#can god just strike me down now and get me out of living this hell of a life???

[madrone33]

Number 1 Rule of adapting the Odyssey into EPIC is: if it can be more dramatic, it will be more dramatic.

The Greeks decide to throw the infant Trojan prince from the walls because they're scared he'll try to avenge his family? No, Zeus comes down to personally give Odysseus a vision of being killed and says his family WILL die. Kill the baby that reminds you of your son right now, it's the gods will.

Odysseus goes to greet the inhabitants of an island and gets trapped in a cave for two days by the cyclops that's eating his men one by one? Nope, we got BOSS BATTLE 30v1 in the Ithacans' favour until BAM fourteen pancakes are made by Polyphemus' club and oh shit Polites is DEAD-

Athena is just vaugely absent for the whole journey until the end? We got emotionally charged platonic breakups instead, with yelling and insults and "well I'm breaking up with you FIRST!"

Smooth sailing to Ithaca? STOOOORM-

Odysseus' great-great-great-grandfather giving him a speed boost to help him on his way home? Get ready for trickster wind gods, mischievous winions, and a game that was rigged from the start.

Random-ass suspicious and greedy crew mates open the bag? It's Eurylochus, his second in command, his brother-in-law, the man he trusted, Eurylochus WHYYY

Parking in the wrong harbour and getting boulders thrown at the fleet by angry man-eating giants while Odysseus backs away veeery slowly? Nah Poseidon himself pulls up to dunk on them, and Odysseus has to make a last minute getaway using the power of STOOORM to avoid being curbstomped like his fleet.

Odysseus gets some stronger drugs from a god to make him immune to the other drugs of a goddess? Well these drugs actually give him magic powers which he uses to engage in a Pokémon/Yu-Gi-Oh style BOSS BATTLE!

Get some closure with dead loved ones and acquaintances, and be the first interviewer of the fallen heroes of past ages? Nope, we just got TRAUMA and a whole boatload of guilt!

A neat outline of what the rest of the journey will look like, a warning against an island of cows that will slow him down, and the way to appease Poseidon? This Tiresias just says "Y'know there used to be a world where you made it home, BUT I DON'T SEE IT NO MORE. IT'S GONE. IT'S OVER. Also, your palace is fucked."

Sailing past the sirens while getting to be the first mortal to hear their song and live? M U R D E R

Sailing past Scylla to avoid Charybdis and accidentally getting six men eaten because he thought he could totally take Scylla, even though Circe said he couldn't, and then he realised he, in fact, cannot take Scylla? ... Eurylochus, light up six torches.

Eurylochus waits till Odysseus is out hunting and then goes behind his back to mutinously rally the crew and feast on some sacred cattle? Betrayal on both sides, stabby stab, K.O., and then Odysseus helplessly watches them make the greatest mistake of their lives as they ignore his pleas.

Quick clean and easy lightning-strike to the ship, leaving Odysseus to cling to some driftwood and paddle away? Zeus himself appears to the mortals, monologues, makes Odysseus be the one to choose, and then smites the whole ship leaving Odysseus to nearly drown anyway.

Telemachus gets advice from a disguised Athena to yell at the suitors and then sail away to look for news of his missing father? Telemachus gets into a full on beatdown with the suitors and gets FIGHT CLUB TRAINING from Athena!

Athena goes "dad I want my favourite mortal back? Did you forget about him? I think you forgot about him" and Zeus instantly replies "nonsense. How could I have forgotten that funny little mortal? Of course you can have him back my sweet favoured child <3" and then Athena skips off to Ithaca? "Father please-" "LIGHTNING BOLT! ANOTHER LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT TO THE FACE HOW DARE YOU ASK ME OF SUCH A THING!"

Poseidon does a double take "wait they let him go?? Oh hell nah!" and then sends a giant fuck off storm for Odysseus to swim through until he reaches the Phaeacians? No, Poseidon's just been there on Ithaca's shores, waiting for eight years, now get in the water BITCH- except Odysseus is just like "oh yeah? Fucking FIGHT ME"

You thought the suitors in the Odyssey were bad? Jorge really just said "dial that shit up to ELEVEN"

[lulunothulu]

“Up in the Air”

Tyler Owens x Reader

Summary: You’re still mad(kinda) at Tyler and his stupid handsome face. You’re so mad, you run into trouble’s way—trouble being a rowdy man at a bar and your mind.

Contents: man feeling you up, protective Tyler, fluff, swearing, eluding to anxiety, Happy Ever After

Word count: about 2k?

You had just walked into the local bar trying to get out of the bad storm. The parking lot was full but you managed to squeeze the Storm Par truck into a slot right next to the biggest pain in your ass you’ve ever met.

Tyler Owens.

You rolled your eyes when you turned to your head to the right to see him, Boone, and Ben wave at you with sweet smiles.

Sure, Tyler was a handsome looking man. And sure, it made your heart flutter that he smiled at you. But god damnit, you would not be letting that reckless asshole in.

Not again at least.

See, you used to be part of the Tornado Wranglers. You loved it…that was until you and Tyler broke up.

Call it creative differences. He wanted to be reckless, you wanted to live.

Now sitting at the bar and sipping on your drink, the blaring music and people chattering fill your ears. To your right, a man in his late fifties taps on your shoulder, causing you to face him.

“Can I help you?” You ask, face schooled in indifference.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” He slurs. His face is greasy and hair (if you could call it that) is matted on top of his shiny head. He’s thin, and the smells of whiskey emanate from his breath and pores.

You scrunch up your nose and frown. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

You begin to stand and walk away when he grabs your arm, tightly.

“I’m talking to you, bitch.” You face him, ready to land a punch but realize you’re no match. He’s tall, towering over you like a predator ready to strike.

He pulls you close, your body stiffening against his. When you feel the poke of his erection, you know it’s time to get out of this situation.

“Let me go,” you order calmly.

“Nah, I wanna get to know you,” he tells you, hand snaking down to your ass and squeezing firmly.

“Well, I don’t want to get to know you.” You firmly press a hand on his chest but his grip tightens around you.

You’re panicking. Does no one see you trapped in this man’s embrace? His hand is still on your ass for crying out loud.

“Let go of me!” You yell.

“Hey!” You hear to the right. You turn your head to see a stern-faced Tyler walking toward you and the man. “Let go of my girlfriend!”

“She’s your girlfriend?” The man drawls, looking between you and Tyler.

“Yeah, and I’d really appreciate it if you let her go.” Tyler crosses his arms over his chest, Boone and Ben standing on either side of him.

The man scoffs but throws you into Tyler’s arms. “Take the bitch then. She wasn’t being fun for me anyway.”

You push away from Tyler’s embrace after the man walks off to harass another poor girl. “I could’ve handled it.”

“Right, it looked like you were handling things very well.” He scoffs. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Storm Par sent me to do some analyses on a tornado that’s gonna hit later this week. What’re you doing here?” You say, crossing your arms over your chest.

Tyler smiles before stepping close to you and saying, “I’m chasing that same tornado. It’s supposed to be the fastest and worst one this season. Towns are gonna need our help.”

“Right and I don’t suppose you’re going to chase said tornado are you?” You ask, taking a step back.

Tyler takes another step toward you before smiling that devilish grin you loved so much.

“Of course we are.”

You roll your eyes and look to his left before breaking into a smile and saying, “Hi Boonie.”

“Hey, Y/N,” he replies. “I miss you.”

“I miss you guys too,” you truthfully tell him. You turn to Ben and smile. “Hi Ben, are they treating you okay?”

“Are they giving me heart attacks in a daily, you mean?” He responds, his English accent twittling in your ears.

You smile before shaking your head. “So nothing’s changed, I see.”

“That’s not true,” Boone cuts in. “Tyler’s got a new harness just in case.”

“Boone…” Tyler warns.

“After you almost flew out of the truck last year, he had them installed.” Boone continues. “You should come test them out.”

Your heart begins beating rapidly at that.

You didn’t like talking about what happened the last time you went storm chasing with the Tornado Wranglers.

It had been a normal chase, Tyler had just set off the fireworks and you were all having a pretty great time—save for the warnings you gave Tyler earlier that day.

That was, until the tornado became stronger. Turning from a F2 to an F5 in a matter of seconds. The pull was so strong, you barely had time to react when you began flying out the window. Luckily Tyler grabbed your legs before you could fully be sucked out.

But then the tornado flipped the truck and you were almost cut in half by the speed of all. Had Tyler listened to you earlier that morning, you all would’ve never been put through that situation. 

You halfheartedly smile at Boone before shaking your head. “I don’t think so. But thank you, at least now you guys will be safe.”

You turn and look at Tyler when you say that last part before telling him, “Thanks for saving me, but I think I’ll be leaving now.”

You begin to walk away, hearing Tyler call your name. Eventually, you reach the front door and swing it open to see the heavy rain turned into a lightning storm.

Panic begins to settle then. The lightning and strong winds bring you back to that moment when you thought you were going to die. The feel of Tyler’s hands on your ankles and his terrified screams muffle your ears.

Not again, I can’t be in a storm. I shouldn’t drive in this.

“Y/N! Get away from the door!” Tyler yells from behind you, but you can’t hear anything. It’s only when thunder cracks, that you’re shaken out of the frozen state you were in.

Tyler’s arms wrap around your waist and pull you close to him, his warm and hard body familiar against yours.

“What the hell were you thinking?” He berates you. “You can’t leave, that storm’s getting worse.”

His hard eyes searches yours, finding the remains of panic you were just in and softening. His arms instinctively squeeze you tight to him, one hand on your lower back and the other on the back of your head.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“I’m fine,” you lie.

Tyler frowns, before hoisting you on his shoulder and carrying you to the back of the bar.

“What the hell? Pull me down!” You scold.

Tyler ignores you, walking into the single stall bathroom before locking the door and setting you down gently.

“Talk,” he demands. “And don’t give me that ‘I’m fine’ bullshit. I know you, Y/N.”

You sigh and lean against the sink. “It’s the storm.”

“What about it?” He asks. “You’ve probably seen hundreds of storms like this.”

“It reminds me of that day.”

You don’t even need to say what day, he already knows. He crosses the small room and places a hand on your waist the other on your cheek.

“I’m still so sorry,” he starts, practically whispering. “I’ve regretted it for the past year and four months.”

You chuckle. “You’ve been keeping track?”

“Not of how long it’s been since that day,” he starts. “But of how long you’ve been away from me and not in my arms.”

“Tyler…”

“No, Y/N,” he interrupts. “I’ve been thinking about that day for so long just analyzing everything that I could’ve done to prevent it from happening.”

He shakes his head and steps away from you to pace the bathroom.

“I should’ve paid attention to the radar, to Lilly’s warnings, to you,” He continues. “You warned me that morning and I didn’t want to listen. I thought I would be able to handle it. I should’ve just listened to you when you told me you felt like that day was gonna get bad. I let my pride get in the way and it almost cost me your life.”

He stops, turning to you with tearful eyes. “It cost me us and for that, I’ll suffer for the rest of my life.”

“Ty,” you start, cold heart melting and warming for the man you once loved—still love. You always loved him, even after that day. “I chose to leave because I thought that was best. I thought if I left, I would be able to heal from whatever trauma was lingering. But now that I’m here with you, I think I realize that it wasn’t space I needed. It was you.”

You cross the distance between the two of you, wrapping your arms around his neck and feeling his arms around your waist. You knew he meant every word he said and couldn’t help but fall for him again. You knew admitting that must’ve been hard for him, Mr. Prideful. So for him to even say it at all… you knew what you had to say in response.

“I forgive you.” You tell him. “I forgave you a long time ago. Now you have to forgive yourself.”

The tears come then, from both you and Tyler’s eyes. Those were the three words you’ve been waiting to say, and him hear.

He holds you, afraid you’ll walk out of his life and you hold him, never wanting to leave again.

“I promise I’ll try not to be so reckless,” he whispers into your hair. “And to listen to you when you tell me something’s wrong.”

“Good,” you smile. “Because I promise not to leave again.”

[darlingdarkly]

Negotiations with the Devil

Danny Johnson x f!reader smut

14k words

DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT

Look at me. 👁️👁️ I need you to heed the tags. I am going to tag the hell out of this thing and if you don’t read the tags then you’re throwing yourself into a mixed bag of whatever the hell and that’s on you. The tags are there for your benefit. Not mine. You have been warned.

CW: noncon!elements, dubcon!elements (honestly this things a consent rollercoaster, strap in), stalking, obsessive behavior, home invasion, death threats, bondage, knifeplay, violence, minor bodily harm, blood, blood consumption, coercion, consumption of drugs (weed), breathplay, fingering, unprotected pnv climactic intercourse, spanking, praise, drug consumption (without consent), Danny is a whole warning of his own lmao

He can tell by the way you mime along to the lyrics, the rhythmic pattern of your head bangs alone that you listen to the same playlist everyday while you sweat it out on the treadmill. People tend to be pretty ritualistic as it is, even if they don’t know it, but this was just too concentric to be coincidence. He was right though, in the end. It didn’t take much, slipping into your room at night while you’d been sleeping and unplugging your phone from the charger on your nightstand beside your bed. Stopping to look down at your sleeping form, brush an errant strand of hair away from the frame of your face, watch you twitch in your sleep. He wonders what you dream of. Peaceful, listless, little dreams while you believe no one’s watching.

He airdrops your playlist from your phone to his, technology is such a fickle thing, making our lives easier, making our info easier to steal. He won’t be malicious with it, no, not much. Just invasive enough to strengthen the bond between you, now he can listen along while he watches you run, queue up your playlist at the same time you do, watch you up the speed and take your first steps while the first notes begin to sound through your ears and his.

It makes the subtle rhythm of your hips make sense, the timing of your poses and moves fall into place. You kind of half-dance-half-run. Fucking adorable by the way, he’s got more than one snap of you striking that same cute little pose for that half second between steps every time your favorite song comes around. He knows it’s your favorite by the way you disrupt the normal flow of songs in order to play it over again, a luxury you don’t afford any other song in the mix.

Scrambling to keep up with the tread as you snatch your phone from the cup holder where it sits while you run to start it over. You don’t even have the patience to slow it down so you don’t damn near trip every time. It’s a precaution you skip, one among many others that’s led him to be able to keep as close of tabs on you as he’s able. You really should be more careful, it's another lesson, one among many others that he’ll have to teach you.

He doesn’t mind, it’s a bit of an honor really, though he doubts you’ll see it that way. It’s a miracle you hadn’t been singled out before now with the way you so carelessly choose to lead your life. Prancing around your house half naked, windows drawn but not quite closed, tease. The ADT sign you planted in the turf of your lawn was a nice touch, too bad a sign was all it was, those security plans sure are expensive. He wonders, if you knew now what you’ll know then, would you have forked it over.

You come home with a migraine, it developed somewhere between the stoplight outside of work and the small traffic jam in front of a four car pile up two blocks from your house. You took some excedrin when you were finally able to get in the house. But not before pulling the trash can up from the edge of the road, gathering your mail from the box and going back to the car three times to look for your purse which you set down in the bathroom for some reason, god only knows why.

While they normally kick in within the hour, by the time three had come and gone you’d given up hope. It was a ‘lay on the couch, watch shitty tv and pray to whatever deity is listening to please stop tightening the invisible vice around my head’ kind of evening. All fore-planned events and activities had been canceled in lieu of lounging around like a sloth. You couldn’t even keep your eyes open half the time anyway, it’s how you knew when you called it an early night that you’d need the little, black silk, travel mask you bought precisely for occasions such as these.

Light is evil, light is the enemy, only darkness is your friend. You climb into bed after double checking the locks on the doors and windows. You've heard about “Roseville’s Ghost”. It was all over the news and in the papers. Better safe than sorry, though you didn’t worry much about those things. It could never happen to you, of course.

Settled into bed with your brain still under a full frontal assault you promptly pulled the soft black material over your eyes and felt just an inkling of immediate relief. It was both minuscule and monumental. It wasn’t long before you fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

“Wake up.” Your eyes spring open only to be met with the same resolute blackness you’d been familiar with before opening them. You are certain you’d heard someone. At least fairly certain, you don't have any dreams staining the backs of your eyelids to have heard that voice from but you’re certain you’d heard it. You go to lift the mask from over your eyes, light a match in the darkness of your uncertainty and quell your fears but your arms won't move, neither your right nor your left. The first thing to spring to mind is sleep paralysis, you’d dealt with it a few times prior but never after a migraine, never with you unable to open your eyes. You’re unsure if that makes it better or worse.

But you are sure it’s sleep paralysis. You know because there’s that tell-tale heavy, immovable weight on your chest. The only difference being you cannot see the terror that preys upon you, suspending you in this half-asleep-half-awake nightmare spell. You wonder how long you’ll have to endure it. You don’t get to ruminate on it long before that voice speaks again.

It absolutely has to be coming from the thing on top of you, although when he does speak again you can feel it as well as hear it and that’s new. Perhaps, with one of your senses removed, your others have grown more keen. Or your sleep paralysis demon is becoming more evolved, feeding off your fear and manifesting into something more physical. Your terrified mind gets so lost in its own demented circles you don’t hear what it says the first time.

“W-what?” Your eyes widen behind the mask, you’re fairly certain you’re supposed to be unable to speak in these situations, complete paralysis. It’s in this split second, with this single, small epiphany that you realize this isn’t a dream, or a nightmare, or something in between, but real. Actually happening to you in real time, with a real man sitting on your chest whom you can’t see.

“I said, I’m going to take off your mask. Don’t scream.” You’re sure that won’t be much of an issue, since you've realized this is in fact not a nightmare but indeed a real ongoing situation your vocal chords have locked up tighter than a drum. You’re unsure you could have spoken even if your life depended on it, even if your screams were to be your only saving grace, you’re fairly certain you’re currently incapable of sound, bound to compliance by sheer terror, obedient against your will.

You feel fingers at your temples and your eyes automatically shut as the silken mask is removed. You should keep them that way, resist whatever sick curiosity tempts your lids to lift but you can’t, you have to know, you have to see.

You wish you hadn’t. The man striding your lower half is large, dressed in black he appears as a solid block that blends his outline with the shadows. The one thing you can distinguish is his face. Pale white and elongated into an unending scream. Sunken eyes and missing a nose, it seems to mock you with something akin to pity, though the man behind the mask seems anything but sorry to inconvenience you.

“Good.” He praises as you stare up into his lifeless face, wondering how in the hell you could possibly have let yourself fall into a situation such as this.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. When I say, you’re going to get up and walk over to that chair over there.” He motions to your computer chair, pulled front and center into the middle of the room. “And you’re going to sit nice and still for me and if you move I’m going to make you wish you hadn’t.” He pauses like he’s waiting for a response. “Do you understand?” Surely you’re dreaming, this absolutely can NOT be happening right now.

The answer to your internal question is answered promptly as you feel him lean down over you and press something sharp, sinister and cold against your neck, you don’t dare shiver against its chill. His next words are a whisper, the overwhelming stench of cheap plastic clogging your nostrils as he leans down close. “I said, do you understand?”

You nearly choke on the dried strip of leather that’s become your tongue trying to say yes, not daring to nod. It comes out a ghost of the word, a breathy pathetic excuse for speech but it must be good enough for him as you feel him pull the blade off your neck and you begin to feel like you can breathe again, at least momentarily.

He lifts off you and your brain insists that you should take some sort of initiative, be brave, strike back. But one look at the man before you once he’d risen to his full stature abated all thoughts of bravery. Tall and lean, his choice of attire did a good job of masking much of anything else discernible of his appearance and of course the mask completely covered his face, the hood pulled up over the edges of it even made it impossible to see any of his hair either. For all you could tell the man was literally a ghost, though one with weight and presence and deadly intentions.

You realize he’s watching you analyze him, racking your eyes up his body and trying to size him up. Normally, in movies and such, the bad guys are always trying to get you to hurry, get what they want and get out of there. Not him, there’s an odd quality about him, the absence of rush, almost prodding his way through this, like it’s more of a game than a strategic offense. But that’s not to say he seemed amateurish in any aspect, quite the opposite. It was clear he was fully in control, so much so in fact that he could afford the leisure of toying with you a little.

“Like what you see, doll?” You can hear the cocky smirk in his tone, feel him oozing with it as he goads you in jest. He watches your expression shift from confusion to alarm and then one of hastily tacked on offense. “What? No fucking way you-!” Your sentence falls away, left hung in the air unfinished as you realize you’ve momentarily forgotten you’re in a home invasion scenario and not dealing with some normal asshole from off the street and any snarkiness you may have been ready to serve back to him dissipates as you switch back into survival mode. “Please I-“

“Get up.” He cuts you off, firm and authoritative. Fear fills your legs like lead and makes them uncooperative but it only takes a flash of the blade at his side, the promise of pain in the glint of the steel to make you pull back the covers and try. He’s patient with you as you amble out of bed slow and jerkily. Even though you only make it to sitting up, legs thrown over the edge and eyeing up the computer chair he’d centered in the room like it’s rigged to carry electric voltage. You knew once you were tied to it it’d be your final destination.

A wave of his blade recaptures your attention, with two flicks of the tip he motions you to rise. You did as he bid, without much other choice. Standing across from him that instinctive fight or flight urge rises from the marrow of your bones and makes your legs twitch with action’s potential but ultimately you end up meandering to the chair and sitting, resting your hands in your lap pliantly as you await further instruction.

When you still he comes to life, moving around behind you and gently pulling your hands from your lap and around the back of the backrest. With this time you have nothing else to do but observe, honing in on his individual boot falls, glancing down to register his combat boot clad feet, as blacked out as the rest of his fit.

Forced to pay attention to the way his hands move over your skin, the heat radiating off of his body warming to your back. The even, repetitive, lulling quality of his breaths in your immediate space. Even the faint sting of cheap cologne burns the hairs in your nostrils, making you lightheaded in a way that’s not entirely unpleasant.

There’s the shift of fabric and the sound of him unfastening something you can’t see from beyond your peripherie. You feel his gloved hands glide over your skin before the cord wraps around your wrists, binding them. He’s surprisingly slow and methodical; not overly rough until he has to be, the knots require a certain use of force that leaves you wincing.

He stands and moves about the room, silently adjusting it to his liking. Closing your bedroom door, drawing the curtains tight, pushing open your bathroom door to throw a little more light into the room. While he completes these menial tasks you pick up on something unsettling.

Just the ease with which he traverses the room. This house has a runner seam, a raised board that rides the centerline of its entire length. After moving in it took you months to stop tripping over it, to mentally identify the mapping of this new space in your brain that allows for an extra inch of clearance automatically. Over the span of your occupancy you’d had a few boyfriends and none of them lasted long enough to get used to that seam. Not even your parents who’d been over the most, helping you unpack and make a few minor repairs had ever gotten used to it. Everyone you’d ever had over has tripped over that runner seam, but not him, not once.

He pulls one of your kitchen chairs up from out of the shadows, the legs squalling against your hardwood floor until he sets it in place right in front of yours and sits. Scooching up nice and close to you, your knees bumping against each other as he settles in. You try to avoid touching him but his legs are long and he spreads them out wide so both your knees are bracketed by his, his plastic face regarding yours with that same mock-pity expression as the cold fingers of fear rustle up your spine, making you shiver.

You need to get this man out of your house in any way you can. Your first instinct is to try and scare him away, maybe you are no real threat but perhaps the idea that there will be more people added to the equation will be enough to get him to reconsider.

“Please!! Please just go! My roommate’s gonna be home soon a-and she.. she’ll see you and scream and- and-“

His head cocks just so, like he’s staring at a picture frame that’s askew, off in a way he knows just at a glance is wrong. “Let’s skip over the bullshit, shall we? I already know everything there is to know about you, babygirl.”

“She works late but she’s gonna be back any minute now!!” You reaffirm, trampling over his unsettling comment.

“You don’t have a roommate. You’ve lived in this house by yourself since your last roommate moved out some… hmmm..” he pauses, you can almost see the numbers fly past the whites of his eyes as he, no doubt, flips through the calendar in his head. “14 months ago.”

Horror floods your veins but you push past it, insistent. “My parents, they’re coming over first thing tomorrow morning.” He chuckles, a knowing sound filled with humor like you’ve just made some kind of inside joke, but it leaves you nothing but bloated with dread.

“On a couples retreat to Acapulco. Left a month ago, won’t be home for another two.” Your throat tightens, it makes your next try come out less confident and more shriekish.

“My brother-“ You rebuff.

“Lives in Michigan.” He interjects.

“Sister!” You scramble to refute.

“Don’t have one.” He adds confidently.

“My boyfriend!” A last ditch effort, even you can hear the desperation leaking into disbelief as you say it.

“Oh, sweetheart. Stop. You’ve been chronically single for how long now? Nine? Ten months?”

Your mouth plops open like a fish out of water. Your eyes the size of saucers as he expertly thwarts every attempt to deter the inevitable. How could he possibly know? Oh my god! Who cares! You’ve got to get this guy the fuck out of your house and now! Fucking think! You’ve seen this stuff on the news over and over. What do they always say? Don’t fight. Just give them what they want. Give them what they want and they’ll go away. Now you’ve just got to figure out what it is he wants.

“I-I- I’ve got money. Y-you can have it. All of it. It’s-“

“Nine hundred and forty five dollars even in the little black Sentry fireproof safe. Hidden under your floor, under the board that creaks in front of the closet.” He says matter of factly and there’s a hidden smile in his tone, like he’s waiting for the praise that comes posthaste with answering a problem promptly and correctly. When he doesn't get his immediate gratification he antes up.

“It’s even because any change you have you save up in a jar for the end of the month when you carry it up to the bank and exchange it for bills, which you add to the safe after you pull out the board and put in your passcode. 974703.” Your mouth hangs open in speechless horror. How could he know that? You always go to the bank at the end of the month, you figure he could deduce that but your passcode? You’ve never even written that down. How would he know your passcode? “Ohhhuuhhhghh my god.”

The floor feels like it’s dropped out from beneath you. He’s speaking but you’re not really registering the words, lost in your own spiral towards insanity. This man knows you, he knows things about you, approximate information about your life, your relationships, your schedule. And yet you don’t have any idea who he is.

His voice is not familiar to you. He has no accent nor any unique qualities or lilts that you can discern or recognize. He’s well spoken and intelligent, cocky and in a way you won’t admit outside the safety of your own thoughts, oddly charming. He doesn’t want money, can’t be bartered or bought. There seems to be no clear motivator for this man’s actions. You’re running out of bargaining chips with which to trade for your life.

If you can’t tempt him then maybe you can reason with him. Perhaps it’s not too late to get him to change his mind. Part of you reasons that if he’s wearing a mask it’s because he wants to keep his identity from you, which must mean he plans to leave you alive. There’s all kinds of potholes and washouts in your theory but under the influence of fear the mind can bridge gaps in logic that rival the Mariana Trench. That’s when it comes to you and you’re almost giddy with the realization. Your reaction is animated, making you nearly jump up in your words’ enthusiasm to escape your lips. You laugh at the simplicity of it, a nervous little sound that’s half relief, half insanity. God why hadn’t you thought of that sooner!

“I haven’t seen your face! I have no earthly idea what you even look like! You can just go! Like for real, just leave! And we don’t have to do this.” There’s a rumble from his chest. A deep, dark laugh like a resounding rock slide from above and it means one thing and one thing only, danger. To your horror, one gloved hand begins to rise to the cusp of his mask and you wrench your eyes closed, titling your head back until your neck is jacked and your face lifts to the ceiling above, screaming all the while. “No! No, no, no, no, NO!” You feel one hand reach up to grasp your chin, pulling it down. You fight, but he ultimately wins, his leather clad fingers anchoring your chin to your chest. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

You chant no like a mantra. Like if you say it a certain amount of times fast enough, if you try and believe hard enough he will disappear from existence, like some kind of reverse childhood mirror game. You can not see him, therefore he cannot see you, therefore poof! Begone intruder! You shake your head back and forth, yelling it louder and louder all the while. He can drag your head down to his heart's content but he can’t possibly open your eyes for you. That’s impossible.

You feel the knife before you ever see it, slipping along the curved flank of your bare thigh. It’s steely edge biting just ever so slightly into the plush flesh, as if sampling an offered morsel of meat to determine its rarity.

Your eyes fly open of their own accord in reaction to the pain and stare right into his own dark, dark, brown orbs. There’s a sick warmth in them, something sinister masquerading as compassion, as if they don’t belong to the same man who’s digging a knife into your leg as your eyes lock, but rather to a man feasting his eyes upon his bride for the first time dressed in chiffon white. “There she is.”

You don’t maintain eye contact for long, yours sliding off his to register the huge knife he’s casually dragging the edge of along your exposed thigh, your first good look at it up close. It sports a wicked tip, glimmering dangerously in the diffused light shifting in from the bathroom.

He eases his downward pressure but your leg still stings like hell. His thumb finds the wound in the dark and laves over it soothingly, though it has no soothing effects, just leaving a dimmer, muted burn in its wake.

“Is it all falling into place yet, sweets?” He leans forward into your personal space, like the answer is just on the tip of his nose and you’re somehow still missing it, like this revelation should have been obvious from the start.

You can’t think, mind drawing blank after blank. You try to rationalize this crazy man’s actions in your mind. Why would he do this? Why me? Have I wronged him? Have you wronged anyone at all in the last week? Month? Year? How far back should you be retracing your every step? How long would a person sit on a grudge before exacting this level of revenge? What could you have possibly done to make this man angry with you?

But is that true? Your mind glosses over the fact that he seems anything but angry with you. Menacing? Yes. Threatening? Demanding? Absolutely. But angry? No. Not in the slightest, though you’re so worked up it leaves you blind to these facts.

It dawns on you then. How could you be so stupid? The killer. This is the guy behind all the murders. Your sleep clouded brain shouldn’t have been any excuse for you to oversee what was right in front of you all along. Your face instantly falls as you come to the second realization sitting just behind the first. You’re going to die, this is it.

You switch gears and immediately begin to plead with him, the individual words streaming out of your mouth so quickly they’re stumbling over each other. He watches you like that, watches as you crumple into a desperate subhuman right before his very eyes. You peer up at him from below, done attempting to form coherent sentences as your brain is unable to handle them, now reduced to the simplistic but hopefully moving enough, “Please.” Though repeated over and over and over in rapid succession.

You’re hoping to appeal to this mystery man’s better nature, if there’s one inside of him to speak of. But the next words out of his mouth make you really doubt it. “As much as I love the sound of hearing you beg, I need you to stop so I can speak.”

You’re unable to. It just keeps falling from your lips like someone left a faucet on in your throat and it’s starting to overflow, filling up the swell of your cheeks and beginning to leak out as hot, briny tears from the waterline of your over blinking lashes. He starts shushing you, oh so gently, until your tears begin to ebb and your sobs begin to hitch. You look up into his deep brown eyes, your chin trembling with the might of your fear as your hands wriggle against the cordage wound tight around them behind your back.

“Please.” It’s your last plea, begging him one last time not to do this. His head tilts as silence fills the space between you. “Please!! I don’t understand why you’re doing this!!”

“You want the truth, doll? Want me to just come out and say it?” No, not really. What you really want is for him to just disappear or better yet for you to simply wake up from this living nightmare to find you’d never even made it to bed, just fell asleep in front of the tv and the awkward position you’d fell out in on your lumpy couch plus the remnants of this terrible headache had given you night terrors so real they were beyond anything you’d ever experienced prior, vivid beyond your wildest imaginations.

But it’s not a nightmare because no matter how hard you try, you can’t wake up and he’s still here sitting in front of you and it just keeps on going. “I came here to kill you. But I couldn’t…” Now this is a turn. Did he just say he couldn’t?

“I’ll be honest, babygirl. I can’t decide.” He begins to explain it to you but as he goes on it becomes less and less apparent he’s even talking to you at all. “I watch all my intended targets before I make my design, it’s standard procedure. But the longer I watched you the more invested I became. And then three months came and went and I knew your schedules, your routines, your patterns.. you.” His tone begins to lighten as his eyes lift to meet yours, like something out of some twisted romantic comedy. At least you’re hoping for a comedy, anything other than a tragedy at this point would be just fine with you.

“But I was oddly conflicted.” He continues, dropping your eyes again. “Typically I get visions, increasing in intensity. It starts out mild. Breaking in when they’re isolated, sneaking up to them while they sleep, plunging my knife into their chests, watching their eyes spring open to meet mine before death consumes them. Then, as I watch them more and more, they get more violent in scale, more visceral in nature. The longer I watch, the stronger the blood lust gets, until I’m slicing them open by their stomachs and dragging their intestines out to hang from the ceiling.”

His fists clench and you catch a glimmer, just a passing glimpse of what this man is capable of. His whole body tenses as he’s briefly consumed by his afflictions as he recounts them. His shoulders tense and you can hear the squeaky protest of his leather gloves as he balls his hands into fists ever tighter. The fabric around his forearms bunches and tightens against the muscles straining beneath.

“Sometimes I think about really taking my time with it. Maybe I don’t go straight for the heart, maybe the first strike is less than lethal. Leave them alive a little longer so I can play around a bit. When their lungs start to fill with blood they become less and less capable of screaming and I do love a good scream.”

He smiles up at you with a sharp, toothy grin. The whites of his eyes burning into yours as you try not to look as horrified as you feel. Try and hide the disgust germinating in your gut. But as his eyes meet yours his expression changes. His smile remains but shifts from one filled with humor to one shy and adoration filled, almost bashful in its softening. Your ears perk as he starts to go into more detail regarding his experience with you.

“It was the same with you at first.” His eyes lose contact with yours as he appears to be diving headfirst into another daydream.

“Imagining myself slipping into your bedroom in the dead of night. Finding you deep asleep as I stand over your bed. Burying my knife into your chest.” The way he so casually describes to you his fantasies regarding your murder at his hand makes you short of breath and you wonder just how out of touch he has to be for him to not consider this to be, at the very least, extremely uncomfortable for you.

“But then it changed. Things took a more provocative turn.” Your veins flood with alarm and your eyes widen but he doesn’t look back up at you to catch it, too enthralled with the memories of it. “I saw myself walking up to the side of your bed and climbing over top of you, telling myself it was for a more intimate, close-up kill. Or maybe a better angle in which to plunge the knife into your chest.”

He looks distant, troubled as he speaks. “But that never happens. Now when I enter your room and climb up over you.. you always wake up and look up at me and it’s like I’m frozen. It’s like you see right through me, right through the mask. I know what I should do, I know what I have to do, but I can’t. So instead I always envision myself slipping off the mask and leaning down to kiss you.”

Your cheeks flare with heat at what he’s describing, it only gets worse as he continues. “And I thought it was a fluke and over time everything would go back to normal and I’d dream about killing you again. Except it never did, it just got worse. All I could think of, all I’d dream about was climbing over top of you and grabbing fistfuls of your comforter and ripping back your sheets. Running my hands through your hair and yanking your head back just so I can lean down and place my lips against your neck, finally getting a taste of your skin.”

Your wrists had begun to ache in your binds and it’s only then do you realize it’s because you’re restless in them, pulling at the cordage to distract yourself from the impossible. Your thighs squeezing together against the familiar yet unwelcome sensation of arousal. It’s not real, not a genuine reaction, this means nothing. It's the bizarre circumstances, the adrenaline, the way he’s vividly describing these incredibly intimate actions in such close proximity to you. It doesn’t make you some kind of degenerate, it could happen to anyone in similar circumstances. If anyone was to blame it was him, he’s sick, he’s obscene.

He stops living in his mind for a moment and comes back to you and for once you’re grateful for the distraction. It’s easier to fear him than process your body's reactions. He notices, because of the deliberate way he’d centered the chair so that the light from the bathroom would be cast upon your face, that your eyes are now slightly dilated. And while he knows, through research and personal experience, that the human eye certainly will dilate in response to fear, he also knows that the same reaction occurs when aroused. But the key difference between the two responses is that only one typically makes an individual rub their thighs together and now you won’t meet his gaze.

The thought thrills him, but he lets you keep your secrets a little longer as he continues. “I can’t kill you… but I can’t let you go…” Your brows furrow and you seem to be becoming increasingly distressed. “Why?”

“Well for one, you’ve seen me now. That part was all you. It wasn’t my initial plan but you tempted me and I couldn’t resist. But you see my dilemma, cupcake? You make me do things that are not in my best interest and I never act out of my own interest. Everything I do is planned, methodical, purposeful. But not with you, ever since I singled you out things have changed and they must go back to normal, do you understand?”

You don’t. None of this makes any kind of rational sense. You’ve already begged him to go, begged him not to do this. What does he want from you? Some kind of essay on why he shouldn’t kill you? Two pages front and back double spaced with standard margins? “No.” His eyes bore into yours as he imparts the task with which you’re responsible.

“I need you to convince me not to act within my best interest.” He flashes you a smile that’s meant to be winning as your ears try and fail to process what he's just told you. He wants you to convince him… not to kill you. He can tell it’s not setting well with you.

“You need to relax.” He says nonchalantly, like it’s as simple as taking one big breath and counting to three. Like he didn’t just dump this huge yet vague responsibility onto your shoulders. “Well excuse me if I’m a little riled by a fucking psychopath in my bedroom at three in the fucking morning!!!”

His mouth twists in an annoyed grimace. And for the first time you feel as though your foot has been lodged firmly in your throat. You’ve angered him and now you’re fucked. Way to go, in three seconds flat you’ve made his mind up for him.

“Firstly, I’m a sociopath, not a psychopath. Psychopaths are unable to form emotional bonds or even struggle to feel real, human emotion at all, and I think we both know that’s not true with me. Secondly, it’s midnight, not three a.m, silly. And lastly, this is exactly what I’m talking about, honeybun. You’re stressed out, high strung. I can fix that.”

You lean back as far as you can in your computer chair, the shittily constructed plastic and screws squalling in protest of your weight as he reaches for something your petrified mind can only conjure up worse and worse images of being.

You instinctively recoil and then dumbly relax as the flick of a lighter sparks to life a tiny flame in the otherwise dark of your room. It illuminates him for a moment, the whites of his eyes focusing on something other than you for a change. The dim light throws irregular shadows across the planes of his face. It’s the first really good look you get at him, though you know you shouldn’t. You should be taking every opportunity to forget you ever saw him, only a vague shadow in the dark if you ever wish to make it out of this nightmarish situation alive but you can’t help yourself. He’s just a few feet away and the lighter keeps drawing your eyes like moths, fluttering over his features in passing flight.

He’s got that smoldering, troubled look. Dark eyes, dark hair. Angular jaw, strong chin. There’s a fat joint precariously clenched between his plush lips that he brings the flame up to the end of, taking two quick puffs to light as the end blooms a cherry head and smoke begins to voluminously rise from.

He’s pretty, you begrudgingly have to admit. Naturally attractive in a way that unsettles you to say, the fact worms under the skin at your nape and stands the thin wisps of hair growing there on edge. Especially now that he’s imparted his great secret with you. It would be easier if he were revolting, but he’s not.

It makes you wonder how different the situation would be if he’d just approached you naturally. How easily you’d have fallen under the spell of this man’s witty charm had he had the good sense to try and court you normally. It horrifies you to think how easily you could imagine yourself falling in love with a man holding back a secret as dark as this, a man capable of this level of debauchery. He speaks and snaps you back to the present.

“I won’t untie you. You seem like the tricky type, my love. You’ll have to get your fix another way.” You glower at him to hide your disappointment. As much as you hate to admit it, you’d love a hit right about now. If you’re to die, there’s no better way than high.

“Don’t pout. You’ll get yours.” You instinctively pull your arm towards it for a pass but you’re stopped short by your binds. He must notice, letting out a dark chuckle you hate to admit sends chills down the column of your spine.

“Oh that’s fucking adorable. Hold still.” Before you can move he snaps up a camera you hadn’t noticed dangling from his neck and the bright flare of a flash momentarily blinds you.

When you can see again, he’s staring down into the screen of his, suffice to say, really nice ass looking camera, though you’re no tech expert by any means. His smile widens, flashing a toothy grin down at the image of your face and then up to your real and present one.

Satisfied with capturing the moment, he drops the camera back down to hang from his neck as he eyes you precariously before taking a long, slow drag from the joint. He pulls away and motions you forward with two fingers. You hesitate and get to watch his eyes darken in real time, watch him shift from being personable to something much less tolerant in an instant.

He exhales and a plume of smoke permeates the air in your vicinity, saturating it with the funky, pungent odor of bud. The space between you is noticeably thicker and not just from the smoke. His voice drops that cheerful quality and you suddenly understand that this whole time he’s been being nice to you. He drops your gaze and scoffs to his lap. “I lit this just for you. If you don’t at least indulge me you’ll hurt my feelings.”

When his eyes take hold of yours again they’re anything but friendly. “And you wouldn’t wanna hurt my feelings, now would you doll?” There’s an unspoken threat, an underlying message left unuttered but nevertheless fully understood by both parties.

You are now at a crossroads, humor him or face the alternative and the choice is yours, for him it seems, it wouldn't really be a bother either way. Ultimately you lean in, you’re not exactly in any kind of position to refuse.

He takes another hit, larger than the first, a punishment perhaps for your inhibitions the first go around. Though you know what you’re doing, he still takes a moment prior to coach you, a single word that sends a surge of need shooting down your spine, making you shiver in what you tell yourself is disgust. Without choking or sounding even remotely bothered he orders you around a lungful of smoke.

“Suck.” It’s all you get before his lips push up against yours. They're soft and warm and you feel his hand lift up to cradle your cheek. Intimate, sweet, in a way one could call almost gentlemanly, though you know better. It helps steady you in place before you feel his lips part slightly and blow warm, thick smoke into your mouth that you suck down deep into your lungs. His lips linger long after the smoke is gone, ghosting over yours in casual chase, almost like a lover’s would.

With the hit exchanged, he pulls back from you suddenly and lifts his hand to cover your mouth and nose, his thumb wrapping under the curve of your chin, the pad digging into the soft underbelly and locking your jaw shut.

Your mind can’t help but register the way he easily covers the bottom half of your face with the breadth of one gloved hand. A move that makes your eyes widen and gaze up into his own as he stares you down intensely. “Hold it.” He instructs as your lungs burn, it’s been a hot minute since you’d smoked and the hit is warm and stinging to your fresh, unabused lungs.

A moment passes.. and then two.. and you begin to internally panic. It’s then you realize he means to kill you like this, there’s no other explanation for such cruelty. He intends to asphyxiate you with one hand, force you to choke on the poisoned last breath he’d personally fed into your lungs. You hitch and nearly sputter behind the suction of his gloved palm but his eyes hold yours hostage as he watches you struggle through it, relishing in it.

You had angered him with your earlier comment, it seems. Made up his mind for him and now he’s going to end his issues single-handedly. You’d always heard the old adage “I wanna watch the life drain out of your eyes as you take your last breath.” You’d understood it before at face value, a thing said to provoke, to strike fear, to rattle. You’d never dreamed of the moment it’d happen to you, to experience it first hand, to stare into the eyes of your unmaker.

You’d imagined, in your last fleeting moments, the space behind your eyes would be filled with memories. Life’s intrinsic moments. People, places, family, friends. That’s what people always say. But it wasn’t like that. In those moments you believed were to be your last, all your brain could fixate on, all you could think about with the last of its magnificent power, in all its infinite wisdom was his eyes.

The deep sedentary shade of his twin orbs, the flecks and streaks of paler and deeper hues. A spectrum of browns infinitesimal in the pools of his irises. These are the eyes who’ll witness your last moments, the transfer of your consciousness from the here and now to wherever it is we go after this. These are the eyes of the reaper.

Just when you believe you’re on the cusp of passing out; your focus doubling and then tripling and then beginning to recede all together, to be followed close behind by the cold embrace of death, he releases and your lungs follow suit. Purging themselves in a last ditch effort for survival. The residual smoke puffs up from both your nose and mouth simultaneously, as you fight to expel it and drag in fresh, cool air.

It sends you into a coughing fit that doubles you over as far as your binds will allow. He catches your chin with his gloved hand and pulls you upright by it, keeping your head above your shoulders and shushing you through it as you are violently pulled away from the brink of death and after a minute, begin to quiet down. ���That’s it. Breathe, doll.”

Your vision blurs around the edges, shadows drawing into shadows as you recover and there’s spittle on your lower lip from nearly coughing up a lung. He notices and swipes his thumb across the expanse of your lower lip, dragging the pliable flesh clean. You go to express your gratitude, for his chivalry, for his restraint, for your life. It seems there’s perhaps some humanity in him after all.

“Thank yo-“ It dies in your throat as you watch him, without even skipping a beat, bring that same thumb up to his lips and suck your saliva off his digit, a devious glint in his dark, guile-filled eyes. “So sweet.”

You’re dizzy, whether it be from the hit, or lack of oxygen or just him, you’re unsure. You’re at a loss for what to say next but it seems he isn’t finished. “I could fill a million SD cards with just your expressions, babygirl. You’re awfully photogenic, has anyone ever told you that?”

You’re unsure what to say, you’ve never been good with compliments in the best of situations, let alone one given under duress and you’re still reeling from, well, everything that’s happening to you.

It seems he still hasn’t decided what to do with you after all. Your head spins from the whiplash, it’s impossible, after all, to try and make heads or tails of the hairbrained decisions of the mentally ill and if there’s one thing this man sitting across from you is, it’s mentally ill. Though you have the comfort of saying so in the safety of your thoughts you won’t dare tempt him by saying it aloud again, unpredictable as he is.

“I love all your little marks and moles, birth or stretch, they’re all perfect.” You give him a look of violated disgust, you believe at this point you’re beyond surprised at anything he could say to you, it’s clear he meant what he said when he told you he’d been watching you.

“Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t like, strip you bare and thoroughly examine you with a magnifying glass or something. You just toss and turn a lot in your sleep.” And he says it like simply ‘watching you sleep’ is somehow kind of tamer, more justified, noble even.

“At least.. not yet.”Just when you believe you’d collected your thoughts you feel the tip of the knife grazing your skin again, riding the curve of your thigh upwards towards their apex, not hard enough to cut, but just rough enough to keep your attention fixated upon its ascent.

You stiffen, taking all of the relaxed lean he’d cultivated out of your posture and pressing back into the cushion of the rigid computer chair. He skips up your abdomen, passing over the skin of your navel. The sharpened point catches momentarily on the silky hem of your nightshirt before tension meets drag and then it’s cutting, a brand new part ripping right down the center rising ever higher up towards your sternum.

For a moment, both of your focuses eclipse on the tip of the knife, yours erratically panicked, his lasciviously engrossed. The roaring purr of the fabric shearing apart is loud in the otherwise quiet room, the only other sound the backdrop mix of your combined, labored breathing.

When the sea parts, the thin straps of your nightshirt slip from the slumps of your shoulders as the fabric, now separated, falls away from your chest and comes to rest as a useless bunch around your waist. His eyes fixate on your newly exposed flesh, locking acutely on the swell of your breasts, your nipples pebbling at the weight of his heated gaze upon them.

You instinctively hunch forward, your shoulders and back contorting their best to cover as much of you as humanly possible. Without so much as tearing his eyes away, he brings the tip of his blade forth and presses it into the valley of your chest. “Don’t hide yourself from me.” The stabbing pain of it becomes too much and you bow back reflexively, effectively revealing yourself to him again.

When he pulls back, a dark red spot forms in the knife’s wake, lengthening into a slow, smooth trickle into the valley of your breasts. His mouth parts and as he leans in you lean back, until your back is straining against the chair, until you can’t possibly back away any more.

And then you feel it, the hot, stiff, flat of his tongue, trailing up your crimson streaked skin. He feels you stiffen and hears you whimper in what you want him to think is terror, but at the same time he feels the full body shudder that quakes through you, feels the way your back arches off the chair, bucking back into him, chasing the sensation. You want him to believe you’re opposed to this, but he knows better than that, he knows you better than that. It’s just about getting you to give into your urges and stop leaning on your morals. He shed himself of the burden of his a long, long time ago.

He hardly pulls away, speaking into your skin as your lungs heave air and you squeeze your eyes shut at the restraint you’re exerting, straining against the questions swirling in your head you can’t bear to answer. Why is this affecting you so greatly?

“I don’t want to kill you, sweetheart. I will if I have to but I’ll be honest, it’d be a real bummer.” He pulls back and your eyes crack open, hoping against hope that maybe he’s done. With an audience he makes a spectacle of pulling off a glove, slipping the tip of one leather finger in between his teeth to pull his hand free of it. While his eyes never leave yours, you watch as it closes the distance between you to finally make contact with the exposed swell of your hip.

“Give me a reason, babygirl.” A spark of something like electricity runs through you upon your first skin to skin contact and you inhale sharply at the sensation. He drags it up your body, mapping your curves and planes like he’s setting it into memory.

Up the lattice of your rib cage and over the swell of one exposed breast, your nipples harden under his palm as it glides ever higher. He passes over the expanse of your heart to feel it beat in real time, just as fast and as forceful as hummingbird wings under the surface of your skin. He continues over the structure of your collarbones and stradles the column of your throat, his fingers conforming to the contours and dips along your jawline. All the way up til his palm cups your cheek, his thumb resting softly overtop the pucker of your lips, brushing along their part and lathing over the soft, thin skin. When it stills your eyes flick to his again and there’s a searching, hopeful quality to them that makes your stomach twist up into knots. “Give me a sign.”

Your eyes read his lips as they mold and form around his words, soft and cooing. Your mind races, you don’t want to die, don’t really want these to be your last moments. Would it be so bad? One night stands aren’t a new concept to you, men the likes of whom you wake up next to without an inkling of their identities or even the circumstances behind your acquaintance. Is this really all that different?

As he leans forward you decide that it is and turn your head away at the last possible moment. He stops and his head drops, a little disappointed sigh sounding from between his lips and your eyes close as your insistence on survival quarrels voraciously against your rigid moral upbringing. Like he’s somehow read your thoughts he speaks them.

“Is that what’s holding you back? Cause I know you want this. But it’d be too… improper. too.. unladylike to let a stranger break into your cute little home, tie you to your cute little computer chair and be forced to admit to me that I’ve got you flustered, wouldn’t it? It’d be just downright shameful if I slipped a hand into these cute little sleep shorts..”

His words narrate his actions, as one bare finger slips the last few inches left between him and the heat of your sex, shifting past the hem of your crotch on one side and sliding against the soaked gusset of your cotton panties in a firm, exploratory sweep. You have to bite your cheek against the moan it threatens to elicit. Bucking against his hand, it’s unintentional but damning all the same. And the smile that pulls at the corner of his lips is predatory in its victory, prideful in your defeat.

“and found you absolutely fucking soaked for me.” The last of his sentence comes out in a growl, ground between the grit of his teeth and spat out in a rumble that does nothing to ease the burn between your legs, burning brighter as he pulls away and brings his hand up to the light, both of your eyes drawn to the way it glistens in the lowlight.

“I don't mind playing the bad guy, babygirl.” His voice coils around you like liquid smoke, wrapping warm around the base of your spine and pooling low in your belly as his head dips into the crook of your neck, breathing in the heady scent of your fear and sweat. “If that’s what you need from me.” You feel his lips grazing ever so lightly over your pulse point, feel him grinning wicked at the way your heart quickens just for him. “If that’s what it takes for you to keep that moral, good girl image that’s so, so precious to you in your pretty little head.”

He whispers against the shell of your ear and you have to squeeze your eyes shut against the heavy, lascivious weight of him. You fear you’ve read this one before and you’re fairly certain you know how it ends. Eve and the snake in the garden all over again, just a taste is all it takes, indulging sin.

“Does it make it easier for you if I force you into it?” He brings the knife to your neck where he just was, planting the blade firmly up against the soft, soft flesh of your jugular, less than an inch from your carotid artery. You stiffen against him, keeping stark still, not even daring to breathe.

His tone falls into a hush, words whispered closely against your thrumming flesh. “If I take away the illusion of choice?” You can feel the heat radiating off his skin even through the glove, the roiling coals in the palm of his hand as it rides further and further up your thigh, leaving trials of fire in its wake, closing in on where you weep for him. “If I just choose to make you mine?”

He’s leaned in so far he’s standing above you and with your back against the wall and his knife to your neck there’s little else for you to do when his lips close over yours than to just take it. It’s intense, no warm up, no gentility or ceremony, just overwhelming, sweeping desire that you feel in your bones. He’s done waiting, done giving you choices, he’s had enough of the games.

You move with him as best you can in fear of his control over the blade slipping. His tongue wants to lick past your lips but your jaw refuses to budge. He lets out a sound of displeasure against you before you feel the hand that had been resting against your thigh push forward again to rub roughly right over top of your clit and you gasp inwardly in response. An opportunity he takes full advantage of as his tongue breaches your mouth to gain dominion over yours, the knife slips in lieu of his desperation, much more eager to roam your skin than keep up the threat. You feel the blade pull free only to be replaced by his ungloved hand a moment later.

His palm wraps around the expanse of your neck and squeezes, just enough to make you lightheaded and pliant as he ravages you, not that you could do much to resist him tied to the chair as you were. His hand between your thighs grows bolder, slipping down to where you’re wettest and pressing inwards with the pads of two of his fingers as far as the fabric would stretch, pushing into your entrance. The sensation had you groaning into the kiss, a surrender he rewarded with a nip to your lip as he continued his onslaught against your senses.

He pulls away from you, leaving you flustered and short of breath as he drops to his knees before you, coming up level with your chest. You hardly have time to register his change in position before you feel his lips ghosting over one of your nipples, planting them over one of your stiffened peaks and pulling it into his mouth. You arch up into the sensation, hardly stifling the sharp cry in the back of your throat. With you distracted, he pulls his blade from his sheath once more and makes two quick cuts, sliding his knife between you and the fabric of your panties to cut them away from your body where they cling like a second skin without so much as nicking you.

It’s only when you feel the cool air, chilly against your warm sex that you realize you’re now completely naked in front of him, this stranger, this invader. He lives up to his namesake as you feel his fingers at your entrance and he wastes little time as you feel him sinking in with two up to the first knuckle. You can’t stifle your moan this time, it bubbles from your throat and out of your mouth like sweet siren song.

He’s cocky about it too, boisterous in his boasting. You can feel his smirk against your skin as he licks up your chest to tease your breasts once more, reveling in the way he can feel you tightening around him in response. “Mmm.. So fucking wet for me, doll.” He moves the fingers inside you slowly as he stretches you open for him bit by bit, gentle and coaxing. “I don’t know, baby. From where I’m sitting, I’d have to say it seems like you’re enjoying yourself a little.”

Your head tips back and your eyes squeeze shut as your thoughts reel, unsuccessful in forming a shred of any kind of coherent thought. No rebuttals or quick witty quips to refute his claims. His fingers are thick and he keeps nudging something inside of you with each inward thrust that scrambles your brain and leaves you blank. You see, even through the opaque veils of your eyelids, the telltale momentary glare of his camera flash. Taking full advantage of the opportunity to capture your fall from grace, searing it into palpable visual proof he’d left his mark on you. “Please.”

And worse yet, without any context he defaults to your original opposition and stops which you find is actually the opposite of what you were begging for. With the last of your resolve you smother the whine that threatens to spill from your lips.

Without the mind numbing distraction of his ministrations you finally have a moment to breathe. “Wh-wh-“ You squeeze your eyes closed, the only way you can manage to pull your thoughts into some semblance of order in such close proximity to him and after a shallow, shaky breath, begin again.

“What do you want from me?” When your eyes reopen his bore into yours, pupils blown from more than just the weed. “I want you to give in to me.” He dips below your line of sight as he brings the knife up to your throat again, preventing you from following his lower descent. You feel him where you can’t see, pressed up close and personal with your neck, speaking his words against your flesh.

“I want to feel your little.” Kiss.

“Fragile.” Kiss.

“Sense of reality.” Kiss.

“Fucking shatter.” Kiss.

“As I make you come.” Kiss.

“All over my cock.” Kiss.

He wages war on your holy shores with his sordid tides. Corrodes your resolve with his sulfuric touch and it’s working, you’re beginning to slip. Can feel yourself losing this long, drawn-out battle of wills he’d pushed upon you. You’d been on a downward slope since the start and you’re nearing your wits end when it comes to fighting him. A victory he’s pulling from you one kiss at a time. “I wanna fuck you til you scream.”

You gasp inwardly as he sucks hard against your pulse point, teeth nipping into your supple skin, staking a claim you’ll no doubt be able to see in the morning, if you live to see it. You have to stifle the moan that follows, pushing at the cusp of your throat like a bird bound to fly the coop. He moves you then, no longer content with your quaint little cat and mouse game. Taking the reins for himself and pulling away from you, it’s like an oppressing weight has lifted from your shoulders but by that time it’s much too late.

He’s already moved around behind you, strategically cutting away the section of rope anchoring you to the chair, making you able to move but keeping your wrists bound at the small of your back. He tugs on your wrists and forces you to rise, coming back around your body and towering over you as you’re helpless but to move as he directs you. His legs bump yours, bullying you back until your calves hit the bed and you fall backwards onto the plush surface.

You catch one last glimpse of his eyes, possessed by lust before he’s flipping you over onto your stomach and pulling you back by your hips until your ass is perched at the edge of the bed. Panic begins to set in, like a buzzing in the back of your brain you realize you’re nearing a point from which there is no return.

You squirm and writhe, trying to flip yourself back over or slide off the bed until you feel him socket himself between your legs and plant a knee into the cleft of your ass, stopping your struggles. He applies downward pressure and your legs are forced to spread to accommodate the girth of his still clothed knee, grinding your heated sex up the length of his thigh as yours part, until his knee meets the bed.

“Still resisting me, doll? After the show you were putting on for me earlier, I can’t say I’m convinced.” He talks but all you can focus on is the jingle of his belt as he undoes it as he speaks. You feel him pull his leg away followed by the rustle of fabric and you know he’s undressing behind you.

“Wait! No, no! Wait!” But it’s too late, you feel the head of him pressing against your lips, sliding the blunt head of his cock up your slick seam, getting it nice and wet. Your body betrays you, salivating at the thought of finally getting fucked after such a long and unforgiving dry spell.

“I don’t think you really want me to.” And with that he pushes forward, sinking in inch by slow agonizing inch. He’s thick and any quarrels, any kind of protests or reservations you may have had dissipate with each newly fed inch. Unfortunately for you, you’re coming to terms with the fact that he may be right.

“Goddamn, babygirl.” You take in a sucking breath just to immediately expel it as a broken moan. When he’s buried to the hilt he stills there for a moment, enjoying the feel of your walls twitching around him, silently begging him for more.

He obliges, pulling out halfway only to plunge back in, his hips slapping against your ass, driving his cock deep in one fluid thrust. He picks up a steady pace like that, slow methodical thrusts while you both adjust to the stretch. “For all the fuss you made for us to get to this point you sure are gripping me awful tight, sunshine.”

You bury your face into the sheets to try and save some last shred of dignity, he may have invaded your walls but he will not hear your cries. That is, until he grabs a fistful of your hair and pulls, hauling your head back and forcing your moans to be heard by the heavens. With each thrust he pulls a noise from you, punched out of your lungs by the force of his cock alone. “And all these sweet little noises, all this for me, doll?”

You whimper and whine but it’s true. He’s fucking you so god damn good, so toe-curlingly thorough that you’re barely holding on. You told yourself that while he was busying himself inside of you, you’d come up with some sort of a plan, some kind of brilliant plot to get loose or get away or just get back at him. Twist and writhe in your binds until they’d have enough wiggle room to maybe save yourself but since he’d penetrated you all thoughts of escape plans or revenge plots had been put on hold. It had been so long since you’d had a real man in your bed that you lost yourself to it a bit.

He was handsome and confident and he knew what he was doing and on top of all that he’d made it his personal mission to see to it that you succumb to this. You’d fought, and fought as hard as you believed you could have and still gotten away with your life, and you were tired of fighting.

He lets go of your hair to get a better purchase on your hips, fingers digging into the soft flesh and yanking you back into him on every thrust, forcing you to take every inch of him as he splits you open from behind. Your back is forced to arch for him like this, pushing your head back into the sheets, lucky for you because you nearly start to wail with the devastating pleasure this new angle provides him, to your chagrin. Though little it matters, you’re beyond the ability to hold back anything from him.

You groan out a low and defeat-addled “Fuck.” into the sheets and he knows he’s got you. He speeds up a bit as you feel a dark, victorious chuckle quake out of him and into you. “Yeah, doll? Just like that, hmm?” He pounds you into the mattress, the frame of it knocking loudly against the wall and you can’t comprehend how he’s still so damn cocky, how he’s even still coherent when in two seconds flat of being buried inside you he’s rendered you stupid.

If he’d meant for you to answer he’d be sorely disappointed, as all you could manage were a range of moans, whimpers and whines. It seemed to suit him though as he continued on without any response, taunting you while laying waste to you from above. “Just think, babygirl. We could’ve been doing this so much sooner if you’d have just given into me from the start.”

“All that resistance, all the fight and for what, doll? Just to end up cockdrunk beneath me in the end just like I knew you’d be.” You feel him lean down over you, dwarfing your hunched frame with his as his mouth hovers just behind the shell of your ear to whisper.

“I told you from the start, I know you. I know everything about you, I know the things you never tell anyone, things you’re too embarrassed to speak of. I know about the things you won’t even admit to yourself. Every filthy, depraved thought you’ve ever had. All your darkest fantasies, all your most shameful desires. And you know what else?”

There’s gooseflesh rising on your skin and you can feel it building, pooling low in your belly. His steady thrusts, the weight of him overtop of you, his silky deviant voice in your ear. He’s driving you insane and closer, ever closer to your impending climax.

He’s got you held raptly on the edge. Clinging to his every word, his every move, his every whim. He nips at the shell of your ear as he continues to fuck you while fucking with your head. “I can tell by the way your breathing is picking up, the way you’ve gone almost totally silent, the way you’re clenching down on me...” He groans in response to your body's immediate reaction, seemingly tightening on command as he speaks so obscenely of you, his voice dropping into a low, strained growl. “…that you’re getting so close for me, aren’t you, doll?”

You feel one of his hands sliding off your hip and snaking down your body into the crook of your thighs, your eyes widen as you feel the pads of his index and middle finger make contact with your swollen clit and start to make slow, tight circles. The contact has your already sensitive nerves sparking and you seize up beneath him as you careen violently towards coming, your eyes squeezing shut as you completely surrender yourself to him. Release the last of your resolve and give into the potent, raw euphoria that threatens to envelope you and swallow you whole. “Fuck, yes!!”

You arch up into him from below, pressing your hips up into his as you race towards the tidal wave of pleasure rushing towards you. “That’s it, babe, just like that. Fucking come for me, come all over my cock.” Your orgasm crashes through you, drowning in its intensity. Your hands tighten into fists, nails digging into the palms of your hands as your toes curl where they rest overtop of his combat boots. He fucks you through it, dragging it out and grinding into the hot, tight clutch of your spasming walls.

You vaguely feel him shifting behind you through the fog of pleasure. Your eyes open when he nestles in just beside you, one arm outstretched, his camera clutched in his grasp. You hardly have a second to register it before it blinds you with its flash. You turn your head to the side only to be met with the dark endless pits that are the eyes of his mask. At some point or another he’d slipped it back on, leaving you the only identifiable person in your impromptu little photo shoot.

“This one’s gonna be the best of the lot. When baby finally broke.” Humiliation swells within you, sobering the high you’d just climbed down from. The horror of what you’ve just committed to falls over you like a dark cloud and you begin to squirm in place beneath him, but still sheathed fully inside you as he is, there’s little you can do.

His arms clamp down on either side of you, restricting your range of motion as he pipes up confidently in your ear. “I never took you for a selfish lover, babe. You got yours, now it’s my turn.” He pulls off of you and you take the opportunity to flip around, it takes you a few tries before you’re facing him again.

The mask stares down at you with its sympathetic gaze, his shirt is rucked up and his pants and boxers are pulled down low, revealing his chiseled abdomen and toned waist. He looks deliciously devilish above you, the mask adding an all new element to the allure that you hate to admit stirs the remnants of your arousal, especially when you recall how hard he’d just made you come. No matter how hot you must admit he looks, you’re done playing nice with him, readying yourself for a fight as he looms overhead.

He drinks in the sight of you. He must have angered you, whether from his words or his actions or a combination of the two, somewhere between your sweet surrender and the flash of the camera you’d flipped the script on him. It seems to matter little as you glare up at him from your place on the bed, your arms still tied uselessly behind your back, your legs pulled up in a semi-fetal position, feet poised and ready to strike and kick and block him at a moments notice, from below he still gets peeks of your glistening pussy, still wet and glossy from your very intense orgasm only moments prior. But he can tell by the way you’re eyeing him up you’re not entirely offput.

He laughs cruelly from above and it shakes your spirits a bit but serves to only ground you in your defiance. You wanted nothing more than to claw his eyes out of his head. “Oh doll stop, I can only get so hard.” And he is, the hardened length of him, coated in a sheen of your arousal is still held in one hand, stroking it idly as he peers down at you from behind the mask. You bare your teeth up at him in anger.

“That’s the way you wanna play it then? Fine by me.” He strikes, grabbing onto your ankles with both hands and pushing them up towards your chest. You push back with all the strength in your legs, calves and thighs straining against his weight and there’s a moment where you do counter him, where you’re able to hold off his advances but it’s only momentary as he doubles his efforts and you’re forcibly rolled back until you’re laid flat on the bed and your knees are smushed into your chest. His mask leers down at you, sad as ever just inches away.

He’d bested you again, and it wasn’t much of a struggle, despite the might of your anger. You feel him at your entrance again, cold from the time you’d spent separated. “NO!” You yelled up at him from below, still intent on fighting a battle long lost.

And then he’s pushing inside you again, driving the air out of your lungs in one fluid thrust and just like that he’s balls deep in you again. Hovering over you, buried deep and still just to stare down at you as you adjust to the girth of him again, just to watch you keen around him as the light of your defiance burning in the flames of your eyes begins to dim. He starts to move, planting an arm along either side of you as he pushes you down into the mattress.

He watches your internal struggles play across the features of your face. Your lips part and your brow furrows as you fight to stave off the treacherous part of you that already wants to turn cheek and submit to him again. With your eyes scrunched shut you only realize he’s shed himself of the mask again when his lips crash back to yours, ruthless in their reclamation of you.

You know from experience this is how he’d pulled you under the first time. So this time you fight it, pulling back your lips from his in order to bite into them. He’s quicker though, pulling away just a split second before you’re able to sink your teeth in. But your actions have consequences and, still supporting himself with one hand, he lifts the other and smacks it down firmly on one of your conveniently exposed flanks hard with a firm, open palm, making you cry out.

“If you wanted it rough doll, all you had to do was ask.”

He does it again and then one more time for good measure all in the same spot, until you’re wriggling underneath him and letting out sweet little sorrowful pleas.

His lips find yours again and you don’t dare lash out a second time, letting him have his way with you. You’d imagine, after making such a show of force to keep you in line he’d be domineering in his control over you, brutish in his kiss. But he’s actually rather gentle, almost playful and coaxing with his teeth and tongue. A stark contrast to the nature of his thrusts, eager and unrelenting in the snap of his hips to yours. He’s once more driven all coherent thought away, reduced to nothing more than a passive pile of dough below him, able to be kneaded and shaped in his image.

He lifts up and pulls your knees apart, peering down into the newly made gap, his eyes glued to the spot where the two of you are joined. Watching himself pull out and then drive back home into your soaking wet heat, mesmerized by it. Your head tips back as his dips down, capturing a perky nipple in between his teeth and suckling it as he feels you clench down around him in response. He knows just how to touch you, months spent watching you do it to yourself to know just what you like and now he’s intent to use this litany of knowledge, his area of expertise, to break you into submission.

Your arms begin to ache where they’re pinned beneath you and you squirm and shift to try and ease some of the pain. He takes notice and trails kisses up from your breast to your neckline where he speaks softly. “If you promise to be good, I’ll untie you.”

Any thought of being good in any sense of the word has refusals gathering on your tongue but the thought of being let loose is rather enticing on its own, your arms and shoulder shriek at you to jump at the chance but you hold your tongue and twist away from him.

“Oh come on now, you can’t stay mad at me forever, doll.” You feel one hand slip down over your navel and press, applying pressure to both the bulge of him nestled deep inside you and the bulk of your wrists tied behind you. You groan low at the mix of discomfort and shooting pleasure that has your already fractured mind splitting at the seams.

Your mouth cracks open but reluctance keeps you quiet. “Say it with me. ‘I swear I’ll be good.’ Just five little words and I’ll make the pain go away.”

“I s-swear.” It’s a start, but not exactly what he’s looking for. He pushes down just ever so harder, rutting into you and making you howl out. “All of it, babygirl.”

“I swear! I swear I’ll be good! Please!” He ceases before wrapping one arm around you and lifts, pulling you up and against him. You’re pushed up into the warmth of his chest, your chin jutting out over the cliff of one broad shoulder, leaving you neck to neck. You can feel the heat of his skin against yours, the scent of his sweat mixing with his cologne fills your sinuses, pungent and stinging and intoxicating all the same, you find yourself breathing it in as he makes quick work of slicing through your binds.

With a final tug your arms are free and you immediately pull them back around towards the front of your body to alleviate the ache but somehow they wind up wrapping around him, almost clinging to him as he lets you down gently to fall back to the bed. You go, reluctantly and before you can come back to your wits to come up with what to do with your hands, he’s grabbed them, one in each of his. He presses them down into the bed as he resumes fucking you.

The pleasure starts to build again but as much as you detest it, there is no stopping it. You can feel him losing himself to it too. He becomes less watchful, less coherent as his head dips down next to yours and he plants kisses like flags, marking over the territory of your skin. He starts talking into your skin. Rumbling out sweet, nonsensical, outlandish declarations between kisses as he draws closer to his release. Promises made into the sacred altar of your flesh as he fucks you both senseless.

You hear scraps and bits, torn between being lost to the euphoria and coherent enough to make out his pleasure drunk ramblings. You hear him promise to never let you go, never to make that same mistake again, never to stray from the path if he’s granted just this one thing. It becomes increasingly clear he’s talking to someone or something, holding a conversation you can’t keep up with as you’re privy to only half of it, and only bits and pieces of that half are discernible in your present state.

You feel him pick up speed with a renewed vigor, thrusting in and out of you at a frenzied pace as you both near your release. You feel one of his hands slip from yours and the next time you’re aware of its presence it’s holding a knife to your neck for the umpteenth time of the night. No matter how many times you find yourself in this position you can’t get used to the shock of the blade, the feel of the edge of it so very close to the soft skin of your neck, that little leap your heart does in your chest.

“My name’s Danny. And I wanna hear you say it when you come, or you won’t live to come down from it, do you understand?” Your eyes squeeze shut as you draw closer to the edge, even despite the threat of death. “Yes.”

“Good girl.” He feels you buck up into him, chasing his thrusts at his praise and doubles down on it. “Such a good fucking girl for me.” Your head tips back away from the blade but also inadvertently exposing your throat to him in the process, a sight that only spurs him on. Like a sacrificial lamb you give yourself to him willingly and it’s almost too perfect for him to bear.

“Fuck me.” He growls, feeling his balls tighten as you start to clamp down around him. “Come with me, doll. I wanna feel you come again.” You do, his command pushes you over the edge and he follows right behind, just as soon as his name falls from your lips in a desperate, pleasure drunk whine. His hips stutter against yours as his climax rocks through him. Your eyes open in time to see his head tip back and his eyes glow a deep, ominous, crimson shade. Your mouth drops open as you feel his seed fill you to the brim, hot and heavy and deep in your belly.

You blink and it’s gone, his eyes are the same brown they’d always been, they fall to yours abruptly and a smirk as wicked as sin tugs at one corner of his lips. You blink again and then once more trying to replicate what you’d seen but you can’t. He bends down, still sheathed inside you but softening by the moment and recaptures your lips in a searing kiss.

One you give into, at this point you figure whatever hell you’d woken up to, whatever ill will you’d stumbled upon must be almost over, best to end it on good terms and leave this horrible nightmare scenario with your life intact. The sooner you get him out of the house the sooner you can get up and get dressed and run to the store. It’s unclear in his haste to have you if he’d stopped long enough to consider protection but you really doubt it.

He doesn’t make it hard to enjoy, the way his lips graze passionately over yours, his tongue slipping along the line of your lower lip teasingly before sucking it in between his lips. You get lost like that, intertwined and still falling from two of the best orgasms you’d had in well over a year.

You come to terms with that as he pulls out and climbs off of you, his knife still held in one hand. “You thirsty?” He asks politely and you find that you are, indeed, very thirsty. You nod at him and he points the tip of the knife in your direction. “Don’t move.” You nod cutely, hoping to stay in his good graces as he turns and heads into the bathroom. You hear the tap and after a moment he returns, glass in hand.

He hands it over as you slide to the edge of the bed, sitting up to accept it. You drink eagerly, it isn’t until the last drops slide down the back of your throat that you register the bitter aftertaste. Your eyes snap to his immediately, untrusting. “Sorry, doll. I couldn’t just leave you as is. It’s not something I wanted to do, especially after all the fun we’ve had, but it’s a necessary step to ensure our future.”

You drop the glass and it shatters on the hardwood, fragments of glass spreading far and wide in all directions and he quickly moves forward to catch you as you begin to fall. You fight him at first, intent on making good on your desire to see his eyeballs ripped from his head in your last breaths but your limbs soon lose their prowess as your body loses its strength.

You try to speak but only slurs come out, the room spins and tilts wildly. He shushes you and slides you into bed and under the covers. “Shhh, it’s ok. It’s just to help you sleep. We’ll figure everything out in the morning. I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.”

As you drift off you feel him pulling the soft, silk mask back over your eyes just as he’d found you and hear the distant, dreamy call of him saying. “Sleep tight, babygirl.”

[caffedrine]

Character vs. Event – The Beast wants to Lure the Rabbit Silvio Ricci vs Azel Radwan - Summary

If you trust me to know what I'm doing, then we have both made a huge mistake. I cannot guarantee accuracy for this summary, or even grammatical correctness.

Please support Cybird and pick up this event when it makes it to the English Server

Also - Silvio is super hot in this one. Don't get distracted by the sexy new princes, Silvio brings it.

This is set without Silvio or Azel being romanced.

What if Emma had gone on to purchase books in Benitoite on Akatsuki’s behalf?

After completing Akatsuki’s errand, Emma briefly stopped by the main port before heading back to the inn. The port seemed unusually busy, and Emma overhears some of the crowd talk about the living god, also mentioning that Silvio had personally come to welcome him.

Emma is also curious by the talk of the living god, and wonders if this means Silvio is just ahead.

She had briefly met Silvio a short while ago when she had played the role of ‘Belle’ in Rhodolite. Silvio, First Prince of Benitoite, had tormented her many times, and possibly because he was suspicious of her secret role, had made her his caretaker. Thankfully Rio had protected her, but unfortunately, he was not around to shield her now.

It would have been smart for Emma to turn away and go to the inn, but she was curious about how her former acquaintance was doing. Curiosity drew her into the crowd, and with some luck, she was in a prime position to see Silvio.

Benitoite knights had formed an empty zone, in which Silvio stood looking at a large ship bearing the emblem of Tanzanite. Following his gaze, Emma saw a single figure move down the ship’s gangway.

At first glance, he was an otherworldly man with features she has never seen before. His hair was silver, and his eyes were a mysterious color that she couldn’t quite place but was striking even from a distance.

Around her, the crowd confirms that this new person is the living god, and Emma recalls hearing that there was a real god in human form in Tanzanite. From the looks of him, she could believe it.

As he came closer to them, Emma could see that the Living God’s expression was full of compassion and love that surrounded everyone, starkly contrasted to Silvio’s tyrannical expression.

(something wicked this way comes)

With a politeness that took Emma by surprise, Silvio welcomed Azel, the Living God, to Benitoite. Azel kindly thanked Silvio for his gracious hospitality and prayed that all the people of Benitoite would be blessed.

Emma is surprised, she didn’t think Silvio was capable of being so polite and gracious. At least, he had never appeared that way in front of the Princes of Rhodolite. The Living God must be something if he could draw this personality out of Silvio.  It gives her goosebumps.

Just as Azel begins to accompany Silvio to a nearby carriage, a man behind Emma shouts that Azel is a fraud and has bankrupted him. He demands his money back and starts lashing out, pushing hard at the crowd and Emma.

Benitoite knights rush over to the man, and the combined commotion of the rampaging man, and the knights trying to restrain him send Emma landing on the ground hard. Just as she realizes that she’s technically in the open space, Silvio recognizes her.

Silvio rushes towards her, demanding to know what the hell she’s doing here. He swears at her, and Emma is almost relieved to see the normal Silvio. Emma begins to apologize, assuming he’s upset because of how close she is, but Silvio shushes her, examining her leg, which she only begins to notice is badly scraped up and bleeding through her skirt.

Before Emma can react, Silvio bends down and scoops her up into his arms. Emma demands to know what he’s doing, but Silvio shushes her, threatening to toss her into the sea if she doesn’t calm down. Emma ignores the threat and tells him that she’s not so injured that she can't walk. She points out that he’ll attract undue rumors if they see him right now.

Emma flails more, but Silvio shrugs off her movements. He tells her that he isn’t going to follow any orders from her, and besides, no one cares about them right now. Emma stops and looks at the crowd, and sees that indeed, everyone is focused on Azel.

Azel is telling the crowd that if anyone has a grievance to air with him, to please follow the formal procedures to request a meeting. He promises that as long as time permits, he will listen to all the people of Benitoite. But he would hate for his beloved people to be injured further by this outburst, and to be patient with him.

Like a miracle, the crowd quieted down like the receding of the tide. Even Emma feels like her heart quiet down, and she wonders if this is a miracle from god. Silvio tells Emma that they’ll take this opportunity to leave quickly. Emma asks where he’s taking her, and Silvio responds that he’s sure as hell not going to stand here holding her forever, so they’ll just go back to the castle.

Emma tells Silvio to think things through and put her down. Silvio tells her to stop ruining his mood and takes a threatening step towards the sea. Emma doesn’t say anything, and Silvio looks satisfied.

In the carriage, Emma tells Silvio that she’s grateful for his kindness, but she absolutely hates this. Silvio tells her that she only has herself to blame, making him get violent in front of a state guest. Azel tells Silvio that he absolutely doesn’t mind, in fact, this sounds like a profitable story.

Once he pushed her into the carriage, Silvio had one of his servants retrieve a first aid kit and hand it to him. When she saw Silvio’s wicked grin, Emma immediately understood what was going to happen next and grabbed the hem of her skirt to hold it down. Just as she expected, Silvio forcefully tried to pull up her skirt.

All in front of the Living God, sitting across from them.

The fight between Emma and Silvio was so childish, she wanted to cry. She tell Silvio that she can take care of this herself, but Silvio insists that he’s a better medic than she is, and watching a amateur fumble about will only irritate him.

Emma tells him that’s fine, she’ll just get off his carriage, go home, and take care of it herself. Silvio rejects this idea.

Emma demands to know why, and Silvio snaps back that she’s very annoying, and if she resists any further, he’ll tear off her skirt. Emma wails that Silvio is truly the worst. She wonders if this is revenge for their time together in Rhodolite where she had been avoiding being his hostess.

Finally Azel speaks up, telling them to give it up. Silvio appreciates the backup, but Emma points out that he might have been talking to Silvio.

Azel notes that he is always troubled by the worries of stupid people. But, for her, he will lend a special hand.

Emma was surprised at the words, but Azel’s serene, benevolent expression never wavered. In the shaking carriage, Azel stands and moves to sit on Emma’s other side, trapping her between him and Silvio.

Silvio complains that with all three of them on the same seat, the carriage’s balance will be off. Azel tells Silvio in that case to go ahead and move to the empty bench.

Smiling sweetly at Emma, Azel asks her name, and introduces himself as Silvio’s personal fortuneteller, to Silvio’s displeasure. He asks since when were they that close, and Azel asks if Silvio is cheating on him with other fortunetellers. He laments that Silvio is so cruel even though Azel tries so hard for him.

Silvio protests, for one, he doesn’t even believe in fortunetelling. Azel smiles and exclaims that he is the only fortuneteller in the world that Silvio trusts. Silvio sighs in defeat.

Taking advantage of their distraction, Azel jerks the hem of Emma’s skirt up, exposing her wound.

Mockingly pitying her, Azel takes the medicine from Silvio, and begins to treat Emma as a bad feeling wells up in her. Unfortunately, she is trapped between Silvio and Azel and has no choice but to accept having her wound treated.

Azel treats her wound without the slightest show of compassion or mercy. It hurts badly enough that Emma yowls in pain, and clings to Silvio, who recoils and demands that she stop touching him. Through her tears, Emma apologizes, but cannot bring herself to let go of Silvio.

Azel is as efficient as a battle nurse and bandages her wound with gauze. By the time he finishes, the pain recedes. In a voice very different than the serenely benevolent one he’s used up to now, Azel mocks her for crying over being treated.

Then, with a very tender and compassionate gesture, Azel wipes the tears away from Emma’s eyes, and she wonders if the painful treatment was a dream. Emma thanks Azel, and he assures her that as Silvio’s precious friend, she is his sucker- wait, he meant friend, too.

Silvio breaks the moment by demanding Emma get off of him. As Emma scoots away, Silvio flings himself to the corner of the bench, but not before she notices how red his face is. When she brings it up, Silvio threatens to throw her out of the carriage, and Emma wonders if he’s embarrassed.

No, he’s a tyrant, it must be something else.

Azel takes this moment to bring up the cost of the treatment. He leans close to her ear and whispers a number so large that Emma feels herself grow faint. A light seems to shine from behind Azel as he explains that god has just used his own hands to treat her, so if anything, this is a discount.

Emma asks Silvio to save her, but he replies that this is her own fault for refusing to let him treat her. He goes on to explain that as gods go, Azel is pretty evil.

Emma realizes that Azel just scammed her.

Azel assures Emma that he’ll create a loan document so that she can pay her debt back in installments. Emma asks if there's anything other than money that can pay him back, and Azel considers this before agreeing. He’ll forgive the debt if Emma agrees to become his exclusive maid (slave) during his stay. Emma is confused, he said the word ‘maid’ but she’s pretty sure he meant ‘slave’.

Silvio cuts in, he has already hired the most skilled maid in Benitoite to serve Azel. There’s no need for Azel to put up with Emma’s amateurish attempts.

Azel disagrees, he’s grown fond of Emma. She’s not intimidated by princes or gods, so he’s certain he’ll feel very comfortable with her. Then again, if Silvio has that strong of an opinion, he doesn’t mind Silvio paying Emma’s debt on her behalf.

However, he knows Silvio is the type of person who doesn’t waste money. If Silvio is going to help this woman personally, does it mean that he’s in love with her?

Silvio immediately denies this, and Azel shrugs. It’s too bad, it sounds like Emma is going to be his new maid (slave) after all.

Emma agrees to serve Azel and have him waive the costs to treat her. Mentally she apologizes to Akatsuki, it looks like it will be a while before she is able to return to Rhodolite.

At the Benitoite Castle, Azel thanks Silvio for his hospitality, he always loves the food served to him. Silvio assures him that serving him is absolutely no trouble, and to eat as much as he likes.

Emma, now wearing a maid uniform, is their waiter and has been serving them since they first set foot in the castle. Thanks to her time as Belle, she was actually doing quite well. However, she is concerned that there are no other servants besides her, as everyone else has been dismissed. She is kept very busy, working by herself.

Azel and Silvio begin to talk seriously. Azel talks about an easy mark - er, merchant, who is still active. Silvio agrees, they’re using Azel’s name to sell expensive products. Unfortunately, while immoral, this isn’t illegal in Benitoite, and they need to get them on something else. He asks if Azel needs his help, but Azel refuses. Instead, he would like Silvio to do that favor he asked for.

Emma more or less understands the problem. She wonders if the whole point of Azel’s trip is to stop the sale of fake holy artifacts and imagines that there will be a lot of trouble ahead. She idly refills Silvio’s rose wine as Azel turns to her and explains that she’ll be helping him.  Emma starts and nearly empties the wine pitcher on Silvio. She asks if she misheard, but nope, Azel is going to use her for his job tomorrow.

Silvio immediately grabs her hand and cuts in. He was actually planning on having Emma help him tomorrow. Besides, he saw her first, Azel should back down.

Azel asks how much he should sell Emma to Silvio for. He reminds them that he’s an evil god. Silvio clicks his tongue, and Azel turns to Emma. He doesn’t mind if Emma chooses between them.

Silvo End

Emma is paralyzed by the sudden choice. She decides that in the end, she has to pay back her debt to Azel, so she slowly turns to him.

Behind her, Silvio clicks his tongue and tells Azel he understands, all he has to do is buy her. Azel smiles beautifully, remarking that it’s about time that Silvio’s made up his mind, no, Lord Gold*, that is. Silvio grumbles for Azel to stop calling him that.

Magnanimously, Azel agrees to stop, after all, he is very loyal to Silvio. He then praises Silvio for saving his dear friend. And to not ruin the moment, Azel will give him the bill later. This is not included in the compensation they’ve already arranged. Silvio grumbles about how stubborn Azel is.

Silvio then smiles arrogantly at Emma, and she wishes that she had gone with Azel instead. She has moved from the frying pan into the fire.

Silvio tells Emma that just as Azel once said, he doesn’t waste his money. He intends for her to work off her debt completely, and he plans on enjoying this.

The next morning, Emma is summoned to Silvio’s bedroom, and with a wicked grin he explains that today she is his personal maid. He warns her not to run her mouth with him. Emma would love to complain, but since Silvio holds a sizeable debt over her head, she cannot oppose him. Very politely, Emma agrees and tells Silvio to go ahead and give her any orders he wants. She goes full maid mode and calls him ‘master’.

This wipes the smirk off of Silvio’s face and he complains about it being weird when she’s like this. Emma reminds him that he has just told her to be his maid, so what does he want her to do? And why does he look so frustrated when she’s obedient?

Silvio has an errand for Emma to run. He hands her a list of book titles. Azel has requested these particular books from Silvio, but they’re rare enough that no single bookstore has everything. Silvio needs someone to go to the various bookstores in Benitoite and cobble the list together.

Emma is somewhat surprised; this is pretty much her normal job. She was worried that Silvio would give her a horrible onerous task, but this lines up with her abilities perfectly. She assures Silvio that she will be back by nightfall, accepting the list. She will pay off the debt with time to spare.

So why is Silvio accompanying her on this errand? When she asks, Silvio tells her that it’s none of her business. Emma laughs and teases him, maybe he’s coming with her because he cant bear to part with her so quickly?

Silvio reaches out and grabs her head, crushing it in a painful grip. He tells her to focus less on him and more on her task.

Emma asks if this means that Silvio doesn’t want to leave her alone. Silvio is not amused by this and begins to shake her head, blurring her vision. She complains that her eyes are shaking, and Silvio warns her to stop saying weird things.

Fine, fine, Emma will let it be. She’ll pretend there’s nothing weird or unusual about Silvio following her on her errand. That he assigned her.

The first bookstore she stops by was one she had purchased books from Akatsuki the previous day. The bookstore owner recognizes her, and asks if the rumor is true, is she now dating Silvio? To Emma’s horror, the owner explains that the rumors were that when the Living God arrived in Benitoite, Silvio and Emma had an intimate moment. Publicly. And now, the rumors say that Silvio has both the Living God and his mistress as guests at the Benitoite Palace.

Anyway, here is the book Emma requested. Please, give the bookstore owner’s regards to Prince Silvio.

Immediately upon exiting the bookstore, Emma tells Silvio that they need to break up.

Silvio looks stunned as he accepts the book from Emma. He recovers enough to remind Emma that they can’t break up, they’re not dating in the first place.

Yeah, well, there are rumors going around. Rumors . . . from Silvio’s very nonchalant reaction that he already knew about.

Yep, according to public opinion, Emma is Silvio’s woman. At least in Benitoite.

Okay, then they should break up publicly.

Silvio refuses to take orders from his newest maid. Instead, they should go to the next store.

As they walk, Emma is aghast at how fast these rumors are spreading. Oh, she just knew something bad would come from Silvio picking her up at the port. And now, she has become hyper-aware of all the people they pass by, feeling their gazes slide over her. Oh, what would happen if the rumors of her being Silvio’s woman spread past the Benitoite capital?

As if reading her mind, Silvio wonders what would happen if that dog hears the rumors too. He slips an arm around Emma’s waist and bends down to whisper in Emma’s ear. It occurs to her that, from the right angle, this looks like a intimate moment.

Silvio is doing this on purpose.

The longer they stay together, the faster the rumors will spread. Now Emma has just one last resort. She points and shouts that Azel is right there across the street.

This breaks Silvio’s attention, Azel should be in a different part of the city all together, dealing with . . . And Emma is gone, sprinting off down an alley. She thinks she heard Silvio scramble after her, but she continues full speed ahead, and practically dives into the first store around a corner. Gasping for breath, she waits, but it seems like she has shaken off Silvio.

After a moment, Emma decides to look around the store. It’s a general store, full of cute accessories that make her think of Benitoite. Something on the shelf catches her attention.

After Emma makes her purchase, she leaves the store, confident in her escape skills and planning on finishing her errand. She gets as far as the main street before a voice calls out to her. Before she can even look, she is dragged into a different alley and pushed roughly against the wall.

It’s Silvio.

And he is pissed.

Maybe Emma would have been better off if just a regular kidnapper had found her instead.

Silvio hopes that Emma is prepared to face the consequences of her actions. Emma is, but she doesn’t regret trying to stop the spread of the rumors. If it gets out that she is Silvio’s mistress, her marriage prospects will plummet.

Silvio is aghast, is that what she cares about? Hasn’t it got through her head why he’s spent his entire day with her yet?

Realizing what he just said, Silvio shuts his mouth, then swears, he didn’t mean that last bit to slip.

In case Emma hasn’t realized it, Silvio is a prince. And, if that’s not enough, he’s rich. Like, really rich. The rumors have already spread, and right now, she’s the most kidnappable person on the continent.

Oh. Well, maybe if Silvio had said that from the start, Emma would have been more cooperative. But, from his expression right now, Silvio looks embarrassed. It’s not something she is used to from this arrogant tyrant.

Emma apologizes, she didn’t realize he was worried about her. Silvio quickly denies this, he was never worried. He just would be upset if something happened. Totally different emotion.

Silvio is still a tyrant, which Emma hates, but still . . . Emma thanks him.

She pulls her recent purchase out of her pocket – a trinket with a ship motif. The little ship looks like it’s about to have a grand adventure, and looking at it, all she can think of is Silvio’s face.

Emma explains that she realized that back when she got injured Silvio hadn’t hesitated before running to tend to her. In the end, he had even paid Azel for treating her. But, in retrospect, she had never thanked him, so she wanted to give him this as a token of her thanks. Also, she might have been holding on to it to soothe Silvio’s ire when he eventually caught up to her after she escaped him.

But it wasn’t a lie that she wanted to thank him.

Silvio stares at the tiny ship resting in the palm of his hand, frozen. His ocean-blue eyes are wide and he seems very surprised. As the silence continues, Emma grows embarrassed. Maybe he dislikes the trinket – it’s nothing to a millionaire like Silvio. She tells Silvio that if he doesn’t like it, she’ll just take it back.

Silvio immediately snatches the trinket away, holding it above her head. He never said that he didn’t want it. He smiles as Emma grasps at air.

It is a very silly trinket, but Silvio will accept it as his due. Emma thinks he looks surprisingly happy, and her heart skips a beat at a smile she never saw back in Rhodolite.

No, that’s stupid. What’s the point of getting excited about seeing one nice smile on a tyrant’s face? She’s being far too lenient with him.

After this little adventure, Silvio actually listened to Emma’s request, and although he still followed her, he managed to do so without being seen. She was able to finish purchasing the last of the books on the list by the time the sun began setting over the sea.

Emma returns with Silvio to the castle, then cheerfully announces that her job is over. Since she’s paid off her debt, she’ll go ahead and return to the inn she’s staying at.

Emma is somewhat sad; this is probably the last time she will ever interact with Silvio. As a bookstore clerk, she cannot easily approach him, as they practically live in different worlds. She wishes him well, and turns to leave.

Silvio abruptly grabs her, wrapping his arms around her from behind.

Did Emma seriously think she could just leave like that?

Silvio Epilogue

Emma met Silvio when the King of Rhodolite died and she had been nominated as Belle to choose his replacement. Silvio had come up with many tricks to try to get her to reveal her identity, leading them to but heads more often than not. If she had to describe their relationship, Emma would say that it was not a good one.

So how exactly did she end up like this?

His arms are wrapped around her like a backward hug, and he’s asking why she thinks she can just leave like that. Emma points out that she completed his errand, and her job is over.

Silvio half-laughs, does Emma really think that all she needed to do was run a single errand to pay him back? As his exclusive maid, she hasn’t even served him dinner yet.

Silvio has a lot of maids in the castle, right? Maid who would be thrilled to serve him any meal he would like, right? Why does he want Emma? Silvio asks if this is how Emma pays back her debts, by mouthing off to the people to whom she owes money.

Silvio doesn’t need Emma to serve him dinner. Emma figures that this is just revenge for everything that happened between them in Rhodolite.

Emma thought she would be free after she served him dinner, but then Silvio’s official duties as the Prince of Benitoite began. He had her sorting documents, organizing files, and assisting with enough paperwork to make her dizzy.

By the time most of the paperwork had been conquered, Azel had returned to the castle. While Silvio listened to Azel’s report, Emma served tea, sweets, and a shocking amount of gold bullion to Azel. Honestly, there was enough gold to last a person an entire lifetime.

Silvio is pleased with Azel’s report, the business was destroyed and was untraceable back to Silvio. Azel is pleased that Silvio is pleased. If Silvio has any other problems, merely contact him and Azel will come running. And, of course, that offer is extended to Silvio’s woman.

Azel is disappointed that neither Silvio nor Emma want a divination.

After the meeting, Emma accompanies Silvio back to his room, where she can hear the sound of the ocean running over the sand. He pours a drink for both of them and tells Emma to drink up. Emma asks if he normally treats his maids to alcohol, and Silvio tells her that she is fired as a maid. She’s far too cocky for the profession.

Emma has no problem with this, it was a lot of hard work.

Silvio urges Emma to drink up, he doesn’t feel like drinking alone today.

The liquor is a light sea-blue and makes her think of Silvio. Since Silvio is personally pouring her drink, she decides to accept and try it.

Silvio explains that it’s a traditional Benitoite liquor, very rare, so Emma might not get a chance to try it again. Tasting it, Emma remarks that it makes her think of the sea, a fitting beverage for Benitoite. It was very tasty and easy to drink, so Emma would have to be careful.

Silvio knocks back a shot of the liquor and pours himself another glass. Emma wonders if she should be worried.

Silvio tells Emma that she should stay at the castle tonight. Emma isn’t certain that it’s allowed, with her being a commoner and all, but Silvio insists that she is his guest. Silvio corrects her, she’s not a guest, after all, he did buy her. Emma asks what the difference is between a guest and someone in debt to him, and Silvio muses it depends on his mood at the moment.

How strange. All while they spent time together in Rhodolite, Silvio had been unpleasant and tyrannical. But right now, it could be said that they were getting along. Now that she isn’t terrified of him discovering her true role, she can see different sides of him. Maybe this playful kindness had been there back when they first met, and Emma had been too wary to notice it. For one, she never would have guessed that he would immediately come to her aid if she was injured.

These thoughts stir confusing feelings inside her, so Emma washes it down with another drink.

When Emma laughs softly and admits to Silvio that she never would have imagined that she would be in his room this late drinking with him. Maybe she had been right when they started the book-buying errand that morning, and Silvio liked being around her. Silvio disagrees and tells her not to get so cocky.

With a shrug, Emma decides that she’s been here long enough, it’s time for her to return to her room at the inn.

But as soon as she sets her empty glass on the table, Silvio grabs her wrist.

Silvio reminds her that they already talked about this, he doesn’t want to see her get kidnapped. Emma asks if that’s the only reason he’s acting like this.

Silvio’s brows furrow, and there’s an awkward silence between them.

Huh, Emma would have thought that Silvio would swear at her and deny it or something. She wonders what Silvio is thinking about during this long silence and decides to back down. She assures Silvio that she does not doubt that he only wants her to stay out of concern for her safety. But Silvio’s grim expression doesn’t go away.

Trying to lighten the mood, Emma reaches out to poke Silvio where his brows are furrowed, but he suddenly leaps backward as if she burned him. From across the room, Silvio shouts at her to not touch him without permission.

Emma blinks owlishly at him, then recalls that time when Azel was treating her wound in the carriage how he had panicked when she clung to him. She asks if Silvio cant bear to be touched, but he denies this, looking everywhere other than her eyes.

This is a weakness.

Emma can’t help but grin wickedly. Silvio grows more upset and yells that she is getting carried away without being aware of her place. Emma shrugs, she’s probably drunk so what she says and does doesn’t count.

Silvio’s frown curls into a grin.

It doesn’t count?

Uh-oh.

With a wicked expression, Silvio stalks towards her, placing his glass on the table. Feeling wary, Emma steps backward, only to topple down on top of his bed.

Silvio pushes her down, hovering over her and caging her with his arms and legs. His face is close enough for the tips of their noses to touch, and Emma and Silvio breathe the same air. When Emma tries to move away, Silvio grabs her hand tightly. Emma can’t see anything other than Silvio, cant hear anything other than their heartbeats. Their fingers are tangled together, both of their bodies hot enough for sweat to bead along Emma’s brow.

Silvio laughs, Emma really is drunk.

Emma would like to respond to it, but every time Silvio exhales, his breath scatters her thoughts.

Silvio sighs, Emma can’t leave now, not with that expression. He roughs up her hair, tangling it with his fingers. Emma asks what he means, and Silvio tells her to stop talking, or else he’ll take a page out of Azel’s book and increase her debt to him.

Once he has tangled Emma’s hair to the point that it looks more like a bird’s nest than a hairstyle, Silvio gets off of Emma, letting her up. Emma sits up and begins righting her hair, and Silvio starts helping.

Emma tells Silvio she really should leave now.

At the very least, she can’t stay here. Her heart is doing backflips, and she cannot describe the feelings washing through her. Standing up, Emma reaches Silvio’s bedroom door, but he calls out to her, stopping her.

Silvio tells Emma that the next time she comes to Benitoite, she really should stop by the castle and say ‘hello’. Besides, he owns her loan, she can always come by and work it off.

What a tyrant.

Emma agrees that she doesn’t want to be in debt to him until she dies, so she will stop by the castle. Unless she forgets.

Silvio grumbles for her not to forget him.

Well, the debt, at least.

Silvio pours himself another drink, and Emma begins to leave for real, only for something to catch her eye. That trinket she had bought for Silvio on a whim sparkles on his desk in a prominent position.

She has no idea what her feelings for Silvio are.

Azel End

The day starts with Emma chasing after the Living God. She calls out for him to please slow down, but Azel refuses to stop his powerwalk.

Even though Azel is not running, his legs are long enough that his stride propels him farther than Emma. Even though they had left at the same time, Emma has to rush after him. Very kindly, Azel sympathizes with having stubby legs and warns Emma that if she can’t keep up with him, he’ll just have to leave her behind.

Eventually, Azel makes his way through a back alley, but there is no sign of anyone else there. Just ahead of her, Azel pulls to a stop, and Emma can make out two men guarding a door. Azel apologizes for intruding, and as both the guards start at the sight of the Living God, he opens the door and walks in.

Catching up, Emma breathlessly repeats Azel’s platitude and runs in after him.

There are many people inside, and they are all reacting in surprise to Azel’s sudden entrance. Some are shouting with joy, and others are crying as if they are experiencing a divine visitation. A very different reaction than the one Azel received at the port. Emma feels like she is watching drowning men clutch at straws.

Azel didn’t seem to even notice the crowd. Instead, without pause, he marches towards the stage.

Emma sees a large vase in the middle. She imagines that this is a fake holy item being auctioned under Azel’s name.

Standing on the stage, Azel calls for the crowd to quiet down. He is very sad, he has heard that there is the sale of holy items, and he sees that the rumors are true. Do they not understand that God’s protection isn’t bought with money?

Did Azel hit his head while outside of Emma’s eyesight? She stares at him in disbelief as he continues. Azel assures the people that God doesn’t need money, otherwise those without money would not receive any protection. God loves all and protects all despite their wealth or status.

Azel’s face and voice is full of compassion and love, if this was the first time Emma interacted with him, she would even believe him. Surprisingly, even after interacting with him, Emma can feel Azel’s voice penetrate her heart and is filled with a holy sensation. Like her, everyone around seems to be holding their breath, waiting for Azel’s next words.

Well, not everyone. The merchants selling the fake divine artifacts try to flee. This snaps the crowd out of their trance and as one they turn against the merchants and begin to form a mob, demanding their money back.

The merchants run out the back way, and the crowd rushes after them, leaving behind an empty auction area of only Emma and Azel. She asks if Azel plans on chasing after the merchants as well, but Azel refuses. He’s not stupid enough to leave behind all this money.

(Azel isn't upset that people are scamming others, he's upset that he's not getting a cut)

Emma asks what meant a few minutes earlier when he was saying that God doesn’t need money.

Well, that was then, and this is now.

Azel beckons Emma forward, her job starts now. It’s easy enough, even an idiot like her can do it. Leaping down from the stage, Azel starts pushing Emma ahead of him into a side door she missed earlier. Emma recognizes one of the merchants in the room and asks how Azel knew that he was there. Azel reminds her that he is a God and tells his slave maid to look sharp. Emma snaps back to her senses and locks the door behind them.

Emma was glared at by the merchant, but Azel moves to stand between them, blocking their line of sight. Azel greets the scammer and drapes a companionable arm around his shoulders and forces him to sit at a nearby table. He and Azel should have a fun chat together.

The scamming merchant’s face is pale.

Azel knows this person. He knows his name, his home address, his workplace, where his family lives, and so on. It seems this merchant has several gambling debts and is having trouble making ends meet. But none of this is Azel’s concern, right? He only care that he was using his name in selling these goods. The compensation should be about . . .

Emma cant hear what Azel says next, but the merchant’s face tightens like he bit into something sour. Emma feels sympathetic with the merchant, but she can only pity him so much, as he was obviously running a terrible business.

Azel is continuing, loud enough for Emma to overhear. Since the merchant has extorted a lot of money out of people using these false holy relics, and he had a recent run of luck at the gambling hall, this is an easy price to pay.

The merchant asks why Azel would ask for that much, and Azel replies that he is the Living God. And, with his divine foresight, he has prepared a loan document for the merchant. He’s a kind god, so he’ll only punish him monetarily. He smiles at the man, as sweet as if a halo was over his head.

Suddenly the merchant hurls himself off the chair, kicking it away and barreling towards Emma, who is directly in front of the door. Azel calls out to Emma that this is her time to shine.

What? Whaaat? This is impossible!

But, if Emma lets this merchant get away, she will never be released from her debt. Thinkign quickly, she grabs a nearby broom and braces herself to whack him.

And then she sees the knife in the merchant’s hand.

Oh. She’s probably going to die.

Noooo! She can’t give up now! Not after all those self-defense classes they made her take while she was Belle! Emma kills the fear in her heart, raising the broom, ready for a broom to knife fight with the merchant.

Suddenly a chair flies from behind the merchant, hitting him hard enough to knock him to the ground. Azel steps on the merchant’s head, grinding his face into the floor, asking if he’s an idiot as well as an incompetent.

Emma wonders if that last bit was directed towards her and not the merchant. At least, Azel is looking at the merchant instead of her.

The benevolent façade is gone, and the change is so complete Azel looks almost like a completely different person.

Azel asks if the merchant thought that he truly could run away from Azel. Does he think that God is that compassionate? That is a ridiculous thought, no God could be that convenient to humanity. The merchant has just made Azel his enemy, he should know the weight of that decision.

Azel is disgusted that scum like this merchant is using God’s name to exploit others. He’s now changed his mind, the loan document is not enough for the merchant to pay for his sins. Adding the crime of pointing a knife at what belongs to Azel, all the merchant’s wordly possessions will be confiscated to pay for the disrespect.

Azel then begins to dig through the merchant’s pockets, eventually pulling out a rusty key and tossing it to Emma. Azel glares at the merchant lying on the ground one last time before standing up, using the merchant as a stepstool.

They find the safe, full of an eye-watering amount of money. Emma thought Azel would keep all of the wealth for himself, but instead he instructs her to call for the knights; they’re going to return the money to the victims of this merchant’s fraud.

That said, Emma did notice Azel taking some for himself.

This was all legal, as Emma would eventually find out. The document Azel made the merchant sign proclaimed that he transferred all his wealth to Azel. Everyone, including the responding knights, bowed down in gratitude to Azel.

Everyone except Emma.

When they are finally alone in the carriage, Emma asks Azel, by chance, if he’s actually really evil. Azel laughs and admits that he was wondering what she would say. Then his smile disappears, and he warns Emma not to say anything else. She has a flash of Azel stomping on the merchant’s head and she closes her eyes, cringing as if she expects Azel to get violent.

After nothing happens, Emma opens her eyes, only to see Azel looking at her with a shocked expression. It's as if her reaction was worse than an insult.

Azel tells Emma that she should learn how to run away. Think of this as a divine prophecy from god, she is going to die if she continues to stick her nose into unnecessary things. Emma asks him not to say such ominous things, and Azel tells her he would love to, but anything else would go over her stupid head.

Azel asks what she was thinking back in the room, he didn’t bring her with him to fight. Emma explains that she was thinking about her debt. Azel is exasperated, he is certain he told her that he wanted her as a distraction. Ugh, maybe it’s on him, and he said it wrong. Next time, he’ll have to dumb his instructions down for her. A lot.

Emma apologizes for causing him to worry, but Azel assures her that he was never worried about her. Instead, he was worried about Silvio, what would happen if he inadvertently offended his beloved prince by getting his favorite killed.

Azel sighs and sulkily kicks Emma’s seat. He’s going to have to add the cost of saving her to the loan document. Emma is aghast, didn’t he just receive a lot of money?

Oh Emma, no matter how much money you have, you never have enough.

Yep, Azel is definitely an evil god.

How can she say such things? And to think she’s special, she has been personally chosen by god to serve him. If anything, she should be bowing down in gratitude.

On another note, Emma’s debt is too high now to just be Azel’s maid for the day. Congratulations, she’s now his newest slave.

Emma refuses.

Azel asks if Emma plans on selling her organs then.

Emma begs god to have mercy on her. Azel smiles benevolently, God has no mercy for humans. Congratulating Emma on her newly extended loan, Azel stands and traps her between him and the carriage seat.

It occurs to Emma that it would be better if she jumped out the window of the carriage.

Gently placing his fingers against her cheek, Azel tells Emma that he intends to have her repay the loan with her body.

Azel Epilogue

Emma covers herself and glares up at Azel. He asks how conceited can she be, but Emma just reminds him that he said to pay  him back using her body.

He did. And he intends to use all of her.

There is a lot of manual labor that needs to be done, after all.

What did she think he meant? Azel laughs, he’ll just add another bit to her debt for this insult.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that Emma truly understood ‘use all of her’. She was so tired, all she wanted to do was fall face-first into bed and sleep. Instead, she limites herself to sitting down and resting her face on a nearby table.

Azel had spent the entire day performing divinations for the people of Benitoite. Since he was a god, and a foreign god at that, people outside of Tanaznite rarely had an opportunity to receive his divine guidance, making the day very busy.

Honestly, Azel would rather not do this, but he wants to keep on Silvio’s good side. As the richest man in the world, Silvio is not only Azel’s number one benefactor, he is also Azel’s friend. And, to maintain that relationship, Azel will visit and bestow God’s blessing on the citizens of Benitoite.

Unfortunately, he can only run a divination for one person at a time, he needs someone to keep everyone waiting organized. Emma will be paying back her debt by lining up supplicants, guiding them to Azel, handling complaints, and more.

All the chores that need to be done outside of divination will be handled by Emma.

Emma asks if he really intends for her to handle this by herself, and Azel does. After all, she is his only slave here in Benitoite. Of course, if she wants him to bring on another worker, they can pull out the loan document and figure out how much debt to add.

Fine. Emma will do her best, by herself.

Not only did Emma have to cater to the needs of the supplicants, but she was also in charge of Azel’s personal requests, such as bringing him food and drinks.

She can’t help but wonder about all the people waiting (impatiently) in line for hours for a chance to consult with the evil god. Maybe Azel’s divinations were really worth all the trouble.

Emma is not present for Azel’s divinations and has no idea what happens once she leads people to him. All she is aware of is how anxious the people waiting in line are, and how full of hope they are when they leave him.

At the end of the day, with her head face down on the table, Emma wonders what a divination is like.

Suddenly a breath blows into her ear, sending a shock through her. She looks up to see Azel’s face right there.

He thanks her for all of her hard work and dismisses her for the day. Emma asks after him, will he also return to his guest room?

Azel likes this room, it has a perfect view of the sunset. She watches as he leans against the window, staring out across the sea. Intrigued by the scenery God is watching, Emma joins him. She remarks that the sunset is beautiful, this room has a clear view of the horizon. Azel asks if she heard him dismiss her, but Emma insists that she likes watching the sunset.

Well, that’s fine. It’s not unpleasant watching the sunset with her.

That’s interesting, Emma thought Azel disliked her. Azel disagrees though he doesn’t like the fact that she is terrible at regulating her emotions. But think, why would he have someone he hates spend the entire day serving him? He’s not the local masochist to put up with that.

That said, Emma is staying here late. Does she want Azel to pay for her lodgings at the castle too?

Emma cuts in, she’s staying because she has a question for him. She noticed that Azel didn’t take any money for his divinations, even though he keeps on taking as much as he can from her.

Azel reminds Emma what he said earlier, God’s protection is equal. Both rich and poor have the right to seek salvation.

Well, that is the official reason, but the truth is that Azel uses divination to gather useful information. For example, he found out that Emma was the latest Belle of Rhodolite. Depending on the time and place, he could use that to extort money from her.

When Azel tells people’s fortune, people like to talk about useless things with him. And, despite his background, he can gather a lot of useful tidbits.

Azel then asks if Emma would like him to divine her fortune. He urges her to accept, for all they know, this might be the last time divine inspiration strikes him, and he might never be able to tell a fortune again.

Emma can’t believe that Azel is making this offer out of the kindness of his heart, but in the end, she is very curious. She agrees.

Azel asks what she has a question about, and Emma asks if any question is acceptable. Azel assures her that it is, after all, he is the Living God.

Okay, Emma would like to know about her future love life. It’s been on her mind to fall in love and settle down soon, and she wonders how that will go.

As soon as she asks, Azel’s benevolent smile twists into a scowl. He wonders why everyone wants to learn about their love lives, it’s really revolting to him.

He tells Emma that if she’s that concerned, go chase after Silvio. To her shock, he explains that Silvio definitely likes her, so that’s her best bet. He gives her a pitying look and says that he has lost his motivation to perform a divination for her.

Emma is upset, she was looking forward to seeing what a divination performed by the Living God would look like.

Okay, fine, if she doesn’t go after Silvio, maybe she’ll meet someone else. Whom? He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care.

Emma argues that Azel’s prediction is far too vague, and Azel tells her that’s the beauty of fortunetelling. He then extends his hand towards Emma. He would like his fee for divining her fortune now.

Emma reminds him that his fortune-telling services are free. Azel assures her that she’s just that special – he charges friends and family more. Emma doesn’t want to be special to Azel, who is more of a fraud-scammer than a real god.

Azel clicks his tongue, Emma never learns, does she? He pinches her cheek, reminding her that he’ll add enduring insults to her overall debt. Emma argues that she wasn’t insulting him, she was telling the truth. Azel snorts, her sincerity takes a certain kind of courage, doesn’t it? This time, Azel’s smile is strange and his grip on her cheek is lighter.

If what Azel said was true and not a deception, Emma will be able to meet a suitable man with good taste. At this point, as long as he’s not Azel, Emma will be happy.

Azel tells her not to worry, he’s not interested in her romantically either. Honestly, their compatibility is the lowest possible, the world would end before they came together.

Besides, instead of think about love, Emma should use her brain to think of a way to repay her debt to Azel. Still teasing Emma’s cheek, Azel’s smile grows dark and evil. When Emma scowls at him, he only laughs.

Really, she would be happy to fall in love with anyone other than this dark-hearted evil god.

(You heard it here first, route is over, no chance of romance between these two)

[devildomwriter]

Obey Me As Tumblr #33

MC: Eating chips with chopsticks is unironically Galaxy brain. Your fingers don’t get greasy and it lasts longer

Solomon: Fork

MC: Oh yeah I’m going to stab my crunchy foods and make them fall apart like an absolute absent minded dunce fool, clown, jester, like a monstrous moron, an idiot of Shakespearean proportions, a cretin

Diavolo: Uhm, you seem to forget that chips can also mean fries? And that’s probably what they were talking about haha

MC: I did not forget anything. I purposefully ignore the idea of using British vocabulary to do my part in helping it die out

•

Belphegor: An alarm clock except it’s set to every time

Leviathan: We touch

Solomon: I get

Diavolo: This feeling

•

Beelzebub: I was talking with my brothers yesterday and we decided the best way to own a guy who takes off his shirt to fight you is to pick his shirt up and put it on

Mammon: That might be one of the ultimate power moves

Simeon: Or pick it up and say “lift your arms up” and try to put it back on him

•

Leviathan: By day I appear to be no more than just an average run of the mill office worker, but when night time strikes! I’m crying alone in my bed

•

Solomon: I bought my friend an elephant for their room

They said “thank you”

I said “don’t mention it”

Mammon: Is there a joke here that everyone gets but I don’t?

Belphegor: Nobody tell them

•

Thirteen:

Them: why are you competing in our cooking show today?

Me: the government banned gladiatorial matches yet I yearn for glory in the arena

Solomon: I’m here to tell you gladiator matches are still a thing, pal

Thirteen: Hm. Interesting. The last time I tried to behead a man for prestige and the right to majesty, I was dragged out of the alleyway by three very unreasonable men of the law and I would like to know where you live

•

Diavolo: What do you call a snobbish criminal going down the stairs?

Lucifer: I don’t know. What?

Diavolo: A condescending con descending

Lucifer: Get out

MC: That was beautiful

•

Leviathan: Bitten by a radioactive cicada. Now all I do is sit in a tree and scream all day

•

Solomon: Self-care is slathering yourself in baby oil and sliding down the 7th lane in your local bowling alley so the mechanical pin setter will pick you up and take you to the forbidden place behind the bowling lanes where you can meet God but only on Tuesdays

•

Mammon: Security called me at work today and told me they saw me outside chasing a frog around on the security cameras. I wasn’t in trouble they just wanted to let me know they saw me, I didn’t catch him

•

Leviathan: Me wearing a blanket as a cloak, stirring my man’n’cheese in a dimly lit room: potion

•

Satan: When I say I’m “feral” it doesn’t always mean I’m angry, maybe I’m stupid and if you give me food you’ll earn my trust and I’ll follow you around

•

Asmodeus: Covered in blood for sexy reasons

Asmodeus: Also I just got stabbed

Asmodeus: Don’t suppose there’s anyone here willing to tenderly clean, stitch and bandage my wounds while calling me an idiot in an exasperatedly fond tone of voice is there?

•

Diavolo: Introducing a new alignment— chaotic lawful. I have a strict moral code but nobody can figure out what the hell it is

•

Mammon: My best feature is that I’m blindingly intelligent for about 30 seconds a day

Mammon: I do not get to choose which seconds, they are not consecutive

•

Satan: Okay I’m normal now I promise. Let me out of the case please

•

Leviathan: Power move: calling someone a coward in the middle of a fight while also running away from them as fast as you possibly can

Lucifer: Mammon ghost wrote this

Mammon: YO

•

Leviathan: “Are you a boy or a girl?”

I am the physical embodiment of suffering

[actual-changeling]

I do wonder if Crowley's optimism is actually optimism. If it weren't 4 a.m., I'd do a philosophical deep dive, but since it is, I'll just try to string some thoughts together.

At the core of Crowley's questioning stands, "What is the point of it all?"—it's what he wonders as Starmaker and what he defeatedly asks Shax at the beginning of season 2. It strikes me as a very specific flavour of trauma-related existential dread reinforced by his fall and the concept of the ineffable plan.

The thing is that Crowley already knows the answer to that question; it's just not a satisfying one. Because what is the point of it all? of us? of our lives? of all the suffering and the good and the bad and, well, everything?

There is no point. It's a fact you need to come to terms with rather quickly if you grow up traumatized, otherwise, you will break. There was no point in Crowley falling, just as there's no point in anything he or Aziraphale did over the last few millennia—they just are.

It's why any meta questions focusing on God won't get anywhere, there is no answer God would ever offer us or them; there is no answer that matters, period. Maybe God has one, maybe they don't, but it has zero effect on the story or what happens to them. It's terrifying, in a way, to think about it like this, because if there's no point to any aspect of our lives, why bother? Why bother when there are so many horrible things that could happen?

And THAT is where we come all the way back around to Crowley's optimism. He has long accepted the lack of answers (though I can tell you from personal experience that you never really stop asking anyway), but he needs to find a way to live with the world as it is.

'Everything's going to be fine sooner or later' isn't optimism; it's what you need to tell yourself to not jump in front of the next train.

Crowley's optimism is dreams. Dreams of him and Aziraphale being happy and together, dreams of their cottage in the south downs, dreams of heaven and hell never touching them again.

Dreams of life turning out to be better than what he is currently living.

From the outside, it can certainly look like optimism, but I see him, I am him, and I can guarantee you that it's not. It's a tiny pinprick of light in an otherwise dark sky that may or may not be actually there, but if you stop telling yourself that it exists, there's nothing left but darkness. You're afraid of the dark and its teeth because you have been bitten by them before.

So you keep repeating it over and over and over, and maybe one day it will no longer be a lie or you will be the light, but for now this is what you got.

It is also the reason why Crowley is going to be a wreck in season 3. Finally, he thought, we can be together and happy, and in love without being afraid. He reached for the pinprick of light, thinking it to be a star, and got ripped apart by sharpened teeth instead. Crowley needs that lie, and he just got completely disillusioned.

What's the point when, after everything, Aziraphale still leaves him?

No matter how much they love each other, Crowley needs to find an answer to that question within himself, not in Aziraphale or anyone else.

[fandomzwriterk]

This my first time ever requesting anything on this site, so please bear with me 💀 I have a request for any of the Mortal Kombat 1 characters (preferably Lin Kuei and/or earthrealmers) with a special other that ats like either Deadpool or Wolverine? I've been hyperfixated on both, and would interested to see how you portray it!! Thanks 💚💚 (also, love your content btw.)

A/N: yes absolutely yes! I act like Deadpool a lot so this is gonna be fun for me😂😂 Also reader with be based off of both Wolverine and Deadpool🤣🤣😂😂 Brought to you by: Ashes by Nathan Sharp

Bi Han

-> When he first met you, which was a mission to bring you back alive, your first words to him were “come at me daddy” as you pulled out a pistol

-> Confused the man right then and there, making him freeze

-> Answered back with “what the fuck is wrong with you?”

-> As you pulled the trigger, Bi Han straight up froze it with a wall of ice

-> Of course, after you shot, you came running up with your claws unsheathed, stabbing right through the ice almost hitting him

-> “There’s a lot of things wrong with me! Where should I begin? I got tortured… A LOT. Oh I was basically a lab rat for a guy, may he rest in peace, that shot me up full of drugs to stop my cancer and now I can self heal which means I can’t die which means I’m forced to live the rest of my life knowing someone took my humanity away.”

-> Bi Han is just fighting you with his mouth wide open

-> He has no idea what to even say to you

-> “Come on bub, I’m not gonna waste my time fighting you. After all I just told you I can’t die.”

-> “Can you… suffer from other things?”

-> You answered with “yes but I grow anything back that gets cut off”

-> You pulled out a katana as he came to strike down on you with an ice blade

-> There is a lot of back forth… mostly you just trauma dumping on him

-> Bi Han is just thinking to himself “I swear to the Elder gods if she doesn’t shut up I’m gonna kill her- Crap.”

-> The fight ends with him plunging an ice blade through your chest and up making you fall to your knees, pinning you there

-> “Oh I’m not new to this. I like where this is going”

-> Bi Han just crossed his arms in front of him, standing proud as a fiery portal opened up

-> “Oh great thanks dude now I’m apparently going to hell.”

-> You tried to cut the ice with adamantium claws, still stuck in your chest considering how fucking cold it was

Kuai Liang

-> Met you on accident… really! On accident!

-> He had been walking through town when he saw you flip a 6 foot dude onto his back while the rest of the bar was going wild

-> He saw your steel like claws, cutting through everything in its path

-> He HAD to meet you

-> But you were gone as soon as he went to track you

-> “Not my first time being stalked but I will say, you my friend are terrible at it.” You answered sitting on the balcony above his head jumping for him

-> He pulled out his weapon, lighting it on fire as he swung towards you, pulling onto the rope that was holding it

-> You backflipped over his head, making his back get turned to you

-> “Ooh… kinky. Not my first rodeo with that though.”

-> Just stopped in his tracks as he turned to fight you, confusing the hell outta him

-> “I You are very strange”

-> “Eh. I’ve heard that one a few times.”

-> “From who may I ask?”

-> You showed him your bloody claws that had been retracted back into your skin previously

-> You lunged at him, making him roll to the side

-> “Oh come on I hate it when the fun is-“

-> He had cut you, seeing your blood light aflame as it spew from your arm

-> But instantly, it healed, sending Kuai into a state of worry

-> You still felt the skin slowly close

-> You did have no intention to fight or kill him

-> You were mad your sleeve had been cut

-> “Oh come on this was my favorite one!”

-> Your mood changed instantly, seeming to forget he was there as you pulled off the sleeve

-> “I uh… I apologize. It wasn’t my intention to attack you. I wanted to-“

-> “No need to apologize, I just fight everyone I come across. After all I don’t know if you were trying to kill me there. Speaking of which how in gods name did you light that on fire? I’ve been trying for years and never understood.”

-> He put away his weapons upon hearing you start to ramble about random things

-> That fight ended but he asked you to accompany him to his home base

-> And of course… you agreed. Why not have fun all the time since you can live forever?

Tomas Vrbada

-> Weirdest place he met you?

-> At Johnnys house where you had been training him in weapon combat

-> Tomas had an immediate liking to you

-> You were even stronger than Raiden, who had been there with Kung Lao

-> He was entranced by your adamantium claws, your precise aim when it came to guns, and your incredible healing

-> Not gonna lie, when he first trained with you, he was so scared when he cut you deep on your arm

-> You being chill about it and going on about your day like it was nothing freaked him out

-> “You can heal yourself?”

-> “Umm… yeah? Thought Mr Playboy Billionaire would’ve told you that.”

-> “Johnny is-“

-> “Unreliable? Difficult? Stubborn? Ignoring all my advice? Yep that’s the Johnny Cage I’ve always known.”

-> You walked off with no worry, just cleaning your katanas with a soft cloth as you went to sit down next to a small pool of water

-> It took him some time, but Tomas eventually found out who you were

-> Surprise surprise, Tomas found out you’re the legend herself, the great and mighty Wolverine

-> Johnny told him that they wouldn’t allow a female to play a dominant role even though he fought against it, making some male actor the lead and changing some of the story

-> All this time thought you were maybe Wolverine’s daughter

-> But… your personality was more like Wade’s, a friend of Johnny’s who played your other “crude” half Deadpool that was actually really you as well

-> You could be two different people, and he liked that

-> So you were real, and Tomas wanted to always have his eyes on the legend herself

-> Soon enough, about some months later and after visiting the Shirai Ryu enough times, you talked to him about your trauma

-> He told you he knew about it, but he’s not one to judge what you went through

-> After all, he lost family too

-> Secretly wants to find out what exactly you can live through

All Brothers

-> Tomas is protective of you, Bi Han wants to push you to your limits, and Kuai is the one who makes sure you do the right thing, even if you feel like a bad person

-> Tomas very much admires you and I’m sure he, Johnny, and Raiden have made a fan club about you

-> Bi Han is the one who punishes you for wrongdoings, even going as far as to hurt you to make you listen

-> Kuai Liang is the one who takes care of you on your rougher days

-> All three understand they have no place try and understand the torture and pain you went through

-> All three have thought about you fighting them in a 3v1

-> You become the most important person to them for various reasons

-> Bi Han makes you important by telling you and reminding you of all the things you’ve fought so far, how strong you are to still be alive

-> Tomas always has your back through anything, specially missions or when it’s just him and you

-> Kuai always reassures you that even if you’ve done some bad things in the past, that’s not what you always will be defined as

-> However, they know you’re technically immortal and that even if you are and they aren’t, they’ll still treat you like a normal person

-> If you ever have nightmares, each brother does a different thing depending on who’s around

-> If it’s just you and Bi Han alone, he’ll immediately come to find you if you’re having a panic attack or a flashback of awful things you’ve done and said before

-> He chills you down when you’re thrashing in your sleep and burning up

-> He knows you’re not a shitty person like everyone said you were, you’re just a broken “hero” who’s been screwed over so many times

-> If it’s you and Kuai, Kuai always stays nearby with anything you need and if you need alone time, he’s still around with food or comfort

-> Always enforces that you will always be a “hero” even if you don’t feel worthy

-> Is the one who will watch your “movies” with you

-> If it’s Tomas, he’s always by your side, never wavering or leaving

-> He’s the one who’s protecting you, making sure your bad days will be good ones in any way he can

-> He’s the one you talk about your past “transgressions” with

-> Tomas always has some sort comfort thing for you wether it be a blanket or a food you like

-> When they’re all there and you’re having a breakdown or nightmare, they’ll each find a spot to be near you with all three of them cuddled against you like you’re a child

-> You’re all snuggled together like a family even if you’re all different

-> They’ll all stay till you’re comfortable, focused, and ready to keep fighting ahead

A/N: as you can see, I’m very partial to Tomas I’m sorry🤣🤣🤣 Anyways I’m back from vacation now (my bf and I went on a trip)

[receival]

baldur’s gate 3 starters.

the following is a collection of sentence starters from larian’s baldur’s gate 3. part 2.

look at me - i’m not a monster.

stay back. i don’t want to hurt you, but i will.

no. you’re not one of them at all.

i was ready to run you through. my mistake, friend.

that’s far enough. what’s your business down here?

you revealed our location? that tongue gets any looser, (name), and i’ll cut it out.

reckon i might miss this place.

this place is more dangerous than i thought.

well, don’t you cut a fine figure.

sometimes i’m jealous of that girl. ugh - to feel so invincible again.

in your expert opinion, what’s the best way to kill a devil?

i’m certain there are answers out there. we’ll find them together.

there’s no story. none that you’re entitled to hear, anyway.

you can tolerate a great deal of suffering, so long as it has meaning.

until then, all i can do is endure.

please try to understand that it’s not something i can just talk about freely.

perhaps there’s potential in you.

honestly, your faith is your own concern. i won’t judge, one way or the other.

i think i did well by joining you.

you already know my biggest secrets. what more can you ask?

that wall’s an illusion! hiding what, i wonder …

sun, moon, and stars will still be there, waiting for us.

this place is pretty spectacular, isn’t it?

no book or painting could ever do its strange beauty justice.

a perfect ring of mushrooms … nature, or magic?

hmm. i thought that might’ve done something.

another illusion. is anything real down here?

i’m more concerned with this ‘twit’ who set a spectator on you.

a rival - a mere footnote to my legend. you should be more concerned with who i am.

the fools must have turned back. or, better yet, died in the search.

i need no more rivals. try to take this as a compliment, yes?

this presence … this magic is not divine, but fey.

little? i am a god! and i’m gonna rip you - tear you - wear you for a hat -

don’t do anything hasty, now.

i’ll just kill you and claim it for myself.

i’m the lord of murder - i’ll show you why.

if you’re expecting me to drop to my knees before you, forget it.

a wizard’s tower is his sanctum, a private place for research and respite. but as this wizard’s not home … i say we take a peek.

a strange place for a button. especially one that doesn’t work.

what good would it do for me to be troubled? we can’t save them all.

you’ll have to speak slowly. i find it quite difficult to concentrate with my condition gnawing at my insides like a teething displacer kitten.

the whole village is falling to pieces …

hey, maybe we can scare up a few dusty bottles of wine somewhere.

i like your way of thinking. split any takings we find?

what creatures live in water this dark?

i’m a rabid dirty dog. and i bite.

i could’ve killed you before you even noticed me, but i didn’t. stand down.

i can be discreet. no need for bloodshed.

share? you really are in the wrong place.

a bleeding heart, are you? reckon i’ll just roast and eat it.

what in the hells did you do to that corpse?

you do plenty for me, more than you realize. but this cannot be remedied.

are you alright? is there anything i can do to help you?

enough. bickering won’t save your friend.

run away, then.

(name) - i was so worried! did they hurt you?

who cares? we’re together now, thank gods!

i’m grateful, don’t mistake me, but … why help us?

freeze it, cock-stench. we aren’t done just yet.

pay up, and you get to skink away. resist, and i gut you.

drop it. i don’t owe you anything.

your incompetence has been my ruin.

stop! no more innocents will die today, (name).

you care for the weak. most curious.

you so much as touch me, and i’ll tear you from limb to limb.

ah - another treacherous soul walks among us.

i ain’t going down easy.

you been a shit since i laid eyes on you, (name).

strike him down. prove your faith.

your silence speaks to your heresy.

look, you have no idea what you’re dealing with …

it’s the whole damn reason we’re here, and i’m not leaving without it.

the mission comes first.

and i thought i’d heard it all. that’s some cambion-level deception.

i go where there’s shit to stir. and there’s no shortage of options.

i can’t remember much, truth be told.

centuries of torment will do that to you.

you’ve been naughty. and you know what happens when you’re naughty.

just who in the nine hells are you?

well, well. aren’t you a luscious thing?

been a long time since someone stuck their neck out for me like that.

you have a manner of irresistible desperation about you. i like it.

you know, i’ve been thinking. and i think there’s something i should tell you. nothing big or terrible, just … a small little detail about me that hasn’t come up naturally.

i want to join you - to fight by your side.

i’m sorry for barging in like this, but i had to come find you.

i won’t let you down. i promise.

we all have our burdens, one way or the other.

i’m trying to say that you’ve earned my trust in a way very few ever have … i want that to mean something.

freedom - i’d forgotten how it felt. thank you.

if you have a moment, i’d like your opinion on something.

the problem is this: a preponderance of evidence that i am a terrible adventurer.

i can’t risk re-capture. i barely escaped last time.

it was a mistake. and not one we’ll repeat.

i don’t know. he was kind of fun.

we can’t just invite danger in to our hearth like that. we must be more careful.

most monsters will think twice before making a meal of me.

an old hunter’s trick - if you can’t mask your scent, spoil it.

i prefer a weapon to stench, thanks.

you’re a monster hunter? not what i imagined.

whatever you’re hunting, your stench alone will kill it.

a quick wit is rare indeed.

know how to ask, and they’ll share that knowledge. if you’re fool enough to pay their price.

speak plainly. what is she?

i think you’re mistaken - this place looks innocent enough.

truth is like a blade, my friend. we can arm ourselves with it - or just as easily find it pressed against our throat.

i would not put you in danger.

your coyness is getting boring. tell me.

you take insult where none is intended, my friend.

how thoroughly invigorating it is to stand by one’s friend in the face of danger.

you best have one hells of an apology for me.

you must have mistaken me for someone else.

that wriggler swimming in your brain juice is a bit of an inconvenience, isn’t it?

that’s none of your concern.

don’t change the subject.

keep that hole under your nose shut.

let’s not involve ourselves in this place any longer than is necessary.

you want to play the hero so badly? fine. let’s make this interesting.

gods, it’s hot in here.

i’ve had better days. and worse ones.

i am, after all, the villain of the tale.

you truly are a soul that steels my own.

you are as thick as they come.

even i am tired of the sound of my own voice.

i stand at a precipice, but if you do not give up hope, neither shall i.

all of this … it must feel like a betrayal.

you bastard! you ruined it, you ruined everything!

slow down - what did i do?

this is an interesting way of thanking me.

i don’t need this. good luck getting out of here on your own.

i know i should head home, but … i can’t bring myself to leave.

(are you alright?) / not even a little bit. but i will be.

she favored me like a child favors a captive pet.

i promise i will not betray your trust.

i cannot thank you enough.

you will face (name)’s judgement.

i wish you could have visited at a better time.

you had no right to intervene.

you’re not one of us.

copper for your thoughts?

always a delight to speak to you.

did i play games like this in my youth? was i sweet once?

what are you doing? i’m busy here!

nothing beats the taste of stolen beer.

come on, now. they’re just having a bit of fun.

let’s do what we have to do, then get out of here.

smell’s like burnt flesh.

hold out your arm so i can mark your flesh.

i’m here to spill your guts across the floor.

pain without purpose is a terrible thing, wouldn’t you agree?

i often feel i like raw pain too much. it scares me.

as long as the story ends in death, it’s all the same to me.

forgive me, but - that look in your eyes. something terrible has happened to you.

what i see in your eyes, in your soul, is only natural.

we’ve all suffered in these dark times. it is little wonder you hear scars of pain and anguish.

touch me and you’ll lose your hand.

the pain you suffer will cleanse you - do not fight it.

you look tired. should i take over?

welcome the pain. let it become part of you.

that looks like it’s going to bruise.

not that i’m suggesting we stop for a drink, of course.

i wouldn’t want to place all my faith in blind luck.

sympathies won’t help me to survive.

your life, much like your words, is meaningless. end the latter to save the former.

looks like the booze got the better of them. they’re practically unconscious.

they’re dying for me. all of them.

why don’t you take a closer look? i’ll observe from back here.

please don’t open the creepy book!

toddlers are easier to please than you lot.

you know, i never pictured myself as a hero.

all i want is a little fun. is that so much to ask?

having performance issues, (name)?

never have i met such troglodytes.

i was hoping you wouldn’t notice i was gone.

i suggest we admire it from afar.

it would be too much to hope that’s nothing to do with us, wouldn’t it?

i go my own way - alone.

i’ll feed your innards to the ants before i do that.

[johnwickb1tsch]

Constantine x Reader x Wick Imagine

🗡️Ahhhhhhhgrgh OK SO you used to date John Constantine, but he pushed you away and broke your heart when you accidentally said the L word. You move to New York, and now you're with John Wick, who is ever so good to you, but you don't ask what he gets up to in the wee hours of the night or why he comes home with bruised knuckles. It's old hat to you, considering who you used to date. Constantine happens to know, however, that Wick is a demon half breed, and its driving him insane thinking about you with him. He found out from one of his less than savory contacts, and its been eating at him ever since.

He confronts you in Central park, where you like to go on your lunch breaks to read. "Nice, y/n. I turn my back for two seconds and you're fucking a demon." "First of all, fuck off, Constantine. Second, what the fuck are you talking about? Third, what the fuck are you doing in New York?” “Your little boyfriend’s boss Tarasov is cooking up something wicked. Something that’s going to harvest a LOT of souls for his master.” That would be Lucifer Himself, of course. You roll your eyes, even if in the very back back room of your head, you wonder if he’s telling the truth. Could John Wick be a demon? The sex was amazing, but that didn't necessarily mean he was the Devil's minion? You had noticed though, out the corner of your eye, that sometimes his pupils seemed to have a fiery glow. And sometimes, when he came home all sweaty and hadn't showered yet, you'd get a weird whiff of sulfur. You'd always shrugged it off, but... “Sure he is.” Seeing Constantine hurts like a knife between the ribs. You'd loved him so much, and he was such an asshole to you. The fact that he’s come all this way trying to warn you should not inspire this kind of warmth in your heart. “Just stay away from me, Constantine.”

😈Of course, he doesn’t. He never told you, but you're the only woman he's ever truly loved. You’re out with John Wick when Constantine strikes, trying to deport your [apparently?] demon boyfriend. Wick gets the drop on him though, and he’s about to finish the job before he hears you scream. He sees your face and knows it will hurt you irreparably if he kills Constantine. So he lets him go, throwing him across the darkened street into a building. You leave with Wick, and he takes you home. You have so many questions, but he refuses to answer them. He kisses you goodnight before he has to go out again, a sorrow in those soulful puppy dog eyes that breaks your heart. How is it possible that he’s a demon? He’s so good to you.

♥Little do you know, John Wick never really had a choice. He was damned for something he didn't really have control over, and working for the Devil is way better than seething in the Pit. He's good at what he does, but his heart's never really been in it. You're the best thing that's ever happened to him.

😇👹You were never really down with all this angels and demons shit. Constantine kept you insulated from it, and to be honest you're not really even a believer. It’s kind of why these guys are attracted to you, tbh. Being around you is like a little break from their lives. You’re a good person for the most part. You go about your day and do your best not to be a total piece of shit, and usually that works out, but you don’t get caught up in the whole Heaven! and Hell! thing. Though one time when you confessed to Constantine that you don’t believe in God, he’d bitterly said, “That doesn’t mean He doesn’t believe in you, the asshole.” For someone supposedly on God's side, Constantine never seemed to like Him much.

🔥You follow Wick one night, desperate to know if Constantine was right. You get caught, because you are just human, and Tarasov decides you’ll make a perfect little sacrifice for the profane ritual they’re setting up. Constantine, of course, was following you. Before the knife can fall MAYEM ensues. SO MANY Demons get their asses deported, but you almost die anyway. In the end, Wick pulls a Selfless Act saving you, and he gets turned into a halfbreed angel instead.

😡Constantine is so fucking pissed off about this.

🤷‍♀️You love them both and have no idea how you’re going to choose.

[hiemaldesirae]

Thorn here:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, not exactly--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alastor blinks.

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

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

[motherraid]

TWST humanoid-c*cks?!?

WHeRE?! INSTANT FOLLOW

NO CAUSE NOW WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT

((Nsfw under the cut. Mostly just appreciation))

Whenever people mention humanoid cocks it's always about savanaclaw and we are MISSING. OUT. What about malleus? What about lilia? Che'nya? MY BOY HONEST FELLOW? And most of all SEBEEK?

I need to use him as an example cause I feel like the people still aren't listening to us.

Like, just think of how pretty it'd beeee.. A furiously blushing thicker cock when erect, taking on a greenish (instead of pink) hue ESPECIALLY at his glands.

It's dusted with green hair above it when he chooses to groom himself. And when he doesn't? When he decides to leave it be? Can you imagine that soft bush ticking your nose when his gently curved cock pushes past your tongue and tickles the back of your throat? Oh, to be able to cockwarm him and fear choking on that slightly salty liquid that rolls to the back of your tongue.

And OH my GOD, it's so thick. Maybe a little less thick than Jack's, but you'll definitely feel that stretch in your jaw trying to take it all. I'd imagine your heart beat would sync with that thick vein running along his dick, the one that makes him throb against your tongue when you sit still long enough to savor it.

GIMME those gentle ridges all along the underside his cock. Those small barbs almost as a spine dragging from his glans to his base and slightly up his crotch. I feel he'd have scales that'd be scarce at the top where his belly button is and gradually become grouped together as they get lower, giving his cock a smooth, yet rough texture like leather. So slick and easy to slide in and out while those soft barbs drag inside of you. You haven't lived until you've felt that those pointed glands gliding in and out of your walls, sometimes giving a little kiss to your cervix. Not too much, cause that hurts like hell, but just a little peck every once and a while when he occasionally forgets he's so big that you can't take all of him.

It's sooo pretty and firm you'd have to think it's a crime to neglect it. Remember those scales I mentioned earlier? Run your fingers across those green scales scattered along that delicious happy trail. Drag your tongue along his shaft and make him feel loved. Give him the appreciation he deserves and smooch it a bit. It'll flex, and he'll start dribbling pre like crazy as a thank you♡. I remember someone in these tags mentioned Sebek leaks pre like a faucet, and I 100% agree with that statement. I think it's thick, and there's a LOT of it.

IF 👏IM👏WRONG👏STRIKE👏ME👏DOWN👏

(This isn't read through. Just rambles, so I'll just pray I make enough sense. I'm too feral atm and you've worked me up I NEED to scream something at the people now even if its unintelligible)

[see-arcane]

Last Night

It isn’t a dream. It isn’t moonlight or mist. It’s him.

The pretense shed, the door at his towering back, the teeth bared with a glee that borders on the giddiness of a child finally unwrapping a gift dangled out of reach until the appropriate holiday. All the world is shrunk down to the pieces of him Jonathan has had to endure by increasing increments. Mouth, hands, eyes. The latter are trying to hook him. He feels the push of them just as the Weird Sisters’ influence had fogged his sense when he was too near to sleep to fight.

But he is awake now. So horribly, implacably awake with that fearful energy which visits all prey spotting the pursuer’s jaws. Run! that energy demands. Run! Hide! Fight! Something, anything!

With no mode in which to answer any of these instincts, the energy is left to pace through his veins in frantic circles. It feels as if his own blood is leaping to answer the Count’s wishes, churning itself into a froth. Sickly, he thinks he sees exactly that answering delight in the horror’s pallid face; a twitch of the nostrils, a salivating shine on the saber teeth, a darkening of the eyes. A wolf before a lame calf.

“I do wish to thank you before we part. Most sincerely.”

Jonathan doesn’t answer. Doesn’t dare meet the trap of the eyes. Watch the red mouth. The white hands.

“You have given me so much more than I dared hope for after all this time.”

“I only,” his voice is thinned down to a rasp. A raw quavering. “I only came to sell you a house. That was all.” The flatness of the fact seems almost comical when said aloud. A noise that can’t decide between a laugh, a sob, or a scream lodges in his throat.

“And so you did. So anyone might have. Anyone else,” the Count takes a step closer, as Jonathan moves back a pace, “would have come and gone within a day. Less than. A mere workman, a living appliance good only for one thing before being discarded. Not so for you, my friend. You have gifted me such aid and pleasure in your company that it merits mention. That and more.” Step forward, step back. The door is visible over the high cloaked shoulder. Locked? Unlocked? Does it matter?

Jonathan digs for a response that isn’t bile, begging, or more incessant playacting to suit the damned game. All he can dredge up is more hot coal in his throat, more wet burning behind his eyes. He wants to wake up. Please, God, now if no other time, let the nightmare end, let him out, let him wake—

But you are. You are awake.

A single word makes it past his tongue. Empty and pleading, but there.

“Why?”

“Because.” Step. “Since your coming, since your staying, I have been met again and again with a joy I thought dead in me.” Step. “Dust piled on the clockwork of my mind has been swept away.” Step. “You have brought lifeblood into my nights and made me feel things I feared were buried in long-gone ages.” Step. “A lifetime of paling distractions, suddenly alight with something worth attention.” Step. “Such a perfect prelude to dear England. But more than that…”

Jonathan’s heel strikes a leg of the bed.

Door, door, get to the door—

He gets scarcely an inch before the white hands are on him. One is the manacle grip on his arm that first stole him up into the caleche and drove him away to this benighted hell. The other locks around his jaw like a cold vise, seizing him where the crucifix had once barred that touch on the night of his last shave. With bleary inanity, Jonathan wonders if there would be any difference if he wore it now rather than leaving it pinned as scant protection on the wall. The Son hangs his tiny head and cannot guard him from his spot above the bed.

Not that Jonathan could look him in his carved eyes now. The hand at his jaw has wrenched his face up and the red eyes are worming their way into him like maggots coiling through loam. A braided sensation of dread and calm, terror and welcome stitches itself through him. When he tries to open his mouth for a last word—he can’t guess whether it would be a prayer or an animal-cry of protest—there’s only the slackness of a doll.

“…you have made me feel young, my friend. In so many ways.” Cool digits stroke and cradle. “For that, you deserve all I mean to give.”

The red stare does not blink. Does not move. Does not end as the pressure of it softens the world’s edges into a dreaming haze. Jonathan feels himself going away. Away…

Dracula says things he can no longer hear. The room tilts as he is tilted, neck taut, back folded over the strut of a dead man’s arm, and it is bliss not to know the words whispering their endless litany in his ear. Murmurs of youth, of forgotten pleasures, of life, of love, of a dozen other endearments made profane through the sieve of those lowering teeth are all lost to him. Even the farewell, padded as it is in stroking hands and cold lips, hushing him away to an oblivion without sight or tears, melts into ether.

When the blood begins to flow, he does not have to see the turning of the wild white mane into a fall of iron.

[rachetmath]

Ruby: Hey Jaune where are you going?

Jaune: Well Ruby I was asking around town to see if I could find a teacher.

Ruby: A teacher? Why were you looking for a teacher?

Jaune: To train with.

Ruby: Jaune come on. You're fine. You don't need a teacher.

Jaune: Okay but I need a break.

Ruby: From what?

Jaune: Woman after the emotional rollercoaster we had. I need to figure some stuff out.

Ruby: You can figure it out with us.

Jaune: No.

Ruby: Why not?!

Jaune: This is something I need to do alone. I can't be worrying about you and have you cuddling me all the time.

Ruby: We need you though.

Jaune: You have your team and my team. Which I’m not apart of no more. What do you need me for?

Ruby: Healing.

Jaune: Ruby, for how long we've spent together, no one has gotten injured that badly.

Ruby: Nora-

Jaune: She did that to herself. Plus I am now the odd man out. What need is there for me other than being in danger?

Ruby: You can be with Qrow.

Jaune: No. He has Robyn and Harriet.

Ruby: Come on.

Jaune: Ruby I need this. I need a training arc to get back on my feet. I need to figure out what I'm going after all this. Especially, after Alyx despite everything gave a second chance. I’m not wasting this.

Ruby: What are you talking about?

Jaune: Ruby, I couldn't save Pyrrha. I couldn't save Penny. Oscar. Alyx.

Ruby: Wait, you did save Oscar.

Jaune: Not before Emerald.

Ruby: oh.

Jaune: I’m just saying, I want to live to see my family again. So I need to get more experience and training to become stronger because obviously the roles I have are not a good fit for me.

Ruby; Hm. Good point. Good point.

Afterwards

Weiss: You let him go!!?

Ruby: Absolutely.

Yang: Why?

Ruby: I mean I understand. I thought I took L’s but him, nope.

Blake: But Ruby-

Ruby; Blake. He cheated Beacon. He almost dies multiple times. Every girl he meets either dies or hoes him in some way. And he was trapped on an island for years. Okay? He’s an uncle to a lesbian couple's son. He has a family who he may not be on good terms with. Also, in theory, didn’t Raven burn down the village him and his family used to go to? Probably the last good memory he had of his family.

Qrow: Oh shit she did.

Ruby: Oh my god. How was Raven not on his kill list along with Cinder?

Qrow: Yeah, we might not need to avoid telling him.

Ruby: All I’m saying is the guy has been through hell by himself. I say let him breathe.

Weiss: Are you serious?!

Ruby: Bitch don’t be mad at me! You only started liking him cause you were simp for the Rusted Knight. Hell, didn’t he save you like three times either from embarrassment or death? And didn’t you start off as immature as you thought he was?

Weiss:: Um.

Ruby: Exactly.

Nora: Ruby, that’s not fair. He’s our teammate. And our leader.

Ruby: Oh, so now you care?

Nora: What did you say?

Ruby: I mean Sakura-

Nora: Nora.

Ruby: No, Sakura, you can’t keep choosing when you want to start being a good teammate.

Nora: Excuse me. I’ll have you know-

Ruby: Don’t you be rude to him sometimes.

Nora: Um.

Ruby: You're also never there. In fact, you and Ren majority of the time are useless.

Ren: What?!

Ruby: Like you're never around when he needs you. And no, that portal thing doesn’t count. That was our fault. However, you two always prioritize each other but never Jaune. In fact, you two halfway almost left us to fight a giant grimm. Let Jaune face a maiden by himself, knowing his skill level is average.

Nora: Ruby that was months ago. Get over it.

Ruby: Alright, so where were you in the Cardin situation? Where were you during the Pyrrha situation? In fact how come you two were the first out when Neo showed up.?

Nora: Um.

Yang: In fact, isn’t Jaune kind of the one who saved your relationship by talking with Ren?

Ren: Um.

Ruby: Exactly. Like I said Sakura, you can’t choose to be a good team member when you want to be. So be a good girl and stay with your Sasuke.

Nora: Little bi- *tries to strike Ruby*

Ren: *hold Nora back* No Nora, calm down!

Nora: No way I’m taking that disrespect!

Ruby: Plus, he had a point. We barely get hurt. We rarely do defense. And the majority of our battles rarely require strategy. I hate to say it but strength is everything. And Jaune has the potential to outweigh us in every category.

Ren: Ruby, he is a healer.

Ruby: And you’re supposed to be a ninja and a skilled fighter but you're just as useless as your girlfriend.

Ren: … …

Oscar: Well Aura Amplification is more than just healing it increases other people's abilities.

Ruby: Oh really. Okay, Oscar, I have one question. Who here now needs Jaune to help amplify their abilities?

Oscar: Um.

Ruby: Mind you Ren is able to cover multiple people without Jaune’s help now. And Weiss barely needs healing either. So who?

Oscar: … Nobody.

Ruby: NOBODY. So let Jaune use his semblance for him. He needs it more than us. Maybe it has multiple purposes that we don’t know about.

Yang: But Ruby he’s not built like us.

Ruby: *stares at Yang*

Yang: What?

Ruby: I-I should- You are- Oo I… Keep it together Ruby. No need to bury this bitch along with your mom. She still raised you.

Yang: What? What did I say wrong?

Ruby: Yang, if Jaune stopped giving Fs about everything, he basically be a monster.

Yang: Wait rea-Really?

Ruby: Yes he goes there sometimes. He did it Heaven not giving a f about the situation and went for Cinder. In Argus, he didn’t think twice about stealing an airship and was ready to put his hands on Oscar.

Yang: Until you stopped him.

Ruby: You must not have seen his eyes he was ready to fight me too.

Yang: Oh.

Ren: And in Atlas he was ready to risk our lives to save Oscar.

Yang: True.

Blake: And again he look me in the eyes after we tried to stop him from killing the Curious Cat. Honey, he is close to being up there.

Yang: He’s got that Beowolf in him.

Ruby: Damn straight. Look. Let’s just give Jaune some space. Let him readjust back to Remnant. And let him find his strength. Alright? Now if you excuse me I need to find someone.

Yang: Who?

Ruby: Raven. She was the last one to see my mom so I need to hear her side of the story of what happened. It may end this stupid family feud we got. Later.*leaves*

Oscar: Hey where’s Emerald?

Somewhere

Jaune: I recall wanting to be alone. Why are you here?

Emerald: Emotional Support.

Jaune: I don’t need emotional support.

Emerald: Not you. Me.

Jaune: And what makes you think I am available, capable or interested in helping you?

Emerald: First, you have zero reasons to trust me. Two, I need screen time now because I’m a major player. So being a side character in your story can work. Three, I’m not like Pyrrha or Weiss, I can like you for my own reasons other than you being the “Rusted Knight” or your potential. And I might not be as linit with you as the others. I can show you, tough love.

Jaune: And what do I gain from this?

Emerald: My actual loyalty.

[cowboydisaster]

Godfather

the Blossom series; Dutch x pregnant wife reader

Dutch passes a cigar to Arthur’s outstretched hand, pulling a matchbox from his pocket. God– How many smokes have they had together? How many times have they sat and talked like they are now? Countless, Dutch is sure. 

There’s no one on God’s green earth that Dutch trusts more than the boy. The man. 

Arthur is no boy now. Dutch raised him as properly as he could, taught him how to read and write, how to love and show compassion– among other things. 

Arthur has been there when others weren’t. He’s shown up time and again, put his life on the line for his family, foolishly, Dutch thinks. But if there’s one thing about Arthur, it’s that his heart wholly encompasses his family. Protects them.

Dutch strikes the match off the bottom of his boot, watching the little kinder flare up into a bright flame. With one hand shielding his cigar from the wind, he lights the tip before holding the flame to Arthur’s cigar. Words don’t pass for a few moments. Dutch is collecting his thoughts, forming the dialogue he wants to present. Arthur is waiting. Thinking. 

Both men’s eyes are trained on the swamp past the balcony. Everyone has gone to sleep, leaving it quiet– save for cicadas. It’s a beautiful night, warm and clear. The stars shine down brightly, coating the two in a pale, white light. 

“What’d ya bring me out here for, Dutch?” Arthur breaks the silence. His tone isn’t annoyed, but rather confused. Curious as always. Dutch chuckles deep in his chest. 

“What? Am I not allowed to enjoy the beautiful night’s breeze in the company of my son? To enjoy a fine cigar with my best friend?” Dutch asks, raising his eyebrow towards the younger outlaw. Arthur takes a drag from his cigar, releasing the smoke into the night air before shaking his head. 

“Well, sure. But usually, you bring me out here it’s cause you got somethin’ to say.”

“Always observant.” Dutch hums. 

The older man tsks, thinking over his life. What a good, long run they’ve had. 

“She’s pregnant.” Dutch blurts, finally managing to get those words out. Arthur’s head snaps towards Dutch to make sure he’s correctly heard him. 

“She–?” Arthur’s words die in his throat as he glances through the open french doors, seeing how your body is curled up comfortably under the blankets, “She’s pregnant? How long?” Arthur asks, eyes wide with shock. 

A warm smile is plastered on Dutch’s face as he answers, “Few months, give or take.”

“Well, I’ll be damned… Congratulations.” Arthur smiles, tipping his head, “You nervous? Havin’ your lady with child durin’ all this?” Arthur asks quietly, gesturing towards the gang with his cigar before bringing it to his lips. 

“Nervous, yes. But I have hope. There’s a future out there for all of us, we just have to find it.” Dutch curls his hand into a tight fist before taking a drag from his cigar and relaxing, “With you at my side, I know we can get them all out of here.”

Arthur nods. 

“It’s a dangerous life we live. I’d–” Dutch hesitates, “I’d feel better if I knew my child had someone looking out for them. My wife too.” 

Dutch realizes how much he’s asking. The weight that this ask puts on Arthur’s shoulders, but there’s no one else that Dutch trusts more with his family. 

“What are you askin’, Dutch…?” 

“My child- Would you be their godfather?” Dutch places his cigar in between his teeth, inhaling the smoke, eyes never leaving Arthur.  Arthur pauses, thinking over the ask. He immediately knows his answer. He's honored. Would do anything to protect you and your child. Dutch saved Arthur's life and he reckons he'll owe him until the end of time for it.

“Of course. Hell, of course, Dutch. I’ll always watch out for ‘em. Your wife is family. This kid will be too.” Arthur explains. 

Dutch stands from his seat, slapping Arthur on the shoulder with a smile. 

“Good man. Thank you, son. I hope to return the favor for you one day..." Dutch adds, and Arthur's smile fades for a second, "Now get some sleep. The missus is waiting for me.”

–

Your eyes slip open foggily when the bed dips behind you. 

“Dutch?” You whisper, a sleepy, groggy noise. 

“Only me, my dear.” His familiar, deep voice reaches your ears and you smile, turning to pull him closer to you under the warm blankets. 

“How’s the peanut doing?” He asks, pulling your body against his, placing a large palm on your abdomen. You chuckle. 

“Still good, Dutch. Nothing’s changed in the past few hours.” 

“Mmm, I like to check. And how’s my girl?” He asks, pressing light kisses to your forehead… traveling down your cheek, your neck.

“Tired.” You yawn. Dutch chuckles deeply, pressing one last kiss to your pulsepoint before settling against the pillows. He holds you tightly, a cocoon of warmth encompassing you. 

“Get some rest, my love. I’ve got you.” He coos into your ear as you fall asleep against his chest.

[gacha-incels]

Been boycotting limbus but it's a bit disheartening seeing everyone continue around me with this passing intl women's day. I don't know how to convince my friends to stop without getting into an argument because they're all knee deep into these games. But my real question was.. why? These people are boycotting other products for other things, why are they so adamant with sticking on this when it's proven to have harmed so many people in the small team that made it?

Had a discussion with one who is boycotting and I feel like that "political correctness" seeps into the themes of the game, actually, despite how people tout it as the ultimate anti capitalist game; The City is suffering, workers gruel and die at the whims of corporate overlords, people struggle to find housing, and whatever the fuck Carmen's doing in the light, while it could help people survive longer, is just giving everyone guns ignoring the power structures underneath. It's very strange to me now there's.. no suggestion of uprooting the system at all in the games. No true strikes or protests or even any mentions of unions as far as I know. There's no effort to change what is given

[outside of the seed of light project, which 1. famously Didn't Work and 2. having everyone manifest ego is still just giving everyone guns and going "now don't shoot each other!"],

which is very strange and kind of sad? Like sure maybe an arbiter or something would come and tear it down but surely people would come up with countermeasures? People are really good at adapting around things out of desperation, and surely at least an effort would be mentioned

And then my friend, she suggested something; without project moon's suffering, there would be no project moon. Without the city, project moon can't make games. To end the hell that the characters are in and truly resolve the city's hypercapitalist dystopia, they must stop making money off of them. But they don't want to. They definitely DO want to make more games, noted by the interviews which mention future game concepts such as the distortion detective visual novel. But in order to do so, they must keep the current games "clean" and consistent in their suffering to perpetuate conflict. There is some commentary about capitalism to be had; but it feels more like a "oh, look, people are dying, this is so sad" layer of paint on it at this point rather than something more in depth and meaningful. And I think in enforcing this sort of "we can't fix the system in any meaningful way, let's just live our lives instead and hope something better happens" mindset, it reflects into the players. Kind of ironic how the anti capitalism game must sustain its own horrible systems internally so the owners of the series can: make more money through a very predatory money making system, no less!

Limbus fans don't give a fuck about feminism in kr, they think its a system they cant help fixing so they just play the game as they please and any attempt to disuade them is met with a "stop ruining my fun!!" And "who cares?" The worst ones are the ones who KNOW their money is being funneled into stupid misogynistic shit but don't care! It's insane! I've never seen this level of apathy towards a serious issue before!

Sigh. I hope this ramble is coherent. If I missed talking about something or if you want me to talk more I'm game. Project moon's characters are some of my favorites but you have to admit the themes are surface level shit at some point, especially in later installments of their games. So tired but I'd figure I'd share my thoughts somehow. Take care account admin, youre doing gods work

yeah regarding your first point about fans that keep playing, back in August there was a discussion on this blog here regarding contemporary fandom “culture”- how it makes dropping a piece of media hard for some people and why they feel so quick to defend it. the nature of gacha is also that it gets you into the habit of doing “dailies” which makes them harder to drop, this is not even mentioning sunk cost fallacy. I’ve seen a recent post on the FGO subreddit asking why people still play the game and the top posts by a longshot were ones saying only because they spent so much time and money on it. For a lot of people (even people who think themselves progressives) misogyny is a non-issue as well so they will not take the situation in South Korea that seriously to begin with. This is in addition to it happening to “other” or “foreign” women in the eyes of the western fan. There is also an aggressive “fuck you, I’ve got mine” attitude some of the fans who want to keep playing have in regards to these women. It’s disturbing to watch happen but unfortunately not uncommon. I find some of the worst of it, in this situation specifically, is when westerners try to tell Korean women (who are boycotting and spreading information) that they are the ones spreading misinfo, or there’s no reason for them to boycott, how it’s not that bad for them, how PM actually didn’t do anything wrong, “both sides” are crazy and wrong, “let people enjoy things”, shit like that. like doesn’t it raise any flags for you that the people most affected by PM’s actions, Korean women, deleted entire accounts of fanart, took back fanmade items from PM’s cafe, started a boycott of LC and made posts in english to try and get the word out to international fans? you must think they’re idiots if you believe this is all some misunderstanding and vellmori quit of her own free will. Come on. imo it’s impossible to make any meaningful statement critiquing capitalism when you’re writing it in a game that uses one of the most exploitive types of gambling mechanics. I hope I don’t have to explain to anyone why this is absurd. You don’t need to expose young people to gambling addictions in order to fund new games. At the same time, things an author writes (or things that the reader infers from the writing) do not always reflect their ideologies or actions in real life and they can sometimes seemingly be at odds with one another. This is something fans have to reckon with, and not just by saying “actually hatsune miku made limbus company” or whatever. Personally, I can’t take PM’s “anti capitalist” or “feminist” or “revolutionary” work seriously when in reality they have mistreated employees, sued labor unions, acquiesced to incel demands and then later added a meme into the game from that incel community. On the other hand people struggle to believe Project Moon could do anything wrong like this because of the stories in their games so they vehemently defend PM, which at some point just feels naïve. well hopefully this is the type of answer/discussion you were looking for lol thanks for writing 👍

[princesssmars]

bakery babe

a vi x reader

you asked vi why she doesnt use more pet names with you. you then start to regret it.

a/n: lets go sapphics. but fr i love her and her tag is dry but getting better but i need to contribute this stupid idea. the idea of vi bringing those back breakers home is funny.

contains: mostly fluff with some spice/nsfwish in the end (they makeout and alludes to them taking a trip to pound town). me being a simp. vi being a simp. YOU being a simp. enjoy.

(f/d) - fave drink | (f/s) - fave snack

"why do you only call me babe?"

vi's head perks up at your question. youd both been in the living room of your small apartment on the edge of piltover and zaun, big enough for the two of you but still nice and cozy. it was a day off for vi from her job securing both of the cities safety, and youd decided to just spend it together in each others company at home. it’d been silent in your living room while you read and she cleaned off her gauntlets until your question.

throughout your entire relationship, vi had only called you “babe”. you didn't have a problem with or the way it sounded especially because her voice was gorgeous but that's not the point, but you knew she was a giant flirt and a general tease. she called caitlyn “captain cupcake”, she still liked to tease jayce by calling him "pretty boy"; she had multiple nicknames for everyone. so the singular one for you made you wonder.

the other woman's brow raised. “i don't understand. does it make you uncomofrtable? do you not like me calling you babe?”

“no, no, i do!” you raised your hands, waving them quickly in front of you, “it's just that's the...only pet name you use. i thought after hearing you with others you'd be more…creative, i guess.”

her eyes widen and a smile graces her face. “more...creative, huh? yeah, i can do that.”

good god.

strike one

about two weeks later, you found yourself in the kitchen cooking a somewhat complicated dinner for you and your lover. these past few days vi had been working extra hours at the department after some of silco’s old goons started causing trouble in the undercity. which was horrible because of the harm they were causing to innocent people, of course, but also because your poor girlfriend came home at such late hours in the night looking exhausted. you insisted she take some more days off or work less hours, but vi was nothing if not hardheaded.

so, knowing she wouldnt back down on working hard, it was only right you did this nice thing for her. hell, you even went down to jerichos' to ask him for the recipes for vi's favorite dishes.

a while into cooking, you hear the familiar sounds of the front door closing and the atlas gauntlets falling in place on the floor. the sound of vi’s heavy footsteps move towards you until you feel her strong arms wrap around your stomach, her face resting on your shoulder. you briefly move a hand to brush through her hair, making her hum. “rough day again?”

she groans loudly, smiling when you laugh at her. “when is it not a rough day at this point? i swear it's like every damn hour I have to deal with some stuck-up piltie who thinks im too stupid to help or an asshole zaunite who thinks im just a traitor or a liar,” she sighs. as she talks, you continue cooking the dinner while listening to her rant about her day. “and then I nearly got in trouble for telling some asshole at the precinct off! he's lucky I didn't kick his ass. but whatever, it's over now. i'm just glad to be here with you, sweetheart.”

you stopped stirring. “sweetheart?”

vi paused then laughed behind you, gripping onto you tighter. “well-yeah, you said I wasn't creative enough, so i'm trying stuff out. what do you think?”

you turn from the dinner to face her, wrapping your arms around her shoulders and looking into your girlfriend's pretty blue eyes as she looks at you oh so lovingly. “i think it's cute. i love it. use it more.”

“im glad you like it, sweets” she smiles, laughing at your demand and then moving to kiss your cheeks and your lips before turning you back to the stove. “so, whats for dinner?”

strike two

you and vi were walking around the market in piltover, looking for some new clothes and furniture for your home. it was a warm sunny day, and sometimes you caught vi stopping and basking in the sunlight. growing up in the lanes, day and night were almost interchangeable thanks to the altitude, but now that she spent most of her time outside and not in a cell, the pink haired girl blossomed. the cutest part was how her freckles had grown in numbers and darkened in color.

after walking, observing, and buying things for a few hours, vi tugs your arm to sit on a stool at a pop-up cafe, waiting for one of the workers behind the counter to become available to you. you're just glad to be off of your aching feet for a moment, finding comfort in vi holding your hands in hers.

" 'm sorry we've been walking for so long. theres just so much i want to get here." vi apologizes, bringing your hands up to her mouth to press kisses on to them.

you beam at her soft words and actions. "its fine, shortcake. i know you didnt get to buy much when you and pow were younger. our walls n shelves are a bit bare, so get whatever knick-knacks you want."

vi's scarred lips turn up into an appreciative smile before she cups your cheeks and presses kisses onto them, smiling even harder at your giggles. she was such a pda lover, but what could she say? you were a catch, and she loved to show you off.

"hi! can i get you two anything?" a cheery voice pips up from your right, making your love pull away from you to face the barista.

"hello. i'll just take a coffee, but my lil pumpernickel here will take a (f/d) and a (f/s), thank you."

vi, like the little shit she is, casually turns her head back to you after placing your order. as your expression grows more and more confused she struggle to contain her amusement.

"p...pumpernickel? are you serious? what does that...thats just bread!"

"yeah but it sounds cute, right?"

strike three

the way you fell for this girls charms were unreal. itd scare you if it didnt pay off in the best ways.

before this youd both been out with friends, enjoying yourselves in a booth at the last drop. the night was filled with stories from your younger days, friendly teasing, and laughter. but as the hours ticked on and the drinks kept coming, you noticed that vi became more flirtatious and teasing, whispering in your ear and raising her hand slowly up your thigh.

all of that led you to now, pressed againt the door of your apartment with a very eager vi pressing into your front while pressing wet kisses on your neck.

"mmhh..v-vi, baby, lets move this to the bedroom, yeah?" you whimper, dually pressing your hands on her shoulders to push her off and pull her in closer.

she hums, squeezing her arms tight against your waist. "hmm, i dont know, hun. i think we should stay riiight here. we wanted to christen every part of the house, remember?"

"god, youre a pervert." you groan, partly in due to playful annoyance and partly because she literally bit you on the most sensitive part of your neck. when you turn your head to reprimand her she captures your lips in a heated kiss.

her kiss is all consuming, causing your legs to feel weak and your brain dizzy. shes taking all of you, and youd gladly give her anything and everything.

she pulls away, her eyes still closed as she pants to catch her breath. "fuck, you taste so damn good, muffin."

you involuntarily let out a small moan, causing both of your eyes to widen.

after a few seconds, vi starts to smirk.

"so, its muffin, huh?"

"oh my god, shut up." you groan, going to lean your head on the door before you feel her rough hand grip your chin to look at her.

"nuh uh, im gonna have a lot of fun with this. god, i shouldve tried calling you this weeks ago if i knew itd make you sound like that."

you sigh, feeling slightly embarassed but admittedly more turned on. you hated it and loved it at the same time. "are we gonna do something orr are you just gonna tease me all night, you jerk?"

the brawler laughs to herself, quickly moving her arms below your ass and on your thighs so you can wrap your legs around her waist.

"dont worry, muffin, i plan on eating every bit of you tonight."

lets just youre. really glad you asked that question.

-

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so many italics. so much horny. what is wrong with me no one look at me.