#but I might expand on it later

[royalnugget42]

Stark White Rage

A Resident Evil VIII fic rewrite, in honor of the Rose DLC.

Set after the finale of RE8. Ethan’s regenerative abilities allow him to survive, but only barely. He gets found by the BSAA, who conveniently forget to report this to his family.

TW: Graphic depictions of violence, Clinical trauma, Nightmares, Dismemberment

____________________________________________

Why the color white? Surely it took time to maintain such a stark and blinding color, and for what? Just so he could see in perfect detail how his blood looked as it dried into the cracks they couldn’t clean? It just looked red, in darker and darker shades as it flaked and peeled and faded.

He could still picture his little girl. His Rose, curled up in that pale pink blankie and clutching…what was it? A stuffed animal? His hand? Something that brought her comfort, to keep her calm and happy and safe. In his daydreams she was safe, clutching his hands and babbling at him. In his nightmares she cried.

“Subject 1, series F,” the robotic voice said, signaling the arrival of one of the handlers. They wouldn’t tell him if he had a name. They didn’t really talk to him at all unless they were running a test.

Still, he called out a hello. It was only polite. Maybe if he tried enough times they would return the favor.

He didn’t get an answer this time, but one of the handlers actually came up to the glass wall today.

“Good morning, series F,” he said.

“Is it morning? Couldn’t tell.”

His question wasn’t graced with an answer as usual. A robotic voice listed off the contents of his breakfast. Usually there was a serving each of fruit, bread, and protein. Today there was a dish of peaches, some toast, and a few thin slices of turkey. Pretty standard fare, aside from the patches of fluorescent blue mold.

At his confused look the man reluctantly explained, if only to get him to eat it. “We’re running a new series of tests. You’ve been consistent to a statistically significant level with the other molds, so we’re advancing our studies.”

The man who was just called series F just sighed. Foods with white and green mold were what he was used to, and he wasn’t thrilled about a change in his diet. Change meant they had to examine him, and that usually meant dismembering him and timing the recovery. It hurt every time, but it hurt more when he realized he was getting bored of it.

“Did you know humans will choose pain over boredom?” one of the surgeons had asked as he dug around for yet another vital organ. “You aren’t human, of course, but I have to wonder what you’d pick given the chance.”

Series F hadn’t responded. His vocal chords were still regenerating, which kept him from screaming. It wasn’t like he needed to breathe, but he let a gust of air in just for a distraction. As he felt gloved hands close around his liver, he stretched the broken skin of his lips in a soundless yawn. Partly because it felt good and partly because he wanted to make a point.

The surgeon had just laughed. “Right, don’t suppose it would produce any meaningful results. You’re already too bored of pain for the procedure to work.”

He poked idly at the blue mold now gracing his plate. They had tried to give him normal, fresh food in the early days, before they realized he literally couldn’t stomach it. The walls would always display some stain from the latest meal. Apparently food only tasted good to him if it was rotten.

Now they were giving him new mold. Did he do something wrong, or was this just another in a long line of attempts to replicate his state? They talked about it sometimes when they thought he was sleeping, how apparently he was the first nonviolent strain, but whatever made him nonviolent was impossible to reproduce with the other subjects.

“His regenerative abilities are off the charts, more powerful than we’ve ever seen.” The voices were muffled and distant, like he was dreaming. Funny how he could hear them even on the other side of the facility. Maybe that was just another ability he had.

“Even so, he’s hardly an asset if he can’t replicate.”

“There’s no proof yet—“

“There’s a lack of evidence, that’s all the proof we’re going to get. Whether he’s incapable, or doesn’t know how, or just chooses not to none of that makes a difference. The result is the same.”

The next few sentences were drowned out by the sudden shuffle of papers. “—take this project in a new direction, we need to make some progress here.”

“With all due respect, isn’t he more effective as an asset if he’s nonviolent? Introducing this mold could—“

“He’s only effective if we can reproduce his results. If we can even get a fraction of his regenerative power into one of our earlier subjects he could give the whole project exactly the boost it needs.”

He ate the blue mold. What else was he going to do? Starving was even more boring than the surgeries. It hurt worse than knives in his chest.

Rose was in his dreams again. Somehow she seemed closer, less hazy. In this dream she was in a crib, and he rocked it back and forth. She burbled a bit. He knew she had thrown up earlier, and they were worried of course but no more than is normal for two new parents.

His wife called to him from the kitchen, and he actually heard her voice. It was distorted but it was a real memory he was sure of it. Something about dinner being ready…she called his name but it was hard to make out. His name…his…his name…

The robotic lady greeted him the next time they decided was morning. “Subject 1, Series F,” she intoned. That wasn’t his name though.

——

It took nearly a week of the new mold for the little girl to appear. The surgeons and researchers didn’t acknowledge her. He asked who she was, but they didn’t answer, just added hallucinations to his list of symptoms.

“—just visual hallucinations so far. It’s unclear whether this an effect of the E strain in his diet, or the stress of change. We are increasing the sample size to further examine any correlative properties,” one said in an audio log. “So far his abilities such as regeneration and replication have remained unchanged.”

Another muttered darkly, “If he remains unchanged for much longer they’re probably going to scrap the whole series. Provided they can figure out how to get rid of the thing.”

The little girl didn’t do very much. She always ran away when he made eye contact, but he could feel her watching him all the time. During one of the surgeries she leaned over the bed and touched him. Her hands were cold and clammy, and slightly damp like she’d just climbed out of the water. They were testing his hands, one of their favorite places to examine.

He didn’t look at her, but he felt it as she moved down the table to grip what was left of his palm. He flexed, trying to comfort her. From what he’d seen she couldn’t be more than ten, and he doubted this was a pleasant sight. The doctors kept writing down that she was just a hallucination, but she felt real enough as he desperately tried to hold her little hand, torn ligaments screaming in pain.

She seemed to understand, and guided his fingers into a fist around hers. Whatever or whoever she was, it felt nice to not be so alone.

“Series F has recently developed more alertness during the surgeries, reminiscent of his chaotic behavior in the early trials.”

The next time he looked at the little girl she giggled as she darted away, and he caught a better look at her. Her hair was long and black. It left wet spots on the white floors.

——

His next dream was not of Rose. The sheets in his hands were soft and warm, bathed in the sunlight filtering through the curtains. It smelled like cinnamon.

“We have to get up soon,” he heard himself say.

The woman next to him groaned and blinked. She was beautiful, even more so because she loved him.

“We have a few more moments left.” She pulled him down and kissed him. They were on their honeymoon, after all.

You have to remember this, Ethan.

——

The researchers were shocked of course, but handled it with their usual measured logic. A change as abrupt as this was bound to entail many drastic changes, and the increased aggression was hardly unheard of in previous cases.

He screamed at them, begged them to tell him where his family was. He knew his name now, and if he had a name that meant he was a person, at least somewhat. You couldn’t treat people like this, couldn’t cut a person up against their will and starve them and drown them. How long had it been? In what fucked up world did he now live where this was okay?

“Where’s Rose?” he shouted as they brought his meal. “Where’s my wife? I know they’re real, please let me see them! Please I need my family!”

He wished they would cut out his vocal chords again, at least so he could regrow them to be less sore.

“They don’t like it when you yell,” the little girl whispered.

Ever since the last dream she’d started talking. Only for a short amount of time before she disappeared again.

“Good,” he replied. “I hope they get annoyed enough to actually do something about it.”

She just hummed to herself. It was one of the songs he’d been trying to slowly teach her.

The scientists were wrong. They had to be, she was much too real to be a hallucination. She remembered all their conversations, and she was even teaching him new things, stories and songs.

“Who are you?” he’d finally managed to ask.

“I’m your daughter,” she had said proudly,” which makes you my daddy!”

This girl wasn’t Rose of course. The real Rose was probably more grown up now, but she had blond hair, and bright blue eyes like his.

Her name was Evelyn. The visits came faster after mealtimes, like she was imprinted in the blue mold that came with his food. He could imagine her sailing on it like a little raft, all through his bloodstream until she got to his brain.

She was his daughter but not…she was older than him. How could his daughter be older than him?

“It’s weird,” she said. “It’s like you formed from nothing.”

“You didn’t make me?”

“Not really. I tried to, but you can’t make your own parents, that’s not how it works. I tried to make you into my dad, but then you and mom killed me.”

He didn’t remember doing that, but he apologized anyway.

“It’s ok, I think you were right to. I wasn’t being a very good girl. I hurt a lot of people, so it only makes sense that my daddy would have to come and put me on time out.”

“So I was born so you could have a dad?”

“I think you were born so you could have yourself. You eat yourself every day and you’re sustained by it. You don’t need family to keep you alive, you’re strong enough on your own. That’s why you’re the dad.”

He didn’t feel very strong, but that was hardly new. Maybe if he were stronger he could get out of here. He imagined it; going home to his wife and daughter, bringing Evelyn to meet them. He’d punch straight through solid stone, grind the awful white walls to dust with his bare, solid hands.

But he was still so human. He had the strength to punch a stone, sure, but it would break all the bones in his hand, and send incapacitating pain through his limbs. His hands might be able to regrow, but it was so slow and painful as to render him completely helpless.

Evelyn told him to wait. He was getting stronger, she told him, and one day he’d be strong enough to carry them home.

“Do you still want to hurt people?” he asked her after a late night story. It was one about an evil house in a swamp, full of monsters and madness. They had told it together, echoing each other as if reading off imaginary pages.

“I don’t know, I don’t think so.” She studied her own hands. Every night he brushed her hair and tried to dry her off, and little by little she was sniffling less, and speaking clearer. “Something about you makes me nicer I think. I didn’t really want to hurt anyone before, it was just what happened sometimes when I wanted to make more family. I was so lonely…”

“But we’re not alone anymore, are we Evelyn?”

“No.” She smiled up at him.

——

He dreamt of a kitchen table, where he ate the most delicious food.

“Go on, eat some more, you’re practically skin and bones!” a woman chided. She offered him more, and he only managed to refuse her once.

“Gotta keep up those nice strong muscles huh?” Presumably it was her husband speaking, while inclining his head meaningfully at the younger man across the table, playing some game on his phone.

It was peaceful, and nostalgic in a way he couldn’t put a name to. Morning light on the table highlighted a little spot of grease, and crumbs littered the floor around their chairs. It was messy, but not unusually so, just enough that you knew there were people living and breathing there. There were stains from accidental spills and scuff marks from chair on the hardwood floor.

“You have to go back soon, son,” the older man said gravely. “Give ‘em hell when you do, and we’ll be right with you.”

He nodded to the family before him, a treasure to be remembered by no one.

“No one else will fight for us anymore. If nothing else, remember us. Keep this with you, something those bastards can never take away,” Zoe said. Ethan swore he would remember her. He would remember everyone.

The man’s name was Jack, and his wife was Marguerite, and their two kids were Lucas and Zoe.

——

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn cried, sobbing helplessly into his arms.

She told him terrible things, and in return he gave her hope, he relayed memories, and he told stories of how they were when they were alive.

Evelyn told him how she filled a woman’s mind with crawling things. In return, Ethan told her how that woman used to make her famous stews, and how she had always wanted a bed and breakfast. A man was stretched and warped into a facsimile of himself. That man was a kind soul, who took in a little girl one rainy night in Louisiana.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she cried. “I didn’t know what it meant.”

Ethan didn’t blame her though. Her creators understood her nature, they were the ones who should’ve been more careful. Is a hurricane evil? Or is it just acting according to its nature?

“Storms break away at a shoreline. And children break things without knowing why,” he said. He felt a rush of joy as her crying eased. “You were a child and you were hurting. It’s their fault for giving those gifts to a newborn.”

The scientists still didn’t know why he didn’t fight back, didn’t even try to give his gift to someone else. He’d never wanted to make more of his family the way she did.

“The mold makes all subjects violent, and all mold wants to replicate. It’s the same way it occurs in nature, taking control of the host and finding optimal conditions for reproduction.”

But Ethan knew better now. The mold didn’t take over his mind, or Evelyn’s. Maybe her strain took over the others, made them do things they wouldn't ordinarily do, but that was just because his daughter was very strong. It didn’t replace Evelyn though, she replaced it.

He just didn’t need to replicate. He wasn’t alone. He had all the family he could ask for, somewhere beyond these walls.

When sleep took him again, he started to dream of monsters. They looked down on him and hurt him, but it wasn’t some biological need making them do it. It was just regular human cruelty, fostered and fed by the belief that they were better. That they had earned the right to do these things, or that they had no other choice.

He dreamt of a castle, and a village where wolves ran free. The lady of the house had hands like knives, and she laughed as her many-legged daughters crawled all over him.

There was a dollhouse in a forest of mist. The small hands of ceramic babies scraped against his face, and there stood a woman in mourning, conducting this orchestra of paint and metal and sharp laughter.

A creature of acid and filth approached, and even in the dream the smell was enough to send shivers of writhing disgust down his back. The monster heaved and groaned, and begged Ethan to remember, to remember anything he could even if it hurt. Even if it made him want to puke his guts out. Whatever guys he had left at this point.

The last was just a man in pain, a reflection of Ethan through a funhouse mirror, or maybe through a piece of sheet metal. He smelled like gunpowder and rust when he leaned close, and his eyes gleamed like pools of oil behind his glasses.

“You’ll get those bastards yet. C’mon papa, you’re supposed to be the stubborn one. Fight back!” He screamed it even as blades tore through his spine, even as fire enveloped him. A thousand voices merged into one, and all of them called out the same refrain. “Fight back! Don’t let this be your end. Fight back!”

It had been so long since he’d fought. He couldn’t remember what the weight of a gun felt like in his hands, couldn’t envision the recoil of it. He had forgotten his anger, replaced with mold and blood and stark empty white walls.

——

“I wish you could stay longer,” he complained to the empty air. The length of Evelyn’s visits had stopped increasing since they stopped putting the E strain mold in his food. There were concerns, cold and scientific ones mostly. Worries that they had done nothing except make Series F more unstable, even more unusable than before.

“At least we’ve seen some change. Might be enough to keep the wolf from the door,” one of them said in their faraway office.

“Yeah and how long is that gonna last?” An uncomfortable shuffle, the movements you make when you’re not sure how much remorse you should be showing. “Christ at least when he was stable we could’ve made the case for his usability as a control group. Now we might not be able to operate on him safely ever again.”

The last time he had woken up from his dream, he’d been on the operating table again, with scientists examining his stomach for any changes. Naturally, they didn’t expect it to grow limbs and slam someone’s head onto the table.

He could plead innocence. Say that his body had acted without his knowledge, that the mold was truly infecting him and changing who he was.

It wasn’t true though. Evelyn, the Bakers, the horsemen…so many memories were in him now. His was the only repository of their lingering desires, and they screamed for action, for justice, for change. But it wasn’t them making him angry, making him mess with the technology in the facility, or making him attack the scientists whenever he got the chance, the way he used to in the first days. A fire started in his chest every time Evelyn curled up beside him as he repeated bedtime stories from memory.

He wanted to be out. He wanted to go home.

[imagine-shenanigans]

thinking about you going up to three broad shouldered men in a bar because your crazy ex/some random creep/etc is following you and you beg them to pretend they know you. You slide into the empty space at the table theyve commandeered and right as the other guy comes up a scary looking big motherfucker with a balaclava and eyeblack slots himself right in next to you. You press yourself into his side when the creep comes up and you call Ghost your boyfriend, and Ghost (as you later learn to call him) grabs your hip possessively, tucking you in closer.

He doesn't let you go, later, when the creep fucks off. Instead, he slips your phone out of your pocket and puts his contact inside. Texts himself and slips it back into your pocket while making eye contact. Blows smoke in your face and snorts when you wave it away, huffing at him and sticking your cute little tongue out at him.

You have fun with the military men that night, Ghost even walks you home to feel safe. You wake up the next day, happy to be safe and sound, and go about your day. Forget all about Ghost for awhile, because he never texts you first.

Weeks later, youre in the middle of your kitchen when he walks in, a copy of your key in his hand. Slots himself in behind you and rests his chin on your head even when you panic and claw at him.

What? He's home now, came home to you, his partner. Just like you wanted, right? You wanted him, now you've got him.

[chronicpaingirlie]

there is so much grief in losing things you love to your disability

[ccarrot]

Anyways i also think that Chuuya SHOULD NOT be the Port Mafia boss to be totally honest witchu. If his entire experience with the Sheep, and the way he cracked under pressure as the interim leader during cannibalism, and like, THE BEAST EPILOGUE, had anything to say it's that Chuuya's not fit to be the leader of an organization such as that.

Bc Chuuya's good at adapting, he's good at spur of the moment decisions. He's good with battle tactics. We see his actual leadership abilities shine when he's commanding the mafia troops to protect the city during the guild arc. In cannibalism, his plan to rush the ADA with a full frontal attack was a SOLID idea. But he loses his advantage as soon as he hesitates and opens the table for negotiation instead.

BECAUSE Chuuya's not good at playing the long game like Mori or Dazai. He's reactionary and it's his nature to get overwhelmed by his emotions. He takes on too much responsibility but loses focus due to personal reasons. That what happens in 15 where he blows off the Sheep to go on a life changing field trip with Dazai. That's why he was taken out of the picture so easily to go on a life changing field trip with Ranpo in Cannibalism. (Damn maybe this is why he's on a life changing field trip with Fyodor as a vampire currently).

Essentially even though Asagiri has been really tying Chuuya's character with the themes of leadership, we've mostly been shown why he wouldn't be a good fit. Either this plot point will trend towards Chuuya actually learning how to be a good leader OR he won't end up as one. IN ANY CASE what we know abt Chuuya makes me really think that being the Port Mafia's boss is a terrible idea. He's not fit for the role and frankly, I think he'd hate it.

[landwriter]

Hi! I hope you feel better soon!

This is a great prompt by @academicblorbo about Hob Gadling being the landlord of the Dead Boys. It has a wonderful fill already by @omgcinnamoncakes but I’d love to see what you come up with for it!

Alternative prompt from me if that doesn’t work for your brain: remember the date between Jenny and Maxine? How about one between Jenny and Esther? Poor Jenny is going to really question her taste in beautiful blonde women 😭

Thank you! I saw ‘landlord’ and ‘decades’ and blacked out. I love Hob having them as tenants. Maybe even before the modern day meeting in Sandman.

The Sandman/Dead Boy Detectives, 2.4k, G Dream/Hob, pre-slash, alternating/outsider POV, found family, a reunion and revelations etc.

---

Hob did not, strictly speaking, have tenants. It was more of a minor haunting. Pun intended.

The small room above the pub and below his flat wasn’t worth charging anyone rent for; when he first bought the building he had put a handsome oak desk in there and some bookshelves before wondering who he was possibly keeping up appearances for. Who was he going to take back upstairs that would stop and say, Wait, can I see your office? So he’d left it as more or less an abandoned room.

When he realized a pair of boys were using it as their clubhouse, he didn’t do anything at first. He saw them quietly coming and going a couple times, disappearing around the corner of the first landing. Brazen things. He meant to call after them, but the shout had died in his throat. He’d been young once. He still remembered the need to get away from it all. It was only when he went to check if they’d been making a mess of the room that he discovered it was still locked.

He’d crouched down and inspected the latch and found no marks at all. Huh, he’d said, and jiggled it again, and been a little more interested in whatever clever way they were getting into it after they disappeared up his stairs. Then he didn’t see them for weeks, and assumed they had gotten bored and stopped.

Until they came back. In the middle of an argument, striding through the pub like they owned it. Hob straightened up as they passed him.

“I cannot believe you broke the mirror.”

“I was in a rush! It’s not my fault you forgot you needed Arcana Incantatum after we arrived at the church. And found the demon.”

“I hardly forgot, I only made the mistake of assuming you would know to pack it by now.”

Hob raised his eyebrows. The boys disappeared into the back hallway. He followed them as they went upstairs, too preoccupied with their drama to notice Hob. They turned onto the landing, still carrying on. Even as they walked through the door. The locked, closed door.

Hob blinked. Then he drew his keys from his pocket and opened the door. The boys were still inside. One of them was pulling a mirror out of a backpack that was several times too small for it. They didn’t even look up, and Hob wondered how he couldn’t possibly have put it together earlier. He cleared his throat.

“Hello, boys.” That caught their attention. Hob grinned. “Seems we’re neighbours.”

---

Edwin abhorred getting involved with the living. He and Charles got along perfectly well on their own. They were a duo. An intrepid pair. Best mates, like Charles often stressed whenever he was about to ask something particularly ridiculous of Edwin. They were solid together. As solid as two ghost boys could be. The living, though, were messy and unpredictable.

Perhaps the most salient fact at present: Charles invariably became attached to them.

“He’s sad, mate. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You said those exact words in ‘94 about a dog. At least ask Hob himself.”

Before you decide to adopt him too.

Hob Gadling, irritatingly, was unobjectionable on every ground Edwin could think of. He had made no imposition upon them. When he found them, he only asked them their business, and then told them he was usually downstairs, or upstairs, if they needed anything they couldn’t procure themselves. He had an interest in rare and old books, as it happened. In explaining this, he had also hinted at being far older than his looks would suggest, which vexed Edwin twice over. He knew his curiosity would not be slaked until he talked to Hob, but then he would be the one getting involved with the living, and Charles would hardly let him forget it.

“Do you think he’s really immortal? Mate’s far too calm. Last week I saw him stop a fight downstairs by stepping right between these huge blokes. He just said something and smiled and they backed right off.” Charles lit up. “Do you reckon he’d teach me how to do that? Conflict de-escalation, innit? I could show him some moves with the cricket bat, I bet. Oh, do you think he’s a cricket fan?”

It was obviously a hopeless case, and since the Dead Boy Detectives never took on hopeless cases, there was only one course of action that remained. Edwin had long since disabused himself of the notion he needed to breathe. He had no beating heart, yet when he was startled, he would find himself clutching his chest. Now, he exhaled slowly through his nose in an entirely superfluous sigh of resignation. “Well, Charles, shall we go talk to him?”

---

When the millennium came around, Hob found himself celebrating it with his accidental tenants. There was something gloriously satisfying about being able to make a toast to the next one and have it taken seriously. He’d asked them if they had something better to do - spectral trouble to get into et cetera - and they both looked at him with almost identical put-upon and incredulous expressions.

Hob had a terrible suspicion they thought they were taking care of him as much as he thought he was taking care of them.

Edwin, with his insatiable curiosity and, deep underneath it, something Hob thought he recognized from himself: a sharp animal ferocity and a refusal to go until he’s good and done, natural laws be damned. Charles, still brightly, painfully alive for a ghost - who should be alive still, by all rights, but nothing of this life was fair - who joked to cover up hurt in a way Hob knew too, and glowed any time Hob turned so much as a kind word to him.

He wondered what they saw when they looked at him.

The year ticked over, and technology kept working. Charles grinned innocently and said he could probably possess the telly and break it that way if Hob wanted?

Hob’s heart twinged. He knew they weren’t his, not to keep, but it seemed that teenagers didn’t change at all over the centuries, even if the boys were only sort of teenagers in the way Hob was only sort of in his thirties. It didn’t change that they’d been punted from the mortal coil before having a chance to grow up, and figure out the kind of men they were, and make their own choices and fuck up and try to be better than their fathers, and everything everyone deserved. Hob had made more than his share of mistakes. They hadn’t been given the chance to make nearly any at all.

So they made toasts to the new millennium, to the detective agency, to themselves, all stuck out of time in different ways and refusing to move on for different reasons, and Hob allowed himself to think of Robyn and privately pretend that they were his all the same.

---

A week later, Hob was reminded of the other universal traits of teenagers when he mentioned his stranger and both boys began to grill him with terrifying alacrity. Before turning to his dating life, like ravening bloody wolves. When Edwin had asked, in a specifically nineteenth century manner that Hob remembered all too well, if Hob had always been unmarried, he’d nearly put his head in his hands.

“It can be hard for me to associate with the living too, you know. For obvious reasons.”

Charles had turned to Edwin and hissed “See? I told you.”

Right in front of him. Nobody had taught them manners.

“Manners, Charles,” replied Edwin loftily. “We will, of course, respect your privacy. A man is entitled to his secrets.”

“You’ll go upstairs and rifle through my personal things, is what you’ll do,” said Hob.

Charles coughed to hide his laugh. Edwin flushed and looked away. Hob snorted, and told them about Eleanor and Robyn. Properly. It was a strange relief. He’d told the story wrong for plausibility’s sake so many times he had been worried he’d forget the truth of it one day.

They had listened, and been remarkably quiet until Charles piped up and offered to set him up with a ‘really fit’ ghost. Hob had roundly shut that down. Woefully, not all explanations were satisfying enough. Charles cornered him again the next morning while he was cleaning the bar.

“No, mate, I still don’t get it.” Hob was about to say he no more wanted to be with someone who couldn’t feel pleasure from his touch than someone who would grow old and be taken from him while he stayed the same, when Charles went on, bafflingly, to ask, “Why don’t you meet your mysterious friend more often than once a century?”

Hob sighed. “Adults are often busy, Charles.” Nevermind that he had begun to wonder the same since the eighteenth century. He’d always just assumed time passed differently for his stranger.

Charles just laughed and perched himself on the bar top. “Ooh, low blow. We’re busy too, you know. Plenty of cases to solve.”

“Really,” said Hob. “You’re busy. Right now.”

Charles waggled his eyebrows.

“Charles, I am not a case,” said Hob, sternly as possible. “I’m not even a ghost. He’s not a ghost. No ghosts.”

“We could investigate. Maybe ghosts are involved. What even is he? Why every hundred years? Is it some sort of Persephone situation?”

Hob bit his lip against shouting I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Instead, he tried to smile, and felt it come out as a wince instead. “He’s very private.”

Charles scowled. “Yeah, obviously. You don’t even know his name. He can’t be that good of a friend if he’s too busy to see you more than once a century.”

Hob couldn’t see the expression on his own face, but he saw Charles’ shocked reaction well enough. It was so long ago for him, and still Hob knew at once what Charles saw now: that first time you manage to visibly hurt a grown-up’s feelings, people who seemed too old and too stern to actually feel pain, when you’d been going around kicking at them like a new foal, just to stretch your legs.

“Sorry,” said Charles, instant regret chasing his surprise. He was a good kid.

“It’s alright,” said Hob. He meant it. He looked down at the shining bartop. His hands were restless with the urge to light a cigarette. He gave in. It wasn’t like Charles would be dying of lung cancer any time soon if he decided to follow Hob’s example. “I don’t think he would say he’s very good at being a friend either. Truth is, I’d love to see him more often. But we had an awful fight the last time we met. If he forgives me, I’ll have to ask.”

“Mates always make up,” said Charles earnestly. He was such a good kid.

“I suppose they do.” Charles still looked sorry, and Hob clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. Thanks for looking out for me, Charles.”

Charles beamed at him. “Always. We’ve got your back, me and Edwin.”

---

Charles couldn’t bloody believe it. Hob’s friend was here. There was nobody else it could be. He and Edwin were watching from a nearby table, pretending to be absorbed in their own conversation. Neither man noticed them. They were too busy looking at each other.

He couldn’t imagine spending more than a century apart from Edwin. The way Hob had talked about him and his stranger over the years, it sometimes seemed like they were best mates too, no matter how little they saw each other. He was dead sure that’s what had Hob looking so gutted when he thought nobody was looking. He had known they would make up, though. Maybe now Hob would be happier.

“Charles, we really ought not eavesdrop,” hissed Edwin. Right as he scooted his chair closer, the cheeky hypocrite. Hob and his friend were talking too quietly to properly hear, their heads bent together. Lots to catch up on, Charles reckoned. A hundred years. He couldn’t stop thinking about the number. It seemed impossible. Funny, he couldn’t imagine that long away from Edwin, but he could imagine spending that long being best mates. There was nobody he’d rather hide from Death with.

Hob’s face was doing something strange as his long-lost friend talked. Then Hob moved and grasped him by the shoulders, so tight that his knuckles stood out in relief. The man said something in low tones and Hob shook his head, and then pulled him in for a hug. The man stiffened and then relaxed, and his arms came up around Hob’s.

Their cheeks both looked wet.

Charles swallowed and it felt suddenly a little like he was choking. He should look away, only he couldn’t.

“They must be great friends,” said Edwin softly.

“Yeah,” he managed to croak. We won’t ever need to have a reunion like this because I’m never going to lose you, mate. I won’t let them take you. It was stuck behind the phantom lump in his phantom throat. His hand, without him telling it to, reached out and grabbed hold of Edwin’s. Edwin squeezed it hard, and Charles knew he didn’t have to make his voice work after all.

Then the man pushed Hob away, but only far enough to grab his face and pull him back again, thumbing over Hob’s cheeks, and beside him, Edwin honest-to-god gasped, and then Charles momentarily forgot how thoughts worked too.

---

It happens thus: in the New Inn, just next door to the White Horse, some 639 years after they first met, Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless share their first kiss. Neither, if they had bothered to think about it, would have intended to have an audience, but it’s a well-known fact that some kisses cannot wait, and theirs was chief among them, being that it had so much to say, and was so very long overdue.

I missed you, it said, and I came back, it said, and Please don’t go away from me again, and I could not.

And atop them, like blankets, were laid invisible the daydreams of those who saw them, including two long-dead boys, whose dreams were woven from the fresh and unaccounted-for possibilities of Hob kissing his mysterious stranger. Another man, thought Edwin. His best friend, thought Charles. Dream was the only one who could have heeded this, but he did not, because Hob Gadling was holding him tight and daydreaming loudly of this kiss and more, of this today and tonight and tomorrow, ever greedy and ever easily pleased, and Dream could hear nothing at all over their clamouring and comingled joy; the bright gold daydream between the scant space of their bodies that sounded so much like at last.

[crybaby-bkg]

Choso who does work on the side for some extra cash as an nsfw audiobook reader.,…………..!!.!!!!!!

[rusty-eevee]

You know how there's a betrayal in most of the Mystery Dungeon games?

Imagine if you got betrayed by your partner.

[l3viat8an]

can we maybe get hcs about the rest of the bros as camboys? levi would def be whiny af like you said but what about the others?

Nsfw!

Not sure these count as proper hcs- but here’s a few ideas I had!! CW: Faceless audio ‘streamers’ & live camboys!! Toys (dildos / pocket pussy) mentioned in a few ‘n mostly jacking off-

Lucifer I can’t imagine him as a camboy….I tried and just can’t- BUT!!! Guided masturbation audios?- Yes!! He can be faceless and it’s simple enough to record them. Whispering praise or degrading his listeners depending on his mood.

Just imagine his deep voice, right in your ear talking as if he knows what you’re saying, “Slowly darling, no need to rush. Yes, I told you to touch yourself. But I didn’t say you could cum yet.”

Mammon is probably the most likely to have a regular streaming time / setup, it’s easy money after all.

He likes to set a tip goal and do whatever the top suggestion is. (He found out that was the easiest way to make a tone of grimm fast-) loves to overstimulate himself on purpose. Again more tips that way-he knows that his audience likes to see him whining that it’s too much, while he ruts into a pocket pussy with a little vibrator in his ass.

Levi I already talked about but he’s still getting added in this post too!! He mostly does audio streams, whining, begging and moaning. Telling you his viewers how he wishes it was you touching him- how his hand isn’t enough. How it could never compared to yours.

Might do like roleplay streams but very rarely-

Satan hear me out, I’m feeding my voice kink- he reads erotic poetry or his favorite smut novels on stream. It’s actually rare for him to actually touch himself during a streams tho. He likes to focus on the book.

Asmo loves to do suggestions! Want to see him jerk off and moan about how he wishes it was your hand instead? Easy! Want to see him ride his favorite dildo until he’s crying? Done! He loves making it a show for his viewers~ not really in it for the money, he likes the attention.

Beel does kinda basic stuff and he streams whenever he feels like it. Usually it’s just a chest down view of him jerking off. Occasionally he’ll play with his nipples, running his hands over his abs, a little teasing before the show starts.

He does have a once-weekly ‘special’ where he jacks off in the gym shower, his low moans covered by the sound of the running water echoing off the walls.

Belphie lazy streams, usually a little shaky and from his point of view. Although his depend a lot more on his mood. Some days he’ll just be on his knees rutting against a your pillow, some days he’ll be moaning loudly and fucking into a pocket pussy or slowly riding a dildo until he cums.

[lorkai]

Concept I have to post before I feel asleep: NRC hosts a Parents' Day for the students' parents to visit their children and everyone is having a relatively fun day with their siblings, every but you. And so you hid yourself in the only place that nobody has a reason to go; Ramshackle. Thing is there's someone else who also has the same line of thought. Leona Kingscholar.

Leona, who is always second to Farena. Always the second prince, never just Leona. Leona, who efforts doesn't mean anything and nobody really tried to understand him, this Leona, who despite being smug and sarcastic all the time, doesn't want to meet his family.

And you both have an interesting chatting while drinking (whatever you want really but I just got back from my cousin's marriage and wine is a really good choice). By the end of the night you may have found you a new bestie or lovers, or whatever you want y'all to be, he feels seen by you and you have someone you can confide in on your darkest hours. This arrangement couldn't be better for the both of you.

[bungiri]

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY GUYS !!! WILL U BE CAMILLA’S VALENTINE ??

[emjiroki]

Okay humor me I'm having boxer au Yuuji thoughts again...

[shellxrls]

need to grab modern!coryo’s soft dick like and tap it like a mic going “is this thing on??” only from him to not get it and respond with “uh — babe you good down there?” ‘n prolly jostle my head down onto him a little so he can harden properly in my warm mouth.

[popponn]

the ins and outs. [itoshi rin x reader]

notes: for some reason, i really have a hard time with writting rin. but in the end, he feels like a sincere person. so i think it's hard for me not to get soft on him. i want to write more of him. think of this as an attempt to imagine how he will love. headcanon-ish, character study-ish. gn!reader.

Rin loves in a very complicated way.

He loves deeply, yet there is always a trace of childishness in it. He loves silently, yet sometimes his actions speak so loudly it might be noted as ‘too much’ by some people. He loves in a way that is hard to understand by many, perhaps even by himself.

Rin’s heart is a rough, rigid thing that is very hard to slip into. But the moment you get inside it, your name and everything will be etched into it forever. And perhaps it’s because of that too, Rin is not exactly the most knowledgeable whenever it comes to feelings, emotions, and such as. There are very few things and even fewer people that he let into his life, so it becomes unsurprising to see him struggles to process something as soft and unpredictable like love.

There is a chapter in his life where Rin was filled with anger that resembles obsession. In a way, that part of him would always have remains. When that chapter came to a close and his life moves on to a chapter that is filled with a gentler kind of emotion, where a simple smile from you makes Rin wishes he is kinder—he reacts to it with a grace of a fish on a dessert.

It’s hard to miss it when he is interested in you—Rin’s insults and harsh comments lacking the bite they usually carry whenever it’s you, Rin bothering to listen to you without interrupting, Rin almost actively seeking out your company—whether by purpose or not, he is good and clear when it comes to giving the signal. His team is not exactly helping with their teasing and indiscreet attempted advices either. It’s so obvious it almost feels like seeing a middle school boy having his first crush.

But, it definitely starts really awkward. Rin genuinely tries to be kinder to you, yet the fact that he is a seasoned egoist that is very hard to approach and to socialize with still stand. For one, he gets jealous a bit too easily sometimes, all while having a hard time communicating with you. Combined with his tendency to spit out words that are both scathing and hurting, the first few steps with him is, without a doubt, really hard.

Nevertheless, once those first steps are done, it get much easier. Rin is a quick learner when he wants to be, especially when it comes to something or someone he has his focus honed into. Perhaps even faster than how you learn his, Rin will learn the rhythm to keep going with you. While it will take extra efforts to talk and get through him, the moment he gets it, it took him almost a terrifyingly short amount of time to know the dos and don’ts. Though, acting on them might take a little bit of time. Practice makes perfect after all.

And on communication, there might even be signs, which many people could easily miss, that act almost like a secret language between you and him. Rin glancing at you repeatedly during a conversation? He is getting uncomfortable. Rin staring at you silently somewhere private? He wants to be spoiled. Rin not responding whenever you get touchy with him? That’s his green light, go hug or hold him however you want, he is all yours. ‘Words’ are not exactly Rin’s expertise—and it might take him a pretty long time to learn—but, eventually, this is a man who is ready to give many, many things including his best for you.

Starting out with Rin is hard, but when he decides he is for you—he will do everything in his power to make sure it will be the best choice for both of you.

[theaxolotlkween]

Happy fourteenth anniversary to Generator Rex!

[delusionalbitchinthehouse]

Why am I thinking about how the ghouls sit ? Anyway here are my headcanons :

Sunshine likes to sit cross-legged, especially on furniture that isn't meant to be sat on. The coffee table, the kitchen counter, a dresser, even the fridge on rare occasions, you name it.

Swiss slouches a lot. It drives everyone crazy because he takes so much space, half laying on the couch, arms thrown on the headrest, legs spread wide. He doesn't even realize he does it until someone points it out, it's literaly his default position.

Okay, I have a very specific vision for Alpha. Whenever he sits in something that has armrests, he throws one of his leg over one of said armrests, which leaves him basically manspreading the day away. It exasperates Pebble for some reasons. Though Alpha really doesn't do it on purpose most of the time, he does get a kick out of spying the reactions it gets (Omega hates that he finds it stupidly attractive)

Speaking of Omega, that ghoul hates sitting. He'd much rather lay down, even if that means staying on the floor during movie night because he's not about to keep the whole couch for himself. When he does sit, he tends to be a bit stiff, back ramrod straight, tension in his shoulders. He doesn't really know why, it's just how it is.

Ifrit loves to have his legs thrown over someone's lap, he's a very physically affectionate ghoul so it soothes him. Or he'll have someone sitting on his lap and tangle his legs with theirs.

Phantom sits with at least one of his knees drawn up to his chest, tail often wound around him. It makes him feel safe, even more so when someone holds him as he does it.

Dew often has one leg folded under him while sitting, the other hanging off the couch/chair or whatever. Every once in a while, he'll switch legs so that they don't get numb.

[tenpintsofsundrop]

Okay this is something I just randomly thought of:

Because Spencer is such a fan of Halloween, but he's more into the spooky/mystical/fun/childish side of Halloween, imagine being one of his co-workers (that he's had a long time crush on) and when someone at the BAU is throwing a Halloween party, you show up in a certain costume.

One of those slutty costumes that is very close to be lingerie (because being slutty on Halloween is fun).

And when Spencer sees you - his jaw drops. This is the first time he's ever seen you wearing something so revealing (because usually you wear the typical conservative office wear). And it has every possible fantasy churning in his head.

Spencer loves Halloween.