#bee the puppet head

[dailydoodlesofp]

P the outfit collector

Seeing as P just steals collects people's outfits throughout the game, I think people should draw P in their oc's outfit. That would be fun.

[kurumeuruki]

Yesterday, the Lies of P server has motivated me to create my own stalker oc and so, I'd like to introduce to you my child: The Wandering Moth, Elaine! I love her

I also made her because of the Merchant's line: "I didn't steal any of this."

[fadedrainbowbookshelves]

@sweetest-honeybee's crime!au contains many awesome things, including the murder husbands!

[beardedhandstoadshark]

Imagine no phones. How would you contact people? Write a letter? Use an owl? Smoke signal? Mind control?

Pigeons! They’re kind and smart! Humanity used to be besties with them and they were used as mail carriers for hundreds of years!! And they’re super friendly!! Pigeons are great.

[rel124c41]

PSILOCYBIN AND HONEYCOMB. jade leech

There is something terribly wrong with the queen bee. Gentle and kind. Out of her mind. inspired by @merakiui dabbles and @pathosprit asks about god!floyd/cultist!reader

tags: alternative universe - cults, implied/referenced drug use, old gods, falling in love, blood and gore, beekeeping, fluff and smut, unhealthy relationships, thought projection, gentleness, inspired by psilocybin and honeycomb by harley poe, murder

word count: 11,895

When you are ten, round-faced and small, you watch the Reverend heat up the branding iron. He twirls it in the fire like it is a marshmallow, making sure the iron is covered evenly with a brilliant scarlet red. Gold dances over the thick, ebony gloves that the Reverend wears and shadows jump across the stone creases of his aged face. You watch the sigil rotate in numerous circles. 

A foreign hand pulls up your dress, exposing your stomach and underwear. You keep watching the circle of iron and fire; as the speed of the Reverend's hands pick up, the two materials blend together in a racing whirlpool of a red and gold comet. Beautiful. 

“It won’t hurt will it, Mom?” Your small voice is full of terror; your wrists tremble in the hold of the two adults pinning you down to the table.

“No sweetie, no it won’t.” Your mother, the unmarried woman who got pregnant, presses a kiss to your forehead.

When the Reverend presses the branding iron down on the skin on your hypogastric skin, right under your belly-button, it is the last time you know fear. 

By the stream, God – The Odd One – calls and beckons and sings.

Hands fall idle in surprise. You were not expecting a summon from Him today. Raising your head from your task, you listen closely. It could have just been the snapping branch under a rabbit’s foot or the breeze blowing too roughful in a bush. You wait patiently for that divine melody to resume itself. 

In the pregnant pause, a white dress rustles through the current of the stream. Its arms wave helpless. Under the water, the fabric mimics a dead gray hue. 

There is no secondary call or beckoning. Holding your breath long enough, you fall back into your task. 

White dress in hand, you scrub it with a mixture of mammal fat and lye. The cleansing agent bubbles and carries down the stream. If the heart of your God resides anywhere on land, it is here, your favorite place; in His heart, you do your laundry, domestic. 

The Reverend would be appalled at that thought. You think with a smile. Water collapses from the dress as you wring it out. But it is an entirely true thought. The deeper you venture in the forest, the more you can hear Him. It is only when you reach for the robin egg blue dress does He come back, voice oscillating through nature. 

A testing call? Dropping the garment, you listen intently, waiting to see where you can jump into the melody. After a beat, you find your place in the song. The construction of the deut sounds like this:

A stream sweeping in a downward incline, splashing in playful, petite waves as it tickles lower. It is bordered by plentiful grass. Like boats caught in a fierce storm, a handful of pine-cones freckled in the water move across the stream. Rocks break apart the smoothness of the water. The song emphasizes that the rocks give it a fresh uniqueness rather than damage the serenity of the stream. 

The chorus is a bumble bee landing on a black dahlia. Silk, ebony petals curl off the center like a hundred thumbnails in a bouquet. In the light of nature, the black of the flower shines a red-violet. Nestled in the middle like an arrow in a bullseye, the bumble bee robs and rapes the center of the black dahlia, stabbing at the nectar with their needle-thin legs. 

Carrying your voice higher, you sing about the breeze. The breeze puppets the leaves to give a graceful, continuous wave to the visitors of the forest. The bridge focuses on an earthworm. It is alone, red with speckles of earth. You take your voice past its limit when you find yourself singing about a forest fire. The ballad continues under two watchful, olive-brown eyes.

Unnoticed, the son of the village’s livestock handler watches you break your vocal limit for God. So devoted to him. Piety works itself over the tendons of your throat, pushing and pressing too hard, like a violin’s bow. As the unknown, dueting voice, Jade watches and listens to your consecrating voice, peeved.

Around you, Jade finds that his inhibition has been escaping. 

He has been alive for numerous generations, witnessing patterns of human speech, human practices, and most importantly human fears. Fear is older than Jade. Older than the sediment on the ground that you sing to. Thus, innate fears often stay with generations – the fear of death, thanatophobia, is a prominent recurrence. 

As the God of nature, Jade knew. He had felt men press their heads into the crust of the earth, begging for the other men chasing him to let him live. Felt people rack up dirt with fingers, feverishly pleading for the resurrection of a sick son or sick daughter. Felt fists pound the trees in frustration for the souls he collected and ate. 

Even still, they worshiped him. Thinking they would be allowed into a paradise, ignorant that the old door death opened was a door made of teeth and tongues. Even with the false promise of paradise, thanatophobia reigned supreme and trumped all other fears in humans. In all humans except you. 

You. How strange you are, altering the rules of humanity, since your tenth birthday. 

You focus on nature; he focuses on you. 

As you two sing together, he feels that familiar retreat of inhibition. All of it dissolves into the color and shape of nature like a technicolor sea, blending together. Everything he thought he knew about humans changes with a tiny paint splosh, ruining the masterpiece he made.

“Oh, look at you. All alone,” a voice breaks the song. 

Rounding around, you glare at the intruder as God falls silent. You look at Jade as if you two were hunters and he had just scared off a deer you had been tracking. God galloping away off on hooves. Vexation like a gleam in your eyes. 

“What do you want, Jade?”

Jade Leech is perhaps the most annoying villager in your town, sticking to you like his surname suggests. He had shown up with his mother and father about three years ago when you were twelve. Usually, outsiders did not join the congregation, but the Reverend spoke positively of them. You trusted your Father’s judgment until the boy proved to hold great interest in you and all the things you did. 

“I was just checking up on my dear friend, (Name).”

He is not even respectable about your status. The village calls you ‘One’ for Chosen One. At ten years old, you lose your name like one loses a sock. Not Jade; he likes to call you by the name your mother picked.

“How kind of you,” sarcasm drips from your throat, sore with singing.

“You’re most welcome. You’ve taken to changing the spot where you wash your clothes.”

“Yes, I was hoping someone wouldn’t find me here.”

“It is very nicely secluded so I am sure that they won’t be able to locate it.” 

I thought so too, your inner thoughts mourn.

“Though it might be a bit dangerous. So far off from the ocean and village. Why, who knows what kind of coyotes or animals could be wandering around in the thicket.”

“I assure you, I’m quite alright in the wilderness.” 

It is a true statement. You were particularly blessed when it came down to manners of the environment and the animals which it housed. Call it divine intervention, call it confidence. Whatever it is named, you are spared a lot of trouble that could potentially come from inhuman footprints. 

“Who knows? That unwanted company might seize the opportunity and attack.” Jade’s olive-brown eyes watch your back. Your shoulders move with the pattern of your scrubbing. Sweat latches tight to the curvatures of your visible skin. “Like right now, going for your jugular.”

“Try it, Jade,” you challenge, smiling – not in a friendly way.

Accepting the challenge, Jade stands back and watches your shoulder fall still. The smile on his face is not shark-toothed but it beams with the animosity of such a creature. You have other teeth to worry over. Fangs full of venom, a water snake has wrapped itself around your arm, sneaking up from its hiding spot under the dress and soap.

A copperhead snake twines itself up your forearm like an orange-brown vine. Immediate, your hand falls comatose, not waiting to disturb it. Here. Here is where the human pattern of thanatophobia should come into play. Jade waits eagerly for a shriek; copperheads are venomous, he is certain you know this.

You do not tremble with your actions. You do not tremble with your voice. Irking Jade further, you reach a finger from your opposing arm over the copperhead’s head. The snake does not acknowledge your stroke, continuing to squeeze, as you move down and grasp the tail.

“Jade.”

“Hm?”

“You should step back. This is dangerous.”

A fire of anger ignities on Jade’s shoulders. Cheek twitching, he glares at the back of you. You were concerned for his safety? There is a venomous snake acting friendly with the veins in your arm, yet you told him to stand back. So caught up in disbelief, he misses you successfully unwrapping the copperhead from yourself.

Which you proceed to throw in a bush, just a foot or two away from Jade is standing. “Bravo,” Jade says, unflinching. He stalks towards you. 

“Told you to move.” You pull your clean dress out of the water, wringing it out.

“I do not see how you can be so composed in the grip of death. It is perplexing.”

“Death is always at our sides.” In the water, Jade’s shadow oscillates like a match’s sparkling flame. A quarter of it folds over your shoulder. “Why would I have any reason to be afraid of it?”

“You are the sacrifice of this village.” Jade puts a hand to his heart, leering expression painting itself on his face. Waits patiently for you to get frustrated with him. “I think it is natural that you would think about it more often.”

You look up at Jade, trying to decipher why the thought causes him qualms. Into your wicker basket, you lay the slightly damp dress. Task finished, you bring the basket to your hip as you stand up from the stream.  

“I have no qualms over it.” Then the conversation dies as you walk off, nobody’s buttercup.

The stream babbles as you walk alongside it. Like a puppy barking at your heels, you two move in sync. Somewhere in the bush, you think you can hear the sound of the copperhead rustling. A person disinclined towards the very thought of death, that is who you are. Embracing it, you jump upon the fallen, precarious log that hovers over the stream. 

You glance at Jade who watches you. Then, wicker basket in hand, you step with a note on your tongue. Walking down the log to the other side, you say with each footfall, “do re mi fa sol la ti do.” Your voice goes higher as your steps evolve into stomps. 

You crash onto the other side, leaves crunching, as Jade asks, “What was that?”

“Something I’ve been orchestrating.” You challenge him with a look, separated by running water. “You should try it. You never sing at any of the entheogens.” 

Before the village drinks the holy wine mixed with the holy mushroom of God, the entheogens ceremonies call for everyone to sing. You have never seen Jade’s mouth so much as twitch. Though, surprisingly, no one ever makes a fuss about it. The village turns it back on any of the blasphemous actions of Jade Leech. 

“Unless you sing like a croaking toad … ah, then I suppose it all makes sense. It would be a disgrace to your parents if you sang. Unfortunate.”

Jade’s brows furrow. Got him. As he walks down the log, forgoing the stomping you did, he sings the rising scale, “do re mi fa sol la ti do.” He lands by your side, hopping off the behemoth log. There is a golden firecracker of satisfaction in his olive-brown eyes. 

“I did not know you could sing like that.” 

The firecracker sizzles out as Jade’s brows shoot up. He feels a light pink start to tiptoe up to his cheeks.

Your voice is soft like honey, full of awe. Your reticent inhibition around Jade melts at that moment. Like snow on spring ground, you warm up eternally – just a bit! – to the invading pest that is Jade Leech. Someone who has been like a mite in your otherwise well kept paradise. You take him in a different light: cropped black hair, slim face, and olive-brown eyes just a bit less obnoxious. You had only heard such a singing voice from –

“Come. Let us go unless that someone you want to avoid finds this spot.”

The thought disappears. Blinking, you watch Jade stalk off. When you regain yourself, basket in hand, you walk just a bit behind him. Like the stubborn child you are, you bite the inside of your cheek, thinking:

Jade sounds good when he sings. 

You two continue silently back to the village, Jade leading. It is a content walk, not even many rocks or lifted ground to trouble the path. Nature sings around the two in a musique concrete of twigs, leaves, and dirt. It is only when you feel a small tug that you wander off.

Jade watches with knowing, incorrectly colored eyes. 

Your eyes sparkle upon a holy sight. More than a dozen light brown and ivory white jellyfish caps stand up straight in grass off the path. Like toads in mud, they break through the dehydrated grass in poor camouflage. Psilocybin mushrooms. The mushrooms that your congregation holds in high regard; a mushroom on piety par with a cross or a clerical collar. 

Like the winner of an Easter egg hunt, you go to collect the mushrooms. Prizes God had hidden from you so you could search and prove yourself. Carefully, you start to put them in your wicker basket, sprinkles of dirt landing on the top dress. 

Shadow folding over you, Jade inquires, breaking the silent retreat, “How many more days until you die, (Name)?”

No one should ever smile at such an inquiry. Yet, here you do, proud of the psilocybin mushrooms in hand, you answer with a big grin, “1,746 days.”

“Jade Leech, you little thief! Get back here right now!”

You look up upon hearing those words. Four buildings away, you watch as a towel crack on the back of Jade’s spine as he walks out of the bakery. The head chef seems to be the one caterwauling at him, twisted towel weaponized like a claymore. A sly smile is plastered on Jade’s face despite the hit.

Idiot; no one steals from her and leaves without a tussle. She, the head chef, is caterwauling like a soaked cat. A smile still emerges on your face despite your previous trouble. Speaking of those troubles – 

You turn back to your work. There are not many jobs for you to take in the village. As the ritual’s sacrifice, labor is something you do not need to concern yourself with as the Reverend says. Attending prayer services, purifying yourself, and connecting with nature are your top priorities. You stretched out the limitations on the last priority and managed to convince that soft-hearted Reverend to let you start beekeeping with two village elders. 

If our God is in every mushroom, every flower, every faucet of nature, it must be alright for me to care for His holy insects too? : that pathos and ethos argument won you the rights to take up beekeeping. 

Right now, you are troubled by your job. Hairy white sections are on the lower burr comb and cells. It festers only a block of the hive where the queen is. A sign of another pest within the hive. However, none of the other signs were present upon last inspection. Of course, the sign of incursion would be near the queen – the most sensitive and paramount part of the hive.

The queen bee eludes your gaze right now, worker bees swarming around. You go to see if you can get a few to walk on your hand when something breaks your line of sight. Your hand stills. Held out to you is a half-ripped piece of bread. 

Not taking it, you look up at the smiling face of Jade. Far away, surprisingly not giving chase, the head chef shouts: “Little devil child! You pest!” The grin on Jade’s face widens, teeth flashing at you. 

“If only she knew the half of it. Here.” Jade holds up the bread, trying to appear generous in his motives. “Freshly baked.”

“Freshly stolen,” you correct. You take it either way. Stealing is frowned upon by the congregation but you have no fear left to worry about consequences. A tiny bite leaves you pleasantly surprised. Sourdough. You go back in for a bigger bite.

Jade sits down beside you, eating his own share and looking into the broods. Glancing up from your piece, you say, “You did that on purpose.” 

“Stealing is often a motivated task.”

“No. You got caught on purpose; you’re slippery enough to steal and not get noticed.”

“I assure you that I was trying my hardest to not get caught.”

“Ah I see,” you say, wholly unconvinced. 

“Your mind is not at ease. Usually you smile more when attending to your bees.” 

Like a chipmunk, you stuff your cheeks with sourdough to avoid answering. “It is unlike a person of your standing,” Jade continues. Your standing: your life’s merit as a sacrifice. The reason that everyone calls you One instead of (Name). The Chosen One connected to the Odd One through nature and, thus, nature’s creatures.

“Sumtin’ s ‘rong wit the quee.”

“Pardon?”

You swallow, “Something’s wrong with the queen.” You spear a crescent into the bread’s crust with your nail. Despondent, you explain, “There are signs of an infestation near her section. I also noticed the capped cells were full of holes and overall seemed frail. That’s a sign of Varroa but I haven’t seen a single mite or deformed wings.” 

“Always the queen isn’t it?”

“I don’t understand why I can never raise a healthy queen. The cell caps of hers always appear healthy, but halfway through, she suffers from signs of unknown invasion.” Quarantining your bees is the most viable option but you would rather solve this matter before taking a drastic measure. If only you could locate her –

You jump when Jade presses his hand close to the honeycomb structures. “Hey, be careful! You need gloves!”

“You do not wear gloves.”

“That’s different!”

“Hush.”

At that word, you happily wait for him to get strung. With his inexperience, it should only take a short amount of time. Sourdough in hand, you sit back to watch the show. Bees crawl like pouring vinegar over his pallid hand, curious, and you huff at his gentleness. Any moment now. Any moment comes but it comes with Jade pulling hand away with the queen bee on his forefinger.

“How did you –”

“What, like it’s hard?”

“I hate you.”

Jade smiles wide at that. The queen on his finger flicks her wings as he moves his hand to hover between you two. She seems fairly healthy despite all the disturbance around her. “Trying to steal my job, Jade,” you ask when he passes her to you. 

“Do not even entertain the thought. I do not particularly enjoy insects. They may be entertaining for an hour or so, but I am content with the thought of their entire colony going up in flames one day.”

“Monster.”

Jade smiles in his you-don’t-know-the-half-of-it way. 

Jade stares up at the statue of himself, contemplative. 

For five out of thousands of years, Jade has passed time wearing fake human skin. Fake pallid hands find themselves stroking his neck for gills no longer there. Those hands hesitate over touching his ears, feeling thick muscle and bone instead of a thin membrane of skin. His trepidation around looking-glasses has eroded over the half decade. But, Jade still finds himself not entirely accepting parts of the body he puppets.

Walking around in the wrong skin is like wearing clothes too small. It squeezes over him like latex, tightening when he moves a certain way and constricting when he looks at it too long. 

His hands especially are wrong, lacking webbed structure and the correct hues. How his fingernails flush purple and his fingers red when it is cold … it disgusts him. How his veins are blue under sand toned skin … it is a sickening sight. The human body wrapped around his working brain and working heart, it is the most grotesque part of this trail. Sometimes, he wants nothing more to shed it off an amphibian. 

Jade takes his vexed gaze off his hands and returns to staring at the monument. Cleaners are put on rotation to polish and scrub down the entirety of him, forbidding moss or dirt to lay upon him. They are quite meticulous about it too. Meticulous like how a mother bathes her child. They scrub behind his ears, over the ridges of his dorsal fin, under the extended points of his claws. He has seen real, palpable joy on the faces of those given the job.

The sculptor … died about 2,050 years ago if Jade’s memory is right. 

Withstanding the test of time, here the effigy of his true form lies, propped up on a block of marble chiseled to look like a sweeping wave. His face is sculpted in a polite mien with the slightest hint of malice. Smiling with teeth yet not with all his teeth. Just the top row. In stone, his tail dips in backwards J and is hooked upward like the frozen neck of a screaming horse on a carousel. 

If asked, Jade thinks he misses his tail most right alongside his hands. The only change that he does not mind is his hair. Living on a warm island with long hair would have been bothersome, especially on his neck. The cropped style is nice; his real hair would have made him sweat. 

Then, staring down the effigy of himself, Jade realizes he made a mistake earlier. He knows he misses swimming the most. His tails and hands: they are mere tools to propel him when in the sea, so deep in his plunge that it feels like he is moving universe to universe with each wide stroke. 

Only less than three years remain until your death. 819 days if his memory serves correct. And this time it does; he is as certain as stone is hard. But such a long time in fake skin feels like the lifespan of a human, dragging day by day. Each inhale of the sun and exhale of the moon feeds the bugs crawling on his skin, uncomfortable in this fake skin.

Jade wonders, scratching his forearm, if he should speed this sacrificial ritual as he watches you race across the field towards him. He glances down at your nude human feet. Quadriceps, sinew tendons, and bone propelling you forward until you skid to a stop in front of him – with a jar in your hands? 

“Look what I have!” There is a big, prideful grin on your face. With a flourish, you raise up said jar. And Jade responses –

“Wow. A jar. How marvelous.”

Your expression flattens at that. As if retreating, you pull the jar to your ribcage, protective arms around it. “It’s not just any jar. It’s my – Itchy? I think we have some medicine in –” 

Jade pauses his scratching to interrupt. “No, I’m quite alright.” The marks running up his skin are angry and red, yet miraculously not bleeding. “So,” leaning in, he grins with all his teeth and says, “what’s in the jar? Must be revolutionary with how fast you ran over here.”

“It is!” Pride relights your body. You unscrew the jar with flying fingers. Then, you hold out the open mouth of the jar towards Jade, waiting for praise.

“Ah, honey.”

“Not just any honey; it is the last flow of honey.”

“I see. There is no more honey after that. So we will eat pancakes without honey soon, correct?”

“You’re not getting it, are you?”

“Afraid not.”

“Hmph.” You bring the jar back to your chest as Jade ponders on why humans are so sensitive. “The best months to harvest honey are from July to mid-September, right? And it is mid-September, right?” Jade nods at both your inane questions. Still not getting it. “Honey is the sweetest and best when you collect the last honey flow. The nectar flow from this is the one they make in the summer! It is going to taste Godly!” 

“Careful what words you use, (Name).”

You two glance up at the company you keep. Though his gray left eye and yellow right eye are the same hue of stone, they seem to shine. Something fierce and glowing breaking through inert expression. You smile mischievously. “I’ll make it up to him when I’m dead. Now. Taste this.”

With a roll of olive-brown eyes, Jade leans in to observe the jar which you are once more offering him. Inside, the yellow honey tilts like a slow avalanche with the degree you hold it at. Gold gleams like the surface of the ocean under sunlight, almost sparkling. I almost miss home, Jade thinks as he dips his index finger in. 

Oh.

Finger in mouth, Jade does not want to admit it but you are right. This is perhaps the best honey he has sampled before. The nectar slides down his tongue, touches his throat, and slugs down to his stomach. It is almost an addictive taste. 

It is an uncleaned sweetness that melts down his throat. Like blasphemous scripture. 

Jade really should not show you his enthusiasm for it; your pride will only increase knowing he enjoys it and you will grow more annoying. Yet, as if pulled by strings, he sticks his finger back into the jar. Before tasting, he asks, “What did you say the difference with this flow is?”

“It is the last flow of the season. With the bees hibernating soon, you can maximize the honey you are collecting by being patient. But there’s really an entire system to it, making sure you don’t strike too early or late.”

“Would it not be the sweetest during summer when the bees are most active?”

“Nope. Patience is the key; beekeeping is a waiting game.” 

A waiting game? He watches you stick your own finger in, feasting on the rewards of your patience. The later harvest yields a richer taste. How splendid of his sacrifice to say just the words he needs to hear to understand himself and motives. 

Eventually, almost telepathically as if both of you know what your companion is thinking, you and Jade stare up at the statue. Your saliva-coated finger and dry fingers place the cap back on the jar, leaving it unscrewed yet lidded. Jade waits until you are enraptured with the sculpture before he turns his attention to you. 

You stare, contemplative. The sun is three hours off from its peak. Thus piscine shadows of the statue fall onto awaiting blades of grass. The silhouette of his dorsal fin like a knife and the silhouette of his hunched shoulders, leaning in like he is going to burst to life any moment. He has this hardly contained enmity is his expression, upturned eyes too sharp and smile too tiny. 

“Can’t you just see me and him, together in paradise?”

“You two will make a lovely couple.”

“Heh, that’s what they all say.”

Jade studies your profile. There is just a tiny droplet of animosity in your worshiping eyes that he is desperate to uncover the truth about. You are bitter about something. However, whenever Jade tries to peek into that hate circuit rivering itself through your cortex, he gets nothing. 

He supposed he could ask; if he is going to bid his time in other realms, he has more time to analyze the ecosystem of your brain. You startle when he speaks. “(Name). If you were not the chosen one, what would you do with the rest of your life?”

The expression you give Jade is easy to read: confusion. “If I wasn’t the – why, I couldn’t imagine my life any other way.”

“But try to. Try to imagine your twenty-first birthday.”

“Stop being ridiculous, Jade.”

“I am as serious as death.”

You shake your head furiously. “There is no other choice to make, but I am using my choice and have chosen to be there. As the chosen one.”

Jade, with all his immortal life wisdom goes huh? at your verbal affirmation. 

“Such a boy,” you mourn, frowning up at his statue. You shuffle your bare toes on the ground, feeling the dirt cling onto them and tune into the radio of nature for a bit. After a contemplative moment, you say, “I am nobody’s buttercup. But I must do something so I will do that.”

“I see.” 

Taking your words as a challenge, Jade leans in. Your nose scrunches, thinking he is going to do something odious and ruin this perfect, honey-coated day. If you were built in the image of your God, you would want his teeth so you could snap at Jade’s nose. The sentiment grows when Jade flicks the lid off the jar — it frisbees through the air — and scoops up a handful of honey. Some of it doesn’t even make it into his mouth!

“Hey! No stealing from the chosen one!”

“You never said there was a time limit on the honey you offered.”

“Well, there is one now! We have to make this last until next September! I have only two Septembers left!”

Jade laughs, licking the honey off his wrist. He makes another grab at the jar as you rush away from him, trying to retrieve the lid. “Back! Back, you heathen!” And the smile Jade makes as he chases you around the field is a perfect copy of the expression that is carved into stone. 

Time passes like it always does. Life is a constant stream that connects in the ocean of death, making itself the estuary of mortality. 

Those two Septembers pass and twice more you successfully harvest the perfect honey flow. Even when Jade jokes all sinister that you should enjoy these last moments of good food, dipping sourdough into honey, you never even shake. At the apiary, all the jars are empty, trails of gold stubbornly clinging onto the glassware. You and Jade make the effort to scrub all the ones you used clean until they shine. 

“You’re not afraid at all,” Jade asks, watching you scrub the remains of your presence from the world. All you are: congealing honey on a rag which you will dip into the nearby stream, which will carry you away to a water funeral. 

“Not at all.” It must be true. Because under the winter’s sun, your hands are steady and determined. Because when Jade asks how many days are left, you respond with an unshakable voice. Because Jade thinks with some sort of thrill unlike any he has known, you have been waiting as patiently as he has. 

It is only when the number of days decrease and shrink down to the number seven does Jade’s patience break. 

There is no sunshine shining down on you but you are still as bright as ever. Under the silver moonlight, you twirl and run and even cartwheel in the open field. You have been forgoing any sort of sleep, utilizing all the hours in a twenty-four hour day until you pass out from exhaustion, nature as your mattress. No one in the village disapproves of it, seeing it as you embracing your God. Jade wishes someone would though. He has unfortunately been dragged out for the past seven nights by you, wanting his company.

And I still have seven more to go, Jade thinks, leaning against his statue. He never thought he would grow tired but even a human body has limits. Sleep addles Jade’s brain as his neck bends as if he is caught in prayer. 

He snaps back up when you shout. “Jade! Jade look!”

Seeing that you have his attention, you launch right into it. You take a running start, hands up in the air. Cartwheel, cartwheel, cartwheel, ending with a front flip. Supernaturally energetic, you raise your arms up in your success, dress billowing around you, ready to accept the claps. 

Jade manages a few light ones and says, “Well done, (Name).”

You smile happily. “Praise me more; this is the last week I’ll be alive to hear any sort of praise.” You twirl and watch the white of your summer dress puff up in a jellyfish shell. “Make sure they do not neglect to make mention of how good I was at cartwheels in the legends and stories.”

“I won’t, (Name).”

You fall back into it. Among the tall grass, you do a wide variety of different exercises and a variety of different dances. You move with the ease of an autumn leaf, trusting the wind. To the unheard and unsung song of nature and God, you gyrate around. Like God’s personal instrument, you bend yourself to the symphony that no one in your village has ever heard. 

I’ll miss dirt, you think just as you blindly twirl into a patch of fireflies. 

Fireflies explode around you like a firework. Wide-eyed and gasping, you pause with your hands raised up. Buzzing and rapid, the tiny comets of gold lift up from the flora and paint the night with tinier stars. Gripping the train of your dress, you rotate yourself to make room for the fireflies launching up to the west, laughing all the while. 

Eventually, they dissolve into the sky, leaving your eyes chasing after them. They dissolve in dying breaths and dying heartbeats. You watch the last of them flicker out, finding a new patch to lie on or traveling too far for you to see them. 

Oddly, an invisible bruise on your chest starts to ache. 

Dirt encrusted feet carry your body before you comprehend what you are doing. Wildly, like something monstrous is at your heels, you run into the nearby thicket of trees, determined to reach the deepest part of the forest which surrounds the village.

“(Name)?” Jade squints at your fast-retreating form. “(Name)!” He picks himself off the statue as you rush into the forest, almost like you are in a panic. 

“Catch me!” 

The chase prematurely begins. 

Jade dives into the forest after you. Pushing branches out of his way and jumping over protruding vegetation. Hundred elements of nature flicker across his vision as he runs and runs. Shadows elongate and distort under the occluding moon. He elbows his weight on a tree so it pushes him faster. Blanketed under nebulous black, the world beats with a thousand different songs. 

All the while you are hollering and screaming. Screams evolve into frantic giggles and hollering matures into singing. Do Re Me Fa Sol La Ti Do, your feet race down the cliff slide in the pattern of the musical scale. 

Your body is an instrument, Jade. Listen to it and you will be closer to God. Narcotic words you once said, deranged out of your mind. Narcotic words that you said while certain that patches of grass were growing from the planes of your skin. Narcotic words he had not paid much mind to. Closer to God, hm?

The crunch of leaves as you two run are like lyrics, right? Yet, the soles of his feet are like the percussion too? Guitar strings tendons pull with different frets and notes. Piano key fingers reach out and crush the branches in his way. His most powerful instrument is acting strangely though. His voice. That particular instrument is doing something it has never done before: laughing. 

Is this what being human is, always running? He thinks this might be the faintest sniff of what it means to be a human: always running away from time. The epiphany is not about being human through sweet acceptance or love. His first taste of humanity is in the sweat of running and running while chasing. 

Closer to God. Closer to humans. 

At times, your aptitude is unreadable to Jade … that aptitude that guides you to never fear death. He wonders why there is such a wide gap between you and others when it comes to the terms of death. Closing in, he thinks: This Is The One. His fingers reach out, A0 from C8 scale running across phalanges. He could push you. With the momentum doubled with the rocks –

Still running, you turn to laugh at Jade. The pure joy on your face is blinding, hands up your shoulders and dress swaying. Your smiling face brightens at the sight of him (one close-eyed, titanic grin directed at him) before it winks away, flickering behind a tree. Jade watches as he loses you as you gather speed and sprint harder. Miraculously, you disappear from his sight, breaking the distance Jade had attempted to close.

God and human, you two run frantically through the forest. You throw out insults about his speed and he throws out his laughter in your duet. When the ground starts to decline, Jade finally figures out where you are heading to. He pumps his legs faster as the thickness of nature decreases gradually. 

He breaks into the clearing by the stream, hoping to beat you, only to be confronted with the sight of you crouched by the water, twirling something between your fingers. 

“Th-The forest is teething. I can feel it.” You pant like a dog. Jade watches the process of deflate and inflate; with each behemoth breath you take, exhausted and spent, your shoulder and ribs move with the hard work of your lungs. “It –” You choke around the salvia in your mouth, breathless. “It is the start of something here.”

“Teething?”

“Yes. Like babies do.”

I’m teething, Jade contemplates, unsure of what that word really entails. He knows little of human babies. It is only until you show Jade what is in your hand that he thinks he gets it. 

“Look at this.” 

From your hand, you present a black dahlia flower with a bright sunny center to him. The sunny center squeezes into a tiny circle then widens out in the average size. It is like a nostril, flickering and changing shape with each inhale and exhale. It is trying to breathe but as a flower it does not understand how to do that with a lineage of photosynthesis written in its body.

That flickering feeling of the beginning is so thick in the air. The start of something is here. It permeates in your bones. All through your skin, it permeates.

“It is certainly …” Jade trails off, not really used to seeing this side of himself. 

“Beautiful,” you supply. There is a warmth in the space as Jade sits down besides you. The space between you is bright despite the midnight. “Can I tell you something? And you must keep it a secret.”

“Go ahead. I am as quiet as a church mouse.”

“I had this vision during the last entheogen.” 

You still remember it. Swallowing the wine and, from within, bringing out the divine. Psilocybin on your tongue, you laid in a technicolor sea, holding up the receiver of your brain and waiting for that connection with God. You had a vision about the sacrament that is less than a week away. You look up to the sky as you speak. The moon is past the peak of midnight noon.

“I was at the ceremony. The sky was completely cloudless so you could feel the warmth of the sun. I was walking down to the slab bed. Dressed and ready.

“But when the Reverend told me to say my final prayers, I couldn’t.”

The black dahlia gives a sneezing breath at that. “Why couldn’t you?”

“My mouth was full of bees. I opened my mouth.” You look at Jade and decide to demonstrate. A fist moves up to your face before stretching fingers out like you are cupping a ball. “And blaaah, a hundred or so bees flew from my mouth.”

“The singer’s last ballad.”

“Odd, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps it is your mind rationalizing with the fear of your impending death.” 

“Do not make me laugh.” 

You are smiling, secondary to laughter. Returning attention to the black dahlia, you see the breaths have dwindled down to delicate stutters. It only stops breathing when you set it into the stream, watching it float and spin once. A dance in water, the revelation makes you grin softer. Your little theater show is only interrupted by Jade. 

“What are your opinions on the ceremony? Now that it is so close, realer almost.”

You contemplate for a moment on the navel of the world, or as others call it ceremony. “I’m quite content with it.”

A picture paints itself: the stone rock, the slab bed, the omphalos alone in a field of psilocybin mushrooms, devoid of life beyond yourself. It is a bed you will eventually rest down upon and let the Father of your religion cut out the heart in your chest. 

“I’m not going to die,” you whisper. Rejuvenate with that fact, you shuffle your body until your knees are tilted towards Jade. You lean in with flame eyes, a whirlpool of heat in them. Your next words cause the black dahlia in the stream to go breathless in surprise. “I’m going to find out if I’m really alive.” 

“Th –” Jades breathes out a tiny laugh. “That is quite contradictory, (Name). Such an event would not inspire such a thought.”

“Well, it’s true so you have to deal with it.”

“I will burden myself with knowing it and trying to understand it.” He puts a hand to his heart in promise.

“Good. Agonize over it.”

You take to putting your feet in the stream as you reposition yourself. Spreading out your legs, you draw up your dress to your thighs. Dirt floats up and follows the path the black dahlia is being pushed away to as water cleanses your soles. The percussion of your heart beats through your toes as you wiggle them, trying to gather warmth under cold water. 

You look like a high renaissance painting: ideal and perfect in Jade’s eyes. You blink your own eyes when your body is slowly moved. “I waited.” Before you question Jade’s harsh words, his hand on your chin, the start of something new blossoms and the forest sings. 

You pull away from the kiss first. Eyelashes butterflying open, you gaze upon Jade with a fondness he has never seen. “How do I taste?”

If Jade will be your only kiss, he thinks it makes sense that you want to know what you taste like. He will not allow you to kiss another in the next six days. Considering it, his focus narrows to his mouth. Your bacterial corpse rests on his taste-buds, measuring and remembering the taste of you. Floral notes are encrusted with a sort of raw grime. 

“Earthy and sweet.”

Giggling, you dive back in for another kiss. 

You think this has been a long time coming which is why you can fall into it so easily. Your amygdala – once a ripe grape – is dried up like a sun-kissed raisin. 

Cupping Jade’s face, you feel no indication that is the wrong course of action. Grass and dirt tickles your flesh, teasingly happy. Nature reaches slippery hands into your brain, infecting you with dopamine. This all feels so unnaturally right. 

It takes about seven kisses in total before Jade’s hand starts to run itself up and down your thigh. Across a field of goosebumps, he draws his hand from the ankle freckled with water to the midpoint of your upper thigh. It is only when he moves up to the barricade of where you placed your dress that you grab his wrist. Partially in his lap, you squeeze the bones of his wrist. 

“You’re not here for too long so what could go wrong,” Jade, eyes closed, asks the question towards your hesitation. 

“Only two things are required of me in six days,” you kiss Jade to appease and because you want to. “That I die in six days on my twentieth birthday and that I remain a virgin.” 

“Surely we can negate one of these constricting restrictions. I say that God is being a bit selfish.” Jade seethers inside, hiding it well with his returning saccharine kiss. Hoping to persuade and because he wants to. There is no possible way that his own rules are going to leave him with a painful stiff, is there? 

“I think the man can handle one lapse of judgment from His prized singer. He knows you well. Say ‘oh dear God’” He vocalizes a facade of your frightful feminine voice, nipping at your ear. You giggle at the foreign sensation. “‘There is this awful, stealing, odious man down there and I. Fell. From. Grace.” Jade punctuates each word with a kiss. He moves down the musician’s scale of your throat, returning to his own deep timbre. 

You shiver and, against better judgment, relax the hold on his wrist. “I do not fear the wrath of any man or God.”

The tune of acceptance, Jade thinks as he kisses down to your breasts. When he cultivated from the ceremony, it was only the human hearts he ate. This meal will be a new experience for both you and him. “Good. If you started being frightened, I would find you weak.”

“Is that so? I thought you were always veering for me to be more,” you gasp, toes frozen in the stream, as Jade cups over your sex. He lies his hand over it but does nothing more. “-- Veering for me to fear death?”

“Is this your death?”

“It could certainly be close to that.”

“Well, let this be the sweetest death you could ever know.”

With skillful fingers, he unties the back of your dress with only one hand. Though it comes undone quite quickly as if he has taken scissors to it. Strange. You do not focus on it long as tiny knives fall over your shoulder, removing the sleeves of your summer dress. Treading a hair through short black hair, you keen under his gentle, attentive touch. Jade sucks hard on your right breast. 

The sensation sends a ripple of goosebumps along your arms. It feels sweetly blasphemous, all the attentive kisses pepper to your breasts. A taste of something new and at its peak. You twitch when you feel Jade’s blunt nails move from cupping your sex to trailing a finger over the space where hip and thigh meet. 

“Wait,” you stop Jade. His mouth falls away, teeth sharpening a bit with annoyance. He looks up at you, big olive- brown eyes gleaming. “I’m – Well –” You glance down at his hand that is swallowed under your dress. “It’s not a pretty scar,” you whisper. 

“I’m sure it’s beautiful like the rest of you.” Before you can protest, the rest of your dress is pulled over your head. He leaves you in only your panties, sitting in the dirt by the stream. Your eyes widen.

“Don’t,” Jade grabs the hand that goes to block his sigil. It has never looked so appetizing on a sacrifice until you. He licks his lips. “It’s gorgeous.”

“It’s still a scar.”

“Not to me,” Jade says, pressing his body against you so you lay down. 

Delirious, like you are floating off a substance, you go to unbutton his long sleeve, wrestling your hand from him. Your skull is cushioned by your dress, bundled into a ball. The sharp point of sticks hit your skin. Wet sediment, a mixture of sand and dirt, clings onto you. 

Under the ground, a foreign heartbeat drums. It hammers in a rhythm over your spine, bottom, shoulders, and soles. It is a mimic of the heart resting in your chest, syncing with nature in some incomprehensible way just like black dahlia managed to breathe. Chary thoughts dissolve from your head when Jade moves down to press a kiss to the sigil. 

You manage to wrestle the shirt off Jade, using it as a rope to pull him, meeting in a kiss of tongue and teeth. Let go of your inhibitions, the forest beckons. Treading a hair through short black hair, you keen under his gentle, attentive touch. You float with the floating pine-cones as Jade presses himself against you. 

“God,” you moan, breaking away from the kiss.

“Come now, you know my name.” Jade teases. He works himself out of his pants, patient in his motions. “Can’t you say it?” The head of his penis kisses the wet spot of your panties. His grin is so familiar like you've seen it somewhere else before .

“Jade.”

That is all it takes, panties torn by claws. A dozen frenzied thoughts crash into your mind when he pushes himself into you. You cling feebly to him like a caterpillar to a leaf. He thrusts in, starting slow and then fortissimo-ing the act. The sound increases, skin on skin, along with the speed, inch by deeper inch. It feels like your insides are being ripped out of you. I think I’m dying is your most prominent thought. Then, you cum, singing in moans. 

It is, in all senses of sensations, la petite mort. 

“Aaah — mmmmph my God aah!”

You push your hands against the trunk of a tree. On trembling, fawn legs, you stand with arms outstretched in a tight caress of the pine. Behind you, down the long arch of your spine, Jade presses kiss to each golf-ball indent of bone. Heat spreads like a virus to your shoulders, smoldering, as you feel his length lightly trace down the curvature of your bottom. 

Butterflying eyelashes glance up at pine. Your head feels heavy like a whirlpool heat courses through it, scarlet and yellow. Salvia holds itself heavy in your mouth; stimulation – if pushed any further – will have you drooling from your blissed out state. Even disoriented, you recognize nature and the creatures it keeps. 

Jade stills when he sees you moving your right hand off the tree. There is something on the tip of your finger. “Keep your hands there. You will need to keep yourself balanced.” He kisses your last vertebrae, eyes glowing, as you ignore his words. 

“Cen-Centipede,” you manage to say, breathing heavily. 

You hold out your finger to him. On your index, the orange legs of the arthropod flow like oil down your knuckles. With deep fondness, you watch it move. The same fondness is found in Jade’s eyes. He stills you look strangely beautiful: two leaves threaded in your hair, the streaks of dirt that birthed themselves on you when Jade plowed into you, and admiring a centipede in the middle of your third sex position change. 

“Yes. I see.” 

Jade says, resting his chin on your shoulder. Leaning over you, his length makes a pointed reminder of existing when the warmed blood of it hits and throbs on the center of your ass. “Pretty thing, isn’t it?” You nod before moving your arm down, letting it crawl off into the ground. Over your shoulder, you drag Jade back into another kiss. “Earthy and sweet,” he says, feasting on a taste he will have the pleasure of knowing for eternity. 

Around you, the forest sings happily. Surrendering to that wonderful melody of nature, you put your hands back to the pine, using them to keep yourself upright. A slug of drool falls off your bottom lip as a soundless gasp exits you. You and Jade met; he presses himself into your cunt, two harvests of cum soaping and sucking him in easily.

The taste of you is entirely sweet like a honeycomb. The sensation of him is hallucinogenic like psilocybin. Earthy and sweet. 

“S-Ssso deep.”

Your left leg twitches when Jade starts to move, experimenting with his speed. He was insatiable the first two rounds; he thinks he will test that beekeeping patience of yours. Yet, at only the first thrusts, Jade finds it a futile effort. 

Your hand twitches on the pine at a foreign sensation. Where Jade’s hands rest on your hips, there is a difference in texture. There is silk between his fingers like some type of webbing. You startle at the odd sensation. Going to look behind you, you ask breathless, “Jade?”

“Cl – ugh – Close your eyes. Listen to … fuck … Listen to the forest.”

The thought of that strange texture of his hands is punched out when he finds a finger to your clit, rubbing in circles.

Fucked dumbed and drolling, you manage a “Fuck Jade!” before all your vocabulary burns itself from your brain.

“You have kept me up for the past week … (Na-Name) – uuk! –” Skin slaps in a thundering clap. Subconsciously, you tighten and moan. Summoning his breath, Jade leans in towards your ears, “I hope you can judge my next words fairly: I won’t stop until dawn. It will be a sleepless night for us.” 

The night fills itself with the song of your moans. 

“Men only think about the past right before their death as if they were searching frantically for proof they were alive.”

Like a bisque doll, you are washed by the village nuns. Two flank you on each side, one designated for your arm and the other for your leg. Assiduous, they move soapy towels down the length of your spidery limbs. Bisque dolls are beings without autonomy. You certainly do feel quite similar, disjointly watching a foreign hand lift your arm, twisting and rubbing soap on each finger with care. 

Joints and skin do not belong to you anymore. A sterile hand lifts your left leg higher. Heart, not your possession. 

Split into fourths like a filet, you try to remember who said those words: “Men only think about the past right before their death as if they were searching frantically for proof they were alive.” As you are being stewed and cooked into a gallimaufry, you find that the past is not what you think about.

You are thinking about the cloudless skies outside. You are thinking about what it will be like under real warmth, not the warmth of bath water. You are thinking about whether tomorrow it will rain or remain sunny. 

“Is something wrong, One?”

The image of skies dissolves in your mind. You blink in surprise. Head off in the cloud, you do not know which of the four nuns spoke. Between all the pallid moon faces cloaked in black, you choose to look at the one cleansing your left arm. You two met curious eyes.

“Your face was scrunching up. I was wondering if you were feeling any discomfort, One.” Your right arm talks to you. 

“I’m quite alright. Thank you.”

Your left leg chimes in, soapy brine slathered on it. “If you feel any sort of stress, please let us know.”

Now that silence has been broken, your right leg says, “I cannot imagine being stressed on such a wonderful day. Ah, I’m so terribly envious.”

“I am quite at peace on this holy day,” you smile as to appease the fear all your limbs display. Moon faces hum their agreement, tranquility only broken when you say softly, “but –”.  You gaze at the bathhouse’s windows, glass blocking off where nature carols. “How much longer? I long to be outside.”

You glare at the shoes on your feet. 

Flanking both your sides, the congregation sits in the village’s woodsmith-made chairs. Beyond you, the stone slab lies; behind you, the statue of your God. Yet, what is most vexingly is in front of you: the sight of shoes on your feet.

Each birthday, you were dressed in the ceremony clothes and made to practice. Each birthday, you gave no fuss over the attire. Letting them dress the bisque doll, you resigned to putting on the empire dress with the square cut to display your iron branding on your stomach. Down to the fiber of your being, now, you wish you could take off the blasted shoes. 

Your pointless glaring only stops when a voice approaches, asking, “Did I ever tell you about your grandfather?” You turn to the Reverend with a smile. The ceremony is commencing. 

With a soft voice, you answer. “Not often enough.”

The Reverend always walks the sacrifice down the aisle. You suppose this might be a bit more sentimental, considering who you are to him, which is why he talks to you. Gently, you two find yourself joined at the bend of your elbow. 

“He was a religious man. Devoted in a way the others around him were not.

“He would go out in forests people were too scared to venture into. The villagers would find him, sketching things they could not see in nature. It frightened and delighted them too, his sketches. He would polish that very statue like each day it would bring him luck. Each day before he went out in the forests, that was his routine. 

“When he died … he died saying it was all for vain.” Your lips press together tightly. “A man so devoted and so close to God, shaming it. It was perhaps the worst day of his sons and daughters lives. On his deathbed, he brought upon such … shame to his family. Men only think about the past right before their death as if they were searching frantically for proof they were alive.” 

Ah, that is where you heard it. You remember finally, you had heard it in the future which is now the present. That was why you could not remember the speaker because he had not spoken those words yet. You did not think you would find the future in the entheogens; how curious. 

You two start towards the stone slab. As nobody's buttercup, you keep your eyes straight and refuse to yield towards distractions. Devote unlike your grandfather. Devote unlike your unsourced father who knocked up your mother exactly twenty years and nine months ago.

“I tell you this because I am incredibly proud of you. I have witnessed such growth from you. Piety flows in your bones as if God has smiled upon you Himself. My child –”

You look towards the Reverend, curious. 

“You have been good.”

Nature stirs. At least, this time, the queen bee in my honeycombs is healthy. I leave behind something good.

When you reach the sacrificial table, you part like droplets rolling off a leaf in opposite directions. You press your hands on the omphalos, kneeling down and bowing your head. Eyes closed, you listen to the words you have heard since your tenth birthday. 

You cannot help it – your mind wanders back to the past. Not searching for the merit of life, simply remembering how you became the Chosen One. A decade ago … such a long yet short time, such a juxtaposition. 

The ritual involves the ocean. The ocean in which that faithful stream bleeds into. Every twenty or so years, just after the sacrifice predating them dies, everyone below the age of ten is made to stay underwater. The one who remains the longest is regarded as the Chosen One. Time slipped from your fingers like sand, underwater. A minute is an hour, an hour is a minute. 

When you walked out of the ocean, your mother ran to embrace and to collapse to the ground crying. You had been underwater for a full twenty-four. The villagers thought you got swept up a riptide and died like some three year olds and two year olds of the past. Blue-lipped and shivering, you told them you thought you were the first one out. 

There is no way you should have survived and felt as fine as you did. 

Since then, nature talks to you like a baby conversing with an adult. You can make some syllables, understand the babbles that make up baba mean dada, and read the unconcealed emotions clearly. Now, it sings along with the Reverend, soft and gentle … somniferous almost.

You know you shouldn’t but –

You glance, barely moving your head, at Jade. He is staring right at you. His eyes are different, tiger eyes of flaming black and flaming gold. Somniferous eyes stare at your soul. Promptly, you pass out.

You wake up. 

Your feet are encrusted with dirt. A multitude of trees enter your eyesight and the sound of a running stream worms into your ears. You are standing by the river where you washed clothes as a young teenager; the place where you and Jade had sex seven days ago; the place where you broke God’s trust. 

Yet, no fear is present. Chest unusually light, you stare at the familiar pattern of trees dotted across the opposing side of the river. To your limited knowledge, this is you facing divine judgment. Retribution must be collected for your only sin. 

You can accept that. 

Curious eyes fall across the wilderness as your vision clears. You can not really tell what song nature is singing; there is a disconnect between you and the world. Blocked from the majority besides a single instrument: buzzing. You hear the harmony of humble bees buzzing, which you search for the source of. When you find it, a gasp breaks apart your lips.

Spread across the planes of your two arms are a thousand octagonal holes. Skin drenched in a mixture of golden honey and scarlet blood, the only breakage is pitch black, tiny honeycomb structures dug in your flesh. The concave pits freckle the entirety of both arms. 

From the inner elbow and wrist of your left arm, two bees emerge from two separate holes. From the radius of your right arm, another bee. The rest of the colony is inside your skin, tickling your nausea. 

That is not all that summons that high-pitched gasp. Clenched in the Swiss cheese flesh of your hands is a knife covered in blood. 

You watch as the once cement knife starts to vibrate back and forth the longer you stare at it. Whole body shivers rape your bones and the shining red knife trembles with the movement.

For reasons unknown, your parted lips spill out one last rhythmic note, “J-Jade?” The world goes black.

You wake up. 

Black, directionless water swallows you. There is no end or no beginning, so you float in the abdomen of the universal ocean, body tilted and head heavy. No calamity stirs your buoyant bones. Quite peaceful, you exist like a free-roaming satellite, untethered and left to bounce alone in directionless galaxies. No light, pitch black.

This is what you have always wanted from death. No God paradise, just a nebulous space to drift. This is the ideal death. Body propelled and caressed by unsourced waves that rock you peacefully to infinite sleep. No stars, pitch black.

It stops being peaceful when you need to take a breath. Water instead of air travels in. You have no mouth or nose. Body manipulated, water goes in the waiting nostrils of the seven pairs of holes in your abdomen and the three pairs of holes in your thorax. And, suddenly, that tranquil black gains a blinding hue of pain. 

Depressing, the water does not float around you but pushes onto you. It clings like you are a magnet. The tiny caves in your thorax and abdomen flicker with agony, gathering more water. It clings to you like spandex. You throw an arm and leg into the atmosphere, and the absence of everything (beginning and end) is no longer a comfort. It clings like a leech, suctioning itself to you and filling the spiracles. 

Mouthless, your heart throws out an unheard scream. The world goes blinding gold. 

You wake up. 

The first texture you feel is the cold granite on your cheek. It is a welcome balm until the granite grinds painfully on your pelvic bone and the skin of your breasts. Disorientate, you push yourself away from the surface. The granite rumbles under your hands … no, the granite is soundless but there is a rumbling. Still sitting on the ceremony’s sacrificial slab, you open your eyes. 

The village is on fire. There is no building left intact. Flames rumble and tremble, fueling their physical form with all that a house has to offer. Red and gold climb upon the outer walls and black climbs out from the pumpkin innards of each house. 

Snip-snap-woosh-woosh. The conflagration’s volume drowns out any and all sounds of nature. Beyond the roar of fire, you hear absolutely nothing. 

Irrational, you turn your head in the direction of where you know the bee colonies are. You cannot see them through the thick plumes of smoke, separated from you by several burning buildings. You knew you would not be able to see them; why even look in their direction? Regardless, you squint even more to try to catch a glimpse. 

If the queen moves, they would too. Survival instinct would make them take flight, right?

On the verge of tears, you start to squirm on the slab, taking your hand behind yourself and moving it by your thighs, angling your body so you can lean closer and squint at the flaming barricade, one of your legs slides off the slab, perhaps there is time –

“(Name).”

You look behind and down at Jade Leech. He rests with his arms folded on the slab, knees in the dirt. On his index is the queen bee, walking around and around in circles on his nail. 

Your heart falls in despair. “She’s sick … She has a parasite.” Even when vocalizing the issue, you do not want to accept your own words.

“She does; she has had it for a while.”

“Is there anything I can do for her?”

“I’m afraid not. Soon the egg in her stomach will hatch. And the pupae will break out of her throat and head. It is truly odd. Usually, when bees have parasites like these, the bees throw them out of the hive. They kept her though. Even when there was something glaringly wrong with her.”

“Because she’s the queen.”

“Precisely.”

You and Jade watch on in a moment of silence. The queen rotates on twitching legs. Zombie-like, her tiny legs will give out momentarily and she tilts on the perch of Jade’s finger before getting back up again relentlessly. Circle turning into an octagon as she stutters in her steps. 

Your hand drags across your face, flustered. The single, heavy as an anvil tear spreads thinly on your cheek. You blink the rest away.

Jade glances up from the parasite-raped bee. “Are you afraid?”

“No … I’m sad.”

Jade considers that. Mourning is a human process when death happens; mourning is like kintsugi to the heart, repairing it layer by layer. In the face of death, one sheds a predictable tear. The queen bee twitches, losing her strength. Jade mourns that he might never see true fright on your face, like missing a piece in a chocolate heart-shaped box. 

He falls out of his pondering when you gently press your finger to him. Under the light of dozens of suns, gold and red flickering over, you are ethereal. His eyes fall helplessly to his sigil. He allows you to move him at your heavenly will. 

“What happened to the ceremony,” you ask, taking the queen from him. You cup her like she is the tiniest pearl or the fragilest shard of sea glass. “Do we still have time to complete it?”

You do not receive a verbal answer. Instead, Jade gently pinches your chin in his hand, pulling your focus away from the insect. A warm smile settles on his face, olive-brown eyes soft with admiration. Then, grip steady on your mandible, he turns your focus to the open field, on the opposing side of the burning buildings. 

When his hand falls away, your mouth falls open with the loss of stability. 

The attending nuns and villagers are dead. A deep cavern is cut like a mouth across their throats, blooming a million liquid roses that stain their white garments. In their chairs, their heads are tilted back to display the rings of muscles in their body. Dead eyes face up the heavens, ignorant of their God who is venturing on land and swimming in the oceans of Earth. 

The Reverend though – he lies in the middle of the walkway. He is headless, body supine and incomplete at the shoulders. All that remains of an indication he had a head is red splattered upon the grass. This butchery is inevitable. A priest of your religion is not allowed to impregnate women, under your God’s vow of celibacy. 

“Oh.”

Is this punishment? Life snuffed out from your devoted village, leaving you and Jade who had broken the rules. You look down at your dying companion; she is halfway through a rotation, legs trembling on a trembling hand. Nature feels disconnected from you and yet, simultaneously, you feel like nature nestles herself in you. 

“Oh, look at you. All alone.” Jade purrs, almost singing. 

“I – I’m assuming you did this. Or God did this.”

“You are correct on both parts.”

“Do not toy with your words, Jade.”

“I'm as serious as death. Here, let me show you.”

Raising his hands, Jade presses palms to mouth. As he tilts his head back as far as possible, he follows along with his hands, running them up and over. Upturned olive-brown eyes quell with the pressure. Cropped black hair trembles with the motion. And when his hands finally return to the granite slab, Jade stares at you with a new right eye that shines a honey gold. His hair is considerably different.

Different, not unfamiliar. Far from unfamiliar. You have seen that style of teal hair with a single black strand since birth. In paintings on your mother’s nightstand, in books shelved away in the school, and carved into a towering stone effigy.

You think you have always known, looking so intently into nature thus looking so intently into Jade as well.

The queen bee on your finger grinds to a halt and dies. Crushing down in enclosing fists, the ceremony narrows; all the world is lost to you besides God’s/Jade’s voice. Nature beckons. He beckons. The fists you make are a comforting caress. 

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Never.”

“Prove it to me.”

“How?”

“Sing for me.”

Swallowing thick saliva, your chest puffs with air peppered with ash. You two stare at each other. Then … you sing. 

Tongue volatile, you sing. It is not a melody that follows along with the rhythm of a river or the instrumental of an insect. You sing out your heart, sending it out on delicate honey bee wings. 

[cherrycherryking]

Wally x gardener puppet? Idk the concept to me seems cute,,,,

the concept is SO cute!! I know it was just supossed to be wally x reader but i looove concepts for welcom home characters!! like, how would you interact with the neighboorhood? what stuff would you teach?

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wally darling x gen!reader (platonic or romantic!) + drawings

Gardener Puppet Reader

────────────

✧You're a puppet like Wally or Julie! Your little house is mostly took over by the garden behind it, and most of your segments take place in your work table.

✧You talk about...well, plants! Easy ways to start kids on gardening with plants like beans or herbs. Your segments crossover to recycling and all things around taking care of the planet.

✧For this reasons you would often appear with Frank when it got to talking about insects or more technicalities about plants like bees or their life cycle! With arts and crafts to reuse trash Julie and Wally would accompany you :)

✧When not in your house you could be seen taking care of the flowers around the neighborhood, stocking food on Howdy's store or bringing fresh produce for Poppy's baking segments!

✧Look!! Its You!!! (or just an outfit idea)

✧Only gray so you can decide the color palette. I also thought it would be funny for you to be a scarecrow but that i leave up to you.

───────────.★..─╮ Wally x Reader part!! ─..★.───────────╯

✧As said before, Wally would appear in your segments about recycled projects

✧I like to think that Wally is really good at all types of paintings but not so much with arts and crafts.

✧Everytime hes your co-host the camera will be looking at you doing an explanation of the steps, cut to wally and:

✧Home has pretty white flowers outside, so you take care of them :) A good couple of episodes start with Wally looking out the windows or getting out of Home and saying finding you there!!

✧One day you decided to gift your friends some pretty plants, and for Wally you decided on an Aloe.

✧He's so so happy with the gift!! He promises to take good care of it.

✧It was nothing really, Wally has always been a dear person to you. He was so calm and smooth and charming that you couldn't help but want to hang around him all of the time.

✧And it seemed he thought the same about you,

✧Your patience with his mess ups, your sweet words of encouragement, the care you took of Home so its flowers and bushes were always healthy made his heart melt!

✧That's why he looked so sad when you opened the door after you heard his knocking.

✧"I am so sorry y/n, the plant you gifted me died :("

✧He kept apologizing but you stopped him, telling Wally it was okay! It wasn't yours but his, and you didnt felt angry or anything.

✧"Aren't you mad at me?" "No, of course not! If anything, i'm more curious about how it got like that..."

✧You gave Wally an Aloe plant on purpose. He was a little uhhhh lost some times! head empty, so you choose a plant that would do just fine with little care.

✧But it seem he took too much care of the Aloe. It got like this thanks to overwatering.

"Its okay" you told him, holding his face on your hands. "You just worried too much for the little guy."

"Oh- haha, I ruined because I overdid it?"

"C'mon! You didn't ruined it. Lets go to the back, i'm pretty sure we can still save the aloe. This time i'm going to give you a better guide to take care of it."

His gaze softened, leaning his head to one of your hands. "That sounds nice..."

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can you tell how excited i got with this? can you tell?!?!?! it was so fun omg

PLEASE!! pleasepleaseplease send me more asks about ideas for you all self insert! tell me if you want a puppet or like a human costar like sesame street.

[fourraccoonsinacoat]

Faint of Heart | One Shot

Pairing: Astarion x The Dark Urge

Chapter Count: One Shot | Read on AO3

Word Count: 7,816

Summary: Takes place during the events of Baldur's Gate 3 during Act 2. Explores the romance between Astarion and the Dark Urge as Astarion struggles with a confession. Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Humor, Idiots in Love, Confession of Feelings, Mentions of Violence, Soft Astarion, Spoilers for the Dark Urge and BG3 in general, Dark Urge as Original Female Character Rating: Mature

Author's Note: Back on my bullshit with these two. This is a one-shot based on the same Durge MC, Eli, as my other fics. I took some liberties with Astarion's confession scene, taking into account the background of the Dark Urge. It's all somewhat self-indulgent, and I wanted an excuse to write sassy Jaheira and practice writing from Astarion's POV. It's angsty, it's fluffy, it's soft and Karlach is the greatest wingman of them all! Thank you for reading my nonsense.

She stood, looking to everyone else in the Inn like a conquering hero ready to head out once more and face the darkness. She smiled with Rolan, laughed with Cal, chatted with Lia, and no one was the wiser.

Except him.

In their time together, Astarion had picked up on some of Eli’s tells. Behaviors that slipped past her mask of composure and enthusiasm, exposing the truth beneath her carefully constructed veneer.

She was exhausted. He could see it in the slight sag of her shoulders, in the way she kept having to blink and refocus on whoever she was conversing with, in her tired yet reassuring smile…the one she always had at the ready for anyone who came to her with yet another ordeal to hang around her shoulders.

A sudden and fierce burn of irrational anger flared in his chest as he continued to watch people flit around her. It brought to his mind an image of bees sucking the nectar dry from a gorgeous wildflower. They would use her until there was nothing left because that was their nature. They were desperate, all of them. The tieflings, Jaheira, Barcus, Counsellor Florrick…they were all starving for a savior, and Eli was that succor. They’d use her up until nothing was left. They’d watch her kill herself in the name of their ambitions, then hail her as a hero rather than the kind fool she was, always taking on other people’s burdens in some mad, desperate attempt to redeem whatever darkness lay coiled in her past.

Nevermind the fact that Eli’s kindness was exactly what he’d set out to manipulate from the start.

He was just as bad as the rest of them, looking to use Eli for her protection and capabilities. He was just as guilty. He’d seen her compassion as weakness and immediately dug his claws in, hooking into her like a parasite. Seducing her into his bed, stoking affection and twisting feelings – both hers and his – until he couldn’t tell truth from fiction.

And that was the problem.

Somewhere along the way, more and more truth began to slip into the words he used to charm her. He wasn’t sure when it started, but sometime between their passionate nights and hard fought days, genuine feelings began to stir every time he thought of her.

And, gods, he’d hated it.

On that first day after the nautiloid, when he’d discovered he could walk in sunlight and was out of reach of Cazador, he’d swore to never allow anyone control over him again. He’d rather drive a stake through his own heart than be a puppet tethered to someone else’s strings. And yet…here he was, allowing the very first person he’d met after making that oath to have sway over him. And he was utterly terrified he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

And so he sat at a far table in the bustling lounge of Last Light Inn, watching Eli and growing more and more perturbed as people buzzed around her.

Couldn’t they see how tired she was? She’d done enough for them today, breaking Wulbren and his compatriots out of Moonrise alongside the tieflings…well, those tieflings who’d survived the assault in the Shadowlands. Eli had been battered, bloodied and in desperate need of a healer, and yet the moment they’d come upon the prison, nothing else had mattered except freeing those being held captive.

She hadn’t said as much, but Astarion knew her well enough by now to recognize the shadow of devastation that drifted across her expression when Dammon described the attack that had scattered the refugees while on the road. She’d grown close to many of them, back at the Grove, often allowing conversations to drag on far past their welcome as some poor sod carried on about their insignificant struggles. It had frustrated Astarion to no end. They didn’t need to hear all about Bex’s absurd dream of owning a little orange cat with a bell on its neck! That knowledge did nothing to aid the process of driving steel through goblin guts.

It had all come to a head when she’d given Mol gold in exchange for absolutely nothing, spouting off some bullshit about wanting to back the next great thieves guild of Baldur’s Gate. Astarion had pulled Eli aside then, hissing about futile charity and asking her if she intended to bankroll every guttersnipe with a sob story.

She hadn’t missed a beat with her retort.

“Don’t worry, you’re still my favorite of all the guttersnipes I’ve come across. Thank the gods you only ask for blood and not gold. Otherwise, we’d be deadass broke.”

She’d leveled a stare at him that spoke volumes. He’d rolled his eyes and tried to hide the smirk threatening at the corners of his lips. Of course he was her favorite.

Still, it was mind-numbingly infuriating, how far Eli would go to help someone she cared for. What was worse was that Astarion knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that she’d do the same for him. That she’d throw herself thoughtlessly into pain, torment and suffering for his sake. At one point, he could not have cared less whether she destroyed herself for his gain.

But those days were gone, and he was now forced to reckon with the fact that he’d grown attached…that he cared. That he’d slit the throat of anyone in this room who tried to take advantage of her. That he’d once been the person trying to take advantage...

The thought now stirred something uneasy and almost nauseous within his stomach. He hated thinking about how he’d treated her, and yet it seemed to be something he was incapable of forgetting. Whatever was between them now, it was founded on something rotten. It had grown out of a lie, and regardless of how he felt now, a part of him knew that in order for anything to continue he would need to confess the vile intentions that had started all of this.

He owed her that, and she deserved it. She’d likely hate him, and all of this would come crashing to a disastrous end…but she deserved the truth, Astarion’s feelings be damned. She deserved to be with someone who would treat her with the same honesty and respect that she showed to everyone else. She deserved to be with someone who would protect her, not lie and manipulate her. She had so many burdens of her own, and yet she kept piling the burdens of others atop them. She deserved someone who would help steady her, not someone who would only get in her way and cause her to stumble.

She was going to hate him. He knew it as surely as he knew the sun would not cut through the gloom over the Shadowlands tomorrow morning. But he couldn’t keep living this farce. He couldn’t keep bedding her and enduring all those feelings of guilt and self-hatred as they mixed with the longing and ecstasy of bringing her to the brink and watching her come undone. It was too overwhelming. He wanted to be with her honestly and openly and not have their time together tainted by his wretched memories.

He wanted something real with her, built on the foundation of what he felt now rather than the putrid intentions that had started all of this.

It wouldn’t happen, he knew. Astarion wouldn’t want himself, either, all things considered. And that was okay. She deserved the opportunity to hate him for how he’d treated her. Gods knew he hated himself for it, it was only fair she hate him, too.

The fact that she didn’t already was astounding. He was a wretched thing, ugly in all ways except for appearance and so useless that he had to manipulate others into fighting his battles. He had ruined so many lives over the past two centuries. He’d been used up until there was nothing left of him to offer. And yet she was always near, never shying away and never overbearing…just always there, always at his back. She didn’t flinch away from him, didn’t pity him, and she made him feel things he’d forgotten how to feel.

The first night they’d spent together had been unexpectedly enthralling and pleasurable, something he had not experienced in he didn’t know how long. And he’d wanted more, despite his confusion and the messiness of his feelings, he wanted more of that connection. And so they’d spent more nights finding comfort and pleasure in each other. Those nights were little moments of solace in a world gone mad.

Those nights had been about more than sex; they were nights where she told him beautiful words that weren’t made for people like him.

“Seldom do I find so little fault with someone. I hope it lasts.” A cool voice caught Astarion by surprise as he sat lost in his darkening thoughts.

His head snapped around, hand instinctively twitching towards a hidden blade at his hip.

Jaheira stood beside him, arms crossed and face unreadable and she pinned him in her stare. Her eyes flitted momentarily to the hand at his waist, and Astarion brought it back to rest on the table he sat at, dagger still fastened to his belt.

The ghost of a self-satisfied smirk flashed across her face as Jaheira glanced away from him and back towards the subject of her comment. He followed her gaze towards Eli and hummed thoughtfully, settling into a more relaxed posture that he hoped did not betray the swirling mess that currently haunted his mind.

“You should tell her as much,” he mused, watching Eli as she pushed a strand of her silver-white hair behind an ear.

The sight caused his mind to pull a memory forth, unbidden. It was tactile and soft, the feel of his fingers tangling in that hair…of his lips caressing the shell of her ear as he whispered ravishing praise for only her to hear.

He took a grounding breath and dashed those thoughts from his mind.

“She thrives on pretty words and compliments,” he quipped.

Astarion wouldn’t elaborate that the reason for it was because Eli had a desperate desire to escape whatever monster dogged her broken memories. She thought of herself as something tainted and corrupt. Something unworthy. He’d got a glimpse of that darkness on the night she’d woken him, panicked and breathlessly ranting about how she feared she would harm him.

At first, he’d thought she was still in the throes of one of her many night terrors, perhaps sleepwalking. The truth had been far more grim, and Astarion was still haunted by images from that night. Images of Eli struggling against the bindings Astarion had put her in, for the protection of them both. Eyes feral as her nails dug into the flesh of her palms, mouth snarling as she spat all manner of vile insults at him. She had lost herself to whatever thing she was keeping at bay inside herself, and Astarion had come to realize that the fear which hounded Eli on both sleepless nights and in nightmares was well founded.

That fear had spread to him, too. Fear of losing her, of watching her be overtaken by this madness. He understood the depravity he saw in her eyes, the mania that was a loss of self when hunger took hold and choked all other sensibility from your mind. He hadn’t felt empathy for another soul in nearly two hundred years, and suddenly there it was, raw and wounding and utterly terrifying. His thoughts screamed back to that year of starvation and darkness, locked in a tomb as he slowly went mad with hunger. Those recollections were an undertow, threatening to pull him down and drown him.

But she’d needed him, and so he’d wrenched himself free of his clawing subconscious and watched over her until morning when she returned to herself. A lot of things changed that night. They’d been changing already, but the lies he’d been telling himself about how he felt simply could not survive the blistering reality of the situation at hand.

There was still some life left in his cold dead heart, and he had no idea how to reconcile with that knowledge.

The sound of Jaheira clearing her throat brought him out of his brooding and he turned his head to find the druid eyeing him curiously, a hand outstretched towards him. A key was held between her fingers and Astarion glanced at it before meeting her gaze, perplexed. Jaheira sighed and took a seat opposite to Astarion at the table, setting the key down on the worn wooden surface of the hightop and pushing it over to him.

“Seems Karlach was speaking truth when she said the two of you were a pair of emotionally-stunted lovesick fools,” Jaheira said, leaning back in her chair and pointing from Eli to Astarion. “You completely tuned me out, staring at her like a wolfhound salivating over a piece of raw steak.”

Astarion tensed at the remark, frowning before he slipped back into his casual and roguish demeanor.

“Yes, yes, make your jokes about the monstrous vampire. How dare he pursue the charming and morally upstanding hero.” Astarion snorted, eyeing Eli ruefully. “I’ve heard it before. Wyll likes to especially harp on the subject.”

He made a mental note to tell Karlach not to be such a gossip.

Jaheira huffed, a noise that could possibly be construed as a laugh, except Astarion wasn’t sure he could picture the stern woman laughing.

“Please,” she said, almost dismissively. “I am not familiar enough with your little band of hedonists to form an opinion on your social dramas. And even if I were, I doubt I’d care.”

The druid turned her head to gaze back towards the bar.

Bex and Danis had joined the group situated around Eli, and Astarion noted that another bottle of wine had recently been opened. Eli was turning down offers to refill her glass and Astarion felt a sudden urge to grab her and whisk her away to the quiet sanctuary of his tent back at camp. And not even to do anything sexual, though if that’s where the night took them, he’d happily oblige.

He just wanted to give her a space of reprieve, somewhere she could rest and escape all this chaos.

“What I do care about,” Jaheira continued, drawing Astarion’s attention back to her. “Is that one’s wellbeing.” She tilted her chin towards Eli. “She is our way into the cult. Our way to get close to Ketheric. She is our key to putting an end to this blight of the Absolute.”

Astarion didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to open his mouth in that moment. Jaheira was loading more burdens onto Eli’s shoulders, and his desire to hide her away – to protect her – was only growing.

He knew the druid spoke truth. Eli had a connection to all of this that none of them, including her, understood. What they did know was that Ketheric Thorm recognized her when they showed up at Moonrise. He’d addressed her as a comrade, and it deeply unsettled her. What secrets were lying locked away behind Eli’s fractured psyche? A part of him honestly didn’t care…he just wanted her safe…

“So,” Jaheira said after the silence between them lingered for a moment. She tapped the key still lying on the tabletop in front of Astarion. “That is a key to a room upstairs. As well-meaning as the rabble down here is, what Eli needs is rest. The days and weeks ahead will not be easy, and opportunities for respite will be few. Make her take this one.”

Astarion opened his mouth, intending to ask why the hell Jaheira didn’t just go over there and say these things to Eli. But she was well ahead of him and held her hand up in a motion to silence him.

“I have no sway over her. I will only come off as overbearing and fussy, even if I do speak truth.” Her tone took on a hint of amusement, that of an elder and learned lioness affectionately chiding a cub. “I have been informed by Karlach that the two of you are together, yes?”

Astarion stiffened, his mind swirling around all the complications involved with his and Eli’s relationship. Guilt rose up in his throat and he swallowed it down uneasily as Jaheira eyed him curiously. She bullied past the question, not waiting for his affirmation.

“Take Eli upstairs and away from all of this,” Jaheira said, rising from her chair in a motion to leave, her piece said.

She then paused, considering something, before turning back to Astarion.

“It is not my place to say this, but I will, anyway. You seem conflicted about something concerning her. And I don’t want details,” she added hastily, noting Astarion’s discomfort at being called out. “However, I know all too painfully the grief of leaving things unsaid. This life you currently lead, it is one lived day-to-day, and those days will run out. Sometimes, much sooner than expected. Don’t wait until you have nothing left but regret.”

Once again not waiting for a response, Jaheira turned and made her way towards a group of Harpers who were chatting near the Inn’s central firepit. Astarion was left alone with the echo of her words and the key she had provided.

Something squirmed uncomfortably in Astarion’s chest as he rolled what she said over and over in his mind.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit!

She was right, of course. He needed to talk to Eli about them. About whatever this was. About how he’d manipulated her.

Used her.

Astarion groaned softly and ran a hand through his hair absentmindedly - a nervous habit.

Enough! Enough thinking, you wretched pathetic cowardly moron!

Rising from his chair, Astarion grabbed the key and made his way towards the bar, stepping up behind Eli who was currently providing Rolan with a play-by-play of their Moonrise prison break. Gently, he wrapped an arm around her waist and brought his other hand up to rest on her shoulder, pressing a light kiss to the side of her neck as he did so.

Astarion felt Eli’s pulse quicken beneath his lips and smiled as she leaned back into him. He felt a smug sense of satisfaction as he caught Rolan frowning at him, indignant as Eli’s attention shifted away from him and to the vampire.

“Hello, my dear,” he whispered softly into her ear, ignoring the tiefling wizard who looked as if he wanted to set Astarion on fire. “I’m sorry to interrupt you and your adoring fans, but I have some adoring of my own that I need you for.”

It was so easy for Astarion to slip back into his charmingly seductive mannerisms, so much so that he felt a pang of guilt twist in his stomach.

Truth be told, Astarion wasn’t exactly sure how to approach the type of conversation he wanted to have. He’d never done this before, asking to talk about a relationship, so he was winging it and using what tactics he knew to get her away from the crowd and to a more private location.

Eli turned her head to meet his gaze and grinned, placing a hand on the one Astarion had at her waist and intertwining her fingers with his.

“Really, now?” she said playfully. “And what does this adoring entail? Because if a hot bath and a massage are not included, I’m not going.”

Eli’s eyes shined with mischief as her expression settled into a teasing smirk. She kissed him lightly near the underside of his jaw – a reassuring gesture. Eli would go with him, regardless, but she always did enjoy a bit of banter.

“Arrangements can be made,” Astarion quipped as he turned her in his arms and began leading her towards the staircase to the upper floor.

Apprehension was beginning to roil in his gut, but he forced the alluring façade to stay in place.

Eli allowed him to direct her towards the stairs, tossing a wave to Rolan and calling over her shoulder.

“Sorry, Rolan! We’ll chat more later, as I’m currently being commandeered.”

Astarion couldn’t help the smug expression that crossed his face when he heard the tiefling’s miffed response.

“Mmhm, you seem like a very unwilling captive,” Rolan grunted.

Eli laughed.

“What can I say? I’ve got a weakness for pretty words, great sex and a man I don’t have to share snacks with,” she said.

Astarion tried to hold back the surprised bark of a laugh that bubbled up from his throat and failed miserably. He felt eyes on them, some scandalized and others amused - and heard Rolan’s agitated groan - as he led Eli up the stairs.

They reached the second-floor landing and he pressed a hand to the small of Eli’s back, guiding her towards the room.

“Where are we going, anyway?” she asked, trying to stifle a yawn as she spoke.

Safe from the greedy, peering eyes of the mob below, the shift in Eli’s demeanor was almost instinctual. She sagged a bit, weary and leaning into his touch. Hey eyelids fluttered closed for a moment and she drew in a deep, steadying breath.

She truly was exhausted and Astarion began to second guess himself. Maybe this wasn’t a good time to broach such a sensitive topic. She needed rest, not more burdens. Was he being selfish? Trying to offload his guilt just so he could feel better?

But the way she pressed into him, slightly leaning on him in her fatigue and suddenly so disarmed and at ease the moment they were away from the crowd…it caused a gnawing self-hatred to burn deep in his bones.

She trusted him. She felt safe with him. She shouldn’t…he didn’t deserve her affection.

“Jaheira, like the meddlesome elder she is, secured us a room away from all the nagging unwashed masses so you can finally get some peace and quiet,” Astarion said, stopping in front of a door which had the same designation as the key he had been given.

“Astarion, we are the unwashed masses,” Eli chuckled, glancing down at the battered scale mail she wore which was currently spattered with grime, blood and who knows what other less-than-savory substances.

Astarion expression pinched into one of mild disgust as he considered his own leathers which were equally smeared and foul.

“Yes, well, perhaps whatever contemptuous god is overseeing our day-to-day lives has seen fit to grace us with a private washroom? You know, as a way to apologize for all the horror and trauma that surrounds us every second of every day,” he bemoaned in that haughty, vain manner that only Astarion could pull off.

Unlocking the door, Astarion held it open and motioned with a gentlemanly flourish for Eli to enter. She did so, and the pale elf had to suppress a snort of laughter when she called out to him not five seconds later.

“Holy shit! I’ve never had such an emotional reaction to seeing a bar soap before!”

“I would hope we have not become such heathens that soap merits this much enthusiasm.”

“It smells like eucalyptus, Astarion! Eucalyptus!”

-------------------------------------------

There was, indeed, a private washroom.

Eli and Astarion took turns getting cleaned up. Soaking in a tub of warm, soapy water was a scarce luxury. Most days, their motley group was resigned to bathing in cold river water with minnows nipping at their toes as they tried to cleanse themselves with whatever natural herbs and ointments Halsin was able to scrounge up into a paste.

In truth, Astarion couldn’t recall the last time he’d been afforded the opportunity to simply enjoy a bath. Cazador certainly didn’t allow his spawn such niceties, and while he’d visited his fair share of taverns and hotels with rentable rooms while prowling for victims to bring back to his master, he was never able to just…be. To relish in the comfort of it all.

The warm water was soothing, banishing the endless chill of death sunk deep in his bones that was his constant state of being since the night he turned. Eli had washed before him and was now situated on the large plush bed across the room from the tub. A privacy screen blocked their view of one another, but they’d been chatting idly throughout the evening about nothing in particular.

Now, in a lull of silence between them, Astarion’s mind was wandering as he rested with his arms and head propped against the sides of the tub, eyes closed in a moment of calm that was all too fleeting these days. He lazily imagined having Eli in the water with him, her warm body pressed up against his which, for once, wouldn’t be cold and pallid to her touch…wouldn’t be greedily stealing the heat of her skin to warm his corpse.

But, he’d still be stealing her trust to warm his dead heart…

He sighed, feeling the ease of the moment slip away like the tendrils of steam coming off his bath water. He needed to own up to his manipulative intentions. Now. He couldn’t stomach the thought of holding Eli in his arms that night while she slept, peaceful and trusting. Holding onto him like he were something to be cared for, to be cherished. Unsuspecting of the truth…that he was deceitful and lowly.

That they never would have been here, in this room, had he not set out to use her for his selfish gain.

If he didn’t approach the subject now, he may not get another chance for some time. Their days were so overwrought with hardships and schemes that finding a moment of quiet was nearly as difficult as figuring out how to subdue the shadow curse.

Resigned to what he needed to do, and with an icy weight of dread sinking into his gut, Astarion rose from the tub and towled dry. He dressed in his typical casual outfit, a black ruffled shirt and dark trousers, and rounded the privacy screen to see Eli sitting on the bed, legs crisscrossed as she drew in a small leatherbound journal. She’d picked it up in the Emerald Grove, exchanging a dagger with Mattis for it that she’d picked up off some decrepit corpse or another.

Eli had taken to writing rather extensive notes in it about anything and everything; from information about the cult to descriptions of acquaintances and even hand drawn maps of the various areas they trekked through. She’d confided in Astarion that she feared what memories she’d made since the nataloid could one day be lost to her, just as her past was lost. And so she wanted to ensure, should that happen, she had a record she could refer to in order to hopefully reclaim some of what was gone.

Eli had even showed him several pages full of details about him. She’d written down all manner of notes, from little preferences he had – such as the style of embroidery needle he liked to use – to reminders such as: “You’ll figure out he’s a vampire pretty damn quick, Astarion is absurdly terrible at keeping secrets. Don’t be weird about it, he’s cool. He can get a bit whiny and obnoxious when he’s hungry, so make sure to keep him fed, especially if there isn’t much wildlife around. The wrist is for everyday use and the neck is for sexy times. Don’t believe him when he tells you that the inner thigh provides the best tasting blood. This is a kink and he is a liar! RATION ACCESS!”

That had made him smirk.

She’d also shown him two pages of detailed notes describing his appearance, from hair to foot. Eli wasn’t much for artistic talent, but she had a flair for the written word despite the copious amounts of vulgarity that shot from her mouth like dragon fire. The attention with which she’d described him and the complimentary nature of it all had caused his breath to catch at the back of his throat. He’d read the words over and over, actually able to picture his face in his mind’s eye as described. A strange sort of familiarity settled over him as he pictured the details on the page, and when he finally found his voice he’d stuttered a bewildered thank you, unused to the kindness she’d shown.

Now, as he sat on the edge of the bed, he felt a desperate fear burn to life inside himself. What if he never got to experience something like that again? What if their time together over the past weeks was all he ever got? Just a few brief flashes of respite among centuries of misery…

“Feeling better?” Eli asked, jolting Astarion out of his thoughts.

He blinked at her for a moment before clearing his throat and running a hand habitually through his hair.

“Yes…yes, I always feel better when I’m not covered in other people’s bodily fluids,” he said with a halfhearted chuckle that caused Eli to frown curiously and set down her journal.

She could sense something was off. And so with one last internal curse to himself, Astarion launched into one of the most anxiety-inducing things he’d ever done.

“I’ve…been meaning to talk to you. About us,” he said, tone soft and hesitant.

Eli shifted her weight on the bed, turning her body to face him. Her brows had furrowed only slightly, unsure whether she should be concerned about Astarion’s sudden shift in demeanor, yet fully open to listening attentively. Trusting. It made his gut twist.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes, of course!” Astarion responded reflexively, instinctively jumping to make light of any tension. He bit back anymore reassurances before he could spit them out and cleared his throat, voice taking on a more serious tone.

“Except…not really,” he backpedaled.

Eli’s expression grew more worried and Astarion could see her already beginning to play through scenarios in her mind, trying to sort through what she may have done. What wrongs her broken mind may have committed. He sped forward, wanting to absolve her of any notion that she was at cause for anything.

“Look, I had a plan,” he began, turning towards her on the bed. “A nice simple plan. Seduce you, sleep with you, manipulate your feelings so you’d never turn on me,” he chuckled nervously, swallowing down the bile threatening to rise in his throat.

“It was easy…instinctive. Habits from two hundred years of charming people kicked in. All you had to do was fall for it…” His eyes dropped, unable to hold Eli’s stare as her own eyes searched his face, taken aback and confused by the sudden confession.

“And all I had to do was not fall for you,” he continued, glancing back up to her. Desperate for her to hear this next part. “Which is where my nice, simple plan…fell apart.”

Astarion paused, gazing at Eli with a mixture of trepidation and guilt as she watched him silently, stunned and not without a little hurt bleeding into her eyes as his words caught up with her brain.

“You’re…” he started, unsure how to put a voice to the storm wheeling inside of him. He wasn’t as eloquent as Eli, and never had he felt so incapable and inadequate at translating what he felt into words than he did right now. So he said what had been tearing him up from the inside out for days, and braced for the inevitable fallout.

“You’re incredible.” He couldn’t help the touch of a sad smile that came to his lips, or the nearly awed tone of his voice as he said the word like it could encase inside of it everything Eli had come to mean to him.

It wasn’t enough, he knew. No word would be enough. Nor would a thousand words. Because he didn’t understand how to express the way his heart seemed to flutter when she looked at him, despite it being cold and useless in his chest. He didn’t know how to explain the way her smile made him feel like someone worthwhile. Or how when he held her in his arms he thought that maybe…maybe some god somewhere had finally heard his desperate pleas.

“You deserve something real,” he admitted, with no small amount of shame, before adding, “I want us to be something real.”

Confessing to something he wanted, out loud and to someone else, was an experience he was woefully unfamiliar with. It was an experience he fully expected he’d come to regret, but he said it anyway and waited for the pain that was sure to follow.

Eli was quiet for a long moment, peering at Astarion with an expression he couldn’t quite read. He saw confusion and sadness, but there was something else, too. A flicker of something not unlike…understanding?

No, he was surely mistaken…

“So…” Eli said softly, working through her words before she spoke them out loud. Trying to parse through the influx of information coming at her.

“So, this hasn’t been real? Us? Everything we’ve been through. Our nights together…they didn’t mean anything to you…” she trailed off, almost as if she were talking to herself rather than asking it of him.

“Of course they did!” Astarion was quick to correct the assumption.

Gods, he didn’t want her to think that. Of course they had meant something to him, more than he’d thought they could. He’d chosen to be with her, even if it had initially been out of less than innocent desires, he’d chosen it. He hadn’t been forced to seek her out and lure her somewhere. She wasn’t a mark or some wretched experience he wanted to forget. He’d acted of his own free will, and even if the reasons hadn’t been as genuine as he’d made them out to be at the start, it was still the first decision he had made in nearly two centuries that wasn’t directed or forced.

That meant something to him. Those nights meant something to him. And, gods, so did she. That was part of the problem…

And so he explained as much, describing how he was used to twisting intimacy into something to be used rather than felt. How his past experiences with sex were bleeding over into the nights spent with her and that he didn’t have the faintest idea how to fix it. How he had trained himself to be numb, to wall himself off. And how, when Eli had finally, gently dismantled those walls he didn’t know what to do next…

“I don’t know how else to be with someone. No matter how much I’d like to…” Astarion concluded, feeling about as small and insignificant as he’d ever felt.

The silence that followed his confession made his skin crawl with ill ease. He stared at the bedding, terrified to look up and see the fury Eli surely felt. This was it; this was when she’d tell him to leave. And he would, quietly and without fuss. It was the last kindness he was capable of giving her.

“Astarion.” The calm softness of Eli’s voice nearly made the elf flinch. “Please look at me.”

Not a demand, but a request, spoken with care.

Confused, Astarion looked to her and instead of anger or hate or rage, he only found…her. Just Eli, looking back at him with thoughtful consideration. She should have been furious, but instead she simply took a steadying breath, scooting a bit closer on the bed so she could place a hand lightly on his knee.

He didn’t move, didn’t breathe as Eli looked at him and carefully began to speak.

“I care about you, Astarion.” She said it as if she were trying to convince him of the truth of her words, and he was stunned.

“Really?” he asked, breathless and unsure. But hopeful, too. Hopeful that maybe, just once, something in his miserable life might not end in disaster and pain.

“Yes, you beautiful fool!” she nearly laughed, squeezing at his knee.

Eli smiled at him and…gods above, it was the most dazzling and gorgeous thing he’d ever seen.

“Neither of us was looking for anything more than a night of comfort, and maybe some fun, when all of this started. We both had our own self-serving reasons,” she explained, before chuckling lightly. “Hells, I barely had more than a few weeks' worth of memories in my head at that point. Trying to rope anyone into a meaningful relationship was so low on my list of priorities I would have burst into flames on the spot had anyone mentioned the idea to me.”

Astarion couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face as Eli looked at him with an adoration that made him dizzy.

“But, things change. We changed. And, I’m glad that we did. I came to care about you in a way I don’t remember caring about anyone ever. And while that may not be saying much, considering…” Eli laughed and Astarion’s dead heart soared. “You’re special to me, right now. Regardless of how this started.”

This was certainly not how Astarion had expected this conversation to go, and he had never been so overjoyed to have his expectations usurped. He was entirely out of his depth, and so far outside his comfort zone that he was reeling. Words kept building up in the back of his throat and yet when he opened his mouth, he was struck dumb. He was overwhelmed, in the best way possible, but he hadn’t the slightest notion of what he was supposed to say or do next. And so he defaulted to what he knew.

“Well, I mean, of course I am, darling,” Astarion’s voice slipped into a silky tone. Anxiety was roiling inside of him and he tried to claw his way out, using the tools he knew best.

“The unyielding praise I am able to coax from your lips during our nights of passion has made it more than apparent,” he leaned in towards Eli, the tone of his words easing back into sultry familiarity.

Eli just shook her head with a breathy chuckle, meeting his gaze with a genuine affection in her eyes that made Astarion feel known in a way that was comforting.

“That’s not what I meant,” Eli chided with a tenderness that caught Astarion off-guard. “I mean you, Astarion. The person that you are. The person who cares about me enough to watch over me all night while I go mad. The person who is forgiving enough to not hate me the next morning. The person who makes me laugh after a long and painful day.”

Carefully, Eli raises a hand and gently presses it against Astarion’s cheek. He leans into the touch, expression softening and relaxing as his red eyes stay locked in to her own.

“The person who is being honest with me, right now. Who I appreciate more than I can say.”

Astarion was quite certain his brain had seized. He sat frozen, frantically searching her face for any hint of a lie and finding none, to his utter astonishment.

“That’s…” he started, then faltered. He knew he should say something, but his chest currently felt as if it was being wrenched open and no words would suffice to express his amazement.

“I don’t know what to say,” Astarion admitted after his stunned silence wore off. “Which is quite the accomplishment on your part, my dear.”

Eli smiled, warm and without expectations. It was beautiful.

“Thank you,” he breathed, closing the small gap between them and resting his forehead against her own. “For trusting me, and listening. For everything.”

His words were woefully inadequate, and he feared they always would be. But, Eli didn’t seem to mind and that brought him immeasurable relief.

“I’ll always listen,” Eli reassured him as she stroked the side of his face with her thumb. “Considering who you are, it’s kind of hard not to,” she teased.

His expression took on a somewhat sheepish hint as he took her hand from his cheek and held it reverently between both of his. He sat up a bit straighter as Eli pulled away, silently watching him run his fingers across her palm with a light touch.

“What do we do now?” he asked, hesitant and unsure.

Astarion looked to Eli for some sort of direction. He hadn’t thought this far ahead and honestly figured the conversation would have ended in tears or bloodshed or both by now. He didn’t know what a way forward with Eli looked like, but he knew he wanted her with him. Maybe he could ignore the confused and unsavory feelings that intruded upon their nights together? He wanted to enjoy her, to satisfy her without the shadows of past hurts creeping in. Perhaps he could figure out how…

“What do you want to do?” Eli responded, turning the question back onto him and taking him by surprise.

Astarion looked back to Eli, brows raised at the unexpected question. He considered her for a moment, thinking through how to answer. What did he want?

“I’m not sure…” he said honestly. “No one’s ever asked me that before. About anything, really.”

Eli waited, smiling reassuringly, though with a hint of sadness at Astarion’s words. It was freeing, somewhat, to be given the space to think about what he wanted and a chance to put a voice to it. But, it was also a little overwhelming, and truth be told he wasn’t quite sure how to figure it out.

“I know I don’t want to lose you,” he affirmed, squeezing her hand in his.

He did want something real with Eli. The problem was, he didn’t know what real looked like. This was unfamiliar territory for him, and he didn’t even know how in the hells he was supposed to get his bearings.

“I don’t want that, either. You know, we could be together without sex. For however long we need,” Eli suggested, a small smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. “I don’t think I have the best associations with it, either, considering the…things that sometimes pop into my head. Maybe we both could use time to work through those things.”

Astarion considered the idea, a cool rush of relief overcoming him as it truly began to sink in that Eli wasn’t only interested in him for his body and the way it roused it her own. They were good together, really fucking good. But it was becoming more and more difficult to reconcile what he had done in his past, under the subjugation of Cazador, with what he did with Eli now. He didn’t want to treat her like a mark or just another one of his conquests. She deserved better than that from him – to be cherished and worshiped, even ravished, fully and completely and without the haunting presence of ghosts that lurked in the corners of his mind.

“Why that almost sounds like a challenge,” Astarion said, trying to slip back into his sultry mannerisms yet failing to hide the appreciation he felt.

His tone then shifted into something quieter and more tentative as Astarion asked, “Can we…still share a bed? I think I’d miss sleeping in your arms.”

He cleared his throat, eyes darting to the side. The vulnerability behind his question was uncomfortable for him, but he thought maybe he could manage if it kept them from spending their nights apart. He’d grown fond of drifting off to sleep with her near, lulled by the low beat of her heart and the soft sighs of her breathing. It was a comfort he had never imagined himself longing for, and yet with Eli he’d quickly come to miss her warmth on the nights they slept in their own tents. Her absence at his side becoming a chill he’d rather not endure.

“I’d like that,” Eli agreed, giving his own hand a soft and appreciative squeeze.

“Well,” Astarion sighed, tension easing out of him as he leaned forward suddenly and wrapped Eli in an embrace that quickly had them tumbling back onto the bed. “No time like the present!”

Eli laughed and Astarion pulled her close, reveling in the easy solace of having everything between them out in the open rather than eating away at his insides. He rolled onto his back, tugging her up onto him so that her head was resting on his chest, just below his chin. His fingers idly stroked through her hair, eyelids drooping as the stress of the day finally caught up to him.

“This is nice,” he mumbled a bit more sleepily than intended.

A contented hum was the only response he heard from Eli before sleep took him completely.

___________________________________

In the morning Karlach gave them a knowing smirk as they descended the stairs and Eli began rummaging through the Inn’s cabinets for something that could pass as breakfast.

“You two look happy,” she remarked as Astarion took a seat across from her at one of the low tables near the central firepit. “Seems a night on your own did the both of you some good.”

The tiefling eyed Astarion pointedly as she raised a mug of coffee and sipped, eyes twinkling with more than a bit of self-satisfied mischief.

Astarion clicked his tongue and leaned back in his chair, feigning disinterest as he began to study his nails.

“You know, Karlach,” he began, flicking a speck of dirt from the tip of a finger. “For someone without a heart, you sure do seem to get invested in the romantic affairs of others.”

Karlach nearly spit coffee across the table as a boisterous laugh leapt up from her chest. She managed to contain herself, half choking and half coughing into her mug before she set it aside.

“That’s rich, fangs, coming from the likes of you,” Karlach giggled with good nature. “Honestly, I was just getting tired of the constant pining and lovesick angst between the both of you. For a pair of bloodthirsty murderhobos, you two are adorably dense when it comes to interactions that don’t involve stabbing something.”

“And for a professional killing machine from the hells, you are a hopeless gossip,” Astarion replied, shooting Karlach a sidelong glare before he glanced across the room to where Jaheira was consulting with a pair of Harpers as they studied a map.

He cleared his throat and pointedly did not look at the tiefling, speaking low for only the two of them to hear.

“Anyway…thank you. For meddling,” he said somewhat stiffly, though there was a timid genuineness to his words that made Karlach beam.

“Always happy to meddle, fangs.”

[shinjisdone]

Ticking Springs

(A Yandere Pinocchio X fem!Reader fic from Lies of P)

Pɑɾt 1; Sluɱbeɾ

capitolo uno

here is: capitolo due

capitolo tre

capitolo quattro

capitolo cinque

capitolo sei

capitolo sette

Capitolo otto

Capitolo nove

Capitolo dieci

Pɑɾt 2; Awɑƙeƞiƞƍ

It was a privilege to share the same blood as Giuseppe Geppetto. To be his family, his niece and take part in the marvelous worlds of puppets. The privilege to learn from him as his apprentice. The privilege to care for the things he cares for and to have the things he cares for, care deeply for you.

Tag list:

@greeknerd007 , @mitsureigen , @kame11a , @thirdblogsacharm , @sarah22447 , @blueberryhitosh1 , @written1nthest4rs , @huicitawrites

TW in general: Yandere behaviour, creepy and still puppet, dubious intentions and relationship, still in WIP more warnings may occurr in time

TW here are: Geppetto being motivating and discouraging, anxious reader, mysoginy?, a boy is calling girls stupid

The sun had shown her face seldomly on Krat this morning.

Gepetto laughed at his own thought as he stretched. Already clothed for the day with his usual white shirt, reddish-brown vest and striped pants, he went over his usual routine. His old legs carried him over from the bedroom, to the kitchen and straight to his office without hesitation – yet this morning he halted and leaned back at the sight he was seeing.

He observed silently before sucking in a breath. “I doubt you got a good night’s sleep, yet judging from your work on the butlers,” His head nodded as he eyed the two automated puppets standing as still and tall as candles with toothy, almost cartoon-y smiles. Their teeth, though exaggerated to radiate an ridicouless amount of politeness, shown so brightly it was an almost uplifting sight. The black suits that adorned their mechanical forms were mended and ironed and the paint redone before they were even put in their new clothes. Their eyes and brows, tailored after the customer’s request, almost looked real – warm and inviting even though all their purpose was to serve and obey to noble families at home.

Nobody would truly care whether or not their puppet butlers were physically pleasing to look at – that’s what Geppetto believed as he introduced them to the Workshop Union so many years ago though his marketer colleagues quickly proved how delighted so many families would become. From the wife to the children, to the busy family head that would return home and would greet the puppet first. He himself had grown fond of them and was glad that he let his creative side show when creating puppets personifying entertainment.

“…You were as busy as a bee, dear.” You couldn’t help but turn your head and smile at him, your eyes shining as bright as a star to him. “Thank you, Uncle.” You say, “But this doesn’t prove itself difficult anymore. I believe I’ve learned a lot.” Your eyes would flicker between the puppets and him. Geppetto nodded in return. “Seems like you have. You always had a talent for the art.” “It always impressed me, Uncle. I honestly never thought you’d ever take me in as your apprentice when I was younger.”

His smile broke for a moment before he replaced with pressed lips. He took a breath before looking at you again. “…I always hoped this craft would be staying in the family. Or at least, be carried by it with interest. Your father was never too keen on it as I was and am.”

You nodded along, knowing of his intentions. It was no secret to you either that your old man never showed interest, even in your younger days. Geppetto continued, sounding higher, “But you do, dear. And that is gift enough.” Leaning back, the man took a sip of his warm coffee. “Still, I wasn’t sure to take you in. You’re young and inexperienced compared to most people of Krat.”

“I can learn.” You intervened yet with another smile. “I have so far, haven’t I?” You turn back to gesture to the two butler puppets, their appearance almost as good as new – impeccable if Geppetto didn’t know that they were once broken. Malfunctioning one and two times too much until they tumbled down the stairs with all the trays of wine and juice tainting them and their system.

The older man nodded as he swallowed his drink. “I will not lie. Still, they’ll have to be looked at by me first before anyone else in the public can even see them.”

Your breath hitched slightly in your throat as Geppetto put away his coffee and started a puppet up. Taking a step back, your hands fiddled in a closed position. “I…” You began but felt your mouth too dry for any words and as the springs reacted and ticked, any chance at expressing yourself was out the window.

With a swung, the butler stood straight, its head crooked to the side. The arm bent to a sharp 90°degree, the fingers twitched as if longing to hold a wine glass. As flawless as its toothy smile was, it could barely open its jaw. “Good morning to you, Sir. How ma-may I s-se-serve – serve-“

It tried to repeat its sentence again but could only manage buzzing noise. You winced at the high pitch.

“…The coats and paint are no problem,” You gingerly stepped closer, “…but I…I am afraid I still need some time, and, and lessons on how to repair and set the voice box…and maybe repair the automation…” Your voice grew quieter. Geppetto stood up without a word.

“…You are getting there.” He dusted his vest off, “But do not dive with your head first in. It’s early, go fetch us some fresh bread.” Clumsily you agreed and quickly shut off the puppet. Carefully setting it aside, you could glance from the corner of your eye Uncle leaving the room with his cold coffee in hand.

The door was closed shut with one hand as the other arm tunneled into the sleeve of your old jacket. Skipping over the puddles from last night, you patted yourself down on the way to the bakery. While the road was a skip away, you still hurried over and found yourself glad to be early enough for no other customers to be in there.

The small bell rang as you opened and closed the glass door again and were quickly greeted by the cabinet displaying various loafs. It always surprised you how much variety a bakery as this one offers and had to keep yourself from buying the delicious-looking buns always as well. You had to spend your pocket money wisely here in Krat.

Your eyes scanned the assortment and unwittingly caught your reflection in the glass cabinet. Hair untidy and bags unfortunately showing under your eyes – it left you a bit annoyed yet ashamed that someone like you already managed to look like a mess in the morning – and even more unfortunate was it that the good baker had already spotted you.

“Morning to you, young lady!”

Turning to the voice, your thinly pressed lips turned upwards. “How may I serve you today?” The mechanical replica of a baker’s hat first feigned to fall – before it was quickly set up on round tin. The puppet had a set of extra rosy and round cheeks that suited his crinkled eyes and bright smile. It fit the picture-book image of a kind baker and you noted that this model seemed to have a wavy mustache alongside a yellow-striped apron.

You couldn’t hold back your giggle as you pointed at your order. With another gleeful and automated response, the tray under the loaves moved akin to an assembly line and the baker puppet took each bread and packed them full of vim and vigor.

The ribbon tied to the paper bag was impeccable as expected. And charming as well, to you at least.

Yet as your eyes fell to the register as you handed the money, another round of irregular footsteps entered the small room. Hurrying from around the corner came yet another figure, made out of flesh and bone as her green eyes darted over to you. She strode forward to the puppet and your shoulders fell. “Four sixty-five, was it not?” Adjusting her glasses, her gaze went up from the goods in your arms to the puppet and back to the register. She tucked a strand hair behind her ear. “So sorry for the interruption, this fella once miscalculated the price of the Ciabatta and, well…” Trailing off, she opened the register herself, took the money out the puppet’s palm forcefully before handing you back the change. “This all, right? The usual?”

Her low tone snapped you back from your trance. “Oh!” You let out and stuck the money back into your pocket, “Oh, yes. Yes, it is, I think. For breakfast.”

“You buy that often, don’t you? For the past month now or so?” Her low voice grew as she shifted her weight to the side, her blue apron swinging as she rested her hand to her hips. She watched you carefully as she waited for an answer.

The baker girl could see your eyes darting to the bread. “Oh, I suppose so. A month now, has it been that long?” You stuttered out and finished with a strained laugh. “Felt short to me.”

“You’re not from here.” Finally, she cracked a sneaky smile, “I can tell.” “Oh,” Again, you laugh as you eye the paper bag. “I am not…you got me.”

Quickly you gazed back to the still and smiling puppet. “The good baker here just served me most of the time…I never noticed any miscalculations or getting less change.” Lips quirking upwards briefly, you looked back to the girl. “I would have said something as well if I got too much change, of course.”

“No worries, I’m sure you’d do. Good ol’ Panetti just started getting math wrong…I have to confess there was a wee accident with flour and water a few days ago.” She gave him a few good pats on his shoulder, the metal resounding, “We’d have to send him to the Workshop Union soon or else I’ll come strolling down every time he deals with a customer.”

“Such things are easy to readjust.” You spoke up, “It’s just to rearrange the number system and have him test out a few math problems. As if he was a school boy.”

As she cocked a brow, you inhaled sharply and licked your lips.

With a quick nod, you stepped towards the exit. “Why, anyway, I must head back. Uncle is waiting for his favorite loaves and I’d best deliver while they are warm.” A fast excuse and you were half-way through the door, holding it open with one foot. Thankfully it was the puppet that approached and held the door open for you. The tiny bell resounded again.

A chuckle was heard shortly after and you turned back to see the girl waving at you. “We are looking forward to your patronage again, good puppet maker!”

Your heart jumped at the title. Yet you could not decipher if it was out of anxiety or excitement.

Yet before your lips could quirk up, a small force bumped into your side.

Looking down, you were met with furrowed, dark eyes glancing up to you before snapping to the voice behind. “Roberto!” A woman called out. “Roberto, I told you to take your sister with you!”

As the young boy’s eyes and yours followed to where she was pointing, both of you saw an even smaller, younger little girl struggling to keep up. The weight of the doll that was half her size kept her back but with the way she fiddled and played with its dark curls, you could deduce that she insisted on taking it with her.

“Roberto!”

“I know, Ma!”

The boy suddenly and vehemently shouted out, you couldn’t help but startle. Those dark eyes that seemed simply brooding when on you, were now actively in a glare at his mother and sister.

“I told you though, I don’t wanna! Girls are stupid!”

Instead of quirking up in a nervous smile, your mouth was pressed into a thin line and your glare mimicked the boy’s. He noticed and let out a much softer ‘Sorry, miss.’ before begrudgingly waving his younger sister to follow. Without another glance, you marched back to the workshop.

The latest event left a sour taste in your mouth.

You tried to hide it when entering the kitchen, Geppetto raising a brow as he prepared you two cups of coffee.

when you wanna post the yandere but have to establish setting and characters first

[dailydoodlesofp]

Can't help but listen to her scavenging voices

the voices

[ice-cream-writes-stuff]

Who Framed Wally Darling?~☆

《A detective is the only hope to prove the one accused their innocence when they are convicted of murder.》

《Warnings: the subject matter this ARG has are potentially disturbing. DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT. Welcome Home was created by Clown @ partycoffin 》

-《This Au is going to go two ways.. Enjoy!》

[Cast, You as Eddie Valiant. Wally Darling as Jessica Rabbit and Roger Rabbit!]

All you wanted was to have one big easy paying job. Not helps a puppet on the run.

But... It was your fault.

You were the only one that could prove Wally Darlings' innocence.

You were paid to keep an eye on the star puppet of the hit show. "Welcome Home".

Known for his charm, charisma and soft voice.

The man that hired you, (the boss of the studio that produced Welcome Home.) Wanted to find some dirt on the rising star puppet, believing the puppet had other, side-jobs that he couldn't do due to his contract.

So, you went to investigate.

But after watching him for a couples of day, you were glad to say you had nothing close to what your employer wanted...

So on that note, you went back to the studio and got your pay and headed back home.

[Breaking News: Studio owner of ---- ----, has been murdered! Suspect of the crime has yet to be caught or questioned by authorities.]

Spitting out your breakfast onto the kitchen counter.

You hear a knock on your door.

Opening it up, you see a small frightened puppet on your doorstep

I guess a new case is needed to be solved.

[Cast! You as Roger Rabbit, Wally playing as Jessica Rabbit. Julie and Frank playing Eddie Valiant!]

[I made this for shits and giggles, then I remembered Abba-]

You were a children's show actor, one of the main characters. But not the most prominent one.

You loved to make your audience laugh and learn about the world. Hoping to educate the new generation of young minds.

But others would rather see you fail than succeed.

Your boss had called you down to his office to talk to you, so filming was put on pause as you made your way down to his office.

"(L/N), this is Detective Frankly and Detective Julie, they has something to show you." You nod your head politely to the Detective Frankly and Julie.

After finding out your husband could possibly be cheating on you. You sob and cry, finding a peice of paper and writing down the love you held for Wally before heading home.

Crying softly and sleeping in another room, not wanting to see him. (He was very upset when he noticed you weren't beside him when he woke up.)

On your way to the studio, a news advertisement plays

[Breaking News: Studio owner of ---- ----, has been murdered! Suspect of the crime has yet to be caught or questioned by authorities.]

A photo of you appears on screen as you back away in shock!

You had to get to the bottom of this.

There was only one duo that could help you, Frank and Julie's Detective Agency!

<Just imagine all of this is happening because you told Sally about the movie from your world. And she's so invested in it that she decided to adapt it into a theatrical musical production!>

-

@yourmommylol04 @openminded-freak @takenbytheboogieman @apelepikozume @candie-wax @thealreadyunsteadyteddynewspaper @mars-wants-candy @queenofspades403 @hiddencatails @bumbly-bee-13 @sethlainpallatt @jacquelynwinchester

@the-golden-speckle-light @planetary-poison @i-d0nt-3x1st @urmomisaqt420 @shadowlover321

@trumpettay @sugarrush-blush @sl33pyt1r3 @soggys-world @xxblackdementia311xx @coolcat101s @himboextraordinaire @rainingdandelion @pepperspark @sparklyphantom @000-mika

[Hope ya'll enjoyed this! It's a bit rushed but I had fun playing with the concept and I hope you guys can too! I wanna see some red suit wally and Julie and Frank being detectives!]

[9haharharley1]

Making THIS a separate post because I want to continue it and make it a proper oneshot

---

What if Sephiroth saw?

What if their minds do the thing and senses where Cloud is what he's doing, and goes to the Honey Bee, and he finds Cloud dancing on stage? Watches him get a makeover? The jealousy and possession he would feel as Andrea dances with him, touches him, compliments him, calls him beautiful; Sephiroth would have to fight back a murderous rage because he can't act, he can't reveal himself, it's too soon!

But he knows Cloud senses him, he sees how he tenses on stage, looks around the room, his guard up, not just because he's suddenly in a dress and way out of his comfort zone, but he knows something is wrong, someone is there, and while Aerith goes out the front to wait for Cloud, Cloud sneaks out back, on guard but without his gear, without his sword, only to be snatched up by strong arms, shockingly gentle because of what he's wearing

The man behind him doesn't want to ruin his new outfit, doesn't even want to press the smaller man into the wall for fear of staining the dress with the grime of Wall Market, its bad enough he had another man's hands on him while in he club, but Sephiroth can remedy that now. His touch is soft, far gentler than he has ever recalled handling anything in his life, but Cloud isn'tjust anything. And the other man clearly hates it, struggles in his arms as much as the dress will allow, which isn't much, and Sephiroth laughs, low and deep, and the body thrashing against him stills.

Cloud's voice is small and fearful as he mutters, "Sephiroth?"

"What have we here?" Sephiroth murmurs, and his breath is hot on Cloud's ear, tickling his skin. Cloud shivers, and Sephiroth chuckles. His hands smooth over the bodice, a groan building in his throat, but he doesn't release it. Cloud is tense in his arms.

"You're not here." Cloud says quietly, and it sounds like ne's trying to convince himself. "You're not here. You're not seeing this."

There's a smirk on his lips as he keeps running his hands over smooth silk. "Are you embarrassed, Cloud?"

"You're not really here. You're not here... Cloud keeps muttering, over and over, a blush on his painted cheeks. Sephiroth purses his lips. His puppet has his eyes squeezed shut, hands clasped tight in front of him, like if he doesn't touch Sephiroth, then he's not really there.

But Sephiroth won't be ignored. Not by his little puppet.

"You look lovely,' he says into Cloud's reddened ear. He has half a thought to take his gloves off, to feel if the bodice is made of satin or silk, but he is hard-pressed to even remove his hands from where they're rubbing all over. Cloud is rigid in his arms, eyes squeezed shut. He gasps when Sephiroth moves his hands further down, his own flying up in an effort to avoid touching him back, leaving them to hang awkwardly in the air. The long skirt bunches under his palm, Cloud taking in a shaky breath, and Sephiroth can't help but turn his head when Cloud turns his face away, pressing his nose to that pale neck, inhaling. Cloud is wearing some sort of perfume, sweet and rosy, and Sephiroth licks up the long line of his neck.

Cloud gasps. "You're not real'

"Oh, I don't have to be real, Cloud," Sephiroth murmurs, breath hot on Cloud's ear, the man gasping and shaking beneath his hands. "All I have to do is touch you-" he licks along the lobe of that flushed ear as his hand gropes the blond through the long skirt, Cloud barely managing to stifle a startled moan as a lacy, gloved hand grabs his wrist, "and your every cell cries out for my attention."

Cloud's hand on his wrist is firm, grip tight, and had Sephiroth been a normal human, unenhanced and inferior like the rest of the insects skittering around outside the alley, then maybe Cloud would have succeeded in pulling him away. Had he not been fearful if dirtying the dress he worked so hard to procure to save his little friend, he may have fought back, and Sephiroth could partake in the pleasure of his anger and distress.

But unfortunately for Cloud, Sephiroth is, and has always been, superior, and Cloud's shame and fear tastes just as sweet.

"Oh?" There is a hint of mania in his voice as he feels his puppet stiffen under his hand. He presses his smirk to Cloud's neck, nuzzling aside a braid to lick flushed skin. "Are you enjoying this Cloud?"

A strangled sound escapes Cloud, both his hands now trying to shove Sephiroth away. Sephiroth wraps his other arm tight around Cloud's waist, pulling him flush to his body. A harsh breath rushes out of Cloud, one hand letting go of Sephiroth's wrist. Sephiroth's fondling is gentle, or as gentle as he knows how to be - a distant memory, at best - his strokes light and almost teasing as Cloud plumps up under his fingers.

"Stop..." Cloud murmurs, not quite a plea yet, so Sephiroth bites the back of his neck and earns a gasp in response.

---

Needs to be cleaned up because it started as a random stream of thought, but if I have one kink, then it's boys in skirts against their will!

[romantichomicide95]

HI BEE!! I would like to request a fluff piece with anyone you want!! :3

hmmm, it's wedding season. maybe a fic about going to a friend's wedding with your boyfriend as your plus one and him noticing your ogling at everything and maybe a little wistful. he makes a comment at the end of the evening about how he wants to wife you up someday too. this could have been a little more eloquent but i hope it's enough to jump start!!

btw ily and i hope you're doing okay this evening <3

I love that you said anyone I want. Obviously it’s Gojo because he would be this person and Levi is the love of my life and I don’t ever want to get married so writing him that way would be hella hard hahaha. Also thankyou and ily❤️

Gojo x Reader

Fluffy wedding stuff.

You were sitting next to your boyfriend, Satoru Gojo at your close friends wedding, watching the bride and groom as they exchanged their vows. You couldn't help but let your gaze wander over to the other guests, admiring their stylish outfits and impeccable hairstyles. The happy look on everyone’s face. You’d been doing this all night, admiring…it was hard not to. You’d dream of weddings since you were young. The pretty flowers everywhere, the beautiful white dress, having someone who loved you by your side. It was a dream and you couldn’t help but take this all in, a slight ping of envy with every sweep of your eyes.

"Enjoying the view?" Satoru teased, noticing your ogling, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.

You felt embarrassment pull over you and looked away. "I just like weddings," you said, trying to play it off cool. "The decorations, the romance, the cake…it’s all just beautiful.”

Satoru laughed, his eyes crinkling in the corners. "I know, I know. You're a hopeless romantic."

You pouted slightly, feeling a bit silly. "Is it so bad? Lots of girls dream of their wedding day. It’s not out of the ordinary” you asked, looking back at him. He smiled at you ruffling your hair. “Of course not puppet.” You looked into his sparkling blue eyes, searching for any hint of what he was thinking.

Satoru chuckled at your reaction. "It's definitely not bad, and you're right, many girls dream of their wedding day," he replied. “But for me, it's not just about the wedding day itself. It's about finding that special person that you want to spend the rest of your life with."

You nodded your head, understanding what he meant. Satoru was always so smooth with his words and gestures, but you knew that he truly meant what he said. You also knew you’d found that person, it was him.

The rest of the wedding ceremony passed by in a blur, your mind buzzing with thoughts of pretty dresses and aisles lined in flowers. You were walking past the shops aligning the streets, with Satoru's arm around your waist, a slight breeze blowing in your hair.

Lost in your thoughts, you didn't notice that had come to a stop in front of a small jewelry store. He tugged on your arm, bringing you closer to the window. "What do you think?" he asked, pointing at a beautiful ring that was on display.

You gasped, feeling a wave of emotions flooding over you. You turned to look at him, tears threatening to spill from your eyes. Satoru looked at you with a deep intensity, his bright blue eyes fixated on yours. "I know that we're not quite there yet, but I want you to know, one day, when the time is right, I will ask you to marry me. And I hope that you'll say yes."

Without a word, you launched yourself into his arms, tears streaming down your face. He held you close. “Toru that’s so sweet. Whenever that time comes I’ll say yes, a million times I would say yes.”

“Good,” he says as he holds you close to his chest, laying kisses on the top of your head, “I’m definitely going to wife you up someday Angel. But for now, let’s go home yeah? You can tell me all about your little angel dreams of how you want your wedding to be.”

“Sounds perfect Toru. I love you.”

“Mmmm. I love you to.”

[wally-darling-hyperfixation]

Karaoke Night Wally x GN reader 400+ Follower Special

This is for all the people who follow me and up till now . I will get to the requests. I just wanna celebrate you

It was karaoke night over at Sally’s house. Sally has a stage so it makes it easier for y’all to karaoke together. Everyone was excitedly talking about their songs which they were going to sing. Well everyone but Wally. You wanted to go over and ask but Julie and Poppy were asking you , your opinion on a song they want to do as a duet. (You have a lot of records and a karaoke machine so you’re able to help). So everyone decided the order y’all would go in . Julie and Poppy, Barnaby, Eddie, Frank , Sally, Howdy, Wally, then it would be your turn. Everyone was so excited all smiles and everything.

So first up was Julie and Poppy. They sang together Respect. And everyone was excited and clapping at how fun they were having. At the end of the song everyone cheered and was wooing . You give them a thumbs up cause it was so good and they looked like they had so much fun. Barnaby was up next and of course he picked out a silly song. He sang the Monster Mash song, and you laughed cause it wasn’t even Halloween time. He was just singing and doing monster dance moves and everyone was laughing at him ,in a good way, just enjoying the night. After the last monster mash chorus, he bowed and got off stage with everyone cheering again. Next up was Eddie. He was red in the cheeks and mumbled that this song was for Frank. The song is called Stop in the Name of love. And he was so red in the face as he sang it looking lovingly at Frank the whole time. Oooooooo it made you so jealous and so happy for them. Who wouldn’t want a love like that. You’ve seen them hold hands on strolls through the neighbor hood and wish one day you have a relationship like theirs. After Eddie finished , he got off and gave Frank a kiss on the cheek telling him it was his turn. Frank being the type of guy who is quite shy, went on the stage and sang the song Close to You. You know like the verse in it “Why do birds suddenly appear? Every time you are near. Just like me they long to be. Close to you.” It was so sweet. You could tell they loved each other very much. You were enjoying karaoke night so much. You didn’t even see the eyes of the puppet who is staring at you the whole time. When Frank finished. He blushes and got off the stage and head towards Eddie , who gave his face a bunch of kisses. So sweet. Only three more left and then it was your turn. Sally picked out Here Comes the Sun. It was so cute and matched her sunny personality. You loved the beatles. Y’all just having so much fun. After Sally was done, it was Howdy’s turn. He sang this song called Busy Bee. You never heard of it before but it sure fit him. It was about a busy bee who worked a lot. It was very Howdy though. So you clapped at the end. Next was Wally.

Wally got on the stage staring back at all of us. He didn’t even let people know what he seeing. He just picks up the mic and starts singing. (I got the lyrics so you can imagine him singing it). “You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off of you

You'd be like Heaven to touch

I wanna hold you so much

At long last love has arrived

And I thank God I'm alive

You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off you

[Verse 2]

Pardon the way that I stare

There's nothing else to compare

The sight of you leaves me weak

There are no words left to speak

But if you feel like I feel

Please let me know that it's real

You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off you

[Chorus]

I love you, baby, and if it's quite alright

I need you, baby, to warm the lonely night

I love you, baby, trust in me when I say:

Oh, pretty baby, don't bring me down, I pray

Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay

And let me love you, baby, let me love you

[Verse 3]

You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off you

You'd be like Heaven to touch

I wanna hold you so much

At long last love has arrived

And I thank God I'm alive

You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off you

[Chorus]

I love you, baby, and if it's quite alright

I need you, baby, to warm the lonely night

I love you, baby, trust in me when I say:

Oh, pretty baby, don't bring me down, I pray

Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay

And let me love you, baby, let me love you

[Chorus]

I love you, baby, and if it's quite alright

I need you, baby, to warm the lonely night

I love you, baby, trust in me when I say:

Oh, pretty baby, don't bring me down, I pray

Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay

And let me love you, baby, let me love you”

He was staring at you the whole time as he sang. Your heart beat fast. You don’t really know if he likes you. But it felt like he was singing to you. And everyone else knew it was for you. Everyone knew from how much Wally stared at you. Yet you didn’t really notice until now. So y’all say. They can continue singing songs. You head over to Wally after he finished singing. “Yes neighbor , what can I do for you?” He asks smiling. “Um Wally , do you like me? That song seems to be for me . I feel like it was to me,” you blush feeling a bit silly. “Your right neighbor it was for you,” Wally says bluntly. “I like ya neighbor. I can’t take my eyes off you,” he smirks and kisses your hand smiling at you. You blushed and give him a cheek kiss. “ I like you to Wally. I honestly never thought you’d like me. You didn’t really show ,” you say blushing more . Everyone was watching from inside and cheered. You both finally admitted and may go forward with your feelings and how you feel now.

I hope I did alright. And that you like your 400+ special for my followers. Thank you alll . Please let me know what you think. I was really excited about this idea. I just wanna know if y’all liked it

Edit 1: I picked can’t take my eyes off you because it’s also a pun. He literally always staring at everyone. And everything. So I feel like it’s on par with him. Please comment if you like

[sourtomatola]

Taking Candy for a Fool part 19 (last)

You took in a sigh of relief as you saw Sun and Moon, still monstrous and gangly, kneeling in the center of the group of candy critters. They beckoned you over and you hugged them.

“Actually, Marionette grabbed me and had me sleep in their box with them. They kept me safe. Nightmarionne also gave me a taffy ball. I did eat it, is that okay?” You told them. The other candy creatures gasped softly at the news, making you looked around confused. “What?”

“Marionette doesn’t like anyone that much, and Nightmarionne hate everyone.” Sun explained. “Nightmarrionne’s taffy is rarer than our drops. Everyone knows you now, Cry Baby. You have all of our thanks. We were able to take the factory for ourselves.”

“You plan to stay here?” You asked curiously. “You don’t want to see the world??”

“Where in the world would beings like us be able to be safe?” Sun asked in in solemn awareness. “The sun is hot, we melt. The cold makes us brittle, and shatter. The rain will wash us away…We will be safest here. We have what we need, we can still carry out orders online with what we shed, we can just do it in our own time. We will be okay I think.”

“With a bit of guidance.” Moon added. “Maybe we can make a garden to grow the fruit to sustain us better. We can grow it on the room, or tear out a part to get the sun in. Maybe we can have Bee’s as well, to pollinate the plants and make us more honey to live on too.”

You smiled at their ambitions, happy to think of them being able to stay safe, no longer tortured nightly. Free to do what they wanted.

They moved slightly to show you that behind them, was Eclipse’s body. You swallowed sadly at the sight. You were glad he was no longer hanging from the wall though.

Puppet slithered in, crawling towards you all. They nipped a bite of stuck taffy off your leg, making you flinch. They smirked and continued to Sun and Moon, who they handed small metal box to. Your friends looked to Eclipse’s body, and you put the pieces together.

“Is that Eclipse’s core? Can you fix him??” You asked eagerly.

Moon observed it for a moment before sighing and showed you a puncture mark. “Too damaged…”

“Oh…” You deflated. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be, either way, he deserves to be buried whole.” Sun said and gently opened Eclipse’s chest cavity to let Moon put the core in its place. You watched reverently.

“I should probably go…” You told them after they had finished.

“Come back often, Cry baby. You’re always welcome.” Sun smiled and held you close. Moon joined in the Hug, and slowly, they began to shed the sharp pieces of candy shell on them. Long pieces of black Liquorice tumbled down your back, and chips of golden butterscotch fell to the floor, shattering at your feet.

You pulled away to look at your shiny shelled friends. Sun’s rays were crystal clear and flawless, his eyes brighter than you’ve ever seen them. His candy ribbon ruffle’s colors were brighter, with extra thin stripes detailing them. Moon’s hat was extra soft and wafted the sweet scent of liquorice. His gummy candy collar and ruffles were fluffier and softer. They were so smooth, and had never looked better. Or happier.

The other candy beings started to shed their extra monstrous forms. They all shifted, shaking slightly to help the shedding along, new gloriously pristine forms showed them to you. Carl Cupcake looked at himself and let out a sound of displeasure to not being scary anymore, but it just made you giggle at his childish fussing.

“When you come back, we may have a secret password. Just say it’s our Cry baby, and we’ll know~” Sun grinned teasingly.

“Yeah yeah.” You rolled your eyes. “See you guys in a bit.” You said as you headed to the factory exit. The silent halls, once filled with screams, now had a soft lullaby starting. You glanced back at the group to see Puppet singing again, but more joy was in their voice than last you met them. Without their box, they seemed to flout in the air, their tiny numb of feet drifting off the ground. Moon started to sing with them, taking Sun’s hand. Sun joined in the song, making more of the candy being joyously sing together in their newly found freedom.

end :)

Masterpost | Prev

[thecolourfulkingdom]

What are the bugs of Welcome Home

Let me make it clear, whatever they are they are not insects.

Look at what I have caught:

Why do some have floral pattern? Is it even a pattern? Are they part plants?

2. Some have purple on them, which is already suspicious in itself. Are they related to time? Time is purple or only night time is?

3. What's the deal with the eyes? These are not insect eyes at all. Who the hell painted this one below all over? Damn, as above so below indeed.

4. I can live with the fact that some of they are fuzzy. But why? Are they fuzzy like bees or... like moss? Okay this one also has 8 legs. Why?

5. What's with this walking rainbow? Looks pretty. Pretty poisonous, if you ask me. A pretty poisonous wig. Kinda reminds me of Puss Moth Caterpillar.

6. Butterflies are know to be psychopomps in some cultures.

7. Way too cute close up. Ever saw butterfly close up photo? That's what I mean.

8. Frank and butterflies. He sure collects them. But pillbug is said to be his favourite. But pillbugs aren't bugs. It's a kind of terrestial isopod. Even more amusing.

9. Now what the hell even is this thing? Strongly reminds me of a green-banded broodsac. Leucochloridium paradoxum, for those of you who are more scentifically inclined. So what's the deal with it? The pulsating, green broodsacs fill the eye stalks of the snail, and by doing so it attracts birds, who are its the primary host. In sort - it visually imitates caterpillars. Another name for such type of creature? Puppeteer parasite.

To be fair, the last one worries me the most. Because Howdy also has striped antennae on this head. of course it can be a mere coinsendence...

Also let's talk about Sally.

[aerkame]

Beautiful Dreamer

Inspired from the Kingdom Keepers series, something I keep coming back to year after year. And like the Alive AU, I will make this an AU as well to keep it separate from what could be canon mainly because we don't know enough about Welcome Home and I don't want anything to conflict with what is currently in it or what will come. As you'll probably see, I kind of see Wally as the victim here in a way, and while I do think Wally is the only puppet that's "alive" in Welcome Home, I'm going to add the other puppets in this because I feel like they need to be written more in fanfiction as well.

So, I present to you the Dream AU written for this Beautiful Dreamer series, please enjoy. PS: It's totally fine to request for the Dream AU like with the Alive one, I just made it for this fic specifically though.

Chapter I

__________________________________________________________

Drops of water softly kissed your felt skin as the rain kept pouring down. It seemed so real, unlike most dreams. This was different from the rest. You felt no lingering sensations of falling, floating, or hovering when you moved, just the ground beneath your 'feet'. Perhaps you were lucid dreaming once more? You closed your eyes trying to remember.

Every night it was the same dream that kept repeating itself, but with each night you felt like someone new when you slept. The first time you experienced this you saw yourself in the shoes of another, a leather blue mail carrier hat sat on your head, and your skin felt so soft and fuzzy, it felt so real. So uncanny.

The memory of the first occurrence faded as you felt the rain stop...dreams aren't supposed to have memories. This wasn't right.

"Well gee bud, you shouldn't be out here in the rain you know. You'll become a chili-dog in no time!"

You opened your eyes to look up. It hadn't stop raining, there was a giant plush looking blue dog with an umbrella standing just above you, a fever dream then. You don't recall being able to talk or hear anyone in dreams, or see anyone else in dreams this clearly.

"Huh?"

Your hand went to your mouth in shock. You spoke, you spoke so clearly and easily, and it wasn't a voice you recognized. Fear was beginning to nip at you, creeping into your sleepy conscious. This was too livid to be a dream.

The giant dog bent down a bit now frowning. "Eddie...are you okay there buddy? You're acting awfully strange today." A soft paw grasped your hand to help you up. Eddie? That's not your name, who...it clicked. You began to panic, feeling your...You couldn't feel a heartbeat, there was no heartbeat but you could feel yourself panic. You felt nothing. You jolted up onto your feet, scattering the soaked letters you didn't know you had next to you. This isn't your body, this isn't your-

"Ahh!"

The bed sheets flew across the room as you jumped from the bed, tripped, then fell to the floor with a loud 'thud'. "mph..."

You groaned getting up lazily, limbs still asleep and legs feeling like jelly. A dream. It was just another dream you assured yourself. That felt so real though. It was so...alive. These dreams were getting pretty intense, but just as you figured out it was a dream you'd wake up. This time was a bit different though, you were in someone else's body entirely. Or at least it felt like that. Should you see a doctor and get your brain checked out for a tumor, a concussion, or something? This was normal in dreams...right, maybe you were sick?

Taking in deep and shaky breaths, you tried to calm your racing heart and stop thinking so hard on it. You took your time feeling the cool wooden floorboards reminding yourself where you were, smelled the Earthy air from the rain last night, and felt your heartbeat slow to a calm pace. It's alright, it's okay. They're just dreams.

Slowly getting up, you made the bed before bee-lining to the bathroom, ready for the day to get started already. At least it was Saturday. You would rather not go to work after something so livid like that. Maybe you could go to the park later and skate for a bit to try and clear your head. Yeah that sounded good. And some nice tea from that tea shop next to the park. You bit into the toast slowly enjoying it, feeling the crunch and the softer textures with sweet honey butter spread across it.

By the time you were out the door with rollerblades hanging off your shoulders it was noon. The weather was perfect, most of the muddy puddles had dried, and the birds were singing happily. You heard the 'click' of the lock and finally left for the park, opting to just walk there since it was nice out.

You jogged a bit through the city until you saw the treeline of the park, only resting to get your skates on. There was quite a lot of people out now that the weather was calm, kids were having birthday parties, families visiting the playground with their kids, a few barbecues here and there, today is a good day. Checking that the skates were properly fitted, you pushed off from your right side, skating slowly until you got to a smoother path on the sidewalk. Once you felt comfortable, you sped up the pace until you could really feel the burn in your thighs.

___

The room was dark, as usual. Cold, lonely, and desolate as a broken dull voice sang throughout the house. "Beautiful Dreamer, wake unto me, Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee..." A soft creak here and there "Sounds of the rude world heard in the day, Lull'd by the moonlight have all passed away.." A loud bang of the door sounded, followed by creaks. Two half-lidded eyes with a broken smile beneath them looked up to the only source of light through the window.

"Beautiful dreamer-" Silence "What's that?" Another creak, a squeak, and a groan. The eyes widened as the smile grew wider into a lively face, one of hope.

"Beautiful dreamer, won't you come by?" Please, we're so lonely...

Bit of a side note: While it is going to be mostly Wally x reader, this will be Everyone x reader. Not like romance, more like bordering on it but still platonic? (Not sure how to explain, but I'm sure it'll be more clear the more I write. They all just adore you really.) This chapter was shorter than I thought it'd be but it's just the first one so far! And what was Home talking about? Why you of course! Or was it about Eddie acting weird today? Wait how did Home already know of your short visit through Eddie?