mumbled, taking a look into the deep cylindrical pot that was cooking on the stove; the water boiling merrily. Kennedy sighed; he got distracted for a few minutes while taking a call from D.S.O.—which seemed enough for a batch of pasta to turn into goo.

Again.

Leon huffed out a bad word, lifted the pot from the heat, and dropped it straight into the sink without any attempt to retrieve its doughy contents. The man cracked open another beer bottle and took a sip, visibly consumed with heavy thoughts; the number of beers had perfectly correlated with the number of unsuccessfully cooked batches of pasta. Although Leon has never encouraged food waste, this time the big and scary D.S.O. agent refused to give up, steadily losing his sobriety with each try.

You watched him suffer for quite a while, half through the bottle of wine yourself—because grabbing popcorn would be too obvious and undoubtedly rude, although the show was getting more entertaining by the minute; Leon’s frustration was evident.

‘How’s it going?’ you hummed from behind his back. You did your best to hide your smirk.

Leon groaned. He knew you were having a laugh; who wouldn't in that situation, anyway.

‘I’d rather shoot a horde of zombies,’ Kennedy mumbled. He took another sip of his beer and hummed, assessing the situation. ‘Also, I'm running out of pasta.’

You were convinced he deserved the roast; however, his genuinely concerned facial expression made you chuckle.

‘Should we take a break?’ you tilted your head slightly, watching his reaction.

‘We?’ Leon raised his eyebrow, giving you a side-eye. ‘I am getting tortured. What exactly are you doing?’

You thought about it briefly; took a sip from your wine glass.

‘I guess I should be qualified as moral support?’ you assumed.

Leon scoffed, then couldn’t hold back a chuckle. He turned around, facing you; his eyes trained on your features then.

‘I bet you don’t know how to cook a proper al dente either.’

‘You bet?’ wine was your liquid courage, so you might have been too venturesome at that moment. Neither of you complained, though. The man of the hour was intrigued. ‘What if I were to cook you the nicest al dente pasta you’ve ever eaten, Kennedy?’

Scott snorted in a friendly manner and folded his arms over his chest.

‘Ever eaten is a bold claim, sweetheart,’ he teased, his smile growing wider. ‘My family were immigrants from Italy, you know that, right?’

You shrugged his comment off light-heartedly.

‘If I lose, I lose, right? And you could claim your prize,’ you smirked. Oh, you had no doubts he was interested.

His gaze bore into yours for a second; then his features relaxed, although you still could see his shoulders tense—you let it slip.

‘Alright, go forth and forward,’ he smirked; his stare spoke volumes. ‘I will start thinking of what you owe me in return when you screw it up.’

You quickly cleaned up the kitchen countertop, allowing clean water to boil one more in the cooking pot while you measured two portions of store-bought pasta.

Leon watched your actions over your shoulder before you felt his large palms on your hips.

‘Nicely done,’ he murmured from under your earlobe.

You knew he wouldn't be able to play fair; he wasn't big on losing, whether major or minor—and you cooking pasta al dente better than him, taking into account his heritage, was a below-the-belt insult to him. Thus, he didn't mind deploying desperate measures.

‘That’s cheating, Kennedy,’ you muttered, putting the batch of pasta into the pot.

‘I don't remember me touching you being against whatever rules,’ he hummed, placing his lips on your neck. Your heartbeat fastened. ‘Fairly, I don't remember us discussing any rules.’

‘You’ll regret it when I win,’ you claimed. Leon glanced into your pot once again. ‘A couple of minutes more…’ You hummed.

‘How do you know the perfect timing?’ he moaned into your ear. You smirked.

‘Who knows, maybe it would be awful…’ you teased, and he shook his head.

‘No, it won’t,’ Leon concluded quickly and, by lifting you up, grabbed you onto his shoulder. You squealed, losing the ground from under your feet, and clung onto his t-shirt from the back in an attempt to keep your balance.

‘Oh, you fiend!’ you watched him turn off the stove before dragging you into the bedroom. ‘That was our dinner!’

‘I think you're right—we should take a break; maybe, we could order pizza…’ he hummed. You groaned in response, helplessly hanging from his height, his hand holding you tight right under your asscheeks.

Leon let you slide from his shoulder onto the mattress in the bedroom, hovering over you in the next second. His lips barely touched yours when he smirked and watched you blush then.

‘…after I finish with the appetizer.’

[skaldish]

Is it normal to not be satisfied in Norse Paganism? Like I do offerings and such but I feel disconnected from the gods and the religion?

Maybe it’s because I’m comparing it to Christianity too much, but there’s no thing of just praying to a god for the sake of it, to talk, there always has to be a practical purpose. And with offerings it just feels transactional to me, like I’m buying a service. I feel like I settled for it because it was the closest thing I could find to what I wanted in a religion, but I’m not really getting what I want out of it.

Should I just be content anyhow?

No, of course not! You don't have to settle for dissatisfied, especially not with something as important as your religion/spirituality.

Fortunately, Norse Paganism/Heathenry is so much more than just this strange, transactional dynamic.

Unfortunately, information about "what Heathenry is" is still very inaccessible to anyone outside of Northern Europe. If you're from the Americas like I am, my guess is that you're running into the same issue I ran into when I initially came to Heathenry: The realization that there's very little depth to the things people say are what you do to be Heathen.

The missing piece here is the cultural worldview.

Heathenry actually has no centralized orthodoxy or orthopraxy. There's no doctrines you need to follow, codes of morality you need to adopt, or practices you need to observe. There is no distinction between the sacred or profane, no dualism, no concept of blasphemy, and no concept of sin.

The notion that we need to treat the gods like lords tonserve or paragons to emulate is actually foreign to Heathenry. This mentality has its roots in ancient Roman culture, rather than originating with the Norse people.

Instead, the Norse gods are viewed more like celebrities—that is, celebrated and cherished figures. They're local spirits, folk heroes, and ancestors who organically grew popular and widespread because people liked their energy and their folklore.

Ultimately, kind of relationship you have with deities is between you and them. As in, this is something that grows organically out of your interactions with them. The relationships are built the same as ever.

To illustrate my point: I would hardly call my relationships with the gods "practical." I ask them all kinds of obnoxious questions. I ask them to teach me magic and how/why it works. I ask them to share the secrets of the universe. But most of the time, all I want is to hang out with them.

I'm more like Loki's playmate than I am his devout worshipper. We do bits, we "yes, and—," we egg each other on. I give him offerings, not because I feel like I need to, but because "sharing food with the people important to you" is a love language. He has a dedicated shrine, yes, but that's because I want him to have that space in my life.

I say all this to demonstrate that at the heart of Heathenry is the human condition. The Norse gods don't pretend otherwise.

Ask yourself what kind of relationship you would like with your deities, and approach them with that. And if you don't know? Let it flow naturally in your exchanges with them. Either way, allow yourself to have what it is you need out of your spirituality. It's yours, after all.

[hibischush]

Hello! Have you got any kissing headcanons for Eiland, March, and any romanceable you'd like? Thank you! :3

Ohhhh yes yes I do! I did the "spin the wheel" for the rest of the romanceables because I literally couldn't choose they're all so lovable already. Adeline was the chosen one so I guess we have a sibling special today lmao 🌺

Also, some of these are a bit suggestive, so⚠️minors proceed with caution!⚠️

Eiland

at first I feel like Eiland would be very gentlemanly when kissing you

Like after one of your first few dates he definitely leaned down and kissed your hand

bro is literally courting you like its the regency era

I think that it would take him awhile to gather up to kiss you

But I wholly support the idea that you initiate your first kiss

Like this is an outta-nowhere-unplanned-spontaneous kiss

Because Eiland would be the type to plan out extravagant dates to be memorable

I think you would kiss him for the first time when he's busy explaining (in great depth) the history behind an artifact at the dig sites

His eyes were just so bright and his voice was so animated and passionate and his lips were just

irresistible

You cut him off with a quick chaste kiss and oh man

His expression was priceless

He was so shocked and his face immediately heated up

Eiland was speechless for longer than you expected and you asked if he was okay

"I...yes! Of course! I just..." he pauses, thumbing the bottom of your lip while leaning closer and whispering, "I want to properly kiss you this time, with my full attention."

Once kissing became as natural as breathing air, Eiland kisses you more confidently

He almost always uses one hand to cradle your face and another to pull you closer by the waist

His favorite place to kiss you is your lips, but he is not picky in the slightest

When things heat up, I think he would be a... lip biter

BLASPHEMY I KNOW. A NOBLE LORD SUCH AS EILAND?!

He'd also kiss and nibble on your neck as long as you're fine with it

March

March 100% kisses you before you both are official

Bc he's a silly impulsive little tsudere

and to be clear its obvious that March likes you at this point, and you reciprocate

You want him to bring it up though because he will deny that he likes you lmao

Like you both were hanging out near the fountain in town and the tension is so thick that you could slice through it with a sword

heavy eye contact, fleeting touches, sly comments, etc.

you are breaking this man down

"You are so cute, March," you giggle, shoving him aside playfully

He blushes and pushes you back, almost defensively

"S-shut up. You just don't take me seriously, idiot."

Alright. This guy--

You're tired of his bs

"God, March," you groan, "you want to kiss me so damn bad it makes you look stupid!"

He fumes, before grabbing you by your shoulders and hesitating for a second

before you can say anything, his lips crash against your own

it was short but passionate

"Not so stupid now, huh?"

Anywhoozies

March is a very passionate guy, especially for you

While I believe he is a rough kisser when feeling extra...loving (purely out of desperation btw)

I think his favorite place to kiss you is on your nose 🥺

Especially as goodnight kisses

Adeline

Prefacing this with Adeline is lovely kisser

She always kisses you with purpose and emotion

You're her favorite person, and you help her relax when she can physically love on you

Your first kiss with Adeline was after a nice candlelit dinner after you two had been dating for awhile

Also just another hc I'm going to throw in here:

I think Adeline really enjoys ball room dancing

She used to do it more when she was younger and didn't have to watch over Mistria

So afterwards she asks if you would like to dance (ofc you accept)

While dancing and enjoying such a tender moment with Adeline, you noticed that she faltered and slowed to a stop

You quietly ask her if she was alright, and she looks at you with such warmth it made your heart race

"May I kiss you?"

When you nod your head yes, she smiles, wrapping her arms around your neck, as her eyelids flutter close and she gives you a soft lingering kiss

Afterwards you both kiss often, often short but sweet

Like kisses on the cheek in passing since the both of you are often busy

Adeline loves to kiss you on your cheek!

And she loves to receive kisses on her forehead

When you both have the alone time to be intimate, Adeline kisses you like you're her first breath of air after resurfacing from water lemme tell ya

The pair of you don't get much alone time together so she makes the most of it!

In conclusion, I am in love with them all. I honestly don't know which romanceable I'll go for in my first playthrough, I guess we'll all have to wait until August 5th 🥲

Side note: what is the God in this game. Using "God" just sounds weird as an interjection

[queen-of-scissors]

İn sagau au, genshin,

İf you tell them you have other worlds (games) you visit they are going to call you

THE CREATOR OF THOUSAND WORLDS

İts time for my monthly brainrots with my little to no English.

They are going to give you some cool names based on your personality traits and you cant stop them. İt can be as stupid or as cool as you think they would.

For stupid ones, we have:

-you were having a stroll with Thoma, the boy who is so popular that at one point he had more fans than you (imposter au lol). When you mentioned him that you love animals he HAD to make you meet all of his stray friends. Those little guys always need some attention afterall and maybe getting the divine creators blessings will help them be more lucky in the harsh wild.

(no he is not talking about your acolytes what do you mean?)

"this one reminds me of my favorite villager from animal crossing" you mumbled, not realising he can hear you.

"Animal... What?"he said, confused.

"ah its one of the ga... worlds... İ created."

Thoma looked even more confused. Villagers? Animals??? Animal villagers???? Crossing what???

He realised how you got a bit anxious from the question so he did not pushed you to answer. Maybe it was a touchy subject for you, so you did not want to talk about your own worlds that you created.

But he did talk to others about it, people were exited to know about other worlds, let alone the worlds YOU created! Alot of people tried to understand what that world was about and maybe add the things you like about it in their own world so you will be happier in this world :D

And that is the story on how "animals' lover" became one of your titles. (Zhongli's idea, he tought it should be something that Suits your all loving heart)

-it was a nice day in your abode. Birds were chirping happily to prove your point, the gentle breeze was moving the leaves of the trees as if its dancing with them. Other than that İt was quiet... Too quiet... The realisation of how unusual for your not-so-secret-anymore hiding spot to not be filled with your acolytes and alot of noise while you would be having a nice relaxed tea is sending chills down your spine.

Oh no.. things are usually worse when theyre silent for a long time... You decide to check up on them.

Upon going back inside, it wasnt much hard to guess why they were busy not bothering you, they were on eachothers throats.

As they usually do on their free time.

The first thing you see is Nahida, trying to fix a vase that has been broken, with vines she created from her hand while Trying to desperatly make the other people in the room calm down.

You also see Zhongli and Al haitham, theyre chatting about something and you can see that the atmosphere is tense. You can feel that the only thing from keeping them from eachothers neck is the starter of the fight will look bad infront of you. What an interesting duo huh..

You see Ei, xiao and kujou sara, weapons out, chasing venti. Ah so the culprit was him. Better stop this nonsense as they might just kill the poor bard.

Your voice ecoed down your abode .

"ENOUGH"

And with that the whole caos seem to stop for a moment. Everyone in the room looks at you. Hehe, works everytime.

"Tell me what happened here" you demanded. And they told you the story you already guessed with just a glance through the room. (Poor nahida got scared the most ;;)

Venti was singing your praises, well... Mostly praises, he also used this opportunity to show off how much he is liked by you. Zhongli and Ei got angry, how dare he spit LİES and blasphemy about you and ruin your image?!

Zhongli kept his composure but it wasnt the same for Ei. Al haitham made a remark about his silance and that lead to the convertion you saw them have.

Nahida tried to stop Ei but it only fueled her more. The breaking point was when while venti was singing, and using his power to make affects, he accidently pushed over one of the most expensive ornaments, and told them you would forgive him anyways ehe.

You sighed, "why did this turn into that one scene in DDLC (doki doki litterature club) where Yuri and natsuki fight.."

"Your Grace, please tell us the truth, do you favor this bard more than us?" Ei said in desperation. But all you could see was Yuri, panicing over you not liking the poem more than the others.

Al haitham couldnt act like he didnt hear you, however, "Forgive my interruption... But what is.. DDLC?"

"DDLC... Hmmm... İ think i heard this one" Nahida speaked up. She knows???? Oh god she has been in your computer she knows....

"İf im not mistaken, İts a litterature club that is sentient. They are aware of the creators appearance from the start and theyre... Hmm.. quite friendly with your Grace"

To that, venti panics, "Y... YOU DO NOT FAVOR THEM MORE THAN US DO YOU?!?!"

You blush "WHA- N-NO?! WHAT DO YOU EVEN-"

"Could this be... That they created that world for them to be their courts?" Zhongli thought out loud, clearly more interested in the worlds purpose than the fact that you had lovers in other worlds.

"NO?! Well kinda??? bUT NO İ-" You panic, that WAS a dating simulator afterall, but you downloaded it for the spooks rather than... Well kind of that to.

You hide your face in your hands, somehow, you feel like you are being interrogated rather than interrogating them, "ima pull a sayori if this keeps up" you said between your hands.

Days later, you walk in the streets of Mondstat, and you overheard the rumbling of drunkards that are leaving cat's tail.

"Did youui knoo dat our beloved creto *hic* creted a world.. dats full of deir LOVERS?"

"Maaaannn i wish i was the creatoorr.... Having a whooolleee world as their court?! Now thats something."

"İ think we can call them.... Litterature fucker-"

....... You want to be mad.... But that was funny.

So you call yourself that now :P

Feel free to add your own :D

[whatswrongwithblue]

The Fire in the Sin

Chapter 17 - The Prophetess vs. The Nun

Word count: 7,892. Read on AO3. Series Masterlist. <- Previous Chapter

Summary: Alastor and Mina being the power couple they are. Things get a little messy, in more than one sense of the word.

MIND THE TRIGGER WARNINGS: mind control, mass murder, graphic depictions of cannibalism, graphic depictions of torture, breeding kink (Alastor in rut/Mina in heat), religious/blasphemy kink, semi-public sex, exhibitionism, masturbation, oral (both receiving), monster fucking, tentacle sex, p&v, creampie, double penetration, sex toy/vibrator, squirting.

I can't find the artist for this image. If someone recognizes it, please tell me so I can credit them!

Series Summary:

In the 1950's, Alastor met the woman he would eventually marry but unfortunately his Radio Demon persona went for her soul rather than her hand. He has to learn what it means to love, and cherish, without possessing and he does. Their relationship is beautiful, strong, unbreakable . . . but he carries a dark secret through their marriage for decades until eventually he has to face the consequences of that secret and leave her, without warning, for seven years. He returns, finding her at the Hazbin Hotel, and has to convince her to forgive him, while being literally bound to secrecy, unable to tell her any of things he now is desperate to explain to her.

(This is a duel timeline fic, timestamps will be a the top of every chapter.)

Chapter 17 - The Prophetess vs. The Nun

1984

When Alastor had regained some semblance of control over himself, he returned to the main room of the tower to find Mina sitting at his chair and going through his notes on Kassandra, ready to begin making plans on how to take her down.

Alastor had figured they would just show up and start destroying things but Mina had a more creative and artistic eye when it came to carnage.

Normally he enjoyed working alone. He had his work and she had hers and it worked well for their relationship that those things stayed separate. Only occasionally did they mix work with pleasure but if any situation had ever called for them to be a team, it was this one.

Mina explained to Alaster that while she didn’t necessarily have a “normal” mental connection with Kassandra, where she could possibly push back and invade the other woman’s mind, she had still succeeded in gleaming a sense of personality with the intrusive thoughts that had come along with the possession. Kassandra’s likes and dislikes, her desires, and most importantly, what terrified her.

“Lots of religious trauma with that one,” Mina said, flipping through the many pages Alastor had collected over the last few weeks. “I mean, I could have guessed that. She insulted you and I for being Catholic, even though that made no more sense than insulting herself for being raised in the Church.”

“Ah, the things we hate the most about ourselves is often what we see first in others,” Alastor said.

“She really hates nuns in particular. Must have had some run ins with a few particularly nasty ones.”

“Really? Well that’s interesting,” Alastor said with a smirk. “I think we can have some fun with that one.”

“And food, but I think you already knew that, given her history while she was alive,” Mina said, feeling her own stomach twist at the idea of eating. She still hadn’t been able to get herself to eat anything, although she was getting dreadfully hungry. “I think that’s why she targeted Cannibal Town the way she did. She’s just disgusted by them. Oh, and don’t forget racist. Which I don’t think is a result of any kind of trauma other than being from Texas. Still pisses me off.”

“Well, my dear,” he said with an unbothered grin and placing a kiss between Mina’s ears as he leaned over her from behind. “She won’t be the first white woman this mullato demon will have torn to bits.”  

With a decent exchange of information between them, they were able to formulate a plan, hoping they would be able to act on it by the next morning, depending on how Mina felt. It would have to be perfectly timed; Mina would have to be sure she could stay in control but still feel a small bit of the affects of Kassandra’s blood in her.

Tomorrow morning was Sunday, the day that Kassandra always held her black mass. And only those tainted with her blood could open the front doors of her “church.”

Evening came and Mina still refused to let Alastor take the chains off her but she wanted to sleep in their bed, confident she no longer needed to be chained to the wall upstairs.

Alastor accepted the compromise, and as much as he needed a good rest himself, he left her to sleep alone in their bed while he tried to get some rest upstairs. He kept his shadow wrapped around her, the darkness of the room making it effortless for it to take form and give her the comfort that he himself could not. Not without bringing too much temptation onto himself.

He had been stretched out on the sofa in the main room, one arm across his chest, and the other hanging off the edge, in a deep, whiskey aided, exhausted sleep, when a growing sense of alarm invaded his senses, and pulled him from the depths of his slumber.

Alastor opened his eyes to see his shadow hovering over him, its eyes and smile glowing green. He sat up as it reached for him, enveloping him in tendrils and dragging him through the floorboards before Alastor had a chance to fully wake up and comprehend what was happening.

He found himself brought into his bedroom, looking down at a sleeping Mina, while his shadow left his side and fanned itself out across the wall that the bed was tucked up against. It loomed over Mina, looking between her sleeping form and Alastor.

It was trying to tell him something was wrong with her.

Mina had kicked off all her blankets and as Alastor watched her, she fidgeted in her sleep, restless even as her eyes twitched behind her eyelids in a dreamlike state. She looked flushed, with a red tint on her cheeks and across the top of her chest, below where the heavy shackle lay.

Alastor reached over her, pressing a palm to her forehead and felt her burning up as if with fever, though she wasn’t clammy. Alarm bells rang as he wondered what new assault this was and how Kassandra could possibly have given her a literal infection of the body.

Then Mina sighed in her sleep, making a tiny, barely audible whine and Alastor pulled his hand away, understanding the situation once the familiarity of it dawned on him.

Mina wasn’t sick. She was in heat.

Alastor’s shadow felt the idea form in his mind at the same time and though it was a much simpler creature than he, it knew to grab him again and send him back up into the main room.

Once up there, Alastor sat back down on the couch, trying very hard to ignore the massive hard on he now had.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck . . . .

The mantra ran through his mind, the only clear thought he could come up with.

His rut was difficult enough. The two of them had only come into their breeding seasons at the exact same time on a handful of occasions in past years and it was always . . . an event. Mina’s spring heats were easier to keep track of and predict but her fall one was the most intense and seemed to vary quite a bit, year to year, as to when it would occur. When she did go into heat while he was in rut, it was like mixing fire and gasoline. Their hormonal urges only fed off each other’s desires. The last time it had happened, they had rented a little cabin on the far, far reaches of Pride Ring, well outside of the city limits, and didn’t leave the building, and barely ate, or slept, for three solid days. It had been the most intense, blissful, physical experience at the time but the aftereffects had left Alastor completely drained and exhausted. He understood now how real, living bucks could sometimes literally die from their ruts. And it wasn’t something he eagerly awaited happening again.

For it to happen now, when they very much needed to have their attention on other things, and Mina was already at risk of losing her mental faculties, was the worst thing Alastor could have imagined. It was difficult enough to not be practically on top of her every second that she had been around him the last two days. His body was absolutely betraying him, round the clock, his mind wandering to the most lewd and obscene ways he should be using her body.

And now the idea of her down in their bed, literally flushed with desire, likely very wet and welcoming between her legs nearly took over what was left of his shredded willpower. Not only would she not mind if he went down there and fucked her senseless, she wouldn’t be able to resist once it began; her own body would be crying out for it as much as his was.

But if they started tonight, he was sure they wouldn’t be able to stop come morning.

And the rational part of his mind, the part that was still Alastor, the Radio Demon, and not some common Cervidae demon, a slave to his own hellish form and body, refused to let go of their plan of revenge for tomorrow.

Even as he downed another glass of rye and took himself in hand in order to get a little relief from that damnable, based physical need, Alastor still wanted blood more than sex. He still wanted revenge for Mina more than he wanted Mina herself.

Maybe Abaddon was (a little) right and Alastor did crave power above all else. But if any of his desires led him to choose something over Mina, it was only temporary. By the end of the day tomorrow, he would have both his revenge and his lover . . . and his power.

He would have it all.

____

Mina didn’t even mention her heat to Alastor the next morning, though there was no way she hadn’t realized it was happening. Her pupils were always wide like she was riding the highest of highs when she was in heat and sure enough, when she looked at him as he unhooked the angelic steel shackle from around her neck, her usually vertical pupils were as dilated and round as they could possibly get.

This is why they were perfect together.

Forget how well they complimented each other in every domestic regard. Or how while alive, they had both risen from poverty during the same era, both endured racism, but murdered out of necessity and the pleasure of the deed.

It was this, this need to be powerful enough to not be messed with, this burning desire to let others know they were not to be trifled with. Mina may not have shared Alastor’s competitiveness, her desire for power was strictly a manifestation of her desire for safety, but that small difference made her even more perfect. She wasn’t competition for his position and never would be. But she could hold her own against most threats and understood and appreciated how he worked.

And though she didn’t experience touch aversion the way he often did, though she had a much larger appetite for sex and romance than him on a normal day, she could still power through the mental fog of her heat and focus on what needed to be done. Very few Sinners could say the same.

Kassandra’s black mass started at 9:00 am prompt.

At 9:05 Mina stood outside the large, imposing, and grotesquely carved wooden double doors of her church. From within, the faint sound of Kassandra’s voice could be heard, though clear words couldn’t be made out.

She had already started her sermon.

With a deep breath in, Mina opened both doors at once, leaving them wide open as she stepped over the threshold.

The pews were nearly full of ghouls, though there were several empty rows at the back. Room to grow, Alastor supposed, but Kassandra would never be given that chance.

Kassandra had stopped speaking as soon as the doors had opened, looking at first shocked, but then she began to smile as she saw who was coming in. All she could see was Mina, and it was clear Kassandra believed she had just earned herself her first Sinner convert.

Alastor moved through the opened double doors a second later, using his shadow form to drift along the walls until he solidified behind Kassandra at her podium.

In front of her entire congregation, he appeared towering over her, a taller, more monstrous version of his usual form. 9 feet of antlered, clawed, and bloodthirsty demon loomed over the new Overlord, dressed from head to toe as a nun.

“Boo,” Alastor said and laughed as Kassandra began to scream.

Mina felt the doors slam shut behind her and saw Alastor’s magical barricade form between the podium and the rest of the congregation. He would deal with Kassandra, safe behind a soundproof wall of shadow.

The rest of the ghouls were hers. And she was starving.

With Abaddon’s blood singing through her veins and heightening her power to a strength she had never known, Mina opened her mouth and began to sing.

“Take me past the outer courts

Into the Holy Place

Past the brazen Alter

Lord, I want to see Your face

Pass me by the crowds of people

The priests who sing Your praise

I hunger and thirst for Your righteousness

But it’s only found in one place.”

For a crowd this large, it usually took a few lines for Mina’s words to take hold. For the first verse, most would just stare and gawk at her as the music warped their minds, forced into a trance, until her will could be enforced. But with the power of angelic blood in her, Kassandra’s ghouls began to turn on each other by the end of the very first line.

Through the wall of shadow, Mina could see Kassandra, being strung up by tentacles, held by them from the ceiling to better enjoy the show.

Mina stopped singing, no longer needing to bother, as she marched down the aisle.

The ghouls, so starved for so long, in life and death, had been awakened to their hunger. Had been allowed to feel that burning, twisting pain Mina could feel in her own stomach, and the very desperate need for blood and meat. And the only source for that delicious reprieve was each other.

There was a surprising amount of blood in their bodies, considering how little flesh there appeared to be, and Mina was splattered more than once as she made her way up to the altar that stood in the middle of the rows of pews, and then stepped around it.

At the foot of the short set of stairs that led up to where Kassandra gave her sermons, Mina stopped, and turned her attention on the nearest damned soul.

She tilted her head, felt her jaw unhinge in preparation for its meal, and lunged.

___

Alastor smiled, a true and vicious smile, as he watched Kassandra squirm in the grasp of his shadows. The barricade was soundproof to protect them both from the effects of Mina’s singing; he wanted Kassandra as lucid and mortified as possible. But it wasn’t fully opaque. The wall was more than transparent enough to see the affect of Mina’s singing, a Catholic hymn she had thought perfect for the occasion, and Alastor could easily see the entirety of Kassandra’s cult as they began to devour each other.

He lowered the barrier, certain now that Mina had stopped singing, so they got the full surround sound affects of the screaming; along with the wet squelching and tearing noises of over two hundred bodies being torn apart and chewed on.

Kassandra began to scream with renewed vigor and Alastor loosened some of his shadow’s grip on her, just enough for her to get a real good lung full of air and scream for him even better.

With the barrier down, he could also get a better view of Mina.

She was on hands and knees, bent over what was left of the corpse of a nameless ghoul. Its rib cage was cracked wide open, and her face buried in the chest cavity. Her hands, arms, and even her hair were coated in blood, her face hidden from view as she devoured the heart, but her tail was perfectly visible as it swayed behind her.

Alastor had been wound up and strung so taut the last two days and something deep within him finally snapped and broke free as he watched Mina be her most heinous and carnal self.

For a man who had never even kissed her in public, he suddenly found the idea of taking her there in front of everyone to be incredibly arousing.

But first, he just wanted to watch her satisfy herself.

As she continued with her meal, Alastor reached his hand through his robes and began stroking himself. The long slit that he had created was not usually found on the constricting black garments that nuns wore, but this was an outfit of his own creation and he could alter it to fit his every whim.

There was a large and ornate looking chair tucked into the back of the room, out of sight from the congregation that Alastor assumed was for some kind of ritual, and he summoned it forward so that he could properly relax and enjoy the view.

He gave himself long, slow pumps, building himself up for pleasure rather than for the simple act of finishing, as he watched Mina tear out the ghoul’s liver and bite it in half. His cock twitched in his grip, letting himself succumb to the sheer amount of lust and love he felt for her in that moment.

After she finished with the liver, Mina looked up and her eyes landed on him. They flickered down as she caught the movement of his dirty deed beneath the robe and then looked back up at his face, holding his gaze. There was no disgust or even surprise in her features, just pure determination and desire.

She stood up from her crouched position, the lower half of her face painted red, the ends of her hair, the torso of her dress, and her arms up to her elbows likewise a bloody mess, and walked over to him.

Alastor rose to meet her as she approached and the chair turned to shadow, forgotten as he let go of himself and pulled her to him, grabbing her face with both hands and devouring her lips with his own. She tasted and smelled of blood and death, like power and victory; she was the embodiment of everything he cherished and craved in this world.

Mina pulled away from the kiss and Alastor could feel the stickiness of the blood she had left on his lips and enjoyed the mental image of his smiling down at her, crimson smeared across his features, adding to the blasphemous outfit he had on.

Whatever came next, he was not taking off those robes.

His cock throbbed at the thought of fucking her dressed like that, there in that church, in front of Kassandra and however many of the ghouls that were left alive.

Mina found the opening he had made in the robes and slipped her own hand through, but she surprised him when she used her nail to slice a long slit down to the floor, exposing an entire leg from hip bone to ankle. It made the robes almost appear to be some twisted risqué dress, while also giving her easier access to what she was after, and the debauchery of it only turned Alastor on more.

Looking pleased with her decision, Mina got down on her knees before Alastor and took his cock in her hands.

Before she could bring her mouth to him, Alastor grabbed a fistful of her hair behind her ears and held her still.

“Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” she answered back.

“You like to suck my cock?” he asked.

“Yes,” she panted, never breaking eye contact.

“Pull up your skirts,” he demanded.

Still looking up at him, she let go of his erection and used both hands to first undo the buttons of her sweater and slip it off her shoulders before she tossed it to the side. Then, she bunched up her skirts at her hips. Alastor kept his grip on her hair the whole time.

“Is this how you want me?” she asked.

“God, yes,” he said, feeling almost painful with need as he stared at her exposed cleavage and the spots across her shoulders. “And touch yourself. Show me how turned on you get with my dick down your throat.”

Mina again took him in hand, guiding his shaft in her mouth, as her other hand slipped beneath the top band of her underwear and began working herself.

Only then did she break eye contact, closing her eyes and moaning as he thrust deeper into her mouth. Alastor brought his other hand to clutch at her head, holding her still as he fucked her face. The view of his cock pushing in and out of her willing lips blocked the view of what she was doing to herself, but he could see it on her face, and feel the vibration of her moans on his cock.

“Good girl,” he panted as he watched her pleasure building in her features, felt her whimpering as her fingers worked her up even as she choked on his length. “Put your fingers inside yourself. Fuck yourself for me, darling.”

He could see her shift her weight, spreading her legs a little farther and reaching further inside her underwear, and felt her moans grow deeper as she fulfilled his wish.

Alastor rewarded her by slowing down a little, not hitting as hard into the back of her throat. Mina opened her eyes and looked up at him, giving him a hard and delicious suck in appreciation.

“Hmm, keep doing that,” he encouraged, enjoying the slower, less brutal pace that allowed her to use her tongue better along his length. “That’s it, Mina, just like that.”

She whimpered, and little tears gathered in her eyes, as she shut them again.

“Oh, you’re already so close, aren’t you, my sweet thing?” He wouldn’t let her reply with words, not daring to take himself from her mouth when she was working him so well, but he could see the positive response in the way she looked at him. “Who are you going to make cum first? Me or you?”

There was a question in her eyes and he yanked on her hair, forcing her to take him deeper.

“It better be you,” he threatened, before easing his grip on her hair, stroking his fingers across where his claws had scratched her like an apology. “Or would you like a little assistance?”

A tendril of shadow snaked around his back and traveled across the floor, moving between her open legs. Alastor made it caress her inner thigh and as it touched the edges of her panties, the fabric dissolved into nothing, and the dark tentacle brushed against her fingers that were working her wet cunt.

Mina pulled her hand away, giving the shadowy appendage permission, and Alastor felt it as it entered her, curling around her to stroke her spongy inner walls. He felt her cry out and could feel the edges of her claws hitting the tentacle as she returned her fingers to her clit.

Alastor really picked up his rhythm as he slid in and out of her lips, getting off on the muffled noises she was making as he gagged her with his cock. 

She came hard and fast, his tentacle sensitive enough to pick up on the way her walls clenched and spasmed around it, and she removed her hand from herself, nearly falling forward, if not for the body pressed before her.

Alastor reached down and grabbed her hand before it could fall to the floor. He could feel his own orgasm right on the brink, and he guided her arm up enough so that he could tilt his head down and suck on her fingers.

The wet, sweet and tangy taste of her mixed with the blood of her victim excited him enough that he came right then, and Mina eagerly swallowed his release, holding onto the base of his member with her free hand.

Once he was fully finished, he pulled on her hair as she stood, bringing them together for another passionate kiss, both of them enjoying the mixed flavor of themselves on each other’s tongues.

“My turn,” he said, and picked her up, carrying her over to the altar that stood in the middle of the mass of bodies that were still actively devouring each other, and laid her on her back across the top of it.

Even as he pushed the skirt of Mina’s dress back up over her hips, Alastor was still enjoying toying with Kassandra. He used his shadows to pull her along the ceiling of the church, placing her directly above them. Let her get an even better view as he reclaimed Mina’s body and mind within the walls of her sanctuary. Let Kassandra scream as she witnessed the cannibalism Mina had brought to her door, how absolutely destructive Mina’s power could be, as he worshipped between her legs, on his knees before the altar.

Mina’s fingers had been covered in blood as she had fingered herself, leaving the small patch of black curls and pink lips of her sex painted red. Alastor eagerly ran his tongue over it all, licking her thoroughly clean, and earning him little sounds of praise from Mina.

She leaned forward, grabbing hold of his antlers that poked through the black veil he wore, something she nearly always did when he went down on her. Alastor loved it when she did that and he could feel his body respond to her touch as his antlers spread out even wider.

Once he was finished indulging and savoring the sweet mix of her natural taste with the ghoulish blood, Alastor began truly working her with his tongue. With long, rhythmic strokes from her entrance to her clit, he built up her pleasure until he could hear her gasping out his name.

Just as he had requested of her when she was sucking him off, Alastor began pleasuring himself, pumping his cock with his fist to the same rhythm his tongue was using on Mina.

“Are you? . . . oh God, Alastor,” Mina tried to say in between her little needy whimpers, “. . . fuck, love, that is so fucking hot.”

Alastor had never let Mina see him perform this act himself; not before that morning. He had made her touch herself for him before but never had he reversed those roles. But he could feel her cunt getting even wetter as she processed what he was doing and he used his now unnaturally long tongue to delve into her center, encouraged by her obvious arousal. If he had known she would enjoy it this much, he might have indulged this fantasy of hers much sooner.

He was unbelievably close for how little time they had spent in this position but judging by the sounds Mina was making, she was ahead of him.

“Cum on me,” Mina said, and Alastor’s cock throbbed even harder in his fist. That was also new but the beast within him that controlled his rut very much liked the idea of it. “Please,” she begged, “I want to watch you cum on me.”

Alastor looked up at her from between her legs, his mouth never leaving her mound, and met her eyes with his own. He hoped she could read his nonverbal confirmation and by the way she almost instantly came around his tongue, he knew she did.

His tongue slowed, giving her several lingering strokes as she rode out her orgasm, until her hips finally stilled and she began using her hands to push him away.

It was hardly a heartbeat later that he stood, pumping himself just a few more times, and then he glanced at Mina’s face as she watched, enraptured by his act as he came, leaving streaks of his creamy white seed on her skirt, inner thighs, and sex.

He bent over her and they reached for each other in tandem, kissing and groping, hands desperately roaming, grabbing whatever flesh and clothing they could reach. Mina’s dress and the nun’s tunic he wore were ruined now, both covered in visceral and semen, as they pressed their clothed bodies together.

Alastor reached between Mina’s legs, finding her pleasantly soaked down there, as he used two fingers to spread his cum between her folds, coating her more thoroughly. She moaned against his mouth and ground her hips against his hand, the added slick texture making it even easier for him to play with and tease the folds around her clit.

“Good idea, my love,” he said as his mouth left hers and began exploring her neck and shoulders. “You look so pretty covered in my cum.”

She whimpered in response to the praise and he finally pressed his fingers directly on her little bundle of nerves, rewarding her even more with gentle but quick circular movements.

With his free hand on one shoulder, and his teeth at her other, Alastor pulled the straps of her sundress down, kissing a wet and slopping pattern across her collar bone and upper swells of her breasts, leaving several bite marks along the way.

Mina sat back on her elbows, reaching her hands behind her, and Alastor watched her dress loosen around her chest as she unzipped the back. Recognizing the invitation for what it was, he pulled the obscuring fabric further down, fulling exposing both her tits, and he clamped his mouth around one erect and hard nipple as his fingers slid lower through her folds and curled them in and up once they found her entrance.

Although he was exceptionally careful with his long claws when they were inside her, making sure to only apply pressure with the pads of his fingers, he held no such reservations when it came to his teeth on her body. Mina’s breasts were particularly sensitive, and he loved to pinch and play with her nipples when he fucked her. They seemed to be her favorite erogenous zone and he had often pushed the limits of their sensitivity when she was in heat. He had even once succeeded in making her cum with nipple play alone. But he was not gentle with them like he was with her pussy, and purposefully used his teeth as he sucked and marked the curvy flesh across her chest.

Mina encouraged it with everything in her arsenal, rocking her hips against his hand as she held his head to her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair, stroked his ears and antlers, ran her claws along his scalp, pressing sweet little kisses to the crown of his head, and whispering filthy things to him all the while.

He was getting hard again, his refractory period was alarmingly short and sometimes nonexistent while he was this far into his rut, and his cock bobbed in response to Mina’s panting praises as she begged him to fuck her harder, bite her again, fill her up, make her his.

She paused, the only sound coming from her being the sound of her heavy breathing and the wet noises of his fingers inside her. Around them, the sounds of pain and pleasure from those being eaten and those doing the eating, filled the air and nearly drowned out the noise of their lovemaking. Above them, Kassandra’s screams had turned to sobs of utter failure.

“Make her bleed, Alastor,” Mina said, in the same husky tone she used for dirty talk. “I’m so close, love. Make me cum while I watch her bleed out.”

Alastor head popped up from her breasts and he grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her face to his as he quickened the pace of his finger fucking. She gasped in delight, her open mouth inches from his own as his smile spread with wicked approval at her words.

“I fucking love you,” he said to her and she smiled back, cupping his face in her hands, tenderly kissing his blood streaked mouth.

“I fucking love you, too,” she said, her sweet tone a stark contrast to the depravity of their situation.

Alastor commanded the tentacles of shadow that were constricting around Kassandra, holding her hostage high above them, and they responded in kind. He felt them as they began to puncture her flesh, impaling her through her lower gut as others cut through the skin of her limbs as they slithered around her.

She began screaming again, writhing in the grasp of the deadly appendages, which only made more droplets of her blood rain down from above.

Mina began to cry out as well, and her lusty shouts of pleasure harmonized beautifully with the screams of torture from the other woman. Alastor and Mina had never been interested in adding a third to their dynamic but he had to admit, he was enjoying the way the two woman’s voices blended together. He had never considered mixing his love of murder and torment with his sexual activities but the way his cock was becoming painfully hard, it was clearly a newly discovered kink for both of them. Mina held onto his shoulders, her eyes focused on the show above them, as she came undone, her walls clenching tightly around his fingers as she did so.

Even as she came down from her orgasm and her body began to settle and relax, Alastor continued slowly stroking her sex, keeping her high going. She twitched a couple times, just on the brink of overstimulation, so he softened his movements even more. He stayed patient, even as his cock twitched, hard and ready for more. Alastor took his time, kissing her mouth and neck, stroking her breast with his free hand, tenderly giving her body the small pleasures it needed to keep her wanting more.

Mina sighed into his hair as he sucked hard on her neck, right over where he could feel the hammering beat of her pulse. He felt the shift in her, the way she tilted her hips up and encouraged his fingers, and knew she was ready for more.

Alastor removed his hand from between her legs and once more took the bundled-up skirt of her dress into his fists. The orange fabric, that was now only covering up her stomach and getting in his way, disappeared at his touch, leaving Mina completely naked across the altar. 

Setting the stage for his final act, Alastor summoned flames. They burned in the air above them, fueled by nothing but his power and fury, putting a green and fiery barrier between them and Kassandra. The heat would slowly build for Kassandra as she remained suspended above the fire, first uncomfortable and then unbearable. The perfect contrast to what he was about to do to Mina.

Alastor grabbed hold of Mina’s naked hips and pulled her forward, until they were just hanging off the edge of the altar. Appreciating the new angle, she spread her legs wider and lifted them around him. He reached between them, adjusting the slit in the tunic Mina had made, until it fully exposed him and he pressed his naked pelvis into hers as his cock slid into her welcoming warmth.

He could see the reflection of the burning green glow in Mina’s wide, black pupils. She watched the flames growing above them as he began to move.

“You like that, don’t you,” he said once he got into the perfect tempo and began to fuck her properly. She was drenched, even down to her inner thighs, a mix of her own wetness and his cum, and it didn’t take long for the mess to cover himself. “You want to watch her burn as I fuck you?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Mina said, every word punctuated by an inward thrust of his cock into her.

“You want to watch her skin blister? Would that make you cum for me again?”

Mina could only whine and gasp in response to his filthy words. To his amazement, it seemed like she was already close again, so he picked up his pace and began to piston into her with short, hard thrusts.

“You want to watch her burst into flames as I fill your sweet pussy full of cum, don’t you?”

“God, yes, Alastor, yes,” she cried out and then sobbed, brought to tears by the strength of her fourth orgasm.

He slowed his movements, but only to the steady in and out rhythm he had set at the beginning. Mina’s back hit the flat top of the altar a moment later, once the tension of her orgasm left her, but Alastor could still feel the tremble of her walls along his shaft, especially when he refused to let up.

She was properly overstimulated now and under normal circumstances he would give her a break. But the wild and crazed look on her face told him all he needed to know about what she wanted.

“Look around you,” he said, wrapping his hand around the bottom of her jaw and forcing her head to the side, making her look at the bloodshed and slaughter she had accomplished with her song. Over a hundred bodies left in pieces, gutted and torn to bits, and there was hardly a spot on the floor of the entire cathedral that wasn’t covered in a thick layer of blood and tissue. The other half of the cult members continued on with their newfound love of cannibalism, completely oblivious to the couple fucking on their altar.

“You did this. You wanted this,” he said, and removed his hand from her jaw only to replace it with a rope made of shadow that wrapped itself around her neck. “You’re so fucking perfect, my love. So now I’m going to fuck you as hard as I can.”

Mina shook and moaned beneath him, tears running down her temples and into her hairline as he picked up his pace again. Her sounds were audibly strangled now and he watched as her face turned red from the pressure of the tentacle at her throat, but he kept it at just the right tightness, so she could enjoy the high of being choked without blacking out.

Another tentacle sprouted from his back and twisted between his legs. He felt it grazing the bottom side of his shaft as it followed his body to Mina’s, stopping for a moment at where they were joined, and then curling lower.

Mina groaned, spreading her hips wider, as the tentacle began playing with her ass. It slid just the tip of itself in, giving soft and gentle little swirls, making sure she was relaxed and ready for more, and coating itself with the mix of their releases that had pooled there.

“Tell me you want more,” Alastor said, and loosened the tangle of shadow at her throat enough so she could comfortably speak.

“I want more,” Mina answered, her speech nearly slurred as he continued to fuck her far beyond the limits of pleasure they usually reached.

“Want more of what, my sweet girl?” he asked.

Above them, Kassandra’s screaming intensified until it was a high-pitched mewl of madness and misery. The heat from the flames had begun to warm Alastor’s back and he knew Kassandra’s skin must be beginning to blacken and bubble from the growing inferno beneath her.

Mina’s eyes had been fixed on the show above them, but they looked at him then, desperate and sure of her own desires.

“More of you. All of you,” she said, “everywhere.”

There was a whooshing sound from above and Kassandra’s screams changed into something Alastor recognized well. She had finally combusted and was now fully engulfed in flames. But the show was not over. As Alastor had first told Mina decades before, his green fire was more horrific than most as he had purposefully designed it to burn slower, defying all laws of chemistry and physics.

The tendril of shadow beneath his cock thickened and deepened, penetrating her ass fully now, and using both appendages at once, Alastor filled her up more than he had ever before. The added pressure of the tentacle inside her ass pressed the walls of her sex tighter around him than he had anticipated. They both groaned at the intense sensation, his voice full of static and guttural.

Alastor could feel himself losing control over his body. His antlers were growing impossibly heavy on his head, and he could feel his spine and limbs beginning to stretch. His focus was on so many places; keeping Kassandra suspended above them even as she burned, on the tentacle around Mina’s neck applying the perfect amount of pressure, the other tentacle pumping inside her ass, his own building pleasure as he continuously rammed his cock into her, and now he had to focus on not expanding the size of the pieces of him that were in and around Mina, less he actually hurt her, the threat of tearing a real possibility with the double penetration.

“I need you to finish for me, Mina,” he said, desperately, almost nervous. His claws dug into the soft flesh of her upper thighs, anxiously hoping he would start to feel her building beneath him again, but she just wasn’t there yet.

An idea lit up in his mind, remembering the gift he had given her just a few nights prior. He hadn’t brought the device with him but with a little bit more mental effort, he was able to feel it appear and solidify in his hands.

Mina had her eyes closed, so focused on the pleasures she could feel in her body, and the sounds of death around her, that she didn’t react when he twisted the top of the vibrator, and it began to hum. But they flew open as soon as he touched it to her clit and began moving it around the bundle of nerves.

Alastor’s balls tightened in response, not having considered the fact that he would be able to feel the vibrations through her walls.

“Oh fuck Mina,” he panted, the new sensation almost more than he could bare.

“More,” she growled, and he pressed the toy into her clit in way that must have been painful, but the way she cried out in response let him know it was exactly what she had wanted.

He tried so hard to keep his focus on her rather than how hard his cock was being squeezed inside her or how deliciously the vibrator was working both of them, refusing to let himself cum again before she had.

Mina’s chest began to rise and fall, her tits bouncing with every aggressive thrust he gave her, and she touched herself, pinching and pulling on the nipple of one bitten and bloody breast.

Alastor felt the tentacle tighten around her neck even without meaning to but Mina took it well, just moaning and throwing her head back in response.

“Come on, my love, cum for me,” he begged.

Mina opened her eyes again and looked up and then around her, as much as his chokehold on her allowed her to, getting one last look at what their vengeance had brought to this unholy place.

Then to Alastor’s initial confusion, she lifted the arm that wasn’t still teasing her breast, and brought it up and over her head, reaching her fingers out behind her as if she were trying to touch the nearest ghoul’s body.

There were still several dozens of them left alive, still mindlessly feasting on the remains of their fellow cult members.

Alastor watched as a soft golden glow shot forward from Mina’s open palm and then all at once, every one of the two hundred bodies burst into angelic flame.

She smiled for a moment and then closed her eyes, her jaw dropping open as she screamed out her pleasure, her orgasm ripping through her body and tensing every muscle she had.

Alastor felt the rush of fluid over his cock, drenching his pelvis and the tentacle beneath him.

Mina screamed on for several more seconds, and Alastor released the vibrator and his tentacles from her body, patiently letting her come down from her heightened state of bliss.

“Wha-,” she stammered as her eyes finally fluttered again, even as he continued to pump himself in and out of her, “what did I . . .”

No longer holding back his own release, Alastor loomed over her, feeling even his neck beginning to lengthen as his body changed into something far less human. Mina wrapped her arms around him, embracing his larger, demonic form.

He ignored her question, so completely aroused by her first ejaculation on him. He could tell her later what a compliment it had been to the fucking he had just given her, but right now his mind could no longer process words.

There was a second where Alastor felt Kassandra finally pass, her soul completely devoured by his flames, as her power seeped into his being.

The shadowing restraints that had been holding her up disappeared as Alastor gave himself completely to Mina, and what was left of Kassandra's charred body fell silently into the angelic flames around them.

Mina clung to his distorted body, holding him gently as only a lover could do, as he continued to rut against her, on the very brink of his own final orgasm.

Despite his increased size, she was able to slip her hand under his robes and reach around him to grab the base of his tail. She stroked it to the same beat that he fucked her, gently running her fingers through the soft fur and over the ridges of the vertebrae beneath the skin.

“It’s over, Alastor,” she whispered to him. “You can let go, now. I’m all yours.”

His release was almost instant, and she continued to caress his tail as he pumped his seed inside her, nuzzling her face into his chest as he began to relax, gradually returning to his normal form and size.

They lay together, him still inside her and becoming soft again, even as the flames began to consume the walls around them. Mina somehow kept them at bay, her command over the angelic flame increased by the power that Abaddon’s blood had given her.

She pulled off the black veil of the habit so she could lovingly run her fingers through his red and black hair, kissing his cheek and neck, all while he lay limp above her, trying to catch his breath and collect himself.

“I love you,” she said, smiling at him when he finally lifted his head and met her eyes.

“I love you,” he replied, still panting a little, and kissed her tenderly on the lips as he finally pulled himself out of her warm, wet heat.

They both sighed a little at the empty feeling. It wouldn’t be long before they were both ready for more but the flames were beginning to reach the high ceiling of the church, telling Alastor they had officially run out of time.

A minute later, the front doors of the church flung back open, and a melted form of shadow burst out and streaked away, heading for the heart of the city and the radio tower, carrying with it the two lovers as they left to enjoy the rest of their vacation in isolated bliss.

Golden and green flames mixed and began licking at the open doorway. Stained glass windows shattered and smoke and more flames billowed out from the gaping wounds left behind. Then the ceiling collapsed as onlookers began to gather and watch, unsure of exactly what had happened, but knowing the Radio Demon had finally gotten his revenge against The Prophetess.

Next Chapter ->

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