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sunnie-writes · 5 months

Text

is loving as good as they say?

pairing: wally darling x reader

tags: romantic fluff, love confessions, reader is a hopeless romantic !!

plot: a hopeless romantic all your life, you dreamed about the love you saw in movies and series, the type you would read in books that left you kicking your feet and giggling. cupid never seemed to be by your side, everyone who you fell in love with ended up not liking you back, so of course you were scared of another heartbreak when you moved to a new neighborhood and ended up falling for your newest neighbor, wally darling. although, it seemed that cupid didn't miss this time.

talk that talk, sunnie !!: so, this has been rotting in my google docs for almost a year already, so i thought i should post it already!! i hope you guys enjoy it, and you're more than welcome to read my other wally fics. thank you, and let's get to it!!

this fic is also available on ao3, you can click here to find it!!

A hopeless romantic, that's what you could call yourself.

You crave the love you would see on TV, those movies and series about romance had a grip on you that no one could explain, and don't get me started on the books. Even while being that amazed by the concept of being loved and cared by someone who you felt the same with, Cupid seemed to always miss his arrows.

Unrequited love was painful, you learned that the hard way. In your high school, you would watch all the high school sweethearts make their ways to classes while holding hands or eating lunch playfully with all the romantic atmosphere that came with it. What was the word you felt? Ah, that's right, you envied them.

Moving away from your town was both a relief and a scare, you would now be open to meeting new people, watching them enter your life. You hoped that they would stay.

And that's how you ended up here, in the lovely and colorful neighborhood that was Welcome Home. The name seemed silly, but you quickly learned that it was because of all the friendly behavior that those who lived there seemed to have. So friendly that they're always welcoming everyone.

All of the stars know that you would be lying if you said you weren't nervous. You never dealt good with talking to new people, you hoped that they could be friendly enough to start introductions first. Even if you were repeating how to introduce yourself like a mantra in your head, you were anxious about meeting so many people in just a day.

"Oooh! Are you the new neighbor?!" And that was your cue to use up all your social skills.

"Uh- yes?" You turned around to see who screamed, eyes meeting with a puppet girl with long blonde hair, and were those candy corn horns?

"Welcome Home! I was so excited to meet you! What is your name? What do you like?" She jumped up and down while popping multiple questions.

"I'm Y/N L/N, nice to meet you." You smiled, she's like a puppy. "I like reading and... animals, and I would love to be your friend!" There was no need to reveal your secret interest yet.

"That's amazing! You remind me of Frank, he also likes reading and animals! Well, specifically, flutterbies!" She spoke rapidly.

"Julie for the last time, they're called butterflies!" You looked to the side, seeing a gray man coming your way. "Oh, hello, I'm Frank."

You settled for waving at him. Julie, noticing your behavior, told him your name and interests. You're starting to think that Julie was sent from the angels as a way to help you enter this community.Then, you were pulled away from your thoughts as more puppet people started to gather in front of you.

"Oh my, the new neighbor has arrived already?" A girl with a sun head happily said. "My name is Sally Starlet, and you?"

"I'm Y/N L/N... nice to meet you!" You gave your best friendly smile.

Everyone introduced themselves to you, all colorful and adorable. Poppy was a pretty chicken who turned out to be an immediate mother figure to you, we also have Barnaby who is a big blue dog with a chill, kinda laid back personality that made you comfortable with his presence. Eddie Dear was the mailman, who Julie alerted you to not catch feelings for since Frank already had his eyes on him, and Howdy was a sweet man who owned the local market.

Judging by the numbers of houses, only one neighbor was missing. You pondered on how the last person could possibly be like, smiling at the idea of them being just as friendly as everyone in this colorful place that had you looking around nonstop.

"Ah, I see… am I late?" Someone spoke up, you turned around to finally meet your last neighbor.

And at that moment, you knew you were in trouble. He was absurdly pretty, with a blue pompadour and yellow skin, along with colorful clothing and eyes that pierced your soul and sent chills all over your senses. You felt your cheeks burn up, Cupid did it again and you weren't sure on how to stop staring at him.

"Woooow Wally, being late to meet our newest neighbor? How dare you!" Barnaby playfully dramatically gasped.

"I apologize, let me introduce myself." He went in your direction, standing right in front of you, who was currently almost out of breath. "I'm Wally Darling, the artist of the town, it's a pleasure to meet you…?"

"Y/N, Y/N L/N." Your voice almost cracked for a second, making your cheeks heat up even more. "Nice to meet you too…"

"How adorable, surely you're a great addition to our lovely neighborhood." He picked up your hand, giving a kiss on the back of your palm.

Stuttering, you thanked him for the compliment while trying your best to not fall on your knees. Julie came into the scene again and began telling Wally your tastes, he listened carefully while nodding and looking at you with a relaxed smile.

Eventually, everyone began slowly saying their goodbyes and going to their homes or jobs. You waved as Julie was the last one to leave and entered your house, closing the door behind you and holding your heart. It was racing, and you were well acquaintanced with the feeling.

Well, you failed, love followed your way again.

And now, what to do? You couldn't lie to yourself but it was hard to face the truth. It seemed too early for falling in love, you can just call it a crush and try to get over it, maybe this time it'll work!

Yeah, just give it some time and it'll pass, you were sure of it!

—

So, it didn't work.

That was obviously going to happen, and now you had your head in your hands while you walked around your house. On your bed, a pretty bouquet with your favorite color layed prettily there. Wally gave it to you, as a way to celebrate "your first week in the neighborhood", how sweet!

Your heart kept beating faster and faster each time you thought about the way he showed up on your doorstep, with his smug smile and bouquet in hands. He looked so innocent as your insides felt like melting from all the sweetness that gesture had.

And before you could control your feelings, you were already catching yourself humming to cheesy love songs and even singing them while cleaning the house. The radio echoed around your house, romantic tunes that you requested on the telephone to play there were all over the place.

Your once retired love books were now scattered across the floor as you giggled by imagining the scenarios with Wally. You didn't try to make a move and ask him out, your heart already had many bruises from past love delusions, and you really didn't feel like piling up another one for your heartbreak wonderland.

Instead, you just tried to become his friend while also trying to get your feelings to go away. That was, obviously, not a good idea, how could you try to stop falling for someone who you interact with everyday?

Before you could think properly on a better plan, a month had gone by. You still had your late night scenarios to giggle about, along with your hopeless romantic dreaming that pulled you into a cycle of trying to stop loving Wally Darling and learning how to love him all over again because of your weak heart.

Curse the Cupid, curse him and all of his pinkish love arrows who never found your way before. Of course you would be giving up on the first month, he never gave you what you wanted before, what could possibly make you think that now it would all go the right way?

Stupid, selfish Cupid.

—

Three months had passed, and you could say you were tired of waiting for the feelings to suddenly disappear.

You played with a doll's hand, carefully moving the antique treasure in your arms. Currently, you were at Julie's house, who was the only person who was aware of your huge crush on Wally. She giggled as she asked you questions of all the time you and "lover boy" had passed together.

"He just wanted to paint with someone, it's not like he wanted to paint alone with just me and nobody else!" You blushed while looking at the ground.

"I don't know, he never really let me or the other neighbors touch his painting supplies." Julie then whispered in a teasing manner, "Maybe he thinks of you as special, in a like-like way!"

You lowered your head while choking on your water, feelings all over the place. If there was something that Julie liked to do, it was to tease relentlessly. After you calmed down, you both started to ask each other random questions to pass the time.

"Now, as a hopeless romantic, what is your ideal date?" She questioned, looking happy as ever in your direction.

"Hmm, stargazing seems like a great date, picnics look a lot of fun too!" You bashfully chuckled. "Oh, a picnic on a sunset, that turns into a stargazing session! With sweet apple pies and cake, along with refreshing drinks!"

"Ooh, tell me more!" Julie smiled.

"Okay, then a cold wind blows and suddenly I shiver, then Wally puts his cardigan on me and hugs me closer!" You could easily feel your cheeks heating up just from your imagination.

And that earned a screech from Julie.

“Ugh, how are your scenarios always the best?!”

“It’s the prize I get for being a dreamer.” You chuckled lightly.

—

Today was a special day in the neighborhood.

Apparently, everyone was going to the nearest lake, which is gigantic, you can say, and pop up some balloons and light up some fireworks because it was the neighborhood’s anniversary!

You were currently trying to pick your best outfit, and that was because Wally was going to pick you up since you didn’t know the way to the lake. At least that’s what you told yourself so you wouldn’t freak out at the scenario. Seriously, that sounded like a romantic comedy.

After a while, you ended up settling for one of your favorite outfits, one that had stars on them. Then, a knock on the door was heard. You quickly put on your shoes and ran to open it, coming face to face to an adorable Wally, looking at you while holding a bouquet of red tulips and some amaranth.

“There we go, a bouquet of beautiful flowers for an even prettier one.”

“Oh! Wally, you shouldn’t…” You blushed and took the flowers.

“Nonsense, you deserve only the best!” He chuckled raspily.

You giggled as he gave you his hand, pleading eyes for you to walk with him. You two started walking while holding hands in the direction of the lake, talking about everything that was going on in the neighborhood. It was a nice atmosphere, comfortable enough, and dare you say, romantic.

As you arrived there, Wally smiled and kissed the back of your hand before going to talk to a knowing Barnaby, who stared at you with a big smile and wiggling his eyebrows. Julie, who saw all of that, pulled you towards her and Frank immediately.

"Oh. My. Stars! What was that? Is that a bouquet? Are you two going on a date?" She excitedly spoke while flapping her hands.

"Julie, calm down. Pretty sure she is malfunctioning." Frank told the girl by his side. "But yeah, what exactly happened there?"

"I don't know, and I'm freaking out about it!" You giggled while holding the bouquet close to you, smiling.

"That was absurdly romantic, I think he is head over heels for you!" Julie exclaimed while whispering. "Besides, look at these flowers, they are so pretty!"

"They also have an exquisite meaning, you know?" Frank randomly spoke, dropping the fact like it was nothing.

You proceeded to hint at him to keep going.

"Amaranths mean eternal love, red tulips mean true love." Frank looked at you while raising his eyebrows. "That is literally a confession."

Julie, who was holding her energy back, gave a screech and started shaking your arm. Meanwhile, you had just bluescreened. Your cheeks heated up, and you felt your heartbeat increase rapidly, like it was trying to burst out your ribcage in a desperate manner. At that point, you were checking if you still even had some pulse.

Suddenly, someone started ringing a bell, and so, everyone looked to the front, seeing Poppy there. She smiled before starting to explain that there was food on the foldable table, fireworks and water guns, everything for fun. Poppy then started handing out glasses with juice to everyone before raising a toast for the neighborhood's birthday.

After that, all of you started talking to each other. You looked around, smiling when you saw Eddie talking to Frank, who was trying his best to cover up a blush while Julie looked at him with a knowing smile from across the field, Sally was braiding some of her long hair. Poppy and Howdy were discussing random things while Barnaby just laid down at the picnic blanket and stared at the stars.

And there, from across the room, your eyes met his. Something electrical went through your body, and you could swear you felt your world stop. Suddenly, there were no more friendly neighbors around you, the festivities and candy long forgotten in your mind. No, none of that mattered anymore, did it?

It was just you and him, across a field as he slowly made his way towards you.

Wait.

You were too late to process it, he's already in front of you.

"So, dearest, how are you enjoying the party?" Wally asked, igniting a fire in your belly to light up the butterflies who panicked and fluttered along you.

"Good, I- I think everyone is having fun, what about you?" You responded, trying your best to hide your reaction with the nickname.

“I could say I am.” He looks at you, up and down, down and up. And it sets your skin ablaze.

Icarus wasn’t able to resist the beauty that was the Sun to him, and maybe you wouldn’t survive the flirt that was Wally Darling. Every single thing he does sets you on fire, butterflies infest your stomach, it’s magical and so cheesy, all at the same time.

“Come with me, I wanna show you something.” His honey-laced words get to you, and you comply with a nod.

He holds your hand, and starts going into the trees, between all those primary colored leaves. You can feel your heartbeat increasing, all your muscles about to give up, it’s like dying but not exactly that, living in ecstasy, better than any drug.

You two stop at Swan Lake, where the stars reflect on the water and the feathered bEINGS float elegantly. Your eyes shine as you see them doing their little synchronized dance, until you notice that they end up doing a heart. You sigh, real romantic.

“Darling, could you look at me, please?”

You turn to see Wally, on one knee, his hand holding yours. You might start crying.

“You see, Y/N, ever since the day I saw you, I knew there was something special about you. With your smile, your way of expressing yourself, I knew you were gonna steal my heart, and I knew that I would never have it back. I’ve heard stories in the past about soulmates, loved ones made for you, and I didn’t believe any of that, before I met you. I’m an artist, not a poet, but you make me inspired dear, to dedicate you the most beautiful forms of art out there, paint and frame your face, have millions of words dedicating my love to you, and that still wouldn’t be enough for you to understand how much I desire you. I want to see your resting face every morning, I want to hold you in my arms and sleep for eternity, I want to grow every day by your side. Would you do me the owner, Dearest, and accept my confession? To finally be mine and let me be yours?”

You, unable to hold the feeling, giddily jumped around before throwing yourself on him, both of you falling on the ground. You cried tears of joy as you said yes a million times, while he patted your back and chuckled, kissing your forehead.

—

“You know,” Frank started with crossed arms while looking at you and Wally, happily holding hands while sitting on the picnic blanket, “One could say that you two were perfect for each other.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Julie exclaimed, happy that you and your Darling were together, finally together.

“Ha ha ha, oh well, I knew they were the one for me since day one.” Wally answered, pulling you into another sweet and quick kiss, making you squeak.

“Ugh, don’t leave the picnic all sappy with your love.” Frank rolled his eyes at the sight.

“Don’t be jealous Frank, everyone knows you want to live that with Ed-” He covered Julie’s mouth before she could say anything else.”

“... Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like I just won the lottery.” You proudly stated.

“Oh, they grow up so fast…” Poppy hiccuped for what seemed to be the eleventh time, being real emotional with your fresh new relationship.

“There there, Poppy.” Howdy patted her in the back.

“I’m really happy for you guys!” Said Eddie while sitting down next to Frank.

You smiled at him while Wally thanked the mailman. You grabbed yourself a piece of lemon pie to eat.

“Sooo, when’s the wedding?” Barnaby jokes.

And you proceeded to choke on your lemon pie.

#welcome home #welcome home x reader #welcome home arg #welcome home self insert #welcome home fanfic #welcome home x you #wally darling #wally darling x you #wally darling x y/n #wally darling x reader #welcome home wally #sunnie's fics!!

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strniohoeee · 3 months

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Alternate ending to hidden in the shadows or a part 5 PLEAAAASEEEEE (anonymous request)

Hidden In The Shadows- Alternate Ending

Pairing: Matt Sturniolo X Female Reader

Synopsis: After a year of no sign of Matt, Y/N has given up. While working on a paper for a publisher she feels eyes on her…. Is her paranoia justified or no?✉️

Warnings⚠️: NONE, I’m rusty asf so don’t judge me this is pure trash🫶🏽😋

Song for imagine: West End Girls- Pet Shop Boys

Sometimes you’re better off dead

There’s a gun in your hand and it’s

Pointing at your head

You think you’re mad, too unstable

Sitting at the cafe I peered out the window as my fingers stopped abruptly. My thoughts suddenly come to a halt, struggling to form another sentence.

“I think I’ve been going at this for too long” I mumble to myself as I wiggle my fingers, bringing them up to my face and rubbing my eyes roughly

My old professor had asked me to edit and add to my writings on everything that had taken place. He was trying to bring my work to a highly reputable publishing company. However, everything I could have ever written was in these papers.

I was stressing myself out horribly because I was trying to make something out of nothing. Hitting save I pinched the bridge of my nose as I closed out my Google Docs tab. Shaking my leg anxiously I bit my lip.

A daunting thought gnawing at me. What if I just searched up Matt’s name? I mean I would have some form of closure right?

Opening the safari tab I felt a chill run down my spine as I felt like eyes were on me. I just assumed it was my guilty and paranoid conscience. Shaking the feeling off I googled Matt’s name and address.

To my surprise I saw one news article about this small town. Looking off my shoulders slyly, I opened the article. My eyes glanced over the title rapidly.

“Pleasant Town natives car found burned and body missing”

My heart sank immediately. Scrolling down I read the full article. Coming to find out that Matt’s car had been found burnt and crushed a week after I fled. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief? But also a sense of anxiety?

I mean glad that he might’ve gotten away, but also anxious thinking of the what ifs? Like what if he was killed?

Staring off into space as I looked out the window I suddenly felt eyes on me again. Straightening my posture I happened to glance down at my now dark laptop screen.

My eyes furrowed as I saw a man in the back of the cafe looking at me through the reflection on the screen. My eyes widened a bit and I rapidly turned around.

I Wished I hadn’t because there was no one sitting at that back table. And I now look like a paranoid psycho infront of all these people. Sighing I let my shoulders slouch shaking my head I shut my laptop

As I packed my things up I happened to look out the window and I made eye contact with that same mysterious person again.

Shoveling everything into my backpack I grabbed everything in a rush. Looking up to see the person tilting their hat down and turning around to walk away.

Rushing out the cafe I squinted my eyes as the cold air hit my eyes. The wind whipping my hair into my eyes as I flung my backpack over my shoulders.

Rushing to run across the street just barely avoiding getting hit by cars. Sticking my hand out in a sincere tone I jumped onto the next street.

Following hot on their tail I was speed walking. Roughly pulling the hair from in front of my eyes. We turned on a corner and it happened to only be us two.

This person having a major advantage over me, I began to jog slightly

“HEY!” I yelled out but to no avail

Something about this person seemed so familiar, and I was started to get scared

“HEY! I’m not trying to seem like a stalker, but I think I know you from somewhere” I yelled out and still this person tilted their head and kept walking

Rolling my eyes I began to walk faster and was able to grab their shoulder

“I SAID HEY” I replied firmly as I gripped their shoulder roughly

Stopping in my tracks abruptly, my voice caught in my throat. My eyes stinging from the wind, tears threatening to fall out

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be looking at him again….

“Matt?” I said squinting my eyes and tilting my head

His eyes softening as he looked around

“This wasn’t supposed to happen” he said grabbing me shoving us into a corner

“What the fuck happened to you? I thought you died? No contact for a year?” I said angry and saddened

“What else was I supposed to do? I had a target on my back and you had one on your head” he replied sinking into his coat a little more

“Matthew I was so fucking worried about you” I said as I pulled him in for a hug

“I was worried about you too, that’s why I’ve been keeping my distance” he said

“For how long?” I replied

“For a year” he said shamefully

“A year?” I screeched out

“Listen I had to watch you from a distance I didn’t know how safe it was for me to immediately come to you” he stated

“I’m just so glad you’re safe” I replied shaking my head in shock

“I always keep my eyes open for anyone who might come back from our past” Matt says to me as he pulls me in for another hug

“I can only imagine how tiring that gets for you” I said to him

“A little bit, but I’m used to it” he replied

That night we went back to my apartment and Matt went over exactly how he fled. His perfect elaborate scheme that surprisingly everyone believed.

The fear I dealt with since leaving was indescribable. Many nights I’d wake up in a cold sweat thinking I had been found and that I was about to be killed.

But to know Matt had been keeping an eye on me for a year made me feel better. I’m not sure what I’d do without Matt. Our bond was inseparable and since he came back I knew I had to protect him at all costs because he was no longer

Hidden in the shadows….

The End

Yall this was shit bc I’m rusty AF, but also I didn’t really want to end this fanfic on a happy note LMFAOOO. But anyways I love yall dearly for all the continued support. My requests are closed as I got 12 requests (oh yeah baby). THANK YOUUU AND ILYYY🥺🖤🖤🖤

-J💅🏽

#sturniolo triplets #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo triplets imagines #matt sturniolo fanfic #matthew sturniolo imagines #matthew sturniolo x reader #Spotify

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vanishxcanvas · 8 months

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Pool Table

Joakim "Jolly" Karlsson x F!Reader x Noah Sebastian

Oneshot / Imagine

Tags: @ladyveronikawrites, @lma1986, @blackveilomens, @cookiesupplier, @thcfountain

Content Warning: Fluff, Smut. 18+ only, mentions of dom!jolly, switch!noah, orgasm denial, male receiving oral, unprotected p/v sex, female receiving oral, use of a vibrator.

Note: This is my first "threesome" fic, trying to write more stuff out of my comfort zone. Actually ended up being 6 pages long on google docs. I'm not sorry for how long it is. Might as well turn this into a series LOL, part one here (also this one is inspired by the photo).

Ever since that comment Noah said on Christmas, you couldn't stop thinking about it. Of course, you kept it to yourself. It was a few months later, and since then, Jolly decided to buy a pool table for some reason. Why, you didn’t know.

You had just woken up from a nap, as you got home from visiting your friend a couple hours ago. Upon waking up, you hear voices. You recognized them immediately as Jolly and Noah's.

Of course, you were still wearing your outfit. You get up from the bed, and freshen up. Not feeling like changing your clothes, you decided to keep them on. You wore a black top, a leather jacket, and a skirt. Before taking a nap, you took your boots off. Finally deciding to leave the room, you leave.

As you enter the kitchen, you feel a pair of eyes staring at you. You ignore it, and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. “Where were you earlier?” Jolly asked you. You suddenly turn around, and see him crossing his arms.

“With a friend, why?” You ask.

“I see, I see.” He replies.

“Did I miss out on anything?” You ask.

“Just Noah and I chilling in the basement.” He says.

“Mind if I join? I’m bored.” You ask.

“Of course you can. If you wanna play a round of pool with me, sweet girl.” He says, smirking.

“It’s on.” You reply, smirking back at him.

You both go to the basement, and as you enter the room, Noah looks up from his computer. “Oh hey.”

“Hey yourself.” You reply.

He smiles, then looks back at his computer. You and Jolly play a round of pool. That is, until you decide to tease him.

As you’re thinking about your next move, you bend over to do your turn. Showing Jolly your bare ass, he notices you're wearing a thong.

“You’re cheating.” He mumbles.

“What? No I’m not.” You reply.

He places a hand on your ass and caresses it. Your breath hitches as he does this.

“Yes you are. I have a suggestion for you, pretty girl.” He says.

“Go on.” You reply.

“You remember what Noah said at Christmas? What if we make that happen..” He suggests.

“I’m not opposed..” You say.

He smiles, and tells Noah. They walk back over to you, your pool stick falling to the floor. Noah presses his erection against your ass, and ruts into you.

You gasp as he does this, and you grip the edges of the pool table. Biting your lip, you can feel yourself getting soaked.

“Fuck,” You breathe out, leaning your head back.

“Gonna be good for us sweet girl?” Jolly asks you.

“Yes, fuck.” You reply.

“That’s my girl.” He smiles, then kisses you while placing his hand on your throat. You moan against his lips, and Noah moves one of his hands to your thong. He can feel how wet you are and he groans.

“You’re so wet for us baby” He says.

"I wonder why," You breathe out.

"You've wanted this for a while, haven't you?" Noah asks.

"Yes" You say.

"All you had to do was ask, baby." Jolly says, kissing the bottom of your jaw.

Noah smirks, and moves your thong to the side. You groan as you feel his fingers on you.

"Give it to me Noah, please." You beg.

"Since you asked so nicely," He replies, sinking two fingers into you. A loud moan escapes your lips, and Jolly kisses you once more.

A while later, as you feel that you're about to cum, Noah removes his fingers. You whine, and Jolly tells you to be patient.

"Think we should make her wait for whining?" Jolly asks Noah.

Noah smirks, and agrees. You whimper, and Jolly pushes you so you’re on your knees. He also tells you to get on all fours, and you listen.

“I’m going to fuck your face,” Noah says.

“And I’m going to fuck you,” Jolly tells you.

“Please.” You beg.

Noah moves so he’s standing in front of you, and Jolly behind you. Noah unzips his pants, he was hard, especially after feeling how wet you are. “Open.” he commands. You listen, and you open your mouth. Noah tests the waters at first, then starts to fuck your face.

Because of Noah distracting you, you don’t hear Jolly unzipping his pants. When you feel Jolly against you, a moan leaves your lips. Noah feels it, and a whimper leaves his lips.

When Jolly slides into you, another moan leaves your lips, making Noah whimper again. But louder this time. Jolly notices this, and raises an eyebrow.

“You like it when she’s moaning?” Jolly asks Noah. He doesn’t reply, so Jolly speaks up again.

“I asked you a question, Noah. Answer me.” Jolly demands.

“Yes. I like it when she moans on me.” He answers finally.

“Good boy.” He praises Noah, and he grows harder in your mouth.

“Fuck. I’m close.” Noah says.

“Well that’s too bad, you don’t cum unless I say so.” Jolly says.

“Please let me cum, I’ve been good.” Noah begs, with pleading eyes.

“Pull out of her mouth.” Jolly demands.

Noah does so, and Jolly makes Noah watch him fuck you.

Jolly leans in your ear, “I know you’re close. Cum for me, doll.”

You cum, and Jolly pulls out, releasing over your back. Then, he picks you up and places you on the pool table.

“We’re definitely going to have to clean this later.” Jolly laughs, and you agree.

“What about me?” Noah asks.

“What about you?” Jolly asks.

“I need attention.” Noah says.

“Maybe if you’re patient, I’ll let someone here give that to you, after another round. Now, stay seated and look pretty.” Jolly replies.

Noah sulks where he’s sitting, and Jolly looks at you. “Now, how about another round before we focus our attention on someone over there?”

“Sounds like a plan, babe.” You reply.

“Good girl.” He replies.

Jolly kisses down your neck, and leaves love bites all over your body. When he reaches your thighs, he of course leaves them there too. “Do me a favor Noah, and praise our girl while I take care of her.” He says before diving into you.

When you feel Jolly’s mouth on you, a loud moan escapes your lips. Noah smirks, and decides to praise you. “Good job, taking it like the good girl you are.”

As Noah keeps praising you, the closer you get to your edge. “I’m close,” You finally say, and Jolly just keeps at it.

When you cum it gets all over the lower half of Jolly’s face. Jolly pulls away, and you see it all.

“You taste fucking delicious every single time.” Jolly says. He kisses you, making you taste yourself. You feel something against your thigh, and you smirk.

“Is that for me, sir?” You ask.

Jolly smirks, then slides into you. A moan leaves your lips as you feel him enter you, as you were starting to feel sensitive from two orgasms already. “Think I can get one more out of you?” He asks.

“Mmhhmmm.” You mumble. Jolly smiles, “Atta girl.”

His hands go to your hips, caressing your skin as he’s fucking into you. When you finally clench around him, Jolly notices. “Close, sweet girl? Cum for me.”

You lose it at the name, and you cum around him. He pulls out, and releases on your stomach. Picking up some with your finger, you lick it off. Jolly grabs a cloth, and wipes your stomach with it, cleaning you up.

“You okay?” He asks.

“I’m perfect.” You say.

“Good. I was wondering if you wanted to take care of someone over there, since he’s been patient enough to wait for us.” Jolly suggests.

“Yeah? Anything specific?” You ask.

Jolly hands you a vibrator. “Use this on him.” He says. “Will do, baby.” You say, kissing him.

“I thought I was going to rail the fuck out of her?” Noah asks.

“Next time.” Jolly says.

“Oh. We’re doing this again?” Noah asks.

“If you want. It’s all up to you. Isn’t that right?” Jolly says, looking at you.

“He’s right, sweet boy.” You say, looking at Noah.

“I wanna do this again, in that case.” Noah says.

“Got it. Let her take care of you then, I’ll get things ready for when you’re done.” Jolly suggests.

“Okay.” Noah says.

Jolly leaves the room to get stuff ready for a shower, for when you’re all done. You walk up to Noah, and kiss his cheek, down to his neck.

Switching the vibrator on, you place it on his already hard dick. Noah immediately whimpers, and starts squirming.

“I need to cum already, please let me cum.” He begs.

“Go ahead, sweet boy. You’ve waited long enough.” You say. He immediately cums, and it gets on the vibrator and your hand. You lick it off, his eyes widen.

“This can be cleaned later,” You say turning off the vibrator and setting it on a nearby table, “let’s get cleaned up, okay?”

He nods, and you take his hand, leading him to the restroom where Jolly is waiting. By the end of the night, you’re all cleaned up and in bed, getting some rest after the long day you had.

#bad omens fanfic #bad omens fanfiction #bad omens fic #joakim jolly karlsson fanfic #joakim jolly karlsson fanfiction #joakim jolly karlsson fic #joakim jolly karlsson smut #noah sebastian fanfic #noah sebastian smut #noah sebastian fanfiction #noah sebastian fic

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ofoceansandtombsanew · 1 year

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My Chapter 51 Thoughts and my thoughts around ShimaMitsu in general

So @mapoeggplant had a really cool discussion thread on twitter and I wanted to contribute to it. But I got very longwinded and now idk if the pics in my google doc even loaded... so I decided to share my thoughts here on tumblr as well!

Be warned, this post is littered with manga spoilers so if you are an anime-only or haven’t caught up to the most recent chapters, avoid this post so you don’t have the journey spoiled for yourself ^o^

Mika realizing something is up with Mitsumiー Mika is definitely a character that surprised me in how much I ended up liking her! Everyone in S&L I think is a subversion of popular tropes in manga’s past where on the surface they look like a trope and then boom, sensei hits us with a reality check and explanation as to how they are. Mika is clearly the ‘mean girl in shoujo who hates the protagonist by virtue of crushing on the male lead’. *Worry not, I’m aware S&L is a seinen*

But her maturity and growth over the series? Astounding. From reconciling with her envy of Mitsumi, Nao helping her come to terms with the idea of Mitsumi and Sousuke dating hypothetically in the future and becoming such a good friend? Love it.

So I love how Mika is the first to really notice that something is off with Mitsumi in regards to Sousuke.

Pretty sure that back in chapter 47 it was established that all of the girls have noticed something was off with Mitsumi. But they decided to respect her privacy because if she wants to tell them what’s wrong, she’ll tell them and they want to give her the chance to come to them first. Though they did express they were worried she wasn’t truly seeming like herself.

And the reason Mika starting to connect the dots this most recent chapter is so ‘big’ for me, for lack of a better word, is because it really puts into perspective how Mitsumi has been handling the breakup.

Mitsumi breaking things off with Sousuke was definitely a mature move. I’ve even been in the same position of breaking things off with a relationship because of feeling like the way we loved each other was different and it would be best to go back to friends. Then spending 2 years chatting with my ex as if nothing happened before having an emotional breakdown about it and needing two weeks of space from her before I could function around her. And it feels like Mitsumi is doing the same thing with Sousuke. But by virtue of Mika spotting Mitsumi’s discomfort in sitting next to Sousuke and starting to question things, it really solidifies how Mitsumi is processing things.

Like, Mitsumi telling Sousuke she can work on her own and such when he proposed the idea when she mentioned wanting to work to get Maharu a new wallet. She wasn’t just brushing it off and being all chill, kumbaya. She was more than likely trying to avoid him because she isn’t really ready to just be alone with him yet.

So I’m hoping in this arc that Mika is going to bring up what she’s noticed to Mitsumi. Because since she’s already processed her feelings, if Mitsumi were to admit to her that she and Sousuke dated briefly before she ended things it wouldn’t make Mika spiteful or anything weird like that. If anything, I think it would bring them closer together because if there is anyone who would understand the Sousuke-failed-relationship/rejection love pains Mitsumi is going through, it would be Mika.

Mitsumi & Sousuke (and Yasaka)ー

As for Mitsumi specifically, I think that her relationship with Sousuke as present is a ripple effect of Yasaka’s statement back during the chapter Mitsumi rightfully called Sousuke out for not standing up for her when she would definitely do it if the roles were reversed.

Immediately after that, we see Mitsumi beginning to contemplate what she said, her perspective of Sousuke and she doesn’t really know how Sousuke was raised, his relationships with his family etc. Like, she knows there is some drama there, based on the school festival arc with the play and running into Sousuke’s childhood friends and mother but she also acknowledges she doesn’t know the full story and how Sousuke came to be how he is today.

While Yasaka’s assessment did give Mitsumi the idea that she should keep in mind how she was raised and how others were raised paints how they become in the present, she is almost like… overly internalizing that and trying to be overly conscious of Sousuke’s feelings. And even the feelings of Maharu. I’m not sure I’d go as far as saying Mitsumi is blaming herself for what they are going through since so far I haven’t really seen anything that would indicate self-blame. The closest you can get to that is her scolding herself for expecting Sousuke to come to her defense just because they’re dating.

When, in reality, while Yasaka is right Mitsumi should keep in mind that Sousuke and her have different frames of reference and she should be considerate of that… Mitsumi was well within her right to be upset that her boyfriend was letting some mean girls shit talk in her face and made no effort to defend her.

Then the next time you see them interact in chapter 45, she essentially brushes that under the rug. She apologizes to Sousuke for getting upset, he says he is going to turn down their party invite and they go their separate ways… But Sousuke never actually apologizes for not standing up for her which, at least in Mitsumi’s eyes, would solidify the idea that she was in the wrong and was expecting too much of her at-the-time boyfriend.

This overly considerate behavior Mitsumi is now displaying even went as far as not wanting to tell her friends about the breakup and everything that led up to it because she was worried about how they would perceive Sousuke and possibly give him some sort of negative treatment in response to how things went. Not to mention, she’d rather just bottle up her feelings than cause a rift in their friend group they’ve had since first year.

When she breaks up with Sousuke, she goes above and beyond in reassuring him they have and always will be friends. Which while that is cool because the hiccups aside, they have a pretty great friendship, Mitsumi isn’t really allowing herself to feel hurt by the breakup and thinks that, while even if a large portion of it is that she and Sousuke’s ‘love’ is different her actions thus far would imply she thinks it is on her for expecting so much. (So I guess there actually is a good portion of self-blame from her, even if subconsciously!)

And with the most recent chapter, Sousuke gets to see how Mitsumi is hiding how hurt she is by Maharu’s rejection of her gift and her outburst that Mitsumi is only thinking about herself and to me his expression is almost like a parallel to his expression in chapter 46 when Mitsumi broke up with him.

In chapter 46, Sousuke needed comfort. He’s worried about being abandoned or viewed as worthless because he wasn’t able to live up to the ‘use’ or ‘idea’ Mitsumi had of him.

This time, Mitsumi needs comfort and it’s like this moment has essentially confronted Sousuke with the fact that she isn’t as cheerful, mature and invulnerable as she has presented herself to him thus far. So while yes, Yasaka was right in how Mitsumi doesn’t know as much about Sousuke as she thought she did, the reverse is also very true in that Sousuke doesn’t really know Mitsumi as much as he thought he did.

Sprinkle all this into the fact that Sousuke is going through his own whirlwind of emotions regarding Mitsumi, their breakup and how he feels about her. He’s jealous of Ujiie and how close he is with Mitsumi, he feels left out that Mitsumi hasn’t really been including him in activities outside of school and he was pouty and perplexed in chapter 47 about her perspective of the breakup going far as to pout to Chris and Ririka:

And Chris rightfully being confused because he doesn’t get Sousuke’s reaction since back in chapter 42 he didn’t even really know if Sousuke really even liked Mitsumi romantically (as proven by how, when Sousuke told him about the breakup, he automatically assumed Sousuke was dumper and not the dumpee). Now he wants to be closer to her while Mitsumi is essentially going ‘I want to keep everything chill and normal but at the same time I’m still upset and trying not to be next to him for extended periods of time just yet’.

Fast forward to chapter 51 and Sousuke’s in Mitsumi’s childhood home and feeling out of place/out of his element. So this is all the recipe for him to confront his own misconceptions of Mitsumi and, hopefully, apologize for his part in the breakup and how he should have stood up for her. Which we do see him do later in chapter 50 when she isn’t present, but Sousuke has the self-awareness to know and bitterly accept that if Mitsumi hadn’t called him out before he likely would have let them continue talking poorly about her.

Maharu & Mitsumiー Now onto Maharu~ I’m fully looking forward to her part in this arc because it is very clear that she is dealing with insecurities regarding herself and her older sister. Mitsumi has been confirmed by multiple characters that she is essentially a prodigy in her hometown and her hometown is being hit with a very real-life problem the Japanese countryside faces. Like, it is to the point where schools in the countryside are shutting down because there aren’t enough students to justify keeping them open because the young people are leaving for the city, not returning and not raising their kids there (which most people aren’t doing anyway due to the decline in birthrates in recent years for Japan).

Mitsumi even went as far as telling Sousuke her thoughts that she might likely be the only one of her siblings to even leave their prefecture.

We don’t really know how much Mitsumi is discussed back in her hometown, but it must be enough to make Maharu feel the way she does. It is just unfortunately manifesting in taking things out on her sister rather than talking to her parents about how she feels or even trying to discuss it with Mitsumi. Hell, talking to Mitsumi about it first probably won’t even help things come to a positive conclusion. As it stands now, Maharu’s perception of her sister is that Mitsumi looks down on her for getting out of the prefecture and going to the holy grail that is the capital of their country for school.

She needs an outside perspective that isn’t ‘tainted’ by Mitsumi.

Mitsumi’s friends from Tokyo are out because 1) they are Mitsumi’s friends and 2) Maharu already is feeling insecure and putting them on a pedestal because they are Tokyonites and fancy people.

Her family is out because Mitsumi is essentially their pride and joy.

And the chapter end with Maharu running into Fumi and while I wanna say ‘Fumi, get in here and rescue this sibling relationship’-

Fumi would still fall under the category of ‘tainted by Mitsumi’ by virtue of being Mitsumi’s best friend, even if Fumi has been shown to be very close to the Iwakura family. So I honestly think it could go either way with Fumi trying to talk to Maharu and help her vent how she feels, but Maharu could easily do that and when Fumi tries to be reasonable Maharu could think that Fumi is trying to take Mitsumi’s side when she is just trying to help give Maharu some outside perspective.

So that would basically summarize all of スキロー thoughts with the most recent chapter sensei has delivered us. I’m loving it all so far and looking very forward to what happens next!

#look she's not writing #skip and loafer #スキップとローファー #スキロー #iwakura mitsumi #shima sousuke #shimamitsu #egashira mika #toyama fumino #iwakura maharu #manga spoilers #skip and loafer spoilers #skip & loafer #skip & loafer spoilers #animanga thoughts

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victimsofyaoipoll · 1 year

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Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Gwen Cooper

she literally did nothing worse than the rest of the team yet so many people hate her guts and there is a literal gwen bashing tag for her on ao3. just cause she's a complicated character and confident and assertive and oh yeah she had sexual tension with jack harkness who ended up w ianto in the end. god forbid.

fans think she "gets in the way" of the canon m/m pairing of the series just because she has straightbait scenes with one of the two guys. when in reality she literally has a husband and has been nothing but supportive of her friends and their relationship 😭 she tends to be written as like super insensitive and spoiled and its unbearable

An amazing, badass woman who has a complicated relationship with Jack Harkness, 1/2 of “Janto,” the ship she “gets in the way of.” People use this slight complication to decide they HATE HER and turn her into this vile, evil, vindictive person. She often tries killing Ianto (other half of “Janto”) in many poorly-written fics, simply so that everyone can realise how badly they treat poor, poor Ianto. This makes Jack fall harder in love with Ianto xoxo Mwuah Mwuah and Gwen is hated and killed. This occurrence is so common that it has its own tag on AO3: “Gwen Bashing.” The writing, again, is always very bad, and solely created to make people hate Gwen. She’s chill in the actual show though. Very supportive of the two men and their relationship, and is literally happily married. She is not at all like what people make her out to be.

Kairi

kairi is the third protagonist of the kingdom hearts series and the third member of the destiny trio, alongside fan favorites sora and riku. sora/riku shippers HATE kairi, and will go out of their way to discount her at every turn. the hate for her ranges from typical "she's a boring bitch" to fans of soriku making five-hour long video essays reassuring their fellow shippers that the big bad kairi won't show up in the next installment – to quote one video, "she's in a box. she's on the shelf. four walls, no door." kairi is the greatest bogeyman the soriku fandom has ever known, to the point where most of said video essays and fanon meta posts focus not on why sora and riku should get together, but rather on why they don't like kairi.

Literally has a 100+ page Google doc fan theory writing her out of the narrative and putting all of her (few) canonical accomplishments onto half of the popular m/m ship (soriku). Don't even get me started on how her memory was completely written out of the canon plot of re:coded. KH is a nightmare to explain so dude trust me she is THE victim of yaoi

She is so fundamental to the plot and themes and narratives of game and yet it is near impossible to find anything about her thats not ship bashing pre-mlm with the other two characters. I dont even care if she ends up with one of the main characters i just want fans to see her as a cool character to love or like, anything other than “annoying comphet girl.” You can write your mlm but pleaae stop inventing comphet where it doesnt exist. She does not even get to spend time with sora ever?? Why does everyone see her as a threat and a thing to destroy?? Let her have friends so help me

#poll #round 2 #torchwood #gwen cooper #kingdom hearts #kairi kingdom hearts #kairi

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moon-mage · 2 months

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TWST MAGIC ATTACK SYSTEM

Hi, I’m a goddamn nerd for magic systems and I am one of the few people on the planet that enjoy writing action sequences. So I made this guide because I want to write battles and refer to the cards in-game as inspiration. I thought i'd be cool to share in case anyone else needs some inspiration or guide...hell maybe someone already done this but BETTER. MAYBE YOU CAN DO IT BETTER! If you do please tell me, I wanna know! Anyway! Also to note, I am a magical girl junkie and so I like to imagine TWST fights and battles being over the top, destructive, and even a combination of physical and magical fighting. Pretty Cure being my main inspiration for the concept.

These are all based on the SSR DORM UNIFORM CARDS only. Not to say these characters only know these types of magic but I'm basing what they have on these cards as their strongest or easiest to use. I decided to add Unique Magics here as well as an easy reference when writing and make inspire some ideas. I will not go into condition mechanics because no.

Here's the link to the fancy Google Doc. I copy pasta'd everything under the cut. So enjoy if you like this kind of stuff! Also I literally did this in a day and am overhype to share so if there's mistakes that's why! :D

Terminology

Main Magic will be the first attack on the card. I like to imagine this is the element the mage intuitively started with when learning magic.

Duo Magic is…self explanatory. The combination of the two magics from the two mages. Not to say this magic can only be used as a duo.

Special Magic is the in-game unlockable third magic attack. It is powerful and a solo move. So I like to think this magic is more intentional to the mage. A power they intentionally worked on to be peak. If the element matches the main magic, then I feel intentional or intuition works well. But if they mismatch, I defo like to go with the idea that this is more intentionally learned.

Unique Magic (Signature Spell) has nothing to do with the battle system or elements but I like to have it as a reference. I will not go into this because those are a LOOOOOT.

ELEMENTAL MAGIC

Elemental magic will refer to Flora, Fire and Water. I imagine the elements are VERY flexible in regards to what kinds of magic it produces. So Flora wouldn’t just pertain to flowers but nature/earth in general. Here are some examples I have here. Again, I would most likely freeform to fit the situation/character.

Flora Magic - Very versatile as this is more of an earthly/nature magic. Wind, air, grass, flowers, vines, dirt, sand, rock. Flora has advantage against Water, and disadvantage against Fire.

Fire Magic - Flames, fireballs, lightning, burning, changing the environment to more muggy/hot. Fire has advantage against Flora, and disadvantage against Water.

Water Magic - Ice, hail, rain, sleet, thunder, frost, changing the environment to more chilled/cold. Water has advantage against Fire, and disadvantage against Flora.

COSMIC/VOID MAGIC

For ease of terminology, I will refer to the two magics as the following;

Light Magic = COSMIC

Dark Magic = VOID

Aint gonna lie, I geek out over the fact that not everyone has the same cosmic magic. All the student characters have Dark Magic while only THREE have Light Magic. Those three being; Kalim, Rook and Silver. I won’t get into theories and such but I do like the concept that their light magic is from how they are originally based off non-villain characters, The Sultan, The Huntsman, and Princess Aurora respectively.

In-game I know one cosmic magic is not more powerful than the other. Which is the point of it. But out of game and just me being a hardcore nerd for LIGHT/DARK themes, aesthetics, etc…yeah I take my own liberties with that and go buckwild.

I like to think that the power of COSMIC and VOID magic are dependent on many different factors, so in a storytelling setting there is a lot of versatility and possibility as to how these kinds of attacks would work. I like to think these magics would be stronger if they’re Duo Magic or Special Magic. Cosmic or Void as a Main Magic would be more neutral. I feel both powers are equal against each other, but certain circumstances could change that. For example, if shadow type creatures are attacking a COSMIC attack could repel them. If you are attempting to sneak attack, using VOID would help to aid you.

To me, it’s truly tied with the storytelling and direction I want to go for considering this stuff matters the most to me when I have it as a main theme in my story.

Cosmic Magic - Light, Light Energy Beams/Blasts, Light Shields, Light Weapons, Energy Restoration, Burning

Void Magic - Darkness, Dark Energy Beams/Blasts, Dark Shields, Dark Weapons, Energy Drain, Poison

DUO MAGIC

Listen everyone, listen. I am a sucker for teamwork and blah blah so of course I want to make the duo magic matter a lot. I like the idea of combining the elements that are presented on the cards to figure out what that kind of magic would be. Example from my two most powerful Duo; Leona and Vil. Leona is Flora and Vil is Void. I like to think that their duo magic is something like dried poisonous vines that restrains the opponent and weakens them as they inhale the toxic dust coming off it. I would likely reference other cards elements for DUO’s with other characters. But if I can’t find it or can’t bother…I will just make it the hell up! :D

WORKS CITED

Dorm Card information was found on Twisted Wonderland Wiki Unique Magic Summaries is from mysteryshoptls @ Tumblr

MAGIC ATTACKS

RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS

Main - Fire

DUO MAGIC - Fire (Riddle) & Water (Azul)

Special Magic - Fire

Unique Magic - OFF WITH YOUR HEAD Summons a collar around the target’s neck and seals their magic. INCANTATION: I’ll hand down my sentence. The verdict comes afterwards. Are you ready? Off With Your Head!

ACE TRAPPOLA

Main- Fire

DUO MAGIC - Flora (Ace) & Water (Deuce)

Special Magic - Water

Unique Magic - LOL NO

DEUCE SPADE

Main - Void

DUO MAGIC - Water (Deuce) & Flora (Ace)

Special Magic - Water

Unique Magic - BET THE LIMIT Builds up damage taken by attacks and returns it all at once twofold. INCANTATION: I’ll make you pay for that! Brace yourself! Bet the Limit!

TREY CLOVER

Main - Water

DUO MAGIC - Flora (Trey) & Fire (Cater)

Special Magic - Void

Unique Magic - DOODLE SUIT Temporarily overwrites a specific component of the target item. INCANTATION: White to red, and red to white. Doodle Suit!

CATER DIAMOND

Main - Flora

DUO MAGIC - Fire (Cater) & Flora (Trey)

Special Magic - Void

Unique Magic - SPLIT CARD Creates clones of himself. INCANTATION: I am him, and he is another. Split Card!

LEONA KINGSCHOLAR

Main - Flora

DUO MAGIC - Flora (Leona) & Void (Vil)

Special Magic - Flora

Unique Magic - KING’S ROAR Destroys anything into dust INCANTATION: I am hunger. I am thirst. I am what robs you of tomorrow. King’s Roar!

RUGGIE BUCCHI

Main - Void

DUO MAGIC - Water (Ruggie) & Flora (Jack)

Special Magic - Fire

Unique Magic - LAUGH WITH ME Controls others to mimic his movements. INCANTATION: Both kings and hyenas are my friends! Laugh With Me!

JACK HOWL

Main - Fire

DUO MAGIC - Flora (Jack) & Water (Ruggie)

Special Magic - Flora

Unique Magic - UNLEASH BEAST Transforms into a wolf.

AZUL ASHENGROTTO

Main - Water

DUO MAGIC - Water (Azul) & Fire (Riddle)

Special Magic - Water

Unique Magic - IT’S A DEAL Takes any power from the target once they sign a contract. INCANTATION: The song ends, the sun sets. Extend mercy upon these poor souls. Now, the deal is struck! It’s a Deal!

JADE LEECH

Main - Water

DUO MAGIC - Fire (Jade) & Flora (Floyd)

Special Magic - Flora

Unique Magic - SHOCK THE HEART Compels the target to speak the truth. Can only be used once per person. INCANTATION: No need to fear, I only wish to help you. Shock the Heart.

FLOYD LEECH

Main - Fire

DUO MAGIC - Flora (Floyd) & Fire (Jade)

Special Magic - Fire

Unique Magic - BIND THE HEART Blocks and diverts an opponent’s magic.

KALIM AL-ASIM

Main - Water

DUO MAGIC - Cosmic (Kalim) & Fire (Jamil)

Special Magic - Water

Unique Magic - OASIS MAKER Springs forth large quantities of water. INCANTATION: A haven within the hot sands, a never-ending feast. Dance! Sing! Oasis Maker!

JAMIL VIPER

Main - Void

DUO MAGIC - Fire (Jamil) & Kalim (Cosmic)

Special Magic - Water

Unique Magic - SNAKE WHISPER Hypnotizes a target. They must look into his eyes for it to take effect. INCANTATION: The one you see reflected in your eyes is your master. Answer when I ask. Bow when I command. Snake Whisper.

VIL SCHOENHEIT

Main - Flora

DUO MAGIC - Void (Vil) & Flora (Leona)

Special Magic - Flora

Unique Magic - FAIREST ONE OF ALL Places a curse with a touch by specifying the conditions. INCANTATION: Nothing to lose, nothing to fear. The shining crown is meant for me. Fairest One Of All.

ROOK HUNT

Main - Flora

DUO MAGIC - Fire (Rook) & Fire (Epel)

Special Magic - Water

Unique Magic - I SEE YOU Once cast on a target, he can pinpoint its exact location.INCANTATION: Come, let’s see you try to outrun me. I See You.

EPEL FELMIER

Main - Water

DUO MAGIC - Fire (Epel) & Fire (Rook)

Special Magic - Flora

Unique Magic - SLEEP KISS Places target in glass coffin and puts them to sleep. INCANTATION: Close your eyes, still your breath. Sleep Kiss.

IDIA SHROUD

Main - Fire

DUO MAGIC - Void (Idia) & Water (Ortho)

Special Magic - Fire

Unique Magic - GATE TO UNDERWORLD Opens and closes the door to the “Underworld” in STYX HQ. INCANTATION: Game, Set, Match. Gate to Underworld.

ORTHO SHROUD

Main - Fire

DUO MAGIC - Water (Ortho) & Void (Idia)

Special Magic - Flora

Unique Magic - NONE :3

MALLEUS DRACONIA

Main - Void

DUO MAGIC - Void (Malleus) & Water (Lilia)

Special Magic - Void

Unique Magic - FAE OF MALEFICENCE Casts a web of thorns and places everyone within to sleep. INCANTATION: Spinning wheel of fate, keep pulling the thread of disaster. As King of the Abyss, I shall bestow this upon you. Fae of Maleficence.

LILIA VANROUGE

Main - Flora

DUO MAGIC - Void (Lilia) & Void (Malleus)

Special Magic - Flora

Unique Magic - FAR CRY CRADLE Allows the caster to play back the memory of an “object” for a short time. INCANTATION: All is as if it were days long past. No matter where it takes us, it will all be over in the blink of an eye. Far Cry Cradle.

SILVER

Main - Cosmic

DUO MAGIC - Flora (Silver) & Flora (Sebek)

Special Magic - Water

Unique Magic - MEET IN A DREAM Allows the caster to jump into other people’s dreams. Only can be used while asleep. Cannot choose the dream that is jumped to. The dreamer is indicated by a white bird-like wisp. INCANTATION: To the one I’ve met before, to the one I’ve yet to meet. Meet in a Dream.

SEBEK ZIGVOLT

Main - Water

DUO MAGIC - Flora (Sebek) & Flora (Silver)

Special Magic - Fire

Unique Magic - LIVING BOLT His body becomes lightning, which allows him to move and strike like one. INCANTATION: Strike through the stormy heavens, O lightning!

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #twisted wonderland reference #twisted wonderland fanfic #twst fanfic #twst wonderland #twst magic

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formula-fun · 10 days

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wait... does if I had words max get charles pregnant again...

yes i mean its an open ending its up to you

i have fragments of a sequel in my google docs where charles gets pregnant during the 2025 season and has the baby in winter, so he's racing again in 2026 but max takes a year off to be a stay at home dad and take a little break. they don't have the easiest time of it because they miss each other a lot, charles gets a lot of criticism for not being with his baby, he feels bad for missing major milestones because he's away, and max has a lot of free time so all the issues he was avoiding kind of hit him in the face all at once. its still fun and domestic tho at the same time!!

originally the vague idea was they would eventually have three kids but it would take a while? the firstborn is named jules but they call her julie and she has a massive complex about it. she's max's little princess 100% and she's fully aware of that. the second is a few years younger and is also a girl (her name is probably marina or sth--max picked this time), and charles takes a year off to raise her because he felt so bad about missing julie's early milestones (julie has a complex about this as well). he and max agree at that point that it's too hard having to choose between staying home with a baby or racing, so they agree not to have anymore kids until they're retired for good. they have a baby boy when they're like 37 or 38, so there's a big age gap. he is the most chill baby ever and everyone is obsessed w him but his resting face is literally :| max and charles manage to retire for all of two years before they cant take it anymore and sign up to do le mans with pierre

but that is just the background lore, it's all open to interpretation! i also kind of like the idea of them never having kids and finding ways to make their lives outside of racing full just with the two of them. it's kind of an open ending for that reason--i couldn't decide

#if i had words

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armandclocksitall · 2 months

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Watch The Night Go Up In Smoke (Chapter 4)

(A/N): so this story was discontinued but after looking through my old google docs i found out that i just never published chapters 4 and 5 of this? no clue why but i figured i should put them up now and if im struck with some sort of inspiration maybe ill keep the story going, let me know if that’s something you guys want ig?🤷🏻

Paul The Lost Boys x Frog! Reader

>Previous Chapter<

(y/n) had dressed up for the occasion, their first date with Paul. Sure they were just gonna hang out at a bonfire for the night but it was their first date ever, and (y/n) really wanted to impress the boy.

(y/n) was walking down the boardwalk after night fell and found Paul leaning against his bike looking as drop-dead sexy as they remembered him from the night before. They approached the biker with the biggest smile they could muster, trying to cover how nervous they felt.

“Damn, you look good enough to eat,” Paul said, putting his hands on (y/n)’s waist and pulling them in for a kiss. “You ready to have a good time?”

(y/n) nodded quickly but felt an uneasiness settle in the pit of their stomach. Something about the way he complimented them seemed just a little bit off. (y/n) shook off the feeling, mentally contributing it to first date jitters. Paul was sweet and (y/n) was shocked that he even asked them out. They didn’t seem like the type that Paul would normally go for but he had been the one to ask for a date.

As the two walked down the boardwalk hand in hand, (y/n) could feel the jealous stares burning into their back as they passed groups of scantily-clad girls that were vying for just a moment of Paul’s attention which he never granted. His eyes never left (y/n) as he asked random questions about their life and interests. He seemed so invested in getting to know them, he came off like a puppy eager to please.

They had walked down the steps and onto the beach when (y/n) looked around trying to find an empty spot to build a fire, “So where do you think we should sit?”

Paul, who was zoned out as they stepped on the sand, turned to (y/n), “Hmm? Oh, I was actually thinking we could set up a bit further down, away from all these big groups. They get pretty rowdy, I don’t want them to interrupt our date, you know?” He smirked down at them.

(y/n) nodded in understanding. The churning in their gut started up again. Getting away from the crowd on a first date in the murder capital of the world seemed a little risky. Paul seemed great but their head reeled at the possibilities. Was he expecting sex? (y/n) definitely wasn’t comfortable doing that, especially on a public beach where anyone could walk up on them.

As the crowd of beach-goers faded further and further into the background, (y/n) saw a bonfire a few hundred feet in front of them. It seemed like they had the same idea as Paul. They looked up at him and saw his grin widen as he grabbed (y/n) by the hand and started dragging them towards the group.

When they approached the bonfire, (y/n) noticed that sat upon a few pieces of driftwood were the three boys that were hanging out with Paul the previous night.

“Guys, this is (y/n). (y/n) you probably remember the guys from last night,” he pointed to the one Mikayla hit on, “That’s Dwayne,” the curly-haired on with the colorful jacket, “Marko,” and the one dressed in all black smoking a cigarette and looking as if he’d rather be anyplace else, “and David.”

(y/n) waved to the boys shyly before looking to Paul and gesturing to the three girls that surrounded the fire, “and them?”

“Oh, they’re just a few people who invited us to hang out, don’t worry about it.” Paul dragged (y/n) over to a log and sat down, pulling them into his lap roughly. They gasped, forcing a laugh out of the boy beneath them, “You’re so pent up babe, you gotta chill out.” He pulls a blunt out of his pocket and lights it before offering it to them, “You wanna take a hit?”

“Uh, I’ve never-” They trail off feeling stupid. Their dad was so strict, they never got to try anything or take any risks or just live their life.

“Relax, I’ll help you. Open your mouth, I’m gonna blow some smoke in and I need you to breathe in when I do that, okay?”

They nod and open their mouth as Paul inhales from the blunt. He grabs (y/n) by the chin and exhales the smoke as they breathe it in. Paul then closes their mouth but doesn’t put any distance between the two. “Okay, now hold it in for a few seconds before you breathe out.”

(y/n) holds their breath for a few seconds as they feel their lungs burn. It quickly becomes too much as they cough it up, puffs of smoke exiting their mouth in quick bursts.

Paul laughs at (y/n)’s inexperience. “Don’t worry, it gets easier once you’ve taken a few hits,” Paul says, taking another hit.

(y/n) blushed, looking away from Paul and noticing the three girls hanging off each one of the other boys as if they were in some sort of trance. They saw Marko trail a hand up the leg of a redhead while running his nose across the girl’s shoulder, “Man, I’m fucking starving.” As if face neared her neck (y/n) saw something that they felt they shouldn’t have seen, Marko’s face contorted and shifted into a terrifying mask made of sharp angles and glowing yellow eyes. (y/n) gasped in horror as he opened his mouth and produced a pair of sharp fangs that he promptly sunk into the neck of the girl. She let out a scream before it was stifled by the boy as he tore at her artery and crushed her windpipe between his teeth.

(y/n) stared in silent terror looking to the other boys to see what they were doing about the current situation only to realize their faces also shifted and they were on top of the other girls tearing at flesh and grabbing them before they could run away. “Paul! Paul, what’s happening? We need to leave!” (y/n) shot up before turning to Paul and grabbing his hand.

They froze as they felt claws rest in their palm and Paul’s face slowly morphed into that of a monster’s, “What’s wrong, babe? You were having fun just a little bit ago,” he said menacingly. (y/n) stumbled backward and landed on the sand looking up at Paul with eyes full of fear. They didn’t even have time before Paul leaped on them, fangs bared.

(y/n) shot up in bed to their morning alarm, panting and drenched in sweat. ‘It was only a dream’ they repeated to themself, ‘only a dream.’

There was a knock on (y/n)’s door that remained locked from the night before. “Just a minute,” (y/n) shouted, trying to regain their bearings. They stood from their bed and turned off their alarm before approaching the door and unlocking it.

(y/n)’s father stood in front of them with a mildly worried look on his face, “You okay? I heard some thrashing around in here and I thought I’d come check on you before I head out.”

“Oh yeah, I’m fine. I was just having a bad dream but everything’s okay now.”

Edgar nodded stiffly at his kid before changing the subject, he was never great at comforting people. That was definitely more Christy’s job. “So your uncle and I are heading to the mountains for a few days on a hunting trip. We should be back before Tuesday but if anything changes I’ll call you.”

(y/n) nodded their head and rested it on the doorframe, “Okay, dad. If anything happens here I’ll text you.”

“Okay good, just remember-”

“No staying out after dark, I know.” (y/n) cut their father off.

“Right. Food money is on the kitchen counter. Call Sam if you need anything immediately and be good while I’m gone,” Edgar pulls (y/n) for a hug before retreating towards the door. He quickly waves goodbye before leaving his home, getting into his car and driving away.

Sunset was approaching when (y/n)’s phone began ringing, the caller ID reading their cousin’s name.

“Hello?” (y/n) spoke into the phone.

“Hey, please tell me you had fun last night so that it makes this grounding at least a little bit worth it.”

“I had fun last night.”

“Are you lying?”

“No,” (y/n) laughed, “I’m not lying. Last night didn’t suck nearly as much as I thought it would. I mean it definitely wasn’t fun prying you off a guy only to have you puke in front of him, but beyond that I had a good time.”

“Oh thank god, I swear this week would be torture if you hated last night. I’m grounded until next Saturday night, no going out, no computer or phone unless it’s for school and I have to be in bed with lights out by 10. I had to beg my dad just to let me call you.”

“Damn that sucks.”

“Tell me about it. But anyways, that cute guy who was all over you last night, are you gonna see him again?”

(y/n) blushed, thankful that their cousin couldn’t see them through the phone, “Maybe, I didn’t get his number or anything and I don’t know how willing he’d be to hang out with me after I rushed out last night.”

“(y/n), please. He totally wanted to get with you and there’s no way he’d let little ol’ puking me get in the way of that. And a little birdie may have told me that you’re home alone until Tuesday?”

“A little birdie huh? You mean you weren’t eavesdropping on a conversation between our dads?”

“(y/n) Frog! How could you accuse me of such a thing?” Mikayla said dramatically through the phone.

(y/n) snickered at their cousin.

“All jokes aside, you have to go out again and find your man! Your dad isn’t around to stop you, you deserve to live a little!” Mikayla pleaded with them.

(y/n) considered their cousin’s words before letting out a sigh, “Okay I’ll go to the boardwalk again tonight.”

>Next Chapter<

#the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #the lost boys paul #paul the lost boys x reader #the lost boys x reader

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journey-to-the-attic · 4 months

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-> all-star hall ☆ ((some of) my favourite posts) (likely more tba in future)

art: -> rolling girl animation (+ youtube link) -> ik and satan -> ik meets god -> the newspaper club! -> lucifer returns from the work trip (+ context) -> ik + s4 trio in a band -> sleepy ik -> dance dance! -> fnaf with satan, levi and lucifer -> mammon and ik chilling -> lucifer the man behind the slaughter

asides/elaborations: -> ik and mammon's parody of oh, dear you! for lucifer (redirects to google doc) (plus talking about the process of writing it) -> ik's nicknames -> the lucifer loop -> the newspaper club's dynamics with other characters -> stupid things ik has made lucifer say

lore/story: -> chronodae lore -> singularity syndrome (text in images) -> s4 but make it jtta

misc fun/cute things! -> cny with the gang -> friendship bracelet chronicles -> ik is the rad's apex predator -> ik's three commandments -> ik, unintended prank master/lucifer tormentor -> ik is an elder brother

#navigation

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chocolatepot · 6 months

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16, 24, 42 for fic writer asks!

How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

😬um well ... In Ellipsus (cloud-hosted doc service I switched to a few months back) alone, I have 8 in-progress fics. In Google Docs, there are ten more and counting. Whenever I have an idea for a fic, I start a new doc for it.

One that I was intending to write for AUpril but probably don't have the time to do by the 21st (it's not even started) is a kind of reversal of the one I did where Ed's an Edwardian female impersonator. It's a genderbend, and Ed is a suffragist who's respected by the other very serious suffragists. Stede is a reasonably successful male impersonator, going on the vaudeville stage in trousers and singing love songs about girls. The other activists find her offensive because the general public basically thinks that that's what they are (women who want to wear trousers and "be men"), but Ed is fascinated. She meets up with Stede and Stede puts her in pants, which she loves.

This came about because I wanted to do the original fic but with a genderbend, made Stede the impersonator so it's not a retread, and then realized I could explore an aspect of the bent gender stuff I haven't gotten into so much: Stede as the more GNC one.

Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?

Not given to me directly, but the idea that you should write every single day, and if you're not feeling it you just need to dig deep and have discipline. There are some days when I simply cannot write, whether from an emotional issue or because of executive dysfunction, and forcing myself is just upsetting and/or a waste of time, because it generally prolongs the non-writing mood. If I chill out and recharge, in a day or two I can usually write again.

What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

The last fic I was reading is Love, Pride & Delicacy by @anghraine, an exploration of Pride and Prejudice if Darcy were a woman. It's fascinating and so well-written - I very much recommend it!

The last fic I read to completion is The Philadelphia Chicken Man by @lookinglass-fic. Ed eats a rotisserie chicken every day to rediscover himself. I also recommend it!

ask me questions!

#ask meme #writing

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see-arcane · 2 years

Text

Barking Harker TEASER

The following is a rough draft of the first chapter for the in-progress horror novel, and alternate ending Dracula sequel, Barking Harker.

It will contain unsettling imagery.

It will contain unsettling possibilities.

It will contain things that bite, bleed, scream, and laugh.

If all this is acceptable, then welcome. Enter freely and of your own will.

And leave all of the happiness and humanity you bring.

For a version that isn’t in Tumblr format eye strain mode, check out the Google Doc version HERE.

Link to Barking Harker TEASER 2 is HERE.

Barking Harker

TEASER

C. R. Kane

Preludes and Interludes I:

Nights in Asylum

SISTER AGATHA’S OBSERVATIONS

The Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary brought Jonathan Harker into its care on the 8th of July. While not the worst case admitted in Sister Agatha’s time, he was several leagues away from the best-off. The Englishman, so his manner and voice gave him away long before ever uttering his address, was like one trapped at the point of waking from a supreme nightmare. A persistent dread kept his eyes wide and wet, his body taut, his brown brow puckered in a constant flux of distress and distrust.

Less of the staff than of the reality around him.

“I cannot trust me,” he told her over his broth. Whether hearty or thin, his meals seemed perpetually doomed to chill half-eaten on their tray. Appetite had withered in him even before his arrival to judge by his gauntness. “I cannot trust that I am awake and safe. I cannot trust that the nightmare I left was genuine or some spiraling betrayal of the mind. I cannot—,”

She’d watched him rub furiously at the side of his neck, as though trying to scour something away. A hoarse noise left him.

“I cannot be like them. Mina’s waiting. Mr. Hawkins will be wanting an update. I cannot be…”

Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing at his neck. Fresh dew balanced on his lashes.

“Like who?”

The question nettled him. His lips twitched up in a rictus, the false smile of one doing their best not to shake apart in a fit.

“Any of them. The women in the castle. The monster in the box. The dream in the hail storm.” The smile broke open on an awful laugh. More a sob in dismal disguise. “The unhappy couple stolen from their dirt in Exeter. Not them. Please, not any of them.”

Scrubbing, rubbing, scratching, clawing.

Before he could draw blood, she asked, “Does your neck itch?” The assault stopped. He stared at his hands for a spell, regarding the crescents of topmost skin now embedded in his nails. He rubbed circles in one palm, then the other.

“No, there is no itch. It does not even ache. It ached before. After they…” The grey eyes rolled up to her like cloudy marbles. “Do you see anything there?” He dragged at the shirt collar. Sister Agatha looked. Aside from the tint caused by the fresh clawing, the skin was the same unmarked umber complexion as the rest of him. Albeit an unhealthily pale shade of copper, considering. He seemed like a man fresh from living in a cave.

“No, it looks quite fine. No rash, no injury.” Just as there had not been with their initial medical examination. A trial in itself, as he had suffered a scandalized anxiety at his being even half-bare before male doctors and female nurses alike. One of the newer girls had touched him—only to pluck a mote of cotton from the hair at the nape of his neck—and he had sprung away as if she’d struck him. He had stood rigid, seeming to judge the merits of running versus snatching up the nearest items at hand for a weapon.

Registering his own state, he’d apologized profusely to her. At a distance. The girl had stammered her own apology back, mumbling about the cotton.

“Not cotton,” he explained, eyes flitting to a wall mirror. An expression mingled between relief and misery had taken his face. “Only my hair.”

Sister Agatha had rarely seen the reality of ‘shocked white’ locks over the years, and even then it was often with those patients someplace past forty years. Jonathan Harker was scarcely past twenty. Whatever the truth of his experience was, it had been so titanic that it had burst his mental state like an egg against brick. That it had the trappings of an abrupt attack, mingled as it was with plain fever of the brain and body, alongside malnutrition, gave her hope that it was an instance of trauma rather than outright mental impairment.

Something monstrous had happened to him, and so his mind, at once a traitor and good-intentioned aide, had costumed the event with genuine monsters.

By the second week of August, when the worst of his symptoms would cool, Sister Agatha would do him the courtesy of writing ahead to his employer and his fiancée. The latter would include her postscript, trimming his ravings down to mere babble of wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons; and the rest, she confessed to good Mina Murray, she withheld out of fear.

Yet not a fear for the young lady’s opinion of the poor bridegroom-to-be.

Truth be told, it was a fear she would never commit to paper. Not to any record, lest she look back on it and recall the whole of the young man’s stay. To examine such details too closely was to risk opening an abyss within her mind. One which she suspected to be bottomless and greased with a wonder untouched by the benevolence of miracle, and edging instead towards…

Well.

It was not worth the ink for her notes. Nor even her own breath, wasted on choking out the particulars she witnessed—or supposed she witnessed—to another ear. This was a place of healing and faith, not superstition, they would tell her. Supposing they did not invite her to enjoy the other side of their hospitality outright. Jonathan Harker’s early period was a warning against risking such a change of status. As illustrated by the escapade with the glass.

After Sister Agatha had confirmed there was no mark upon his neck, he had asked for a mirror. Seeing in the glass that she spoke the truth, he had loosed two small tears, his lips twitching as he uttered a single sentence. A whisper so low she almost missed it.

“It is a foul bauble.”

In the next instant, he had shattered the glass against the wall and tried to take a shard to his throat.

Sister Agatha and two others had to wrestle with him to get the piece away, though he succeeded in nicking his stubbled cheek. It had taken a fourth to get his arms down and the wrists fastened. Later, the doctors would remark that it was an incredible feat for a man half-wasted away. Yet said flicker of vitality was hardly noteworthy compared to the hideous reaction that followed as they fastened wrist and ankle. It was less a result of his being bound, but the action involved to make him so.

He had bellowed oaths at the flurry of bodies, fighting and bucking like a rabid thing.

“No more! You will have no more from me, you leeches! I will not go back, I will not be your stock! Get off me, get off me, you damned—,”

Then the sedative needle pierced his skin.

It stunned all present by how immediately opposite the intended effect was. Namely, Jonathan Harker shed all semblance of censorship, sanity, and human address, instead erupting with curses to make a sailor swoon, followed by a nigh animalistic series of howling screams that would leave him hoarse on waking. All the while, he kicked and yanked at his restraints with a redoubled strength. The struts creaked dangerously for a moment before the drug began to win the battle.

As they finished binding him, those miserable grey eyes blinked rapidly, fighting sleep as much as consciousness, muttering all the while, “No, no, no, not again, please, I cannot do it again, no, no…”

He slept. Poorly.

Even in better weeks to come, unbound, harmless and charming, Jonathan Harker would never sleep well as long as they had him. He spasmed, shivered, and moaned as nightmares sent memories to hunt him even in his rest.

Sister Agatha was there when he woke from that first drugged stupor. She felt her heart twist into knots as the epiphany dawned across his face. It was not an unfamiliar expression in her work; sane, mad, or ill, finding oneself immobilized was never a happy discovery. Yet in the Englishman, the sight became a relaxant. He untensed even under the gleam of sweat and tears. Whatever invisible wires kept him rigid were cut and he sank deeper into the mattress like a thing gutted.

“Here. I am here,” he murmured to himself. Then he turned to croak at her, “My apologies for the outburst. I thought you were someone else.”

“So we took it.” It was already being circulated among some of the staff that, assuming there was more than an imagined impetus for his behavior, his mind had translated the work of some human jailor to more legendary horrors. Sister Agatha regarded again the pallid tint of him; a man who had lived too long without sun. Her eye drifted to the fresh cut scabbing on his cheek. “Yet that does not explain your desire to commit one of the worst sins against oneself, as much as God. You claim you have a loved one waiting for you. Your fiancée.”

“Mina,” he breathed. The word left him like prayer. “Yes, Mina is at home. I could not let them keep me. Not like that.”

“Yet you would end yourself rather than go home to your Mina? You appear to have fought terribly to get as far as you have.”

“I did not think clearly. I am not thinking clearly.” His throat bobbed with a dry gulp. “The trouble is I can no longer tell if I am safe to return to her. They did it, you see. Him. The sisters. They got what they wanted. Those three, they almost dragged me back that night in the forest. Perhaps they might have if they were not so eager for the meal. They took their turns right there in the clearing just as he had his in the bedroom. But they overindulged. Even depleted, I was still able to slip them, content as ticks as they were. Or else they allowed me to escape, knowing what would become of me.

“Yet it was so strange, Sister. The blood, the pain, they happened. But by sunrise, the evidence was gone. I got to the trains still thinking it may have been a nightmare. I was so focused on the worst of possibilities; perhaps it had invented the scenes of room and forest alike to purge itself. Which feels absurd. I did not imagine the fear any more than I imagined their cold hands or the ivory pins of their teeth. Unless I did. Unless, unless, unless. That has been my state since I fled the place. Especially since I truly do not feel the pain in my throat or find the wounds. Gone, all.

“If I am suddenly mad, I am no longer worthy to be with Mina. If I am not mad, if what happened was reality, then I fear I am not safe to be with her. Not until I know for certain that, as sure as the Devil inflicted his kin upon me, God has done me the mercy of a miracle. The bite came more than once. I was siphoned and marked. But come daylight, any sign was erased. I have prayed for answers. For confirmation to prove one answer is truer than the others. As yet, I still cannot tell. All possibilities have their drawbacks.

“I dread to be mad. I dread the idea that the Hell I left and all its smiling devils were real. But at least the third, with its blessing, also proves the kindness of God in blotting out the monsters’ parting gift. For that, I pray most.” Jonathan Harker blinked up at her, the greater bulk of his desolation evaporating away into a simpler mask of request. “May I ask you for one thing, Sister?”

“What is that, Jonathan?”

“I should like to be held here at least a month. Regardless of how well or ill I appear, I plead for a month, barred in by the Cross and steadier heads than mine. More than anything, I require trustworthy senses that can observe objectively, with God’s eye over your shoulder. Whatever expenses shall be incurred by my stay, I can give you information and addresses to see to payment; as well as, if it is allowed, a surplus to aid those who come after me. Is such an arrangement possible?”

“It is, Jonathan, absolutely. But I would ask you something in return. Two things.”

“What are they?”

“The first, that you feel free to call me Sister Agatha. The second, that you will eat fully at your next meal.”

“I will, Sister Agatha.”

Now clearly set upon his own deadline of a month, the restraints were undone, though a watch was kept to ensure he did not have another grisly change of heart. With the exception of the man’s persistent nervousness and fitful sleep, the larger part of his trouble should only have been the fever. Indeed, under more ignorant circumstances, Sister Agatha would gladly have assigned all the strangeness of his stay to that dreary illness.

The poor fellow seemed in a constant state of warmth, saturating his clothes and the sheets with perspiration like a boiling clockwork. Neither medicine nor ice seemed to blunt the heat. A fact that was not made better with the young man’s insistence that he was scarcely aware of his own temperature. Certainly not half so much as he was aware of things beyond the small world of his sickroom.

For instance:

“Did they ever find the culprit who took Frau Brodbeck’s ring?”

The name struck her like a cold pin.

“Pardon?”

He must have seen some accusation in her face, for he half-hid behind his glass of water. Still, he nodded at the door.

“From the room across the hall,” he murmured. “The lady there, Greta Brodbeck, found me reading last night. I flatter myself that my German must have gotten better to understand her, for she spoke all in a rush.”

Sister Agatha felt an entire bouquet of icicles sink in her bowels.

“That was—that is how Frau Brodbeck speaks as a rule, Jonathan. Barely a pause to breathe.” As she said it, her own breath cramped in her throat. “What was it she said to you?”

“She insisted her wedding band was stolen and swapped with a paste replacement. She says to confront Dr. Weiss about it, for she claims the thief is one of his new hires, some fellow with a mole under his right eye. Her band had a diamond and two rubies. The swapped ring she showed me has a dull crystal and a spray of false emeralds. She seemed quite upset about it, as she’s to leave the hospital soon and none of the staff have listened to her about the matter.”

“Well, that will not do. This is the first I have heard of it, but I know there is time. She does not leave until the morning,” Sister Agatha said, impressed at her own placidity. It was the stillness of thin ice over a lake wild with life swimming in frenzy, but it held. She even smiled. “I will bring it up with Dr. Weiss.” Before she could reach the door, there was a creak as Jonathan sat up in bed.

“Before you go...”

“Yes?”

“Do you know whose dog it is on the grounds out there?” She turned to blink at him.

“What dog do you mean?”

“The one that was barking under the window last night. I confess, it frightened me at first. Imagination almost remade it into a wolf and I have had more than my share of the creatures. Transylvania and Munich both seemed intent on inflicting their company. But the pitch out there,” he gestured to the window, “was wrong. The bark was too deep to be anything other than some large purebred’s noise. I managed to hobble to the window to look for it, but I only caught sight of it running off around the hospital’s east corner. Certainly big enough to pass for a wolf, but for the shape of it.”

Saying so aloud brought some measure of relief to his tired features. Sister Agatha smiled in turn, now with less performance in its upturned corners.

“I’d not realized we were playing host to the animal. We would have heard if it was bothering the patients, so it must have snuck in some way and fled again.” Jonathan nodded at this, cloudy eyes rolling to the window.

“Perhaps it’s lost. Some household may have misplaced a family member.”

“We shall keep an eye out should it return. Try to rest, Jonathan--and please, do let someone know if you need help leaving the bed next time.”

Sister Agatha left him as he gave her his assent.

She waited until she was at least three doors away before her idle step turned into a brisk march.

Six doors turned it into a pace just short of a jog down to the building’s bowels.

Greta Brodbeck was waiting for her there, as patient as any corpse pending delivery to those with the duty of collection. In this case, her granddaughter. The ring on her wedding finger was as Jonathan described it. Faux crystals presented to him by an incensed old woman who had been dead most of the day before. The same Jonathan, she knew from the staff, who continued to break his bedridden streak only to force himself around in unsteady circuits of his room for his legs’ sake, to use the facilities, or to stare out the window. With the exception of his failed dog-watching, this was always done with a steadying arm and another’s assistance.

He had never been down to the morgue. He never even left his room.

These facts were shelved in the cellar of Sister Agatha’s mind as she went to Dr. Weiss, claiming to recognize the ring as a fake, and to ask the new young man, Arnold Baum, about where the diamond and ruby original might be. It took little pressing to force the fellow’s truth and the ring out of him, along with some hastily engineered tale to do with a sick relative, or perhaps a friend, who desperately needed the money, and really, Frau Brodbeck was hardly going to miss such a thing…

The trouble sorted, Sister Agatha briefly thought of telling Jonathan what state Frau Brodbeck was in when she made her complaint to him.

Would a ghost story help a man in his condition? Yes, it could be a miracle. It could also be a fantastic illusion born of the fever. All he would see is a tally mark to the monstrous theory he now holds about himself and the shadows of the world. Hush, Agatha.

Even so, she battled herself over it.

She found her fretting was moot upon her next visit. One she had put off until the evening, almost hoping he was too drowsy for pleasantries. But when she opened the door, she found Jonathan propped up in a chair beside the window. Grated as it was, he was allowed to let the glass up for a much-needed breeze. He was peering down at something when she came in. Smiling.

For a moment, Sister Agatha thought it hung strangely on him. Like a carved slit more than a true expression.

“What has you in such a fine mood, Jonathan?”

“Mm?” He blinked and the smile flickered out of place. “Apologies, my mind floated off for a moment. Do I seem in a fine mood?”

“You were smiling at something.”

“Was I? Oh, well, there was good news today, wasn’t there?” The smile returned, this one less static. “Frau Brodbeck stopped in to tell me you rescued her ring in time for her exit. She was most grateful. Though there were some parting words she had regarding the thief that I doubt I should repeat.”

Sister Agatha felt the blood drop out of her face even as she buttressed her own smile. Jonathan seemed to note this and was on the verge of a question Sister Agatha was still unsure how to answer, when a dog began to bark. The young man whipped his head back around so quickly she worried something might snap. Instead, he leaned into the glass and the strange smile curled again.

“I’m here, I’m here. Hello again!” His eyes swept back to her. They seemed even more faded against the exhausted bruise-brown shadows that ringed his gaze. The grey had faded almost to a misty hue. She thought briefly of Greta Brodbeck’s dead stare as she returned her stolen ring. The eyelids had cracked open in the interim between visits, revealing the clouding that marked all cadavers’ eyes within days. They seemed to watch her now, set in Jonathan Harker’s living face. “It’s our visitor,” he laughed. “He really is a hefty one. There must be some hole in the fence he’s wedging through.”

As if in answer, another bark sounded. It was a thunderous noise. The kind that belonged to breeds made for fighting bears and winning. Sister Agatha joined him at the window. She followed his gaze out and down to what looked like a black mountain on legs. True, the shape of it denied any lupine heritage, but its stature was gigantic. Two children could ride on its back without buckling, perhaps three.

Children with no fear of death, her thoughts amended.

The iron-dark hound stared up at their window with eyes made lambent in the lights of the hospital and the bright half-moon. Almost yellow. Its stare never broke to blink.

“Watch,” Jonathan whispered, not looking from the dog. He moved slowly aside, away from the frame, until he was no longer visible through the grate. The dog barked again. It boomed loud enough to shock the heart. Jonathan chuckled and bowed back into view. The black dog settled. It did not wag its tail, nor did it pace or whine. Only watched the Englishman watch it. As if she’d spoken aloud, he nodded and hummed, “He’s a serious one. Some manner of working dog.”

“It could be,” Sister Agatha agreed, trying to distract herself with squinting for a collar hidden in the black pelt. “Yet no one I asked mentioned any sightings of him and no one has come to call about their missing pet.”

“Not a pet,” Jonathan told the grate. “He is self-employed and takes his duties seriously when they come to him. But now he waits on his associate. The white dog.”

“There’s another?”

“Not yet. But soon.” There was a languid note to the words she did not care for. Turning, she saw that Jonathan seemed to have fallen asleep sitting up. His shut eyes still faced the window. “Black dogs do much. But the white dog is made for more. It smiles and laughs even when it hates. Hurts. Most of all when it is hungry.” His temple rested against the window frame, the dark eyelids revealing the dance and twitch of a dreaming mind. A small sound leaked out of him. Something that stuttered in a way that could have wept or giggled. His lips split over his teeth in a hard grin as tears traced his cheeks. Then, plaintive as a child, “I do not want the white dog to come.”

Sister Agatha roused him just enough to guide him to the bed where he sank down on top of the sheets, shaking and cooking in his own illness. When she went back to the window, the black dog was gone. She spoke to the others, warning them of the massive hound and insisting on a search of the surrounding fence for gaps it might be winnowing through. None cared to think of what damage such a creature might do to patients or staff cornered outdoors. Yet daylight revealed no openings in gate or fence suitable to be its threshold.

Regardless, the black dog returned the following night. On many nights more. According to Jonathan, it did not bark so long as it could see him. But despite his initial fondness for the animal, or what passed for fondness on realizing it was not a wolf, he now dreaded his visitor.

“It knows things I don’t,” he told Sister Agatha, led again to his sweat-soaked bed. “It knows what the white dog will do, what the white dog will demand if it gets to me here. And it will. Frau Brodbeck told me so. She seemed sorry to tell me. And—such an absurd thing to say!—she claimed I could take what I needed when the white dog came. I did her the service of the ring, so she would do a service in turn. Isn’t that strange?”

He giggled and sweated and sobbed into his pillow until sleep dragged him down. Said sleep twisted and twitched terribly, his dreams full of hunting and hauntings, a gibberish of pleas flying from him in supplication to God, to dogs, and to some unknown specter:

“I do not want it, I don’t want any, please, I don’t…”

Far more bitter fits mingled fear and wrath against those initial demons who ushered him into their haven, making his lip curl and hands clutch violently at the air:

“Why do you walk and talk and feast? Why do you not fester in your box? Why are you not the prey of your pets, of the birds and the flies? Come, my friend, let me take you home…”

All the while, he burned hotter and hotter within the oven of his flesh. Almost three weeks of this wretchedness passed before he reached his hottest point. The thermometer screamed red to its tip. They prepared an ice bath.

He let them carry him to the tub’s edge, but insisted on stripping under his own power. This he did without blushing before his audience. Such might have been taken as an improvement if he had not continued to claw mindlessly at himself—as though his skin were a last stubborn garment to be removed. He let the attendants’ hands stop his own without fuss. The grey eyes, now so wan around the pupils they were almost gone, tipped wildly in their sockets.

His only words were a sing-song burble:

“Burning above in old lands of sand, cool in the graves below. They burrow deep and they burrow far, where only dead and worms know. One of the dogs taught me that. Can you guess which, Sister Agatha?” His laughter came in a soft mad stream between his bared teeth, giddy as a hyena.

At least until his eyes rolled entirely into his head and his mind rolled away with them. When they brought him out of the bath, the ice had melted and he was solidly, implacably unconscious. He did not stir through the rest of the day. Nor the night. Nor the day after that.

“His temperature is dropping.”

“Good. I have yet to see a fever so stubborn in its breaking. It’s a wonder he did not set the bed alight, poor boy.”

“Doctor. His temperature has been dropping two degrees every hour.”

Down, down, down, out of fever and into a frigid cold. The window was shut, blankets were piled, and warmth was fed thinly into the cool statue that was Jonathan Harker. His breath was the only sign they were not nursing a corpse. On the second night, Sister Agatha was stirred from a brisk nod she took for a nap.

The black dog was barking again. That she felt the tremor of it in her chest failed to surprise her. Even Greta Brodbeck’s presence did not manage a shock.

“Because you are dreaming,” Sister Agatha insisted to herself. “You are dreaming and you will wake and all that makes sense now will make none then.”

Is this a dream? the dead woman asked in her usual rush. So Sister Agatha assumed. Frau Brodbeck’s lips did not move and the words were not words. Yet she did speak. Are you certain?

Sister Agatha was on her feet now, knowing she had to be out. Jonathan could not appease that awful hound as he was. Frau Brodbeck walked with her. She was dressed in her fine funereal attire and her ring winked prettily as they marched down the halls. None were there to see them. Sister Agatha could not bring herself to call for anyone.

If it was a dream, it would not matter. If it was not, what would happen if they saw what she did? What would happen if they didn’t?

Her attention flicked back to her companion. Frau Brodbeck seemed as whole as the day she was taken away for burial. And yet there seemed to be something hidden beneath the wrinkled shell of her. A secret and unpleasant core.

“Is your soul not at rest, Greta?”

I rest. He eats.

The black dog barked.

Something barked back.

It froze Sister Agatha as surely as bolts driven through both feet. The sound of it was not powerful for its volume, nor did it carry the same implicit threat of the black dog. Yet it struck deeper for the...what? The wrongness.

Yes, the wrongness of it. It ate through her ears, burrowed in the coils of her brain like insects and flourished there, sending a pestilence rippling outwards. Bile leapt in her throat, gooseflesh shriveled her skin, and a noxious pit fell open in her stomach that could not decide between a reaction of revulsion or terror.

“That is not a dog,” she heard herself croak. “It cannot be a dog.”

It is and it is not. Leave him be, Agatha. He will be a good boy once he’s done.

Another thunderclap bark from the black dog. Another eldritch answer from his companion. It nearly cackled.

“Greta, is that the white dog out there?”

When Frau Brodbeck did not answer, Sister Agatha turned to her. Regret slammed through her like a giant’s open hand.

Greta Brodbeck was only a third there. A rotten Greta, a piecemeal Greta, more skeleton than flesh in the remains of her burial garb. Only her left hand was perfectly intact, along with its ring. The maggots had given those fingers the courtesy of being their final stop. Elsewhere they were busy weaving in and out of the pallid scraps of meat still left on the rest of her bones. Even that was sparse.

For the other two thirds of Greta Brodbeck had been stolen. Snapped bones jutted from the residual decay, with the marks of great animal teeth and clawed gouges making even this much ragged. It was as if she had been worried at by wolves. Or—

Bark, bark.

What remained of Frau Brodbeck’s face smiled. Half her head was too stripped of meat to do anything else.

Do not worry. I will not miss such a little thing. She raised her left hand—the only hand—and laid it on Sister Agatha’s shoulder. The grip was light, but solid. Cold. If you look, you will regret it.

Sister Agatha blinked. She was alone in the hall. She remained alone, still hearing the barking of the things that were not dogs.

“This must be a dream. I would not do this otherwise.”

For she found herself almost running out into the terrain of the hospital grounds. She was struck only for a heartbeat by the tilted beauty of the night; an alien landscape of flowers and gates and hills she did not know under the pale moonglow. But this respite ended with mayfly speed and any bud of poetry withered and died with it.

Sister Agatha saw the dogs.

The black dog, a hill of fur and lantern eyes, sat as if posed for a portrait. There were no features to it but the eyes, the shape, and the vivid white daggers of its teeth. A decayed human calf was clamped in them. At its feet, slowly disappearing down a different gullet, was a tidy heap of rotting anatomy. Bones and meat and a tumble of organs on which flies and moths hopped, taking their minor fills before the greater maw descended. The maw of the white dog.

The latter was a vision that offended immediately and entirely. Not least because it was a creature that seemed stretched and pressed into the rough mold of a man. The result was a horrid pastiche of both.

It sat stooped on its haunches, the back turned to her as the head bowed low and tore at human gristle. It had hands to hold its meal close, thickly knuckled and set with heavy claws. A hide that was an imperfect tint of deathly grey-white pallor and a dim living brown sheathed the botched architecture of bone and muscle. Its only note of true white was the hair. The bulk of its wild pelt stood along head, shoulders and the stark ladder of the spine. Sister Agatha thought abstractly of mange.

Her hand went to the Cross as God’s words came through her lips. Hearing her, the black dog slowly raised its head. Sister Agatha spoke louder. Faster. The black dog growled once around its mouthful of leg. Sister Agatha knew at once that the black dog could split her with paw or jaw if the urge came.

It was older than the names men had given it. Older than the English’s fatal joke of the church grim, older than Black Shuck. Older than any title breathed upon humanity’s dirt. Older than the hammer and nail and the Son destined to dangle from the trinket at her neck. The black dog had a duty to a force as old as life itself.

Do not interrupt.

“Deliver us—deliver us,” the words were caught in her. “Deliver us from—,”

The white dog turned to look at her. Its mouth was a huge and impossible hollow. It hung wide and grinning as a serpent’s mouth. Just the size for the head staring out at her between the vise of teeth.

Jonathan Harker’s dead gaze met hers just as the jaws snapped shut.

“Sister! Sister! Agatha, it’s alright!”

She woke to a circle of wide-eyed faces hovering over her. One was Sister Klara paused in the act of bringing salts to her nose. Another was Dr. Weiss, looking near a faint himself. The third was—

“Jonathan?”

The young man had stumbled from his bed to come crouch and worry with the others. She recognized the his room, albeit seen from the wrong angle. For some reason she was on the floor.

“Good morning,” he tried to laugh. She found it somehow relieving that he couldn’t. The relief redoubled at the sight of his eyes—grey, yet unclouded. Bright.

“What is this? What’s happened?”

“What happened is you were screaming loud enough to scare the birds,” said Dr. Weiss.

“You were already on the floor,” Sister Klara added, tucking the salts away. “We thought it was a fit until Jonathan pointed out you were asleep.”

“I tried to wake you,” Jonathan murmured, “but at the time I assumed I was still dreaming too.” This time he managed a true and sheepish smile. It sat right on him. “Not a good night’s sleep for either of us, it seems.”

Sister Agatha muttered an agreement and spent the next twenty minutes trying to shoo ensuing questions from her fellows the way one swats at flies. It was not until late afternoon that she returned to check in on Jonathan. Though his hands trembled, he was making steady progress through a meal, forkfuls of beef disappearing one after the other.

“I think this is the first time since you arrived that you have eaten with any appetite.”

“Mm?” he hummed, still chewing. He swallowed hastily and fidgeted with apology. “I think you’re right. A belated gluttony, but for a special occasion.”

“What occasion is that?”

“A twofold celebration. The first, that my latest temperature sees me at 37 °C, and it appears to be holding. The second being our point on the calendar.” Here a bittersweet sort of joy lit him up. Washed out and lean though he remained, Sister Agatha could not deny there was some new ember of vigor struggling to stoke a fire in him. “It has been over thirty days since I arrived here. In those thirty days, yes, I was sick. Last night was…” The chipper new edge to his features wavered. He had laid aside his tray and now rested both hands—rather, clamped them—upon a book in his lap. The only volume he had on his person when the hospital collected him. The only one he had read and reread during his stay.

A small traveler’s journal, a third of its pages made dark with writing. To her knowledge, he had not asked for pen or pencil since coming. He gripped the little book until his knuckles showed white.

“It was a particularly bad one, if only in my head.”

The hands relaxed. He brightened again.

“Yet that itself should be taken as good news. It and the passage of time have, at the very least, provided an overdue confirmation. Whatever concerns lay ahead for me now, they are not the ones I feared most. I will take whatever victories I can in this state. All that said, I think I am about due to take my troubles off your shoulders. To that end, I would ask for one final piece of help.”

It was the 12th of August when Sister Agatha wrote the letters he could not, sending them the same day. There was no barking in the night.

It was the 24th of August when Mina Murray arrived, boiling over with equal parts relief and dismay at the sight of her fiancé. The latter feeling was not helped by the revelation that his current state was a vast improvement to how he had arrived. Still, the couple left St. Joseph and Ste. Mary’s happy, for the Superior saw over their wedding vows right there in Jonathan’s room. They departed as husband and wife and many remarked that there were few couples of greater health or wealth who could boast even a fraction of the joy carried by that blissful pair.

Sister Agatha felt a warm release unfold in her chest as she watched Jonathan Harker depart. A tired young man, his dark hair still feathered with that premature sprinkle of white, but one who transformed with every look at his beloved into the handsome youth he must have been before his shock fractured him. As if Mina Harker’s presence alone were medicine and the fellow’s brain was finally sending orders to mend the body into a presentable shape. She wished the couple well, asked the Lord to shelter them, and rejoiced at another silent night.

It was the 26th of August when Sister Agatha received belated word that there had been some madman at work in a churchyard not a day’s ride away. This she heard from one of the hospital’s cooks.

“Happened two weeks ago, my brother said. Some vandal tore up our poor Frau Brodbeck’s plot. Some fools have tried to put it on wolves, but it is so much ignorance. Wolves have food enough aboveground. They would not put a pack’s efforts into digging up the lady’s fine coffin and rattling her old bones apart.”

“How do you mean?” Sister Agatha asked, praying against an answer. The cook shook her head without lifting it from her work. A hen deprived of its bones, chopped fine, then finer. Something greasy moved in Sister Agatha’s throat at the sight.

“They found her coffin pried open and most of the dear woman torn away. I expect they blamed wolves more than any graverobber or lunatic because her wedding ring was left alone. Even madmen, they think, would not have left the jewelry behind. But Lorant says it must have been a man and a dog, for all the paw prints tearing up the earth about the spot. Which I take to be doubly evil, if I may say it. Staining one’s own hands with such vile work is one thing. Dragging one of God’s kindest creatures into it is cruel. The poor things are too loyal not to go along with their master’s whims and there are such fiends in the world who would abuse it…”

Sister Agatha nodded and excused herself.

There was no barking that night either. She dreamed just the same.

In it, Jonathan Harker had finished the supper of Greta Brodbeck and proceeded to eat himself bite by laughing bite.

SANITARIUM SUITE

Cozening the madman at the window was taking more time than he would normally have suffered if the need were urgent.

As it was to be the first misdirection of many, the lunatic’s invitation would need to happen soon to cement what the valiant knights would declare the timeline of their remaining woman’s violation. The Penelope to her friend’s Helen. He had intended to collect them as a pair anyway, but circumstances had altered his itinerary. Surprises abounded.

Her aid in the would-be crusade, for one.

Jonathan Harker for another.

Oh, but it had taken all his will, and no small amount of interest in another notable face, not to turn his head in Piccadilly as the young man spotted him. All the while gawping and shaking against his wife. If he had not reached out and pressed his screeching mind down to sleep on the bench, his and Mrs. Harker’s small holiday would have been spoiled, and that would not do.

Now here was the lovely couple again. Hale and happy and dreaming whatever the righteous dream of.

He had gained entry to the sanitarium scarcely an instant after the young doctor offered it as their personal sanctum to operate from. Dr. John Seward thought himself a king of this meager castle, his subjects either loyal or too disempowered to do any ill against him. But, like with so many soft rulers of the age, he lost sight of how easy even the strongest foundation could be chipped at with an axe of gold.

In a guise, he had feigned the role of a man seeking a place to store an ‘unwell’ wife. Might he have leave to examine the cells? Cost was no object and he would not cast his dear madwoman into anything but the finest of padded boxes. He had been toured about the place, the madman of the window being already pressed to sleep and his prey busily fussing over his demise floors above. In, out, and gone with the stamp of invitation carried away for future use. Such as now.

Now, when the deeper part of true sleep was pulled ever deeper, until the Harkers drowsed too heavily for dreams. The girl would know nothing of his presence until future visits masked him in the veil of a nightmare. Her young man would not know him at all. Not for some time.

He took a moment to idle once the fog congealed to flesh and bone. His pacing went soundlessly around the room as he lifted this, nudged that. He pondered the merits of silently rearranging the entire room’s furnishings, including the bed and its sleepers, for the lot of them to wake to. It would almost be worth it to imagine their faces. The thought tickled enough to make him lay a plotting hand on the headboard.

But no, it would be too much a waste. They did not know of his premature access and it was best to keep them blind until the madman caved to him. There was time enough to play later. For now, work. Insomuch as he could call the matter any sort of labor.

He circled to Mina Harker’s side of the bed and lifted the whorls of hair off her neck. Simple access. But on the chance that her husband or their assembled champions had the wit to check one another’s throats, a less obvious location was called for. And really, he had started this excursion in the spirit of holiday. Why not indulge?

Pressing at the couple’s minds again, he sank them just short of a comatose stupor, then peeled away the covers. Her nightdress was already rucked suitably high. The mark he left upon the handle of her hip was small. A pinprick that might be attributed to any number of scratches and jabs from her daily ensemble. More, unless she was the sort to twirl bare before the mirror, only her husband would manage to spot the pinpricks. Despite the young man’s experience, even he would not recognize so meager a wound.

His bite broke her skin as daintily as toothpicks sinking into fresh bread. One sip. Another. Done.

The impatient hedonist in him stamped its feet and demanded a deeper drink; such a small nip was barely enough to slick his teeth.

“A moment, a moment,” he hummed to himself. He slit his finger on a canine. “Business comes first.”

The cut dripped a murkier red than living blood, but it was his, and that was key. With one hand he parted the girl’s lips and slid the bleeding digit down onto her tongue. The blood ran on its destined route. A pitifully dull sight compared to what was to come. He had rehearsed the eventual pose in his mind a dozen times already, likewise the inevitable gnashing of fangs and wicked litanies. Even clever children needed pageantry to goad them along now and then. His theatre with Mrs. Harker was destined to be one of his gaudier performances. The people of this land were such cringing sorts. A glimpse of his bloodied breast in her shrieking mouth would stick them all like a hot spur. Especially her dozing neighbor.

“I wish I could be there as it happens,” he whispered to the sleeping faces. He took the finger back and saw, to no surprise, it had healed already. His knuckle tipped her chin up until the mouth closed. “I know there will be much more to see. Far greater sights to share.” His hand drifted to Jonathan Harker’s head and crawled in the brown-white field of hair. The hand crept to the shelf of his cheek as he traced the vanished trail of that slipped razor. “But I hate that the game needs so much distance in this stage.”

His claw swiped open a new red line. He bent to it, tasting the cut until, as before, it sealed. The young man slept on.

He floated away to the cupboards and drawers of the little space. Here was the typewriter standing like a beacon of temptation on the desk. It would take only the smallest note to upheave them all:

My Friend,

Thank you for tonight’s drink and those before it. See you soon.

—D

Again he resisted.

Though not quite enough to ignore the collection of typed memorandum Mrs. Harker had amassed. Hours crept by as his practiced gaze flew through the assorted narratives. Much of it bored him to the point of pain, bar the doctor’s description of his poor Helen—ah, no, Lucy—and her cruel demise. He had felt her destruction even at a distance, like the severing of a limb. Brisk as their time had been, she had been his, and the robbery would have demanded recompense even if the knights were not striving for his end.

“When the time comes,” he told the shape of Mrs. Harker, “do not take your new lot as my seeking a mere replacement. I mean that sincerely. It will be a revenge. You have done sizable work here,” he rustled the pages, “and are deserving of a retribution for your own sake. I would not short you such a private attention.”

There was scarcely anything else worth noting beyond the scant half-truths the Dutchman was feeding them. It was pleasing to see that the nonsense with the garlic flowers and the crucifixes had been swallowed like honey with only a few days’ playacting and toying with the wolf. He wondered if they would get to the Wafer trick with him before the game moved to the next phase.

Setting aside this latest drudgery, he thumbed until he found a surprise wedged near the bottom of the stack, a buried treasure. His eyes flashed like suns as he turned the horrid crescent of his smile to the man in the bed.

“You kept a diary? Wherever did you hide it?”

Mr. Harker stayed silent on the matter. So he remained as his translated entries were devoured page by page. His reader nearly sulked as the section reached its end. The newer entries were perused, but there was little enough intrigue in them. Nothing but loving foam and earnest goodwill and yet more swooning over the apparent genius of the Dutchman. Yet there was some gold to sift from the dirt. Of the two ills that had rattled him since his miraculous departure, it had been the fear of madness more than monsters that wounded his spirit. Uncertainty had been the thing to unmoor him. Even a reality populated with demons could be shouldered so long as he knew it to be reality.

“Good man,” his reader intoned. “Too many take the opposite turn. They break and never repair. But look at you, my friend. Ready to hunt once the goal is set. It is almost worth it to have you run away from home.”

Smiling, he set the typed pages back where he found them. It was even shorter work to unearth the journal itself. No longer afraid of spies, the good solicitor had tucked the slim volume under his pillow. His wife had done likewise. Still in the damned shorthand, he saw. He had intended to begin studying the art of that curt cipher once he was established in his desired estates. Rather, as fate had conspired, if he was settled. He shook his head. Such a thin holiday, this!

A last impetuous urge tugged at him to make off like a burglar with the journals. Perhaps even the typewriter. The pens, the pencils, the paper, the ink…

“No, I will not,” he sighed and tucked the diaries back in their places, laying the sleeping heads back in the dents of their pillows. “A poor attempt at our old fun is no reason to spoil our time to come.” He walked his nails under Mr. Harker’s jaw. “Thirsty work lays ahead, my friend. Would you mind terribly? Your darling scarcely spared a drop.” His young friend gave wordless assent. “My thanks.”

Memory rolled back to that final night shared in June, the pretense dead, the door swung open, the crucifix’s nettle-sting cast away with a swat as the awaited meal was thrust screaming into his teeth. His friend had been far too addled with consciousness to be pressed into sleep or trance. No, it had come down to the comic tragedy of a struggle. He almost laughed now to think of how the shaving razor had been waiting behind the crucifix, wanting to harvest something from the expected thief.

Again, too fast for such flailing.

He had drunk deep with his friend awake and hating and wetly muted against any prayer that might have come to mind. Finished, he had snatched the razor away and left his guest to mull the next night and those to follow with his eager keepers. Good-night, good-night, my friend, thank you for all you have given.

Once away, he had related much of the scene to his loves before their laughing lot shut themselves in to sleep. Not to worry, not to worry, the young man was not depleted. Nor would he ever be, should all go well. Too much good evidence suggested it would. Even Mr. Harker’s escape from his hostesses was a positive sign.

“Do not think I failed to notice all you did not write, my friend,” he spoke against the unmarred throat. “Was it because you thought it brought no merit, leaving them as a living man? Or because you knew others would read the whole of it? What would she think of that night? Of all the ones before it?” The spires of his teeth shined. “I wonder.” They slid into the pulse with perfect neatness.

The sleeping face hardly twitched. Seconds passed. A minute. Then he was unhooked from the red fountain and nursing the residue from his gums. The punctures closed before he counted to ten. He drummed his fingers over the spot.

“Much quicker than our misadventure in Munich, yes? I thought that fretting little soldier might have gone after you even with the officer there. He almost popped your skull even before he saw the mark. I do wish that scene had made it to your diary, if only to see how you might scramble to make it rational. Did you disregard it as imagination? What do you think of it now, my friend?” He bent until his mouth was nearly in the shell of the young man’s ear. “I have saved you more than once since you first crossed the water. Despite how you chose to repay me.” He took up one of the sleeper’s hands and pressed the fingers to the unchanged scar upon his white brow. “I would be most annoyed at this if it did not prove me right. A shovel, Jonathan! Of all things!”

He bit back a tide of laughter and laid the limp hand down upon Mrs. Harker.

“No, please, you need not apologize now, nor pour out your thanks. All will be mended in due time. We have aided each other already, as is only right for friends.” He righted the clothes and the covers until the couple was as they’d been. “My Harkers, my Harkers. We have such work before us. And play, where it can be taken.” He was all but vapor now. Eyes and a smile pinned to smoke. “I look forward to it.”

With that, the last of him faded and leaked away into the far corners of the night.

#dracula #dracula daily #barking harker #my writing #teaser chapter #jonathan harker #monster jonathan harker #dracula bad ending #horror #be advised: This is a Big Read+#grab yourself some candy from the trick-or-treater bowl and get comfortable #and have a Happy Halloween!

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