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ugh-yoongi · 4 months

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the very last thing i decide | pjm

(or, the one in which a love exists that's easy and instinctual as much as it is painful and self-destructive.)

✘ PAIRING jimin x f. reader ✘ SUMMARY you learn what it means to love with blood on your hands. ✘ GENRE hitman/assassin au; angst, smut ✘ RATING explicit. minors dni. ✘ WARNINGS they are both hitmen (hitpeople?) so there's all the content that goes along with that: violence, death, mentions of blood (a lot) and weapons, murder, but no explicit gore. everyone is morally grey at best and downright psychotic at worst (especially yoongi). reader gets stabbed. no one knows how to be a functional human being. swearing, smoking, light smut (penetrative & oral sex), miscommunication and unrequited love but not really, i drop a classic tumblr meme in a line of dialogue. ambiguous/hopeful ending!! some of the themes here are kinda heavy and i am not entirely sure how to tag them so if you have any questions pls don’t hesitate to ask! ✘ WORDCOUNT 12k ✘ LISTEN TO manchester orchestra - telepath ✘ THANK YOU i cannot remember everyone i’ve showed this to over the years. @the-boy-meets-evil for looking this over and brainstorming with me today. @hot-soop for always being a help. @effortandmore because you told me an embarrassingly long time ago this was worth finishing. and i’m pretty sure i also sent this to @jihopesjoint at some point too. i did a quick edit of this on my own, but after nearly three years i just wanted it posted and out of my wips so i'm sure i missed things. pls ignore them. ✘ AUTHOR'S NOTE fic drops two days in a row?? who am i?? i started this in may 2021 and it was supposed to be a simple pegging fic. i abandoned it bc i was convinced no one would want to read it. between today and yesterday i have written thousands of words and made it across the finish line. i hope you like it. the violence is a metaphor for love or whatever.

[37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA]

Jimin’s hair had been red the first time he met you.

How fitting, he thinks, considering he’s currently bleeding out on a table.

Well, there’s still a bit of fight left in him. He hasn’t lost consciousness yet, which he assumes is a good sign; he can still hear Hoseok barking out orders quite clearly. The edges of his vision are fuzzy and the pain in his abdomen is sharp and unrelenting, but he still has enough brain power left to wish he’d died instead.

Because you’d saved his life. And now he’s further indebted to you.

(Jimin never leaves a debt unpaid, but he’s not sure how to make even on something like this.)

Jungkook and Taehyung are fetching supplies faster than Hoseok can ask for them. Two pairs of frazzled, spaced-out eyes. Four sets of trembling limbs. Namjoon’s wearing burn marks into the floor, his cuticles bloody and nearly worried to the bone since he can’t keep them out of his mouth.

And then there’s you.

Sitting cross-legged in a chair as you scroll through your phone. Jimin’s blood is still drying on your hands, leaving smears as you drag your thumb back and forth across the screen, and this doesn’t seem to faze you one bit.

Behind you, Yoongi takes a seat at the piano and starts playing Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Jimin simply cannot die like this. He can’t die on a wooden table in a room with a piano on which Min Yoongi is playing Baroque organ pieces.

“What is this, a fucking funeral?” Hoseok snaps, though there’s a desperation creeping into his tone that Jimin does not like, does not want to hear. “Cut it out, Yoongi.”

Said man staunchly ignores the doctor, transitioning flawlessly into the fugue. Jimin barely hears the tinkle of your laughter but he hears it all the same, and he wants to pretend it doesn’t calm him, bring him back down to earth when he starts drifting too far away. But you do, and it does, and all he can think about is: will you miss him if he dies? Will it take you long to wash his blood from your hands?

Hoseok’s absolutely incensed, pushed to the limits of his stress at the thought of not being able to save Jimin’s life, and Jimin appreciates this, really, but not when Hoseok pushes two gloved fingers deep into the wound in his stomach so hard all he can do is cry. “Yoongi—”

You snort. You don’t even look up from your phone.

Namjoon, for all his leadership and stoicism and poise under pressure, is just as frantic and panicked as the rest. It’s not everyday one of his people is inches from death ten feet away from him. Most people usually die in the shadows. Kim Namjoon has faced down death more times than most, yet watching the life slowly fade from Jimin’s eyes is too much even for him. “Yoongi, please—”

But the fugue keeps going, tempo change after tempo change, the two pillars of this organization spiraling completely by the time the coda starts, unfocused and sweating and praying. To gods they don’t believe in, to hope, to chance—whatever and whoever might be listening. Jimin usually loves hearing Yoongi play. It’s the only thing that humanizes him, and Jimin had spent so many restless nights shoulder to shoulder with him on that exact bench in the blue hours of the early morning, hypnotized by the way the older man’s knobby fingers moved across the keys.

This is it, he thinks.

Jimin’s going to die with Toccata and Fugue in D minor playing in the background.

He’s imagined his death so many times. Stupid not to in this line of work. Violent, quick and painless, in his sleep, drawn out and gory, a message. And in all of those scenarios, it’s either jarringly silent or there’s someone screaming. Usually him, sounding much like he is now, two fingers stuck in his gut. In all of those scenarios, Min Yoongi is never playing Bach as everything fades to black.

You sigh. “Shut the fuck up, Yoongi,” you say, your tone as blasé and inconvenienced as ever.

Shocked at your audacity, one of Yoongi’s fingers slips and hits the wrong key, something dissonant and metallic as it rings out. But the music stops all the same, the silence nearly giving Jimin whiplash. Now he can hear the clinkof Hoseok’s tools, the squelching of his wound, Jungkook’s desperate pleading for him to just be alright, please God, just hang on. He wants the music back. He doesn’t want Jungkook’s crying to be the last thing he hears. Doesn’t want the sound of his own organs imprinted into his memory.

“What’d you say?” Yoongi asks, because no one talks to him that way. They wouldn’t dare. Most people try not to talk to him at all.

But you do.

And, inexplicably, Yoongi listens.

You roll your eyes. “You go deaf in your old age? I said shut the fuck up. Hoseok’s two knuckles deep in Jimin’s fucking stomach and you’re over there having your little Amadeus moment.”

He bristles. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Yoongi repeats, and Jimin can’t see him, but he knows his eyes are narrowed, lips pulled back in a snarl, fists clenched at his side.

“Oh, princess,” you coo, and Yoongi’s fury is palpable, permeates every inch of this place, overrides all the fear and anguish. “I’m talking to you, baby. I know Jiminie’s busy trying not to die and that’s stressful for all of us, but please do try to keep up.”

Jimin hears the flick of Yoongi’s switchblade. Then he hears him say, “Please let me fucking kill her,” in that lazy Daegu drawl of his, like forming full words are beneath him. Not worth the effort when they’re directed at you.

Still seated, you uncross your legs and, through blurred vision, Jimin watches you grab Yoongi by his belt loops to tug him closer, grab the wrist that holds his knife and press it to your own throat. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Yoongi. Be a good boy and make it hurt.”

Jungkook’s near hysterics at Jimin’s side. “What the fuck is wrong with you two? He’s dying!”

Jimin tries to say I’m not, Kookie, I’m okay but the pressure on his abdomen is too intense. He can barely breathe, and Hoseok’s still digging around, still looking for that stupid fucking bullet, had to do something and do it quick so there’d been very little anesthetic and finesse, and he’s silently screaming for someone to just comfort Jungkook, tell him everything’s going to be okay, but instead—

“Serves him right for being a fucking idiot,” you say, words muffled by the knife still pressed to your throat. “What a painful, permanentlesson in not forgetting your fucking vest.”

“Stop it!” Jungkook sobs, fingers ghosting along Jimin’s matted fringe.

Yoongi’s still scowling. “Just say the word, Joon-ah. I’ll make it quick.”

You actually laugh at that. The kind of full-belly laugh Jimin would kill to be able to produce. “You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid.”

Someone snarls. Probably Yoongi. “You’d look so good gutted on the floor like a fish,” he replies, and if Jimin knows him at all, he knows he’s got that dreamy, faraway look in his eyes. The one he always gets when he’s about to kill—the one that makes him so unhinged and dangerous. “Left there to bleed out and die all alone like the trash you are.”

No one’s survived that look before, but you just grin, as if being on the receiving end of it is nothing more than another simple inconvenience. “Do it, then,” you prompt. “You’re so big and bad, yet here you are, waiting for Namjoon’s permission like some kind of pathetic fucking dog.”

“I’m no one’s dog.”

Your eyes slowly flick over to Namjoon. “No?” you ask, smile widening as Jimin watches you drag your heeled foot up the inside of Yoongi’s calf, his thigh, stiletto coming to rest in the center of his sternum. “That’s a shame, princess. That pretty neck of yours was just made for a collar.”

There’s no doubt in Jimin’s mind now that he actually died back in that penthouse and is now residing in whatever level of hell is watching you give his associate a semi despite him being a millisecond away from murdering you.

Yoongi would do it, too. No hesitation. You’ve been on his shit list for as long as Jimin can remember, and you’ve been daring him to put his money where his mouth is and just kill you already for just as long.

Taehyung groans. “Can you two just fuck already so the rest of us can be spared of this?”

You click your tongue, tone melting like butter. You’re fond of Taehyung, soft on him. “No can do, angel. Yoongi here knows I only have eyes for our Jiminie, and god does that hurt his little feelings.”

Your wicked smile gives away nothing—whether you’re telling a bold truth or just unnecessarily needling Yoongi further—but Jimin’s caught off guard and chokes on your words nonetheless.

Hoseok’s forceps still digging around in his stomach, there’s a quiet hurrah of triumph as he finally locates the bullet. Jimin feels nothing as he retrieves it and plucks it out, a reverberated clank! as he drops it into a kidney dish, your words the anesthetic he’s needed as they play on a loop in his head.

When he finally blacks out, either from the pain or the adrenaline or both, it’s your face that greets him. He never gets the chance to tell you why he forgot his vest.

[64.1466° N, 21.9426° W | Reykjavík, ICELAND]

Jimin’s hair is blue when it happens the first time.

It’s November. Namjoon has sent the two of you to Reykjavik and it’s dark all the time, the midnight hue of his hair blending into the impenetrable nighttime that surrounds you. Jimin works best like this—out of sight, part of the shadows. He’s light on his feet, lithe in ways no one else is, not even you, and he’s impossible to anticipate under the cover of darkness.

That’s why Jimin always takes care of the appetizers.

It’s your job to clean up the main course.

The two of you are two halves of the same lethal coin, working together flawlessly after years of carefully honed practice. Jimin slams an unsuspecting man’s head into a wall and you’re right behind him to put a bullet in it.

It’s just how it goes.

And he trusts you. He has to, otherwise he would’ve gotten taken out years ago. You’re not always in his line of sight, but he always feels you, senses your movements before you’re even on your feet. The times it’s gone wrong—and it’s gone wrong so many fucking times, despite how cautious and skilled the two of you are—you’re always right there to catch him before he even hits the ground. Just like a ghost, as if your only purpose in life is keeping Jimin safe and alive.

(It isn’t, but it sure feels that way.)

Tonight it’s another hit carried out in an overpriced penthouse overlooking the northern shore. You’re in and out, don’t waste a second more than you need to. Jimin doesn’t spare a glance at the carnage left behind. Nothing he hasn’t seen a hundred times before. All blood bleeds the same, but he still wonders, foolishly, if his looks different to you. If it feels wrong when it stains your hands and seeps into your clothes.

Jimin has never been covered in your blood before, but he likes to think it would.

The two of you don’t speak until you’re in the quiet safety of yet another hotel room, chain lock thrown across the door, deadbolt secured. A small arsenal of weapons is retrieved from ankles and waistbands and cleaned and packed away meticulously. Jimin’s the one who makes the call to Namjoon, tells him in code that the job’s done. You’ve barely broken a sweat, but under the fluorescent light of the bathroom, Jimin can see a small smattering of blood just along your temple when he closes the distance between you.

Someone else’s, of course.

Anyone who made you bleed your own blood wouldn’t be a quick, clean kill. Jimin would make sure of that.

There’s less to be done about the half-inch scar in the hollow of your throat—a pearlescent reminder of the twin scar he has just below his navel; a callback to the day your devilish mouth said the words Jimin can’t stop thinking about.

“No can do, angel. Yoongi here knows I only have eyes for our Jiminie.”

Maybe it’s stupidity. Maybe it’s the feral, years-long build up that’s been simmering between the two of you—low enough to keep warm, contained enough to never evolve into a rapid boil. Maybe Jimin’s just finally desperate enough to go seeking out answers to questions he’s far too scared to put a voice to.

(Really, Jimin knows it’s adrenaline. Nothing more than chemicals. The two of you high on it, heads floating above the clouds. Powerless; or, at the very least, indifferent to stop the very clear path that’s unfolding on the ground below.)

But, god, he needs to know.

Needs answers.

Needs to know if there’s even a chance you feel it, too: the magnetic ebb and flow the two of you have been dancing around for years. If you see how fondly he looks at you. If you have any idea how easy it is for him to get lost in you. If you know he’d let someone put a bullet between his eyes before he placed his life in the hands of anyone else.

Jimin knows he loves you. He’s known it for a long time, just like he knows all those other things that are second nature to him. Loving you is easy and instinctual as much as it is painful and self-destructive.

At least that’s what he’d thought. Until your devilish mouth said those devilish words and sent him into a tailspin he’s yet to recover from.

You have to feel it. God, can’t you? The way the air crackles between you. The way his skin ignites with a simple look from you. The trembling of his fingers at his sides, desperate to just reach out and touch you—fingers that have been bathed in blood, that have taken life. Fingers that now just want to graze softly across your cheekbones, catch on your bottom lip. Fingers that want to hand you the world on a silver platter. Jimin would do anything for you, give you whatever you wanted. You wouldn’t even have to ask.

Can’t you feel that?

He needs to know.

Jimin is composed, elegant. He kills with grace and still maintains as much of his softness as he can. Isn’t ruled by emotion the way Yoongi and Jungkook are. But now, as he teeters on the edge of the unknown, all he wants to do is jump. Wants to buck all his training, all his resolve and forethought, and jump.

“Did you mean it?” he asks, voice thick. Fingers curl into the expensive silk of his shirt just so they have something to do—something to keep them from reaching out and touching you. “Back in Seoul.”

You’re the smartest person Jimin knows. When you ask, “Did I mean what, Chim?” he knows you’re fucking with him. Dragging this out. You know exactly what he’s asking and he knows you’ll never give anything away so easily.

“What you said to Taehyung,” he answers.

You tsk, eyebrows raising in intrigue. As much as Jimin trusts you, as well as you know him, know all those dirty, dirty secrets he’d never tell anyone else, he’s never been so bold with you. “That those long fingers of his would look good wrapped around my throat? Yeah, I meant that.”

Jimin’s jaw clenches at your taunt. “Don’t play games with me.”

A smirk graces your lips. “Trust me, sweetheart,” you say, voice sickly-sweet as the affection starts popping at the last seams holding him together, “if I wanted to play with you, there’s nothing you could do to stop it.”

With Jimin pressed into the wall behind you, you turn to meet his eye in the mirror. Another smile, teeth bared as you run your tongue across your lips, and this one is his undoing. Makes his cock twitch in his dress pants. Makes him bold. “Do you want to, then?” He takes a step forward—close enough to smell the gunpowder stuck to your clothes, your hair. Close enough for the sulfur and metal to sting his nostrils each time he breathes you in. “Do you want to play with me?”

You love Jimin. Maybe it’s a trauma bond or the implicit, unwavering trust the two of you have in one another, but you know you love him limitlessly. But you also know you can’t love him the way he loves you, the way he deserves to be loved by someone, which is why your mask slips as you say, “I can’t give you what you want, Jimin.”

You try to make him understand that. Really, you do—because Jimin is the smartest person you know, and you know he’s thought about every possible consequence down to the most minute detail and has decided this is worth it anyway. You want to believe in something the way Jimin believes in you, even though he’s wrong. You want something worth throwing all of this away for.

Maybe it’s Jimin, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just been so fucking long since someone has looked at you with any gentleness in their eyes at all that when Jimin meets your gaze and says, “I don’t want anything more than you’re willing to give,” you take his hand and jump, too.

And there’s nothing gentle about the first time.

It’s all raw, urgent need, Jimin trying desperately to convince himself it’s more than it is while you convince yourself it’s less.

It’s the two of you finally giving up and giving in, letting yourselves be pulled taut by that invisible string tying you together.

It’s Jimin’s sharp intake of breath when you fully step out of your clothes, the sight rendering him immobile. Whatever plans he’d had before seeing the curves of your body, all the scars from years of working by his side, the mottled yellow-greens and purples from the bruises lining your skin—he has no plans now. Can barely think. Wouldn’t be able to tear his eyes away from you with a gun to his head.

It’s the final bricks of the wall he’d built around himself—around his heart, around all those words and feelings he’d never put a voice to—crumbling into ash at his feet. Now he knows he can’t go back. Can’t return to a reality where this isn’t his truth. Where there’s no you and him, him and you. Where it’s just a physical exchange, a give-and-take, tit for tat.

And god, he knows he shouldn’t think like this; knows he’s keeping the truth buried somewhere deep behind lock and key.

…But now that he knows how it feels to move inside you, what else is he supposed to do?

You’re everywhere. Clenched around him. Your taste on his tongue. The feel of you on the pads of his fingers. The smell of you making a mockery of all logical thought. No—no, he can’t do a goddamn thing to stop the avalanche now it’s started.

“Fuck,” he whines, fingers digging into your hips. The soft skin he finds purchase in such a contrast from your hardened exterior, but Jimin knows. He knows you, knows the person behind the mask, sees straight through you each time it slips.

What stared back at him had always been just out of reach.

Taunting him.

Screaming come and get me, come make me yours, come and fucking take what you want.

Until now.

Now it’s tangible. Now it’s breathy, fractured moans that echo off tile walls. Now it’s the sound of his name thatleaves your lips like a prayer. Now it’s the sheen of sweat that covers both of you. Now it’s nails scraping down his back, tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.

(And Jimin won’t tell you this, but those red welts are proof that this is real, this happened, and later on when he’s alone, when his mind is working overtime, he’ll look at them and he’ll smile. Because they’re real. Because this happened.)

Now, it’s the way blue becomes his favorite color. Because he can see his reflection in the mirror as he unravels and comes to his own demise as he spills inside of you; can see the fluorescent lights reflecting off the hue of his hair.

Jimin’s hair is blue when he realizes he’s in love with you.

[34.6037° S, 58.3816° W | Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA]

Jimin is blond when Namjoon sends you to South America.

The details had been scarce: a diplomatic advisor with a rap sheet of human rights violations that have been continuously swept under the rug and his equally-corrupt lawyer. A candid photograph paperclipped to another manila folder, Namjoon a fan of all those old cliches. Likes being a little cheeky that way when he can get away with it, because god knows he can’t get away with much, doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.

It’s a simple job. You and Jimin will have it dealt with in a matter of hours. Less if you’re lucky and the universe is agreeable. But the humidity sticks to your skin, has sweat seeping into your clothes and rolling down your temples, and if there’s one thing you can’t stand it’s the heat. Makes it hard to think. And Namjoon—Namjoon, who makes sure all of his agents want for nothing—is a cheap bastard. Rarely approves nice lodging, says it’s too risky despite your arguments to the contrary, that people don’t care what you do when you have money, so you’re stuck in some shithole motel room with an aircon unit that keeps blowing out stale, warm air.

And maybe you shouldn’t, maybe you should be more cognizant of Jimin and all his feelings, but it’s fucking hot, so you peel your shirt over your head and undo the button of your pants. Sit on the edge of the bed and try to think about anything other than the temperature, how it’s starting to prick uncomfortably at your skin.

Jimin clears his throat, keeps his eyes glued to the disgusting carpet. “Got a text from Seokjin-ssi,” he says, words strained. “Looks like they’ll be solo jobs.”

You groan. Leave it to Seokjin to change the plan at the last minute. “Tell Kim Seokjin he’s a useless piece of shit.”

“Done. Anything else?”

“Tell Kim Namjoon if he ever sends us to South America in the summer again I’ll kill him myself.”

Jimin has a laugh like an anodyne. A laugh that takes all those broken, bleeding parts of you and soothes over them like a balm. “Seokjin-ssi says he’s not passing along that particular message.”

“Tell him he’s a bitch, then.”

“He’ll kill me if I say that.”

“He hasn’t done field work in years and he’s probably too vitamin D deficient to leave the basement. He couldn’t even kill a fucking rat.”

There’s another laugh. More forced, less tinkling. You recognize it right away, the sound of anxiety. Solo jobs aren’t common for the two of you. For Yoongi and Taehyung, sure, but not you and Jimin. You’re a team for a reason, and though you’re more than capable of getting this done and out of the way, it doesn’t feel right. Settles in your gut like something rotten, knowing you’ll be without Jimin.

And you know he’s thinking it, too. How he turns the burner over and over in his hands, as if there’s some combination of words he can send back to Seoul to get Seokjin and Namjoon to reconsider. Plans don’t change often; not like this, anyway. These have been declared solos for a reason, and that’s a thought you can’t linger on too long.

“Are they leaving it up to us?” Jimin nods, still not meeting your eye. “Do you have a preference?”

He shrugs, tossing the phone on the small table in the corner. Nothing else to be done. “Not really. What do you think?”

“Nah, don’t care, either. Just toss me one.”

Santiago Aguirre… 47 years old… Resides in a high-rise luxury apartment in Retiro…

Your eyes skim the file, study the black and white photograph of the lawyer. Read over the list of all his high-profile, degenerate clients and all their high-profile crimes. You read about the previous attempts on his life, the seemingly never-ending list of people who want him dead. Your eyes go back to his photograph, frowning at the smug look on his face. What stares back at you is a man who thinks he’s invincible, who thinks a penthouse apartment on the top floor and a security team in the lobby means he’s impervious to harm. A man who has made money off people just like him: dirty, corrupt, hands stained red.

“Okay?” Jimin asks, looking up from his own file.

He’s so striking. So safe. And you know what he’s done, giving you the hit he thinks is easier, willing to risk himself on a solo mission to ensure you make it out. There’s no guarantees in this line of work, in life in general, but Jimin’s brand of selfless love is certainly one.

So you just nod, knowing someone slimy like this can quickly go sideways, and decide you can do the same.

“I’m gonna get ready,” you say. “The plan is the same as all the other solo jobs. Get in, get it done, get out as quickly as possible. Lay low. Don’t come straight back here.”

Jimin rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Anything else?”

You exhale. Try to quiet the nerves roiling in your stomach. Barely resist the urge to press a lingering kiss to Jimin’s forehead before you swallow hard and say, “Yeah. Stay alive.”

It comes out more like a plea.

—

You’re good at your job.

Rarely feel much guilt over it, either, which—well, you’re not sure what that means. That something is permanently broken in your psyche, probably. Being able to take life so easily and without remorse. It’s not natural.

Kim Namjoon is a man who plays God, is the one who decides who gets to live and who has to die. His word is the only law you adhere to. And that’s… that’s something. Makes it less burdensome, takes some weight off, because Kim Namjoon wouldn’t accept a morally-ambiguous job. He wouldn’t ask you to put your life on the line for some petty bullshit.

This is how you’ve lived for the last four years. Four years of blindly following Namjoon’s word, of being a good little soldier and doing whatever is asked of you. Four years of being responsible for not only your own life, but Jimin’s as well, just as he is for yours. Four years that have served you well, all things considered.

Until now.

Something about this job hits you hard. Doesn’t settle quite as quickly as the ones that have come before. For the first time, you’d looked down at the lifeless body at your feet and couldn’t stop the trembling, could barely quell the nausea. Thought what the fuck am I doing, what kind of life is this for the first time. Thought back to that day four years ago when Kim Namjoon saved your life and offered you a job and wondered, for the first time, what would’ve happened if you’d said no.

Now, as you suck on a cigarette, legs dangling off the roof of a building looking not far from collapse, a new thought:

Would Namjoon let you go if you asked?

He’s taken care of you. For four years you’ve wanted for nothing. Have socked away more money than you’ll ever be able to spend, even if you live to a thousand. You could go anywhere, become anyone, and no one would suspect a thing. There’d just be you and a million lifetimes’ worth of transgressions, alone under the weight of all that burden; alone, except for all the ghosts that come to greet you every time you close your eyes.

Doesn’t matter. Namjoon might be willing to let you go, give you the chance to salvage something from this life in the name of normalcy, but Yoongi would gladly put a bullet in your head before he let you disappear with all his secrets.

Doesn’t matter.

You stub out the cigarette and put the butt in your pocket. Make your way down to the street. Stay under the shadows—just visible enough to redirect any suspicion shot your way. You pretend to take a call, flawless Argentinian Spanish falling from your lips as you tell the imaginary person on the other end all about your fucked up day at work. How your manager never gets off your ass, doesn’t trust you, thinks you’re too fucking stupid to run a simple executable.

No one spares you a second glance.

Not here, on this nondescript street in a nondescript Argentinian neighborhood, and not when you stumble into the tiny lobby of your shithole motel. The poor kid behind the desk doesn’t even glance up, just mutters a good evening, miss under his breath that you return in a voice far too high-pitched to be your own.

Better to be seen and be unremarkable than draw attention to yourself trying to stay invisible, you figure.

The cameras in the stairwell are broken so you take the steps two at a time. Pull the room key from its place inside your boot, happy to no longer have it digging into your skin. Pause just long enough to make sure you don’t hear anything on the other side of the door before you’re unlocking it with your free hand wrapped around the trigger of your gun.

It’s empty.

Of course it is.

Jimin stashed the burner in a place no one but you would think to look. You text one simple word to Seokjin—Hey!—and you get two in return: Who’s this?

You know who it is, you fucking dickhead.

It takes a few seconds, but the reply is a simple—

Sorry.

Then you toss aside the phone and float in the darkness of the room. There’s nothing to do but wait, because you don’t dare to do anything alone. There’s sweat and blood and fuck knows what else stuck to your skin, your hair, but you can’t risk taking a shower. Can’t risk the water dampening your senses. Can’t risk being cornered in a moldy bathroom, only one way out. Can’t risk doing anything alone. Can’t take a fucking shower.

It’s this thought, more than anything else, that has your body flushing with rage.

What kind of life is this?

Namjoon had never mentioned repaying your debt. He’d never insinuated you owed him anything at all for saving your life, but you know something like that never comes for free. Namjoon doesn’t do anything just because. Has no goodness in his heart to do anything in the name of it. Watching Jimin nearly die in front of him had been the exception to his usual nature; a rare slip-up by an otherwise detached, uncaring man.

Still, whatever you owe him has surely been repaid by now. Tenfold, if the bloodstains along your collar are anything to go by.

It’s time for Namjoon to let you go.

—

Something is wrong.

Two hours have ticked by and there’s no word from Jimin. No word from Namjoon or Seokjin, either, which is the only reason you’re still in this nauseating motel room and not out on the streets searching for him. Solo jobs don’t go like this. The two of you are always in and out, tragically efficient. Back to where you started and then back on a plane, nothing left behind except a singular bullet hole and another fragmented piece of your conscience.

You’ve had a lot of jobs go wrong, but never two hours.

You’re about three minutes from coming out of your skin. Sick to your stomach with worry, anxiety weighing you down like an anchor. You wouldn’t be able to go out searching for Jimin like this even if you could, and there’s no point in dwelling on that, examining it further. All you can do is wait.

It’s another hour before you hear the click of the lock. You’re nearly on your knees in relief, but you stay rooted to the flimsy mattress. Try not to think about how you’ll have to sleep on it, even though you’ll be up half the night with residual worry. All those lingering ghosts.

Jimin doesn’t say anything, so neither do you.

[55.6761° N, 12.5683° E | Copenhagen, DENMARK]

Jimin’s hair is orange when you go to Copenhagen.

Not for a job, just to breathe. You wanted to see the city at Christmastime; Jimin’s never been.

You crack a joke. Point out buildings of similar color, have him stand in front of one as you take a picture. Everyone smiles when they pass the two of you on the street, Jimin’s eyes fond even though he rolls them as you pose him how you want. Still stands against an apricot-colored wall and flashes a smile and a peace sign, cheeks pink from the cold. Does a good job of pretending the two of you aren’t here just for fun, that this is something more.

It’s not.

The two of you fucked in a hotel room in Reykjavik and haven’t spoken a word of it since.

You nearly lost your mind over him in Buenos Aires and haven’t spoken a word of that, either.

Instead, his hand finds yours as the two of you walk around Tivoli Gardens. You marvel at the lights and Jimin marvels at you. You share mulled wine and spiced doughnuts. Jimin tries to drag you on the swings but you plant your feet and refuse, laughing through your refusals. As dangerous as your lives are, motion sickness might be the most. He gets his revenge and poses you in front of a giant nutcracker, then again in front of one of the endless Christmas trees.

Jimin pays for the two of you to decorate honey cakes. You’re surrounded by families with shrieking children and palpable adoration, and it’s all you can do not to wonder if anyone you’ve taken out had ever had something like this. Something that makes your soul warm; something that still lingers in your bones years later.

The two of you take a selfie when it starts to snow. It stings when you have no one to send it to, so it just lives in your phone. Maybe it’s enough.

On another day, Jimin holds your hand through Torvehallerne. This time you marvel at him while he marvels at all the food, eyes wide each time he turns to ask if he should buy something. You always say yes and he always shares, and it’s all you can do not to think about why you don’t have to budget yourselves. Why you’re able to walk through the market and buy whatever you want; how you could buy every item for sale and it wouldn’t make a dent.

(You pick up small trinkets for Taehyung and Jungkook. Not because you want to, but because it feels nicer than remembering that you have no one to buy gifts for. Not really. Not anymore.)

Jimin wants to ice skate, so you do. He holds your hand then, too. More out of necessity than anything else, and he has none of his usual grace. Someone hands you a free cup of hot chocolate, just because. Jimin pouts and then it’s his hot chocolate. It’s all you can do not to kiss away the whipped cream on the corner of his mouth.

Back in your lavish hotel, after countless days have blurred together and Jimin’s fresh from a shower, skin flushed, you finally ask yourself if it’s worth putting up such a fight. If it’s really all that bad to care for Jimin and be cared for in return. If it’s all that bad to be someone else, just for a little while: someone with a normal life who makes a normal living and has a normal capability to love. Someone who isn’t damaged beyond repair.

That will never be you. Not fully, and certainly not in this lifetime, but maybe it could be, a little.

“Jimin,” you say, because you need to try. Jimin loves you in ways you’ll never understand, and you want to be better for him. “We should talk.”

Your voice is small and hesitant, and Jimin hates it. Sees trouble where there’s only vulnerability, so he misreads. Shakes his head. Takes a risk and stands between your legs at the edge of the bed—yours, because there’s two—as he tilts your head back, thumbs pressing into the contours of your cheeks. The scar still sits in the hollow of your throat, and that version of you feels so far away. That life feels so far away.

There’s no violence here. There’s no blood, no fugues. There’s just you and Jimin, whose voice is small like yours when he shakes his head and says, “You should kiss me instead.”

The second time is nothing like the first.

Jimin moves delicately. Feels like silk lace, tastes like spun sugar. Moves both his mouth and his body fluidly, no hesitation, yet he still takes his time. Still pauses to look at you with endless devotion; with awed reverence. Makes a map of your body and marks all his favorite places with his lips.

“Tell me what you want,” he says. Speaks the words against the skin just beneath your ear. “Anything. I’ll give you whatever you want, just have to ask.”

What you want isn’t tangible, isn’t possible, so you stay quiet. Thread your fingers through Jimin’s hair, gasp when he mouths along the column of your throat. Jimin reserves all his softness for you. Bathes you in it. Would kill anyone to keep it that way.

So you say, “Want your mouth,” and let slip a quiet moan when he gives you what you’ve asked for. When he situates himself between your thighs and sucks and licks until you’re writhing, making a mess, grasping fruitlessly at the sheets, his hair, his shoulders, only calming when his hands find yours and your fingers interlock.

Jimin mouths at you until you’re trembling. Until you’re needy and desperate, hips moving on their own, fucking yourself against his face. Until nothing exists except the heat in your belly, the stars behind your eyelids, the heady, fucked-out sound of Jimin’s voice as he talks you through it, murmurs praise against your cunt.

Jimin mouths at you until you forget.

This isn’t your life. This is not something you can have.

But, in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter? You’ve made peace with death, and there’s only one of two ways it’s going to come for you in the end: by Namjoon’s hand or someone else’s. So what does it matter?

This time, Jimin fucks you slow. Kisses you with your taste still in his mouth. Thumbs over a hardened nipple just to see what earns him a reaction, and what you truly want is more time—something else that’s impossible.

Jimin’s hair is orange when you think you might be in love with him.

[ 48.8566° N, 2.3522° E | Paris, FRANCE ]

Jimin’s hair is pink when—

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the toilet.

Soaks a washcloth in warm water. Wrings it out. Stands in front of you, and there’s water dripping onto the floor and Jimin doesn’t care, doesn’t seem to see anything in this moment except for you, your hands covered in someone else’s blood, and he reaches out, gently grabs your wrist. Palm up. Someone else’s blood. Everything smells like copper and iron. Looks too surreal beneath the fluorescent lights of this hotel bathroom for your mind to make sense of it.

There is care in the way Jimin cleans your hands. There is tenderness in the way he both refuses to see what you really are and the way he’s the only one to ever see you so entirely, when you look down at the blood he’s washing away and all you can see is stigmata. When all you see is sin.

“I know you don’t love me,” he says, and there is a conviction in his words that stuns you into silence. “Not the way I love you, anyway.”

That tenderness is still there as he says this. As he presses the wet fabric into the meat of your palm, wipes the stains away, and the warmth is as calming as it is undeserved. It feels like something forbidden. It feels like salvation and condemnation all at once, like whatever sick depravity permeates you is contagious, will take over Jimin, too, just from touching you.

Jimin is close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to see the violence that he exists in alongside you: the rips in his clothes, the scars that decorate his skin. Close enough to know he smells sickly-sweet, just like death. Your hand shakes as it reaches for him and never follows through. Doesn’t want to contaminate him.

“I do,” you finally say. Whatever is in your voice is not conviction. “I can’t.” You suck in a breath, try to steady your breathing. This is where it all comes crashing down, you think, because in all the years you’ve done Namjoon’s bidding, you’ve never cried. You can take life so freely and without thought, but you cannot love Jimin. “Someone like me isn’t capable of it.”

Jimin pauses, the washcloth stuck in the space between your ring and middle fingers. “And who is someone like you?”

Water is still dripping to the floor. Serosanguineous: blood tainting something untouched. Not something one thing or another but both, watery-pink. Looks like Jimin’s hair. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” you answer. “More than I can count. More than I can name. More than the ones that come to haunt me at night.” Your free hand moves to your chest, covers your heart. “There’s nothing here, Jimin. I’m not sure there ever was.”

The washcloth drops to the floor, and all that blood belonging to a man whose name you never bothered to learn before you put a bullet between his eyes finds a new place to rest. “I think,” he begins, clasping your unclean hand in his own, voice dropping to a whisper, “you forget, sometimes.” You gasp as he places your palm to his cheek, drags it across his face, smears a stranger’s blood across his skin. “That we’re the same.”

Jimin is always overwhelming, but the love he has for you is even more so. It consumes you entirely, embeds itself beneath your skin, makes a home, would tear you apart, body and soul, to return to him.

[ 47.4979° N, 19.0402° E | Budapest, HUNGARY ]

Jimin’s hair is lavender when it all goes to shit.

“You’re being followed.”

Seokjin’s voice is garbled through the earpiece, tinny and metallic, and you roll your eyes. Some things don’t need to be said, because you’ve known someone was following you for the last three blocks. Average height, black peacoat, close-cropped haircut. Not the kind of person that’d stand out here, and that’s exactly why you’d sent Jimin in the other direction.

“No shit,” you respond in Hungarian, because you already know the man following you doesn’t speak or understand it. “Give me somewhere to go.”

It takes Seokjin a few moments to run the translation. “There’s a side street up on your right,” he answers. “It’s tight, but there’s an alleyway at the end. You can buy some time if you’re quick.”

“Where’s Jimin?”

You pass a vendor selling lángos and duck into the street behind the stall. Just as Seokjin had said, there’s a small alleyway up on the left, and your footfall is near-silent as you break into a sprint to reach it. “Safe,” is all Seokjin says.

You take a second to steady your breathing, knowing you’re good on time—the man following you was close enough to know where you’d turned, but, if you’re lucky, not much after that. That plays on a loop: if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky, if you’re lucky. What is luck, what does it look like, in a life left entirely to chance? In a life with no guarantees?

You tuck yourself away, focus on Seokjin’s metallic breaths. Think about his basement in Seoul, why he’s in it. Ask, “What happened in Addis Ababa?” because it feels important to know.

There’s not much you know about Seokjin’s life. Whatever happened in Ethiopia had been before your time, reduced to hushed whispers and gossip fodder after your arrival. No one spoke of it, Seokjin especially, but every now and then something would slip in the same way weeds grow in sidewalk cracks.

A job gone wrong. A bombing at the consulate with Seokjin inside.

His reply is simple, words spoken carefully: “I loved someone once, too.”

He can’t see it, but you nod nonetheless; an answer that doesn’t require a response, because you know. It’s enough to fill in the rest. What Seokjin’s trauma looks like. Why he doesn’t do field work anymore. Why he prefers the solitude of the basement, rarely a sound beyond the electric thrum of the server racks.

Who had gone in to retrieve him, and why Yoongi has the scar over his eye.

“You loved someone,” you conclude, “and he would’ve been willing to die for you.”

“Yes,” Seokjin says, and it’s like the word’s been punched out of him. Sounds like something repressed, something left to rot in the darkest corner of the world.

Love, to Seokjin, looks and sounds the same as death.

“I think most people spend their entire lives searching for a love like that,” he continues, and if you could see him you think he might look dazed, off-kilter. You think he might be an avatar. Seokjin is prying his ribcage apart, unwrapping the barbed wire from his heart, saying I once was in love and this is all I know of it. “But, to me, in this life, it’s a prison. Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? How do you—I kissed that skin. I worshiped it. I pressed my lips to it with whatever softness was left in me. How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled?” He exhales, all tremor. “You can’t. You can’t.”

You know this all too well. You know what it feels like to look at Jimin and know, intrinsically and subconsciously, that you wouldn’t even hesitate. You’d take and give life to keep him alive and safe. You know that when you exit this world at someone else’s hand his face is the last thing you want to see.

You know it’s a liability.

You know it’s a target painted on your back. Between your eyes.

You know there’s nothing left to say, that this particular conversation has run its course. The two of you sit in an amicable silence, and you hope Seokjin can hear the life that surrounds you, however mundane. Hope he can hear the lángos vendor trying to hawk his goods; hope he can hear a city 8,000 kilometers away; hope he can hear these regular, everyday people going about their lives and remember there’s hope beyond his four walls.

I think you’d like it here, you think, but you don’t dare to say it aloud.

Time passes in a meaningless blur. Could be minutes, could be hours. No one’s come to kill you, so you reckon you’ve long since been in the clear. And maybe it speaks to Seokjin’s idea that love is a prison, because you know something’s happened to Jimin long before Seokjin speaks it into existence.

You’re up and out of the alleyway before you’re told to move. Have no idea where you’re going, but you’re racing through the streets of Budapest with a panic you haven’t ever felt in your life. Feels like quicksand; feels like molasses; feels like you have to wade through all the blood you’ve spilled, now congealed, to get to him.

“Where am I going?” you demand. Your lungs are on fire. In the split-second of silence it becomes a desperate scream. “Seokjin, tell me where the fuck I’m going!”

“The—fuck, the wa-warehouse up on your right.” You can’t think about why he’s crying. “I don’t—I don’t know wha-what’s there, you need to be careful. Please, you have to—”

Twenty seconds and you’ll be there, you’ll be with Jimin, you just need to keep running. You need to keep your head on straight. Remember your training. Remember you’ve built a life in a viper pit.

A man in a uniform is unloading a shipment around the back of the building. Faces away from you, bent at the waist. Takes very little effort to smash his head into the stone exterior and knock him unconscious, pocket his badge. You can’t get stupid now. Tell Seokjin to make sure all the cameras are cut, ask what floor when you shut yourself inside the freight elevator, unwilling to take the stairs and run into anyone who might be waiting. All the way to the top, he says, so all the way to the top you go.

—

Over the course of your life, you’ve made peace with death. Have stared it in the eye more times than you can count. Have dealt it out, evaded it, shook its hand.

You are wholly unprepared for the sight that greets you.

Red. Everything is red—the walls, the floor, what used to be a beautiful parquet pattern in the wood. In the center of the room: two bodies, maybe three. Not much that’d be able to identify them beyond a pile of teeth, no saying whose is whose. Slaughterhouse scraps.

And this is not—Jimin doesn’t work this way. Isn’t his MO. Jimin’s kills are elegant and neat, topped with a bow. What you see before you is ultraviolence. It is unhinged, it is fury, it is a complete loss of control. It’s what love looks like to Jimin, because he sits at the very edge of a rotted chair, legs crossed. Face streaked with blood, clothes covered in it.

“Jimin,” you say, because what else is there?

He tilts his head to the side, smirks a little, looks at you beneath his lashes. Eyes that used to find you across a room and calm you. Eyes that have locked onto you in the throes of pleasure. Eyes you’ve seen yourself reflected in, bathed in love and adoration.

Eyes that now contain nothing.

“Jimin, what the fuck happened?”

He removes his gloves with his teeth and doesn’t flinch away from the taste of iron. “They said they hurt you,” he states simply, “so I did what needed to be done.”

“What—” Nausea claws at your throat; for the first time, it’s all too much. This isn’t Jimin. This isn’t your Jimin, who smiled as you posed him against apricot walls in Copenhagen, who took a bullet to the stomach to protect you and never, ever told you. This is not the Jimin who wasted the last of his goodwill on loving you. “What did you do?” you whisper.

He rises to full height and it makes you flinch. You are scared of Jimin for the first time in your life: scared of who he is in this moment, what he’s capable of. And he sees it, lets that brand of anguish overtake him. Reaches for you before he decides against it and lets his hand drop to his side. Says, “I would never hurt you,” as if the words could brand themselves into your skin so you’d never forget.

“No, you’d just—” You squeeze your eyes shut. Don’t think about how one of the men nearly embedded into the floor was the one trailing you earlier.

Instead, you think about Seokjin: Once someone is willing to die for you, how do you keep them alive? You think about: How do you look at that same skin and know you’re the reason it’s mangled? You think about: In this life, it’s a prison.

You drop to your knees. Let the blood seep through your clothes and into your skin, undeserving of shying away from it.

Namjoon should’ve let you go.

You think about the men in front of you. Who they were, who they loved. The grief all of this is going to leave behind, and it becomes impossible to breathe. You grasp at your throat, think about all the times you’ve been strangled and who’d been there to cut the rope. There is no limit to Jimin’s devotion, and you understand now, how it drove Yoongi to madness. How he loved someone so much he would’ve retrieved their corpse from a building and how that same person can no longer bear to look at the damage they’d caused.

“This isn’t love, Jimin,” you choke out.

He stands in front of you. Stigmata. You’re worshiping at the altar of some kind of devil. At least his hands are clean when he places his fingers beneath your chin, forces you to look up at him. “What is it, then?”

“Destruction.”

A quiet huff of cruel laughter. “See, this is the difference between me and you, darling.” He takes back his hand, runs it through his blood-streaked hair, and your chin sags to your chest without his support. “Because I already knew that. Because I have destroyed myself every single day loving you.” He squats down, eye-level, and he says, “I need you to listen to me when I say this, sweetheart: you do not love me the way I love you, because I would do worse. When it comes to you, there is nothing on this earth I would not destroy to keep you safe.”

He clears his throat. Collects whatever’s in his mouth and spits onto one of the bodies. “If this is enough to have you tucking your fucking tail between your legs, then go, because this doesn’t even scratch the fucking surface.”

You can’t bring yourself to say anything, and sometimes that says it all.

Jimin presses a kiss to the top of your head. Makes a call. Cleaners will be here soon, he says, better get going.

You watch him go.

[ 37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA ]

Jimin’s hair is black when Namjoon calls the meeting.

He takes the seat across from Namjoon’s desk because they don’t meet like this often. Assignments are usually manila folders slipped under doors, hushed whispers in hallways confirmed with a nod or a text on a burner phone. Assignments are not last-minute assemblies in conference rooms and offices.

But the way Namjoon is looking at him, with his clenched jaw and a gaze that’s meant to look barbed to anyone who doesn’t actually know him—Jimin doesn’t need to ask what this is about.

Had he bothered to look, he would’ve known by the way you stood in the far corner of the room, face obscured by the mid-afternoon shadows. Yoongi’s close to you, for some reason: dressed head to toe in black, perched on a lateral file cabinet, using a metal corner to sharpen his switchblade. Just like a harbinger of death. Some sort of fucked up omen, a warning that’s come too late.

Didn’t I tell you this would end badly, he hears Yoongi taunt in his head. This is what happens when you lay with trash.

Easy for Yoongi to say when he doesn’t know what it means to be cared for by you. Doesn’t know how it feels to give in to the freefall and plummet at your feet, stripped back and laid bare. Doesn’t know how it feels to kiss secrets into your skin like constellations, to map his tongue along every unspoken confession.

Easy for Yoongi to say, because he doesn’t have to survive the aftermath. Doesn’t have to feel the heartbreak, the agony of having you and watching as you slip through his fingers. Yoongi doesn’t have to struggle just to breathe, doesn’t have to endure the nights staring at the ceiling, watching as the daylight creeps into the corners of his vision. Doesn’t have to watch you looking so unaffected.

“Jimin.” Namjoon’s tone is flat, needlelike.

Behind him, Yoongi chuckles lowly. “What?” Jimin asks, his gaze trained on the painting behind Namjoon’s head. Looks like one he’d seen in Berlin, the time the two of you had gone just because and spent an afternoon ducking in and out of museums to escape the rain.

When he closes his eyes, he still sees the raindrops stuck to your eyelashes. The beads of water rolling off the sleeves of your leather jacket. How blinding your smile had been. The laughter in your voice as you ordered beer after beer after beer for the two of you in flawless Berlinisch. A brief, fleeting glimpse at normalcy. At the kind of life the two of you could have if you were just… different. Lived different lives. Were different people.

“You’ve gotten sloppy.”

Namjoon’s words are a cold bucket of water. Snap him back to reality, yank him back to the present where he’s forced to leave those river-lined streets behind. You’re silent and Yoongi’s still snorting laughter. “Okay,” is all Jimin can bring himself to say.

Jin had gotten sloppy once, too, and Namjoon stuck him down in the basement to work logistics. Might not be so bad, Jimin reckons. He’d be away from you, spared of this fucking misery. “So you know that’s unacceptable.”

Jimin just shrugs, resigned to his fate, whatever it may be. “I’m reassigning the both of you,” Namjoon continues. “You’ll both have new partners for your next assignments, since you clearly can no longer be trusted together.”

“Who?” Jimin manages to choke out.

Namjoon raises an eyebrow, clearly having expected an argument. “You’re being sent to Shanghai with Jungkook. You,” he says, turning his attention to you, “are going to Moscow with Taehyung.”

She’s fond of Taehyung, Jimin wants to say. But you’d been fond of him too, once upon a time, and that’d only ended in heartbreak, so who fucking cares.

They’re cruel, the tricks Jimin’s mind plays on him. How he convinces himself you look pained. How his fingers wring together at the thought of entrusting his life in the hands of someone else, someone new. At your life being just as at stake; at Taehyung being tasked with keeping you alive. Would you die for him, too, the way you’d always told Jimin you would for him? Would Taehyung take a bullet to the stomach to keep you safe the way Jimin had?

Even more cruel is the way you scoff, pushing yourself off of the wall as you fold your arms across your chest and say, “That’s bullshit, Kim Namjoon.”

No one talks to Namjoon that way except you.

Yoongi’s knife stops twirling. Just like a bird sensing a storm, senses on high-alert as he flicks his gaze over to you. “I’m sorry?” Namjoon says. “What part of Jimin losing his mind and nearly outing all of us seems like bullshit to you?”

“Hm, let me think,” you retort, a manicured finger tapping against the hollow of your cheek. “The part where you’re reassigning me for someone else’s mistake?”

Which part was the mistake? Jimin wants to ask. Needs to know how much you regret. Was sleeping with you the mistake? Falling in love with you? Getting too caught up in all these daydreams and letting reality get away from him?

“This organization is more important than Park Jimin getting his goddamn dick wet,” Namjoon snaps. “Keeping all of you safe—keeping you alive—is more—”

You scoff. Take an entire container of gasoline and pour it right on top of Namjoon’s flammable ire. “Then perhaps you’d be so kind as to explain to me why Min fucking Yoongi can fuck damn near everyone in this establishment, yet I have to sit here and listen to your goddamn mouth—”

Jimin doesn’t think Yoongi even knows his arm is moving.

There’d just been the trading of barbed words. His own name being spoken into the ether. Yoongi’s arm moving away from his body, switchblade clasped tightly between his fingers as he plunges it into your flesh.

Jimin watches it puncture your arm in slow motion. Feels the bile in his throat, the heat in his belly. Looks first at Namjoon whose jaw has gone slack, skin pale, as he stammers over words that won’t come. Then he looks at Yoongi—expects to find shock or guilt but finds only a muted disinterest and flared nostrils.

Finally, he looks at you. Watches the white cotton sleeve of your shirt slowly turn red and sticky-wet. Watches as your lips move around syllables and vowels and consonants Jimin can’t decipher.

“—fucking piece of shit, this is my favorite shirt! I’ll never get all this goddamn blood out of it—”

Jimin thinks he hears Yoongi say you deserve it. But Jimin isn’t really thinking much as he clambers out of his chair and moves in Yoongi’s direction. Doesn’t think at all as he lets instinct take over, lets adrenaline steer him headfirst into yet another bad idea.

He’s always known there’d come a day he’d be face-to-face with the sight of your blood. Had always known it’d come from someone else’s hand. Had always promised himself that hurting you would be the last thing anyone ever did.

Jimin has his fingers wrapped around Yoongi’s throat and he finally understands it—the joy Yoongi finds in taking life.

“What’s the matter, Jimin-ah?” Yoongi taunts. Jimin tightens his grip. Suddenly hates that fucking scar across Yoongi’s eye. “You’re never on clean-up duty. Always make your girlfriend do the dirty work. Finally grew some fucking balls, huh?”

“Fuck you,” Jimin says stupidly. Can’t think of anything more to say. Not that he needs to. Wrapping your hands around someone’s throat sends enough of a message, he thinks.

Namjoon’s still tongue-tied as you yank Yoongi’s blade from your arm, immediately pressing your other hand over the wound to stem the bleeding. The sight of your blood is making Jimin dizzy; the smell of the iron hanging in the air. All he wants to do is choke the life out of the man in front of him, but more than that, he just wants to hold your hand. Wants to comfort you, even though he knows you don’t need it. Not from him, not from anyone, but he still wants to. Wants to press his lips to the sweat at your brow.

And Yoongi can see it, too, because he starts laughing. It’s an odd, fractured noise. Jimin isn’t sure if he’s ever heard him laugh before, decides he also hates the way it sounds. Feels all wrong watching it leave his crooked smirk. Makes Jimin’s stomach plummet to the ground.

“Oh, you’re fucked, aren’t you?” Yoongi teases around Jimin’s slackened grip. “You weren’t just fucking her, you’re in love with her.”

Weird how Jimin is the one with his hands around someone’s neck and feels like he’s the one suffocating.

[ 31.2304° N, 121.4737° E | Shanghai, CHINA ]

Jimin watches the life drain from an innocent woman’s face and feels nothing.

Jimin watches Jungkook cut a man down and feels even less.

When it’s over, he cleans up wordlessly and doesn’t eat for three days.

[ 37.5665° N, 126.9780° E | Seoul, SOUTH KOREA ]

Jimin’s hair has faded to brown by the time he returns from Shanghai.

The more complicated job had gone to you and Taehyung. Jimin had tried not to take it personally. The Russian hits are always unnecessarily violent and Jungkook still isn’t fully trained. There’s still a phantom pain in Jimin’s stomach that warns him of the consequences of taking on more than he can chew. So, sure, Shanghai had gone fine, but his mind had been nearly 7,000 kilometers away the entire time.

Good thing he’d returned to Seoul unscathed, too, because he’s sure Namjoon would’ve eliminated him without a moment’s hesitation if he’d fucked up again.

But Shanghai had only served to prove the leader right. Jimin can’t work with you anymore. Can’t focus, can’t stomach the violence, can’t keep his goddamn head on straight.

He sighs as he glances at Jungkook to his right. Jimin had watched him murder two men in cold blood not even thirty-six hours ago and now he’s doe-eyed and sucking down his third banana milk of the morning. It really makes his head spin, being paired with this grown-up infant of a man now instead of you, but for all of Jungkook’s apparent shortcomings, he’d kept Jimin alive. He isn’t dead.

And then you walk in with Taehyung and he wishes he was.

Because you’re laughing and Taehyung’s got his arm slung around your shoulder and you look happy. It’s the kind of happiness that should be contagious, bloom warmth in his chest, but it doesn’t. It just takes the last frayed strand of hope he has and sets flame to it.

You don’t look like you miss Jimin at all. Don’t look like you’ve lost sleep or skipped meals.

“Didn’t take you long, did it?” Jimin says, because he’s wounded and lashing out. Not because he means it.

You must know he doesn’t, too, because you don’t react. “Watch your mouth, Park Jimin,” Taehyung warns, because he doesn’t know, and this only sets Jimin off more. You don’t need defending. Or had you, and Jimin had simply thought it wasn’t his place to provide it? That you wouldn’t want it?

“Or what, Kim Taehyung?”

Taehyung is cherubic. It’s part of his charm, one of many reasons why he’s so effective. If you’re looking to die, you look for the guy who looks like Yoongi, not the one who smiles wide and warm like Taehyung. So when he sets his jaw and pokes his tongue into his cheek and says, “Or I’ll cut your fucking head off, you stupid fuck,” your attention is finally piqued.

“I’m so sick of this,” Jungkook wails, banana milk tossed carelessly in the trash. “All of you need to get your fucking shit together!”

Taehyung rolls his eyes at the same time you pretend to inspect your nails. “Is that why you’re so temperamental, Chim?” Taehyung prods, looking every bit the pretentious, murderous angel he is. “Because you got sent to China on a babysitting mission while the grownups did real work?”

“Fuck you,” Jungkook snaps, rising to full height. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“Oh? Could’ve fooled me.” Taehyung’s words are razor-sharp and smell like kerosene. “Tell me, then: were you on babysitting duty? Had to look after our precious little Jiminie while he nursed his broken heart?”

You sigh, full of faux-exasperation, and place a gentle hand on Taehyung’s forearm. Dig your nails in just enough to be a warning, and if Jimin hadn’t been looking he’d miss it: the way Taehyung deflates instantly, anger dissipating like smoke, back in control. Just because you’d touched him. Just because you were there. Jimin knows that touch, how it feels to be under your control, and it makes his chest ache. Makes everything feel like it’s sitting wrong in his stomach, and he’s either going to be sick all over Namjoon’s overpriced fucking rug or wrap his hands around Taehyung’s throat the way he’d done to Yoongi.

He’s out of his goddamned mind; he feels untethered. Helpless. Like it was always going to end like this, and maybe Jimin knew that and had just ignored it. Maybe now he’s paying the price—maybe he’s finally found something he can’t afford.

Jungkook’s still going off, nasty gaze set on Taehyung because he’s the only one playing along. They’re exchanging words Jimin can’t make heads nor tails of. Words he doesn’t care about. Words that ring empty and hollow because they sound nothing like the way you say his name. Shapeless, unlike the way your lips move around those syllables.

“Jimin,” you say, the sound finally registering and bringing him back down to earth. All he can do is stare. “Can we talk?” Taehyung and Jungkook are still trading barbs.

Wonders how he got here. Looks around the room and wonders if each and every one of them is destined for this same fate, this madness. Wants to tell you why he forgot his vest, why he was three hours late in Argentina. Wants to grovel and beg and leave this place and never look back.

More than anything, he wants to know what it feels like to actually be human.

So he shakes his head. Tries not to be haunted by the way your face falls at the rejection.

There is a scar on his abdomen and a scar on your arm that both tell the same story. There is a man in the basement who is in love with a man above ground and is too weighed down by guilt to do anything about it. There is a man here who plays god, has soldiers to do his bidding, and there is very little here that Jimin has only for himself.

The two of you will have that conversation, but he needs to be human, first.

[ 34.6901° N, 135.1956° E | Kobe, JAPAN ]

This is a waste of your fucking time.

Whatever Namjoon had thought would be here doesn’t seem to exist. Yoongi can barely tolerate you on a good day, threatens to stick a dagger in your neck at least twice an hour, but the more time the two of you waste chasing ghosts, the closer he comes to unraveling entirely.

“Stop fucking staring at me,” he snaps, blowing the smoke of his cigarette right in your face.

You tut. “But you’re so beautiful, Yoongi, I just can’t help it.”

He digs his switchblade from his boot. Makes a show of flipping it open. “I can cut your fuckin’ eyes out of your skull,” he intones. “Maybe that’ll help.”

In your ear, Jimin’s laughter rings like crystal.

Ricochets off of all the corners of Seokjin’s basement, makes the echo sound warped through the earpiece. “Please tell Yoongi-ssi to keep an eye on the man with the shaved head. In front of him, roughly sixty degrees to his right.”

You relay the message. Watch as Yoongi transforms—sharpened gaze, rigid posture, disappears into the shadows. More apex predator than man. “And me?” you ask.

“Backup,” comes Seokjin’s voice. “We haven’t found your mark yet.”

You hum. Pick up the cigarette Yoongi left behind and stick it between your lips. Smoke it nearly to the filter. “You got it, boss,” you tease, just because it flusters him.

“I’m—that’s not—knock it off.”

Exhale. Stub out the cigarette. Butt in your pocket. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Jimin says, and his voice is soft, sounds like spun sugar. “Stay alive, all right?”

Jimin’s hair isn’t dyed at all.

if you've read this far: thank you so, so much! i am more appreciative than i can put into words. this is very different from what i typically write, but i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.

i would love to hear your thoughts if you have any. <3

#jimin x reader #jimin smut #bts x reader #bts smut #jimin imagine #jimin scenarios #jimin fanfic #jimin x you #jimin x y/n #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts x you #bts x y/n

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drizztdohurtin · 3 months

Text

Rolan Headcanons: pining and dating

pairing: Rolan x gn!Reader

[ masterlist ] [ wip list ]

This post will be organized into 2 parts: pining and dating (to be fair though, it's more like unofficially dating vs officially dating) - so only read the parts you're interested in! The marriage and domesticity post will follow soon!

includes language alluding to 18+ content, but nothing explicit.

"Pining"

so I think that your guys' "relationship" would start during the events of act 2 - but nothing would be official

I know a lot of you probably hate the connotation of "situationship" but I'm going to be honest: the word itself fits perfectly

try to get rid of the gross feeling that word leaves in your brain for a second and think about the things you're having to do throughout the events of the game

you are fighting people every! single! day!, you have a fucking tadpole in your brain that could turn you into a mind flayer at the drop of a dime if something were to happen to your guardian, you're eventually tasked with killing three Chosens of their respective Gods, you're navigating the shadow cursed lands and dealing with all the literal freaks that live in it -- you cannot have a real relationship right now !!! it would be the most depressing thing ever !!

It's a bit of a situation for a while, you guys are into each other and have reciprocated some level of feelings for the other, whether it's just lust or it's something deeper (or both), and by the end of act 2 it's just kind of a situation with him

on top of that, you both are hiding it from everyone else

you're also trying to be considerate of Rolan and his life, his safety

being in a relationship with him, making promises to him, would put him in danger - you'd put him in danger

on top of that, he's been working so hard for the apprenticeship he's on his way to the city for, and for so long, too - he needs to focus on that

despite these two major components, you still can't keep away from each other, and eventually, just allow yourselves to indulge in each other just a little bit before going separate ways for the events of act 3

You both take a private moment to say your goodbyes before leaving the inn for good, after having spent multiple tendays getting to know each other and revealing certain feelings

during that moment, he tells you to come find him in the city when you can and he makes you promise not to get yourself killed

you're like "erm 🤨☝ how do I-" and he's like JUST PROMISE ME

So now you really can't die, bc Rolan said so.

my headcanon is that you two are actually quite close, quite bonded by the time act 3 begins

neither of you has said "I love you" to the other at this point, but you both came super close to it on the day you killed Lorroakan after having found Rolan all beaten up

despite everything you'd been through up to that point, you've never been quicker to kill someone than in that moment

after the fight, Rolan pulls you into an intense, yet somehow still gentle hug, and you reciprocate - hoping to the Gods he doesn't have any bruises where you're squeezing him

that moment you're both holding each other, with so many emotions hanging in the air, is when you both nearly say it

except you don't - because there's a deep, unspoken understanding between the two of you that nothing can happen until you both know it's safe

you end up telling your companions that you're done for the day, that they can go do whatever they want, and you'll meet them at the tavern in the morning

(they have put two and two together by now if you haven't told them at this point)

you spend the entire night taking care of him and making him feel better (take that however you'd like)

leading up to the final fight, there'd be a moment between the two of you when he timidly asks you if you'll come to him after you beat the Absolute

when you remind him your chances of survival are small, he tells you again that you're not allowed to get yourself killed

the moment is cute but it's also terribly sad - but you still promise him you'll return to him when it's all over

and when the time comes, that's exactly what happens

he was at home in the tower, he had been pacing the entire time waiting for your arrival - first aid equipment and healing potions on the desk in case you needed them

he'd been drinking too, as proven by the empty bottle of wine next to all the healing supplies

when you entered the room, horribly bruised and bloodied, he makes a noise that perfectly reflects the level of relief he feels - something between a shocked gasp and a relieved sigh

"my love" he'd call to you breathlessly, not even hesitating to bring you into his arms despite how dirty you were

the two of you are immediately on the same page, holding each other impossibly close, kissing deeper than you ever have before

he buries his face in your neck with another "my love" before telling you how relieved he is that you're alive

"I love you" finally comes out that night

he'd have you rinse off briefly as he ran a hot bath for you, adding lavender oils to soothe your mind, and mineral salts to soothe your body

he'd get in with you, place you on his lap facing him, and just hold you as you told him about the horrors of the fight

you'd tell him how you couldn't believe it was over, that a part of you was terrified that something else would come up and you'd have to jump back into action and that it'd never end

he'd reassure you that there was nothing else to worry about, promising it was all over as he ran his hands soothingly over your body, feeling all of your scars under his fingertips and palms - thinking about everything you'd been through, everything you'd sacrificed

an icy twang of guilt pierces through him when his fingers graze over the scar you got in the fight to save his siblings, and he shudders before pulling you in as close as possible

He'd tell you, in the most sincere voice you had ever heard from him, that he loves you - your whole body flushing with warmth at his confession

you'd told him earlier how you didn't really have anywhere to go now that this was all over and you'd have to find somewhere to live

he'd just kind of brush it off, saying you could stay at the tower as long as you needed to

it wouldn't be until later that night once you were tangled up together in bed that he'd tell you not to look for somewhere to stay

He'd tell you to stay with him, that he wanted to go to sleep next to you every night and wake up by your side every morning

He'd tell you again that he loves you before finally expressing how honored he'd be to call you his

over 700 words later, you guys are finally official LDFLDFJD

Dating:

you take him up on his offer, obviously, and you move in with him right after the events of the game

Turns out Rolan had told Lia and Cal about the two of you, and his feelings for you, that night you fought the Absolute and he was stuck at home worried about you

His siblings had come into the room he was in to ask where to find something, only to find an extremely anxious Rolan

He wouldn't have much patience with them, bursting out in a ramble upon the first question they ask him - exposing his feelings for you and all of the moments he'd shared with you up to that point, and how now the person he loved could very well die

They were like "well yeah okay we knew you had a thing for them but love?!?!"

That's why they weren't surprised to see you there the next morning - they really liked you so they were quite happy, actually

there was a little bit of a learning curve in your guys' relationship at first

you'd only ever known each other during the most stressful parts of your lives

so now that your lives were far less stressful, you almost didn't know how to handle it - but Rolan was incredibly understanding and patient with you

it was like you weren't processing what you needed to, and your body was still in "go, go, go" mode

Initially, you kept yourself busy by helping Rolan with his tasks around the tower - it was easy for you to get lost in the tedious work of cataloging and organizing all of the books and scrolls

As much as Rolan loved spending time with you and the interest you were expressing in his work, he worried about you.. a lot

He'd eventually ask you if you had an interest in venturing out more into the city as he'd been worried about how secluded you'd become (he was gently trying to get you back into society)

You both had compromised that whenever he was doing tasks around the tower you'd be allowed to help him, but when he was doing "master of the tower" things, you'd go into the city to visit the markets or something similar

Upon returning home on one of the days you had to go out into the city while he worked, you were immediately greeted with a loving hug and kiss from Rolan before he led you to the dining room

There on the table was your favorite meal from home, something you hadn't had since you were a child, something you'd only told Rolan about once

You were breaking down before you even picked up your silverware, and Rolan was by your side in the blink of an eye

That was the night you finally began to process what had happened to you, and he was there for you through every second of it

I didn't mean to get lowkey sad wth, anyways

Rolan can cook!

He loves to cook for you, he will literally make anything you want

He'd cook for you on the same night each week, but he always wished he could do it more often, he looks forward to it every day

Each time is like a little date - and you have such lovely conversations on those nights, it's probably his favorite thing to do with you

Other honorable mentions for Rolan's favorite things to do with you include reading to you in bed while you're curled up to him, and taking relaxing baths with you (and other things with you, but I already made a post about that)

Rolan is very much husband-material

While you're dating, you talk about your future together quite a lot, and he really appreciates the moments you open up and let him know where your head is at

he's already decided that he wants to marry you by the time the 6-month reunion party with your companions comes around

and depending on your opinions about it, he'd marry you as soon as he could

and when the time was right, Rolan would propose to you

He knows you very well, so he wouldn't make it a grand occasion if that's something that you wouldn't like (but he absolutely would if it was)

regardless of the scale of his proposal, it would be exceedingly romantic - he's the type to have the whole thing planned out, word for word

he's not even that nervous about it beforehand since it would've been something you both discussed - he didn't have to worry about you saying no

instead, most of his thoughts were taken up by his excitement to finally be asking you

In the moment you say yes, he's practically already thinking about what he's going to cook for you on your 10th wedding anniversary

#i'm sorry if these suck - idk why I feel like they kinda suck HSDHFAHD #it's okay #the next ones will be bangers #on my hands and knees begging someone to request Rolan angst #my writing #my hcs #baby boy #rolan #fluff #x reader #bg3 #brainrot #baldur's gate 3 #x tav #rolan posting

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eydi-andrius · 1 month

Text

Fool Entire IV

warnings: verbal abuse, implied attempted r*pe, abuse of power, physical violence

Synopsis

If someone asked you who Prince Aemond was in your life, you probably would have said the love of your life.

Years have passed but still your heart yearns for him.

But you were no fool.

It was a lesson learned for you not to give your heart to a man who knows nothing but duty.

a/n: it's been a while huh? well it turns out i've already written chapters for this story and completely forgot about them. And yes, it was him with his slutty walk that made me check my WIPs for Aemond. 😂 Anyway! ENJOY! or I guess??? 🤺 It's also 3AM and I can't sleep. Augh!

Part III here.

🌿🌿🌿

"Then go." Simon replied nonchalantly.

"Did you even hear what I said?" You grimaced when he did not think twice giving you an answer to the questions you have been beating yourself to answer and choose from.

"I did." He said looking around.

"Then why did you recommend that I go back to court? You know how much I suffered." With a huff, you crossed your arms and glared at him.

"Little lady…. It is because, without a doubt, that you were born to be a noble lady. Tell me…how many times has someone been banished to a life full of riches for them to have an opportunity to go back without marrying? None." He also crossed his arms and glared back at you as he explained how his answer was the best one. He looks absolutely sure. And here you thought he would be the one to tell you not to.

"And based on your story, you were not going back as someone's fiance. I believe it is a win." He continued.

"How about my business then-"

"Nah uh. Once you become a noble lady again, you'll have more resources to use for it to grow. Think about it. Create your own wealth so if something happens and you were banished again, you'll have your own power. You will not go back to this slum. And your sister will be away from danger. Once an opportunity arises, you must seize it. Not everyone can get a second chance. Hear thy advice from a former mercenary. Seize it!" He squeezed his palm into fist and raised it in the air.

You can't help but chuckle on his antics and he bowed in front of you like an actor ending a play. Sometimes you cannot understand how he can act this way in a serious conversation.

"But I am serious, I won't be able to protect you always, especially now that I am having a child. I know how hard you thrive on your own and how much you have worked for you and your sister's life. However, we must know when to take chances when they show themselves. I admit that I worry about you. You are like a little sister of mine and I am saying this for your safety. Think about it." He gave a soft smile and tapped your nose.

In annoyance, you huffed and scrunched your face in disgust. How can an old man try to act adorable. He always does this when you look too serious and he usually follows the gesture with a…

"Alas! You're too young to worry too much about those things every time, so how about we move forward?" You can't help but roll your eyes. Simon will always be Simon. He is so predictable but you can always rely on his strength.

"Sister!" Your head snapped at the voice who called you and your eyes softened when you could see your sister sparkling with excitement at a fabric stall. The place looks dark for an afternoon. As if it was intentionally dimmed.

You smiled and went to her direction, followed closely by Simon.

"Look at it! The blue fabric glows in the dark!" She chirped and immediately showed you how beautifully the blue hue of the fabric looks, like the stars in the night. Glowing majestically from a gloomy night. It was gorgeous and you can't help but touch it. The fabric was soft, just like how you imagine clouds would feel, if you touch them. It is one of a kind and you can't help but be awed at how this cloth existed.

"Beautiful isn't it? The dye came from the ocean, while the fabric was loomed in a very certain way, making it so soft to the touch. You can only find that fabric available in our shop." The owner looks smug as he explains how they have gathered the needed materials for the said fabric. On how they made the cloth be so soft and how the dye looks so much alive, rather than just a glowing color at night.

"How much is it?" You asked, gulping nervously. Most of the time when owners introduce something this detailed the price will probably be something you can't afford.

You winced when he told you how much it was. The owner's face soured and shouted your party away as he saw how your face changed. He probably thought you and your sister were rich for having Simon around and also for having better clothing than the others in here. Of course, Simon did not back down without shouting his curses as well and calling the owner a bald bastard. You did your best to apologize but his mocking became too much and it was Simon who dragged you two away from the snobbish business man.

"Hah! That fabric is probably fake! That bald man really thought he could swindler us." Simon remarked bitterly as he copied how the business man introduced his product to you and your sister.

"Well, the fabric was truly beautiful and he seemed proud of it. It was our fault for not asking how much first. We wasted his time." You convinced him, but your tone still hurt by what happened.

"Oh don't start with that! That's the reason why you shouldn't be here at all. You become street smart, yes. But you still can't help putting logic on other people's bad behavior. If you know you're putting a new item for sale, you shouldn't treat your customers awfully for not being able to afford it. That was probably fake. Remember that." He rolled his eyes and walked in front of you and your sister with a frown. Your sister just giggled at you and you gave her a smile.

"I guess, we should continue and focus on our task at hand." With a deep breath, you opened the list of what you needed to buy and directed your company on what to do for today's leg work.

The afternoon sun was harsh as it beats you strolling around the market. Sweats build on your forehead and you can't help the amount of times you need to ask Simon for a break. You haggled, checked for new suppliers and searched the market for potential competitors like you always do to make sure you're top notch and following the trend. It helps a lot looking for new customers.

Once the shopping was done, you three decided to visit the brothel for refreshments. You'll just pay the girls there rather than here at the market.

However, there seems to be some sort of commotion. There were tons of people outside and you excused your way to see what was going on. You let out a horrified gasp when you saw bits of wood from broken tables and chairs. It was scattered everywhere. Looking around you saw the mistress, sitting in front of the door, dirtied and bruised. You ran towards the mistress and kneeled in front of her, asking her what happened. You helped to sit her on a chair that was brought out by one of the girls. She held her head. Her right cheek was swollen, eyes filled with fear. She looks pale too.

"Who did all of this!?" Simon yelled as he checked the damage and went inside the brothel.

Mysaria's business is protected not even by her connections but also by the Rouge Prince, Daemon Targaryen, so who in their right mind would do something so terrible and be bold.

"Are you feeling better?" You immediately handed over the goblet of water your sister brought to give to the mistress. You helped her tip over the cup and you told her to drink slowly. As you look closely, the red was starting to form like someone's hand, indicating that someone must have hurt her.

"You shouldn't be in here." Once she swallowed the water, she looked at you and grabbed your arm. Her eyes wide with worry.

"They're looking for you."

"Who?" Your heart beat faster and you can only think of someone who might be looking for you. His familiar back and silver hair flashes in your memory. Could it be possible that he found your connections with Mysaria already?

"They're back. The nobles who were looking for you to make you their slave." The horror in your face were visible and the fear you first felt about these people being Aemond were replaced with disgust and anger.

"How could they be so bold attacking Mysaria's place just to find a mere vanished lady?" You stood up and yelled. You can hear Simon and the other guards telling the outsiders to leave as they need to clean up the place.

"The Rouge Prince were removed as the head of the Night's Watch. He was banished by the King himself. And now, the position was empty. And those nobles with higher power acts like they own the place.

Is there really a time you could truly find peace?

"Go home. We can handle this. We did not say anything to them. The girls and I like you too much to let them find you. Go!" Before you can protest, one of the girls gives you two cloaks and pushes you away from the brothel. One of them dragged Simon out and she specifically told him to protect you on your way home.

The walk was quiet and tense. You can't help looking around you as you used another route to go home. The only time you stopped panicking was when Simon touched your shoulder and told you to breath. You did not realize you were holding on for a long time now. With worry, your sister called your name, held your hand and squeezed it to reassure you that you two will be safe.

While you do trust their words, it wasn't in your power to stop yourself from the trauma you suffered days after you were banished from the Red Keep.

You can't trust no one. Especially, the night guard's who known you to be Aemond's fiancé. You thought everyone liked you in court, that's why they were nice to you. But you were naive and only realized it a moment too late, when they were chasing you in the forest like a rabbit being hunted by wolves. They teased, cursed and insulted you as they do their best to locate you. They did not mention anything but you know they were planning to do some awful things to you. You were like a precious commodity that suddenly dropped in value and the fascination to have a taste of the person the Prince had, was an exotic opportunity for them.

You remembered the cold, your wet clothes from rain sticking on you like a second skin. Everything hurts and you were in pain but not a single thought about stopping from running crossed your mind. You cannot go home or else they will hurt your sister. So you did your best to get as far from home and lose them. You run before dawn and now you can see the sun peaking slowly above. You look behind you and you are sure you can't hear their voices anymore. You have to look for a way to go home now and get back. They probably got tired or maybe they got lost. But the most important thing was to meet your sister. You stepped towards a branch and the leaves gave way and you fell down towards a cliff. The area you stepped into had no land. It was a facade. Like a trap from nature. You did your best to shield your head from the impact and braced yourself as your body hit a tree. Your right arm was painful and your vision was spotted with black dots. Slowly, you don't know if it was because of the pain, hunger or exhaustion but your body succumbed to sleep but in your head, you forced yourself to stand up.

The moment you woke up, the smell of cooking meat woke you up. The fire crackles as it stirs the juicy part of the boar. It smells heavenly.

"Oh! Thank the Gods, you're awake. I thought my journey will be with me digging a grave for a dead body." The man wearing pleated armor and a sword looked at you, from his place sitting in front of the grilling meat.

You only widened your eyes and choked words as you panicked and did your best to move but failed as your body feels like it came from death.

"Woah! Woah! You don't have to worry. I am a stranger but I do not plan to hurt an injured lady. As you can see on my clothes, I am a mercenary and I'm on my way home to the capital when I saw you, almost dead in here. I gave you some medicine for the pain but it will take a while to work. I also bandaged the places I could. I don't have enough things so it is better for us to go to the capital once you are numb." He explained and as much as you do not trust him, he seems sincere to what he just said.

"Why are you in the middle of the forest, anyway?" He asked, curious and confused. He probably knew by now or at least for you, you think it was impossible for a lady to be alone in the forest but since he already checked your injuries, he knew you fought well.

You tried to swallow but there's no words coming out of your mouth. You looked at his container and he understood what you meant right away. He moved towards you and asked for your permission first before helping you out.

Once he tipped the body of his bottle, crisp water comforted your parched and wounded throat. It was heaven despite coughing a bit from the change of dry throat from cold water.

"Easy easy." He warned and you blinked in acknowledgement.

"I'm sorry. I was being chased by the night guards and ended here." You explained and his chill demeanor turned cold right away.

"Those bastards?" He asked. Voice gritty in anger.

"I can't believe they were trying to chase a girl to rape her. Did they not cut off all the cocks the past moon due to rape? Disgusting cows!" His forehead flexed in annoyance and veins started popping out from it. He looks angry, no, furious, as he yelled and cursed the golden cloaked protectors of the realm.

"Here drink this again. I hope this medicine works fast so we can leave here. I'm scared that those disgusting creatures will look for you again. They surely like being in power and abusing it. My darling almost fell victim of it so I promise that you can trust me." He looks serious and firm so all you did was nod and you did not hesitate to have his help.

You usually do not trust someone this fast anymore but there was something truthful and raw from his story. As if yours, even though a bit different, hit close to his experience.

And days after, you found out his name was Simon and her lover was once being taken advantage of those gold cloaked bastards.

He was seething as he told you what happened and you just stared at him the whole time. Somehow, you were grateful that the first one to help you can be a friend and an ally.

Years pass by and your friendship with Simon and his wife, flourished and you treat them like a family.

"Do not open your doors when you don't hear our secret knock. Also, make sure to make your place look like no one lives here. Stay at the back of the house near the other exit for the meantime and if you can live below for now. We are not sure if we can even trust your neighbors. I'll make sure to send food and the things you need." His grip on his sword tightened and you held his hand to stop him from hurting himself.

"I am grateful to be your friend, Simon. We will listen to you". You smiled unsure but you felt his tightened your hold for comfort and he breathed deeply.

"Be safe. I will make sure that they will not find you and the slums will vomit the likes of them. You are part of us now and we will protect you. "With a nod of understanding, Simon left and you and your sister were left by yourselves.

~~~~~

Simon kept his promise in taking care of the two of you as you laylow. You also got ahold of Mysaria and she told you to listen to Simon as she is too faraway to help. It seems like the blow of the fight between the Prince and the King kept Mysaria's power in question especially since she was asked to runaway with him. All she could do was say yes and do her best to appease the Rouge Prince to not kill and destroy her power that she established by herself.

Your sister did your best to entertain you and not mourn the hindrance that stopped your business. She had told you stories she heard, the things she learned and did her very best to take your mind off the worry. You were happy that she was doing her best and it did take your mind off the worry and you focused on learning more on how you can improve your business in Isolation.

However, it was way too peaceful. Sooner or later, something will go wrong. You just don't know when it will happen. So you pray. You pray to the Mother for protection. Hoping that she won't let her daughters of faith be harmed. Like she always has done for you for the past moons

#eydi andrius #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #house of the dragon #prince aemond #hotd #fic: fool entire #prince aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x female reader #aemond targaryen imagine

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hiemaldesirae · 2 months

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Thorn here:

Oh...ohhh!! Vox arrives in hell but instead of legs he just has a Shark's tail! He has a TV head and a Shark's tail and Alastor is instantly smitten.

He gathers this new sinner up, protectively taking him to his house/radio tower and setting up aquarium and putting Vox in it, eyes warm.

Vox isn't amused. Why is this weird stag demon nuzzling him and calling him his muse? Vox is no one's anything!

Alastor adores how his muse attempts to shock him! (He has to buy shock resistant glass and he learns Vox does much better in salt water then fresh-(he brutally killed the Imps at the pet store that told him sharks would do fine in fresh water. His poor mate's gills were messed up for days!)) He is a bit irritated on how His beloved muse prefers only fish (fish sinners, but what his precious mate doesn't know won't hurt him)) but he can get past it.

HAS NO ONE TAUGHT ALASTOR NOT TO PICK UP RANDOM ANIMALS HE SEES ON THE STREET ????????? oh my god . this little FREAK i cannot believe he sees a pretty fish on the street and immediately takes him home. i really want to pry his head open and study him

i might snatch this concept to make mermay oneshots if ur okay w that btw. and im STILL working on the killer au i prommy i just have. wayyy too many wips and work to do irl lmfao. but for now. Snippet of writing because i love you /p(arasocial and platonic) (that first part is a joke. legally)

"You still haven't told me why you decided to keep me," Vox frowns as he hangs over the edge of the tank, watching Alastor steadily as he prepares a cut of sinner meat for the shark demon.

"Frankly, my dear, it was a burst of sudden inspiration on my part," Alastor hums. "It isn't every day you see someone as unique-looking as you, after all!"

"Is this about the TV head?" Vox frowns deeper.

"Well, not exactly--"

"It's about the TV head, isn't it?" Vox ducks underneath the water of his tank when Alastor doesn't reply, taking the others silence as an affirmative answer.

The deer demon sighs as his companion's body slowly becomes too ensconced in the murky depths of the tank for him to properly monitor, focusing his efforts back on making sure the fish sinner's corpse was prepared properly for Vox to ingest easily. Keeping a pet was much harder than Rosie had made it out to be- but in fairness, it was a burden he had decided to take upon himself.

After all, the day that Vox had appeared in Hell, it had been *his* arms that the sinner had fallen into- a stroke of luck, truly, as he had been vicariously gesturing to Rosie the motions he'd made for a recent and more theatrical hunt and been in *just* the right position to catch the poor dear- which was clearly a sign that Vox was meant to be his. And now, with the fascinating darling having been swimming around in the expansive tank of his living room for more than six months now, Alastor could confidently say that he had never made a choice more correct in his life.

Well, maybe not. Killing his father in cold blood had also been a pretty correct choice- maybe he should amend that to *afterlife*? Yes, that would work.

Alastor hums as he finishes the plating of the fish sinner, turning around to the tank with the finished meal in hand. He knocks on the glass wall- not expecting an answer, he goes to place the tray down next to the little window next to the bubble of air, only to be met with a much more- *human* looking face than expected.

Two glowing eyes, one the striking blue of larimar and another the rich brown of axinite, meet Alastor's own. Glowing marks stripe along the remarkably human face, as the shark sinner in front of him grins nervously. "I got rid of the TV. Will you let me go now?"

Alastor blinks.

Once, then twice. In the silence, he can see the nervous hopefulness on the demon's face flicker slightly as he breathes slowly, carefully setting the tray of food aside as he traces the outline of the other's face in the glass.

"Let you go, my dear? ...Oh, dear. I think I've been quite misconstrued. You aren't going anywhere, my lovely siren."

#ran rambles #hazbin hotel #general asks #radiostatic #chai writes

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bellaxgiornata · 1 month

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Honestly I cannot believe that I've been on tumblr for just over a year now and somehow there's already so many of you wonderful people here that are reading, enjoying, and supporting my silly little fics. When I jumped over here from AO3, I had not anticipated how much fun I was going to have getting to chat with all of y'all while also sharing my stories with those of you who aren't on AO3. I've definitely made some wonderful friends this past year because of tumblr and I just want to say thank you to everyone for the support. I always mean it when I say y'all are the reason I keep writing these stories 💖

I could certainly get sappier but instead I'll just invite y'all to join me for my first ever celebration! There's a few fun things below the cut that y'all can pop up with in my ask box starting today May 3 through Wednesday May 8! I tried to think of some interesting things that I could realistically make time to do with everything currently going on in my life, especially because I'm also still trying to stockpile rough drafts for many of my stories so that I can still have updates during my upcoming "writing hiatus" (that I'll explain more about later). My plan is to answer things as they come in and hopefully have them all finished shortly after the celebration ends. And once the celebration finally ends, I'm hoping to give y'all an update to a story or a one shot!

Hopefully this will be fun for everyone!

Let's Chat! - Feel free to send me an ask about anything at all! No, seriously. You want to tell me about your day? An upcoming vacation or exciting accomplishment of yours? Do it! Or maybe you want to ask me questions about one of my stories or my writing process? Hell, feel free to ask me about myself, chat about coffee, music, books, pets, whatever!

Discuss Headcanons with Me! - Have any headcanons about Matt Murdock, Frank Castle, or Michael Kinsella that you want to chat about or share with me? Send them in! Or are you interested in a headcanon I might have about one of them in a certain situation? Feel free to ask! We can chat about the boys!

Send Me Fake FFTD Installment Titles! - Create a title name for an installment for my Falling for the Devil series (ex. "The [insert title]") and I'll write a couple of sentences about what I could picture that installment being about! You win bonus points if you can actually stump me on coming up with a plot for your title. But also who knows, maybe some title suggestions could spark an idea for future updates...

Let's Play a Game! - We can play would you rather, have you ever, or fuck/marry/kiss (or kill). For the record, f/m/k can be with anyone from Daredevil, Punisher, Defenders, Kin, or even any of Charlie's characters that I'm familiar with (Matt, Michael, Owen, Henry, Tristan, or Adam) or those of Jon's that I'm familiar with (mainly Frank, Shane, or Julian). If you can think of another game feel free to play it with me!

Ask the Boys! - Do you enjoy my weird internal dialogues with fictional characters that probably make me sound crazy? Great! Feel free to send me an ask to either one or all of the fictional men that live in my head (Matt, Frank, and/or Mikey) and I'll relay whatever they respond with in something of a short internal dialogue!

Request a Sneak Peak! - Since I have been stockpiling quite a few WIPs and rough drafts for a couple of months now, I am open to y'all just requesting a sneak peak. If you do, I will share a snippet from a fic I choose at random from something that's either a fully finished rough draft or still a work in progress!

**You're more than welcome to participate multiple times, but all I ask is that you (1) send things in separate asks, (2) are not rude to me or anyone else, and (3) are 18+ to discuss anything spicy (this is an 18+ blog anyway so I'd hope everyone here already is).**

#bellas 2.5k follower celebration #ive never done one of these before!#let's have some fun!#follower celebration #matt murdock #frank castle #michael kinsella

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y-rhywbeth2 · 6 months

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Gods and Clergy: Myrkul

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest]

Now this is what I call a proper death cult. Now that I'm pretty sure I have all information on this asshole, here's Myrkul to finish off the Dead Three - He offers free hugs sometimes. Do not accept one.

Intro: We have too many death gods in this setting.

Clergy: Stuff like kindness is for the people who are currently dead, to hell with everybody who's alive.

Gray Ones: I know clerics usually make better necromancers than wizards who specialise in it, but come on.

Myrkul: Bane's got issues, but I think Myrkul might actually be the most effective villain here.

---

"Know me and fear me. My embrace is for all and is patient but sure. The dead can always find you. My hand is everywhere - there is no door I cannot pass, nor guardian who can withstand me." - Myrkul's dogma

"Make certain daily that all fear the Lord of Bones—who cannot be evaded, hidden from, or shut out. For the dead are his subjects, and the slide into death his pleasure and his dominion. Speak daily to all you meet of the Doombringers to come and Doombringers past— those moved by Myrkul to bring death, delivering souls to the one who shall have them all in the end, the mighty and the low-born, the cloaked in proud Art and the barely able to speak. Silently remind folk of death by your garb, the skulls you carry, and the finger bones you trail behind you as you travel. You fear nothing, or to harm you is to die." - more dogma

Myrkul's dogma that has caused a lot of confusion.

"Myrkul was the god of the dead, as opposed to the god of death [the instance of death and the transition between [life and death]], which was the province of Bhaal."

Bhaal is the god of death with a focus specifically on the moment life ends, he doesn't care about the before or after, only the moment of death. Myrkul was the god of those who have already died, shuffled off their mortal coil and joined the choir invisible - he's just a sadist about it and wants you to be aware of your mortality while you're still alive, and also enjoys it when you die. Kelemvor actually holds dominion over the dead at the moment, but I'll get back to him.

Myrkul is very keen to be feared; to remind the living that their time alive is finite, and once Bhaal ends that fleeting life then they will be in Myrkul's kingdom.

His divine portfolio includes aging, exhaustion, decay, the hours of dusk and the autumn months - things that remind mortals of the entropy looming over them throughout their every living moment, bringing you one step closer to his kingdom. Another portfolio of his is parasites: the hidden thing inside you, sucking your life away. It's so important to Myrkul that you remember that you are ageing. You are always dying, slowly.

To this effect he really enjoys crashing funerals, manifesting in front of the grief stricken funeral goers to remind them that one day they'll die too! He'll also drop by at night and visit you in your nightmares, for the same reason.

He lost rulership of the dead when slain in the Time of Troubles by Midnight (soon to be Mystra), and the portfolio eventually passed to Cyric and later to Kelemvor.

Now that Myrkul has returned, Kelemvor remains god of the dead, but Myrkul maintains his older domains. He is the god of the slow march of life into death, with all the aspects mentioned.

He's also the most sadistic asshole, but I'll talk about that further in.

Temples of Myrkul begin with a mausoleum built above ground (as big as possible and decorated with the most intimidating statuary the builders can think of), which extend into necropolis underground, which are guarded by undead. The temples are often filled/covered in smoke from the crematoriums inside. The walls are decorated with images and statues of people of all genders, races and ages depicted in various forms of death and stages of decay.

Myrkul and his worshippers, known as "the Anointed" are and always have been extremely unpopular. He receives offerings at funerals, but nobody particularly wants to worship him, and those that do are regarded with fear and the subject of rumour and horror stories.

His few priests come from people of a morbid bent, who enjoy the fear and the tales of how they can sicken and kill others through a mere touch, or that those who offend them in any way will die - and that all Anointed will know when one of their own has been killed, and by who. Anointed don't actually kill anyone as a rule, that's a job for Bhaalists, but they do make a special exception for people who pretend to be one of them in order to exploit their intimidating reputation. Such people die in spectacular, public fashion - as painfully as possible.

They also make an exception for law keepers and others in positions of power who try to oppress the study and practitioners of necromancy, although finding non-lethal means of making these people change their ways is common enough.

Myrkul's followers are to speak as little as possible, and when they do speak they speak as softly as they can while being as laconic as they're able. "It is poor form among the Anointed to show emotion when one can instead speak coldly and flatly, and maintain apparent calm."

At this point, people are so desperate to stay away from them that a Myrkulite can flat out just walk into your house and take whatever the hell they want. You like being alive and look forward to a happy afterlife and are not going to stop them. Many Myrkulites get extremely rich this way, and Old Lord Skull himself doesn't seem to care.

When in public they Anointed always wear skull half-masks, coating every inch of exposed flesh on their body with ash. They also carry human skulls with them - due to the skulls, they've often known as the "Grinning Anointed". While at the temple, or on ceremony, they wear full body, deep hooded black robes, tied around the waist with a white sash, and forgo shoes in favour of being bare foot.

Their entire job, as far as the living go, is basically to torment people and remind them that their life is ultimately pointless and that they're going to die.

While they're absolute monsters towards living beings. whom they and their god abhor, the Anointed typically hold those who are dead in reverence. Resurrecting the dead is a blasphemous act forbidden by the faith, and Myrkul only rarely permits it in exceptional circumstances (although a technical loophole exists in that you can get a priest of a different god to bring back a dead person for you.)

Other, less sadistic, duties include carrying out funerals and seeking out and burying the lost dead. They seek to make the dying comfortable in their last moments, and help them get their last affairs in order - a duty that they now, presumably, share with Kelemvorites. Myrkulites will typically go out of their way to make sure that the last wills and testaments (and similar) have reaching effects after a person's death, so that they may hold influence on the living from beyond the grave. Another thing they share with Kelemvorites is that they personally do not view death as unnatural or something to run from. Where they differ is that Kelemvor teaches the living not to live in fear of death, while Myrkul wants mortals in constant dread.

Myrkul's priests are often blessed with a high tolerance for disease, which makes them particularly useful for disposing of the bodies of plague victims.

Myrkulites often have a special reverence for necromancy, again due to its ability to allow the dead to affect the living. They call it "the sacred hand that reaches from the grave."

They are also charged with spreading tale of those the faith reveres as "Doombringers" - those driven to avenge the dead; friends, lovers, mentors and other loved ones sent or driven into death one way or another by the actions of their target/s.

A Myrkulite can be hired as a doombringer, the cost of which is sometimes called a "skull fee", however they will not work for the still-living. They can only be hired on behalf of the dead, or in advance of one's death.

Myrkulites should not expect much of a social life outside of the other Anointed, and most will leave wherever they were raised and/or lived, as their communities certainly wouldn't appreciate having a Myrkulite in their midst.

The clergy contains many titles, each conferring a specific necromantic spell taught or priestly duty (most of which are not actually described). Once these were in rank, however in recent times the hierarchy has become a loose grouping by age and experience into Initiates, Lesser Anointed, Anointed and Higher Anointed. Myrkul did away with the concept of high priests after certain incidents involving a rebellion against him.

The titles used to be: Daring One, Night Walker, Bone Talker, Shroud Wearer, Crypt Carver, Bone Dancer, Ritual Consecrator, Undead Master, Withering Lord, Deathbringer and Elder Doom (the later of whom have influence beyond a single temple or settlement).

Bone Dancers perform ritualistic dances that animate the dead as guardians of a site. Ritual Consecrators are basically the clergy's craftsmen, responsible for dedicating the altars, making the scythes and preparing the materials for magic. Withering Lords use magic that causes living flesh to wither and die, and Deathbringers can cause you to drop dead by pointing at you.

Anointed greet their equals and juniors as "Death [Surname]" and their senior clergy as "Most Holy Death [Surname]."

Lower ranks owe little in the way of reverence to their seniors, aside from obeying reasonable instructions and offering aid, money, food or shelter when the moment calls for it. The senior clergy should not be living off of the backs of the lower ranks, and if they attempt to abuse their power then the junior clergy are free to defy them.

Initiates to the faith are taken into the crypts, to meet the corpse of a former high-ranking priest. There, the ritual spell speak with dead is used to allow Myrkul to address the initiate personally, imparting his dogma upon them.

Myrkul is known to visit his favoured followers to give them a hug. Said hug is full of necromantic magic and is highly likely to kill you. If it doesn't you will be horrifically withered and traumatised for life, but Myrkulites consider survivors to be blessed.

When Cyric took over as god of the dead, unlike their Bhaalist and Banite counterparts who had schisms and purges over it, the Anointed simply carried on as usual. Their complete indifference was about as close to enthusiasm as Myrkulites get. While many were just as indifferent when Cyric was replaced by Kelemvor, he proved to be a bit more controversial, due to the ban on necromancy.

Myrkul is worshipped at dusk every day during a ritual named the Dusking. Grave dirt, or the bones and ash of the cremated, are offered to a black altar decorated with bones. Above the altar a human skull is enchanted so that it floats and glows dimly. The purpose of the daily ritual is to remember that death follows closely behind all living creatures, and those who don't chose Myrkul as a patron deity are encouraged to give their own offerings. The begining and ending of the ritual is marked by the toll of a bell (a deep, reverberating one, not a high note). Each time an offering is made the bell is tolled again. Particularly devout Myrkulites will hold a personal prayer at any time during the hours of darkness that night.

There is only one holy day, held during the Feast of the Moon when everybody honours the dead. Myrkulites call it "the day the dead are most with us." It's believed by them that the dead walk the world as ghosts to seek their loved ones, enemies and descendants - either to observe or to pass on messages. They celebrate the dead with chants, prayers and hyms and end the day with a ritual called the Flagons of the Fallen, where they set glasses of wine on fire with magic to grant the spirits a momentary respite from their "eternal chill."

The priests that dedicate themselves to Myrkul alone amongst the gods are the Grey Ones (also known by the nickname, "fingerbones")

Grey ones are master necromancers, and can command far larger hordes than normal. They are also masters of lore regarding undeath, all forms of undead and the outer planes and the fate of souls.

They're resistant to any spell effects that cause death

They do not display any negative effects of any diseases or parasites they may be hosting, although they can still contract them. For example, an Anointed could visibly have leprosy, and it will kill them, but they won't feel it or be bothered by it until it actually kills them.

They can magically put themselves into a state where they appear to be dead to onlookers.

They can summon Deaths to serve them - grim reaper looking undead who serve Myrkul.

They can wither living flesh at a touch.

Once a tenday they have access to a unique spell called the Hand of Myrkul, this wreathes their hand in flame. If they touch a living creature with this hand, then the victim must make a successful roll or they will die. If the target dies, the Gray One must also make that same roll, or be slain themselves.

They can stagnate water and create or worsen structural weak points in inanimate matter.

They can turn wounds and injuries necrotic.

They have a unique version of the spell finger of death where the priest points a finger bone at the target, says the incantation and if the damage caused kills the target then they can't be resurrected. If they don't die, then the Myrkulite can perform a ritual involving holy water that will turn them into a living zombie under their command.

Myrkul himself is a Neutral Evil deity and his domain is in the Lower Planes on the Grey Waste of Hades. Born Myrkul Bey al-Kursi, a talented necromancer and Crown-Prince of a kingdom called Murghom. His kingdom was a vassal state of the ancient empire Mulhorand, and the prince wasn't satisfied with such meagre power. So off he travelled, eventually running into Bhaal and Bane, who were already allied and being compelled to seek out and slay ancient gods due to horrific visions being inflicted on them by the god Jergal. This, of course, is what we call an opportunity for better power, so Myrkul joined them and the three went on to steal divinity from many beings and ended up becoming the Dead Three. He was slain by Midnight, who would become Mystra, in a battle in Waterdeep during the Time of Troubles.

Myrkul's personality is described as cold and malignant, and the god himself is known for his cruel intellect. He never gets angry or raises his voice, only ever speaking in a whisper. Whenever his plans are foiled by mortals he only ever responds with amusement.

Sometimes, just to keep mortals on their toes, he pretends to be kind.

Myrkul's avatar is much like the traditional grim reaper (scythe included), but with four arms, and his face still has some skin - flaking, withered skin covered in lesions and his lips and black and cracking. His sunken eyes "gleam with a cold, evil light." He levitates rather than standing on the ground. His touch is lethally icy, both physically and on a spiritual level. He can also inflict a flesh-eating disease on people though touching them. Regardless of how much damage it inflicts, after being in physical contact with Myrkul, a living being sees all other living beings around them as corpses for a varying period of time. His scythe causes fatigue and weakness in those it touches.

All skeletons and zombies obey him absolutely, regardless of who created them. Much like Bhaal, Myrkul can create any form of undead by touching a corpse, and sapient undead such as mummies and vampires created this way are bound to his will for a single task after which they are fully free willed. He can reduce all undead to dust with a touch, and they cannot harm him in any way.

Myrkul also manifests as a flying human skull with lights in its eye sockets, and can vary in size from normal skull to being six foot tall. He can also manifest as a skeletal arm wielding a scimitar, which has much the same effect as the scythe.

Myrkul can cast any spell except those that create light as a primary effect.

Naturally his divine servants and messengers are undead, and he's been known to unleash armies of the dead on the living.

Various things Myrkul will send to his faithful to show his favour or disfavour include; bats, panthers, hell hounds, nightmares, black roses, jet, obsidian, onyx and corvids. The animals will aid his faithful, if in favour and cause harassment or harm to show his disfavour. They can also be sent to attack his followers' enemies.

His top hits in contribution to the Realms include:

The Wall of the Faithless. Nobody actually asked for the souls of those who cannot be claimed by any of the gods to all be packed together and turned into a mouldy, eternally screaming wall where they will experience agony untold for millennia as their memories and sense of self are slowly eaten away until nothing of them is left. But Myrkul is the gift that keeps on giving, so he gave the Wall to the Realms anyway.

The Spirit Eater Curse: So one of his old Chosen, raised from birth to serve him with blind loyalty, got a girlfriend. Then this girlfriend ended up in aforementioned wall of screaming souls. Said Chosen rebelled in order to rescue his girlfriend, so Myrkul did the only reasonable thing and put him in the Wall (even though this is a breach of divine cosmology) and then took him back out when his personality had been erased and dumped him back on Toril. What was left was a soul eating parasite - a void that feels only hunger and can never be filled, ruining thousands of lives and leaving spiritual desolation wherever it went. Did this have anything to do with being a punishment for the former high priests rebellion? Sort of, but ultimately, not really, no. This was Myrkul's equivalent of Iyachtu Xvim and the Bhaalspawn; as long as the curse exists, a fragment of Myrkul remains in the world and he cannot die.

The Crown of Horns: Originally crafted by Jergal. A circlet made of electrum, with four bone horns at the corners and one large black diamond centred over the brow, radiating necromantic energy. Before the Second Sundering, the crown hosted a portion of Myrkul's essence. The crown has mind-affecting magic that sows discord amongst all in its vicinity who don't worship Myrkul, who it can bind to the yugoloth fiends of the Lower Planes, and its power also drives them to covet the crown. All who wear it have their minds consumed by Myrkul as it slowly turns them into a lich. They usually then start acting as an evil necromancer overlord, raising the dead and trying to take over the nearest city/kingdom/whatever. At their worst, wearers of the crown have been strong enough to challenge Bane's church (although I don't think they've tried).

Myrkul's been keeping the crown teleporting around the world, post Time of Troubles, landing out of reach of meddling Harpers and kept within reach of idiots.

#I'll say this for Myrkul - he actually made something of a functioning religion #Are you sure you're in the right religion Ketheric buddy?

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