#muse is still here but man i was just very forgetful

[urgonnaneedabiggership]

Host of a Ghost

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara (Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse) x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Language. Spoilers (Miguel's backstory is mentioned). Mild violence. Very, very light mention of a foiled SA (not to reader). Some angst.

Word count: 4.1K

Short A/N: This man has become my hyperfixation since I watched the movie and I'd been wanting to write something with him and today finally the muse came to me do I deliver you this decent-sized thing I wrote. Hope you like it <3

PART II

“Unusual” wasn’t a word you would’ve used to describe your life at all. At least not until about a year ago.

It was unusual to find a spider with such an odd color palette roaming your apartment since you were used to more dull-colored typical critters. It was also unusual that you didn’t panic enough to turn the apartment upside down to look for the thing before it bit you, but there was too much work to do, and a million notes from Dr. Connors to go over. It was equally unusual that you hadn’t rushed to the hospital the minute you noticed the tiny marks on your thigh.

“I mean, if it was really dangerous, it would have hurt more.” Was your reasoning to ignore it and keep scanning the pages before you. Nobody said pursuing a Ph.D. was without sacrifice. 

By the time you tried to stand up to make more coffee just to end up collapsing on your kitchen floor, it was much too late.

From then on, “unusual” was pretty much every day’s motto.

Having a nightmare that night about being suffocated and unable to escape just to wake up hanging upside down and wrapped in sticky shit was the first clue. Turns out you were actually able to produce said sticky shit at will in the shape of a thin thread, then you discovered the wall-climbing abilities, and before you knew it you were roaming the city at night trying to get comfortable threading between the tall buildings, running across rooftops and challenging yourself to climb this or that building as fast as you could. You felt indestructible, alive. It was wonderful.

You’d never forget the night of your first save either. For several reasons.

It was an ordinary night, right before returning to your apartment, when a violent shiver abruptly ran up your spine and every cell in your body commanded you to stop. When you did, a scuffle in a nearby alley caught your eye. A young girl was violently shoved against a wall by a man who pressed his hand against her mouth. The same second his hand came dangerously close to the zipper of her jacket, you practically tackled him from above and pinned him against the ground, having no clue of what to do besides throwing punches at his face until you knocked him out. A whimper coming from a dumpster behind made you realize you had an audience.

“Shit,” you cursed under your breath, remembering your uncovered face, the only solution at hand is to wrap your scarf around your head to try and hide as much as possible, “Oh god this feels too much like cultural appropriation for my taste,” You kept nervously rambling to yourself as you slowly approached the dumpster.

“Um…hi,” You greeted, “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

Being met with nothing but silence, you were about to leave when a soft voice replied.

“No. He didn’t. Thank you so much.”

“Is there…I don’t know; is there somebody you want me to call?”

“I want to call my mom.” She replied, her voice still shaking, “He took my phone.”

“Right. Phone. Okay.” You quickly made your way back to the unconscious man and pawed his clothes looking for it. He let out a groan in protest.

“Yeah it doesn’t feel right, does it asshole?” You muttered as you retrieved it from one of his pockets. Then you shoved him onto his stomach to tie his hands and legs behind his back before returning to the girl.

“Here. It still works,” You just held it over the dumpster, seeing nothing but her pale hand as it reached out to take it before you took a few steps back. 

“No, wait,” She immediately pleaded, “Please don’t leave me alone with him.”

“Like hell I am. I’m staying right here.”

So you waited with her until the police arrived. However, the minute you saw the flickering lights and heard the approaching siren, you retreated into the dark part of the alley and climbed onto the nearest building to escape through the rooftops.

It wasn’t until you were back in your apartment that you realized you’d been smiling all the way home. Carefully shutting the window behind you, you let yourself fall onto the couch and screamed joyfully, the pillow muffling the sound.

She was okay. A person was okay because you could intervene and do something about it.

However, a new wave of shivers flooded your veins so abruptly that you sat down immediately.

“Yeah, I know how that feels,” Came a feminine voice from the unlit kitchen, “Being able to help, I mean.”

You scrambled to your feet and started walking backward. However, the voice didn’t remain hidden for too long. A woman emerged from the shadows, dressed in red with a yellow hairband pushing her near-afro hair back. She greeted you with a soft smile.

“Your reflexes need polishing,”

“My…?” You repeated, dumbfounded.

“And you have to learn how to fight properly. Randomly throwing punches isn’t always going to cut it,”

“I’m sorry, who are you? Why are you in my apartment? Were you following me? Do you know about…?”

“Whoa, slow down, kid. I know you have questions, and I might be able to help you with that. But you’re going to have to come with me.”

“Alright, I’ll…let me just get my car keys,”

“Oh, sweetie,” The woman said in between laughs, not malicious but truly amused, “You have so much to learn,”

You were starting to wonder why she had elongated that “o” like that until, after pressing a few buttons on the device around her wrist, something that you would’ve described as a “black hole on LSD” erupted in the middle of your living room.

That night you learned that her name was Jessica Drews and that she was completely right about you having so much to learn. With a four-second-o.

Over the following months, you became capable of things you didn’t think possible. Walls that took you a minute to climb became easy obstacles that didn’t take up more than fifteen seconds of your time, your fighting skills had also improved exponentially under Jess’s tutelage, and of course, going from a life where you could count your friends with less than one hand to being constantly surrounded by amazing (no pun intended) Spider-People who not only understood the changes you were going through but warmly welcomed you into their circle was more than you could’ve asked for.

Well, perhaps some more willingly than others. And by others you meant him.

He, who seemed to be always around, silently watching but never intervening.

He, who despite being allegedly “always locked up in his lab” always seemed to personally oversee your training since day one.

Whom you’d tried to greet as gleefully as you did the others just to receive, if anything, a vague nod of acknowledgment. In your first three months, you had spoken maybe four times. Well, you had. He only hummed, nodded, or answered in monosyllables. You knew better than to waste your energy with people like that, but for some reason you were unwilling to just accept Miguel O’Hara didn’t like you and that was that.

“For some reason” being code for “I’m one second away from fainting every time he as much as looks in my direction,”

You weren’t a child, for crying out loud. You were aware that no matter how cold, distant, and seemingly indifferent the leader of your new team was, he was an insanely attractive man. Even with the fangs…no, especially with the fangs, for some reason. His whole aura that screamed “completely-inaccessible-frighteningly-powerful-twice-my-size-man” had you harboring a huge crush on him within two months of meeting him. So painfully unrequited that it was embarrassing.   Just the fact he could ignore your greetings and surely never think twice of it but you would spend the rest of the day wondering what you could’ve possibly said to make him at least say “hello” back made you want to scream into a pillow until your throat burned.

It was right up there with the time he’d muttered ‘much better’ when he saw you land a kick you’d been practicing and those three seconds kept playing on your head for the rest of the week.

The night of your first mission you decided you were going to prove your worth, not to your crush but to your team leader.

“I told him you’re ready,” Jess said with a proud smile, “He’s going to call you in sometime throughout the day to let you know where you’ll be going and with whom, probably me. How do you feel?”

“Excited, I guess,” You replied, pressing your lips together anxiously, “Also nervous. I don’t want to screw this up.”

“With me as your mentor? That’s unlikely,” Jess replied with a wink, giving you an encouraging pat on your shoulder as she walked away.

However, the day continued normally. You did some assigned tasks here and there, which mostly included helping Spider-Byte to keep everything running smoothly given your background in the tech field. You grabbed lunch, then thought it would be a good idea to train some more before going away.

You were beginning to lose all hope when, as you leaned down to fix some wiring, Lyla popped right beside your head and called your name so loudly you hit your head against the metal and hissed. One year and still you hadn’t used to the way she appeared out of nowhere.

“Oops, sorry,” She promptly apologized, “Well you’ll have to walk that off, Miguel wants to see you STAT.”

“How am I supposed to walk a head injury off, Lyla?” You joked, rubbing your forehead as you rushed across the halls with the holographical figure floating after you.

“Not in my code,” She replied using her usual excuse.

When you walked into his working space, Miguel’s back was turned to you as he used a digital pen to do some annotations on what looked like blueprints of new equipment. After he didn’t react to your presence for a few seconds, you hesitantly walked closer and cleared your throat.

“That looks nice. Is it a new suit?” You asked, as always, trying to start a conversation.

“I just received an alert about the…” He stopped and sighed as if saying the silly nickname was physically painful to him, “…the Go-Home-Machine. It said there was a small power overload since we sent back that Vulture from the 192-011 Universe.”

“Yeah, but Byte and I are already working on that and it should be fully functional by tomorrow morning,” You replied, a bit confused as to what that had to do with your mission.

“Good. Let me know as soon as it’s fixed.” Miguel hastily replied, not even turning to face you until a whole minute passed and he realized you were still standing there. Even then, he just barely turned his head.

“That’s all, (Y/N). Thank you.”

That’s all? What do you mean that’s all?

“Was there something else you wanted to do?” He asked. Shit. You’d said that out loud.

“I…Jessica told me that I’m ready to go on a mission and that today you…”

“I said I would think about it, and I have.”

He fell silent again. No matter how attractive he was, you were starting to truly get pissed at his stupid theatrical antics.

“And?”

“And the answer’s no. You’re not ready yet.”

That felt like all the disappointments in your entire life added up and multiplied by ten. Especially because of how easily he dismissed you despite being aware of how hard you’d worked, how many nights you decided to forgo hours of sleep just to train and polish every movement until it was as close to flawless as you could.

“Not ready yet?” You practically hissed in a voice you almost didn’t recognize. Hell, it was enough for him to put down the pen. “Not ready yet? That kid Pavitr has been here for what? A month? And he’s already going off on missions. Alone, I might add!”

Unsurprisingly, he did not answer.

“And he’s very, very good, I’m not saying he isn’t. But I’m just as good. And more experienced, both at being here and at being a Spider-Person. I have completed every training scenario you’ve thrown my way, worked my ass off to understand every bit of information regarding interdimensional traveling, and studied the protocol to control anomalies, what is it that you still need me to prove?”

He took a deep breath. So deep that his shoulders rose, flexing the muscles of his back in such a way that if you hadn’t been so angry, you would’ve been too distracted to keep arguing. Even with your blood boiling, you couldn’t help but stare and feel your stomach tense at the sight.

“Do you like being part of this team, (Y/N)? Do you like training in our headquarters, having access to all our information, and maintaining contact with the other members of this society?”

“Of course I do,” You replied immediately. Slowly, Miguel turned around to face you completely and walked towards you, descending the two small steps that separated you until he stood towering over you. Even if your knees were about to give in to this unexpected closeness, this wasn’t the time to fold. You held his glare defiantly and folded your arms in an attempt to mentally guard yourself against him.

“Then I suggest you get in line and do as you’re told,” He said in a low voice. But it wasn’t threatening, or condescending. It was an odd, flat tone. Tired, perhaps. Almost as if…as if he was reprimanding you against his will.

He was almost unbearably close. You could feel his breath hitting your face. If right then all logic flew out of the window and you stood on your tiptoes you could…

“I’ll do that when you’ve earned my respect, and I have a policy of reciprocity when it comes to respect, Miguel. I’ve been in line for a year, I’ve listened, learned, and improved so much that if you’re still looking down on me, then it’s your problem, not mine. And no self-righteous, big-headed…”

“Just get out,” He cut you off, once again turning his back to you and walking towards the blueprints again.

“Oh no, I’m not finished…” You insisted, trying to follow him. However, as soon as you gave one step forward he turned around so violently that you stumbled backward and stared at him with something you hadn’t felt towards him up until then: fear.

“Yes, you are,” Was his only reply. As dull as the others.

While you could only see his face for a moment before he walked past you and left the room, something about his expression stuck with you even hours later, when you laid on your bed at night and combed through the scene over and over. You thought he would be fuming, maybe even shocked that you’d dared to talk to him like that. The last thing you expected was for him to look…upset. Hurt, even. The mere thought of you being able to hurt Miguel O’Hara was as ridiculous as imagining a goldfish fighting back against a shark. Still, you realized that even if you thought he was in the wrong, you felt bad about how things went down back there. You would never understand what being the leader of hundreds of super-powered people was like. Commanding each and directing their particular abilities as best as he could all while maintaining a vigilant eye on endless strings of causes and effects because he knew firsthand the consequences of being careless with them.

Even if he had made a mistake with you and of course you still wanted to address it later, right then all you wanted was to apologize.

And so, not even an hour later you were roaming the halls of the HQ, your heart beating furiously as you got closer to his quarters, wondering what you could even begin to say.

When the automatic doors slid open, you stepped inside and turned back to look as the doors closed behind you. Well, no turning back now.

“Miguel?” You called, looking around the large room, pondering whether a first-name basis was okay. After everything that had happened, going back to Mr. O’Hara sounded terribly stupid. Then your eyes landed on the row of screens where he spent most of his time. An extremely ill-timed wave of curiosity filled your chest as you approached them, taking another look at the seemingly empty room before stepping onto the platform. Getting bolder, you reached out your hand and brushed your fingertips across one of the screens. It immediately came to life with a blue glow, startling you and making you curse under your breath. You were about to look for a button to switch it off when a video started playing automatically from where he had left off. He was in it, holding a young girl. Miguel wasn’t just smiling. He was laughing. His laugh was exactly as you’d pictured it. Not particularly loud, but hearty and low. He had the kind of laugh that made you unwittingly smile as well as a newfound sympathy filled your chest as tears filled your eyes when you pictured that being taken from him just like that. How could one have a family, and then one day be completely alone and keep going?

With a renewed disposition to make things better between you, your hand reached out for the switch that would turn the screen off until a third voice piqued your interest. It belonged to whoever was holding the camera.

“Would you please stop hoarding her? I deserve some mother-daughter time too! Here, hold this thing and give her to me,” The voice said between laughs. There was something about that voice that made an extremely cold shiver run down your spine.

“Fine, you’re right. Bueno pues, mijita, ve con mamá, ¿quieres ir con mamá?”

The picture became blurry as the camera switched places with a giggling Gabriella, who could be briefly seen stretching her arms toward the third figure.

“Alright,” Came Miguel’s voice again, “But when I turn the camera towards you I want both of you to blow Daddy a kiss, can you do that for me?”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned the camera around.

And then you found yourself staring into your own eyes. They weren’t quite the same shade as yours, and “your” hair was styled differently. And “you” had freckles. But otherwise, it was like staring into an interdimensional mirror. Then, your voice spoke.

“Okay sweetie, let’s humor him, shall we? Blow Daddy a kiss. And another one from me because now I have to use both arms to hold you, my big girl!”

Miguel laughed again at the way his daughter’s face lit up at being called a “big girl”.

“¿Saben que las amo a las dos, verdad?”

“And Gabriella loves you too. I think you’re…nice enough.”

“(Y/N), I don’t think you marry somebody for ‘nice enough’, mi amor,”

“I love you too. Against my better judgment.”

With one last interrupted laugh, the video ended, and, in a cruel irony, the once again black screen showed your actual reflection.

Except this time, it wasn’t the only one. With a loud gasp, you turned around. After seeing him in that video, it became much more evident that the Miguel in it was nothing but a memory of the past. And in a matter of seconds, everything shifted into place like a gloomy puzzle. His expression was unreadable, though he wasn’t even looking at you. His eyes were fixed on the empty screen.

“I wasn’t supposed to ever see that, was I?” Was the only thing that came to your mind after a lengthy, tense silence.

“What good would it have done?” He replied, almost numbly.

“So that’s why you’ve always…stared?” You kept pushing. Against your better judgment, you thought.

“It was at first,” Came his only response. Like always, it seemed like you would have to tear the answers off him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You asked, turning your head to look for his eyes. Even then, something warm filled your chest. Something that made your heart beat so quickly you felt as if it would stop at any moment, and it spread all over you no matter how much you tried to fend it off. Hope.

Surprisingly, this time he caved in and looked at you. Still, the answer never came. For the first time in all the time you’d known him, Miguel O’Hara was at a loss for words. And that said more than anything he could’ve come up with.

“And you expect me to believe that, by sheer chance, you happened to catch feelings for somebody who is practically your wife’s interdimensional twin?”

“It sounds so much worse when you say it like that,” Was that a hint of a smile? An attempt at a joke? One year and the only time he’d bothered to be decent to you was when you were talking about how much you looked like her?

With an annoyed look, you moved away from him and started to make your way to the exit.

“Do you think I wanted this?” He spoke rather loudly, his whispers going out of the window as he started to follow you across the room.

Miguel O’Hara following you to keep you from leaving. Just hours before you would’ve died of happiness at the mere thought of this scenario. Right now, your brain was a flurry of thoughts and emotions that you didn’t know how to handle.

“I was doing an amazing job at keeping my distance. Watching you from afar, seeing you laugh, grow, win everybody over with that awfully big heart of yours, and still I reined myself in,” He continued, “Today’s the perfect example. You thought I didn’t respect you, for fuck’s sake! I respect you so much that every single day I have ignored you and pretended you are nothing but another face in the halls. Damn it, (Y/N), I couldn’t even look you in the eye when for months you’ve been all I’ve wanted. All because I didn’t know if I loved you or what was left of her. And I didn’t want you to get involved in shit that’s mine to figure out.”

Hearing him not only withdraw his previous statement of you not being capable of doing things and accepting the problem was his and not yours made you stop in your tracks.

Fine, the sudden (though odd) love declaration had something to do with it too.

“So you don’t think I’m not ready?” You asked, turning around and even taking some steps towards him.

“Are you serious? I’ve watched you closely all these months. You learn in days what others do in weeks. You push yourself way more than so many of our members and yet I’ve never, ever seen you become overconfident. Today you never said you knew everything. You said you knew enough.”

This time, it was you who remained silent. There was something else you wanted him to elaborate on, and from the look in his eyes, you realized he knew damn well what it was.

“You were right. The problem wasn’t yours. It was mine all along. I could manage to push you away and keep my feelings at bay. But knowing that you were eventually going to go out there and take so many risks...worst case scenario, you could get hurt or not come back at all. That was too much for me to handle, s’all.”

“Were you afraid of losing me…?” You started to ask just for him to interrupt you.

“Yes. Very much.” However, you lifted a hand to stop him. You weren’t finished.

“Were you afraid of losing me, or were you afraid of losing her again, Miguel?”

Three seconds later, when no answer came out of his mouth, you were about to turn around once again when he rushed and stood in front of you. For a second, you thought he was going to grab your shoulders to keep you in place. Not wanting to come off as if he was forcing you to stay, his hands just hovered on both sides of your shoulders without touching you.

“Listen, she wasn’t a picky eater like you are. But I swear that woman never drank enough water and every time I see you there’s either a bottle in your hand or laying around. And she was so, so messy. It took us at least ten minutes to find the keys every single time…and Spider-Byte said you sort your tools by size and color. Color. (Y/N), I don’t think even I…”

“Are you getting somewhere with this?”

“You’re not her, (Y/N). You have never been, and you never will, I know that. I want you to know that I wouldn’t want you to be any other way. I love you.”

After that, he moved out of the way and folded his arms.

“If you want to go back to your dimension and stay there for a while…or for good, I don’t know, I completely…”

“I love you too, you know?” You cut him off, pressing your lips together after blurting out the three words that’d been haunting you for the past months. Words that up until now you were sure would never leave your chest. When you turned to look at him, you saw in his eyes what minutes ago had filled yours. Hope.

God, his face was so hauntingly beautiful when his features softened.

“What do you want from me?” You finally asked him, your voice shaky from the effect you knew his answer would have regardless of what it was.

Miguel moved closer to you almost hesitantly, his eyes never leaving yours. When he was close enough, he reached out with both his hands and slid them up the back of your neck, his thumbs tucked in front of your ears as his warm palms engulfed the back of your head so he could hold you while he brought his face down to press his forehead against yours.

“Mi amor, I’d give you all I am and be happy with whatever you’re willing to give me for now,”  

You knew it would take some time for you to get used to hearing him say things like that without wondering if you were the only one in his mind when he did. It would be a while until you felt completely certain that you were made of flesh and bone and not just a ghost in his eyes, but it would happen. You saw his eyes as he drew his face closer to yours and when your lips touched, you knew that it would definitely happen sooner or later. Until then, you thought as you stood on your tiptoes when he almost desperately pressed his lips onto yours, he was very much worth the wait.

[kanmom51]

PJM2 is coming

MUSE

I literally cannot contain my excitiement.

Sitting her, at work may I say, putting these words on paper, so to speak, because f***ing hell, wtf JM?

Where to start?

The colour concepts? The choice of name? Choice of font (That JM popping to eye)? The flower? The links to TTU (notes sheet and flower)? The whole play with Closer than this? The dropped lyrics?

This man is a friggin genius (not that we didn't know this already)...

There is so much to talk about, and he hasn't even started with the promotions, and we haven't even seen the concept photos or the album and the songs. Name, colours, 2 lines of lyrics and we have our hands full already. They certainly know what they are doing.

Before I jump in, I want to, once again, state very loudly and clearly that everything written here are my opinions, which are based on what we've been handed so far, and could change the more we are shown.

So, let's get it...

JM fetching this from the purple locker (which we don't see are purple off the bat and only when the lights turn on). Notes for The Truth Untold.

His wittle thumb with his crescent moon.

The notes title : La lettra - The letter. Hmm... interesting.

And then this:

We have the flower:

and this that makes me believe that yes indeed, it is the silhouette of a Smeralso.

Some of this I am yet to see where is going. like the referencing of "the letter", The truth untold, the flower... (she says, all while thinking of the choice this Festa to stream LY Seoul final with said song and the changes that JM and JK chose to make to it)...

All that and more in one little short clip.

And then we have that little 'chat' opened up by BH, and those lyrics. Oh, those lyrics.

All references that indeed can be connected with army. I mean, that's what JM is king of.

All also a clear reference to a one Jeon Jungkook, if you are only willing to look and see.

Rain

Snow

Crying

We have this:

Which they have BOTH chose to bring up once again in 2023, JK happening to do so during JM's Face promos, not to mention the rain reference in SNTY (and of course, goes without saying Still with you, but that's back in 2020, while they have both managed to bring it up and reference it once again in 2023).

Remember this?

Oh, and what about this?

And then we have these:

Remember JM tearing up after winning MMA for BS&T ?

JM getting emotional and crying only followed by JK tearing up.

*If you haven't seen this one yet, go watch the full live.

And who can forget JK during MOTS ONE as well, seeing JM crying, distress clearly showing on his face, just waiting for the moment he can go and comfort JM.

If these are actual lyrics for a song to come or lyrics that were dropped, one thing we know, and that these words, these lines, they were written by JM, and he made a clear choice to share them with us.

And in doing so, sorry, I'm still not believing this all while sitting here gushing and knowing this was coming (no, I didn't know this specifically was coming, but the feeling that they were going big or going home, that I've had ever since July 2023... took some time and many tribulations, but we are getting there folks). Sidetracked as I always am, lol.

Back on track.... in doing so, JM is basically standing on a rooftop screaming at the top of his lungs:

Not 1, not 2, but 3 JK references in that little shared piece of lyrics clearly written by JM, for an album we are yet to see and hear.

Anyone, and I mean anyone that is a BTS army, that has seen original content, that has followed their Twitter account or seen older tweets, that are open and willing to see it, will KNOW that these lyrics are JAYKAY!!!!!

And let me backtrack a second here...

Cause I did mention that these references could be understood as if they are made for army, right?

So yeah. Army references or JK references? I am going to say both, leaning very much to the JK side of it. Cause that's how they do it. Time after time after time.

Let's mention the colour choices as well.

We have the background colours.

We have the yellow.

And then we have the album concepts.

2 concepts.

Blooming

and Serenade.

Which happens to be Yellow, same colour threaded through Serendipity.

And we even have purple thrown in there too.

Notice how all the lockers are painted purple. The colour of army you may say, but also JK's colour (so again, army and JK?).

And he's pulling out the music sheet from this purple locker.

Those lockers representing his inspiration for his music perhaps?

Giving us these lyrics, then telling us the album is called Muse (or telling us the name of the album and it's meaning and then dropping those lyrics, take your pick regarding the timing, cause basically, same same), showing us the music being extracted from those purple lockers... ya think his muse is that entity he's talking about in those lyrics perhaps (even more so if we see the references as both for army and JK)?

Rhetorical question, btw.

And then we have the mint green.

Perhaps this is what JM was talking about when he told us in his birthday live, if memory serves me right, about going to the starting point, or more so starting from the beginning trying to figure out himself as an artist?

Also, cannot help but think of this image here:

I cannot wait to see his concept photos, and where this is all going.

We talked about JK being so loud during 2023 (well, he's had his super loud moments before that, but 2023 and his lives were smoking). And JM, well it felt (and I say felt, cause it's not really true, and I'll explain why) was quieter, more subdued, especially during JK's Golden promotions.

But here's the thing.

JM and JK have their own special oh so different ways of being loud and showing us themselves (and it shows even more so seeing that JK, for whatever reasons he had for it, did not write his songs for Golden - not saying he did not have influence on the lyrics or choice of songs with lyrics he wanted). JK did it through his choices in his photo shoots and styling for his songs and album. He did it with his lives and his total fanboying over JM. And JM, he does it through his art, which includes also but not only his lyrics.

Those two are both loud as fuck. And JM, well if these sneak lyrics are a promo of more to come (which, they probably are seeing that we have Face to fall back on as an example), then he's as loud as a frigging foghorn.

And last but not least, before I go:

Lookie here...

D-31

[calliesmemes]

EPIC: THE MUSICAL — ACT ONE

ASSORTED SENTENCE STARTERS featuring lyrics and dialogue pulled from EPIC: THE MUSICAL by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, a new concept album adapting the story of Homer’s Odyssey into a musical.

CHANGE gendered words and in-universe phrases as needed.

SPECIFY muse for multimuses.

❛ I know that I’m ready. ❜

❛ I don’t think that you’re ready. ❜

❛ Know that he will grow from a boy to an avenger. ❜

❛ I could raise him as my own. ❜

❛ Please don’t make me do this. ❜

❛ The blood on your hands is something you can’t lose — all you can choose is whose. ❜

❛ This is the will of the gods. ❜

❛ You’re as old as he was when I left for war. ❜

❛ Will these actions haunt my days? ❜

❛ Every man I’ve slain is the price I pay. ❜

❛ I would trade the world to see my son and wife. ❜

❛ When does a man become a monster? ❜

❛ When does a reason become the blame? ❜

❛ Six hundred men under my command. ❜

❛ The problem’s not the distance; it’s what lies in between. ❜

❛ My kingdom is waiting. ❜

❛ So Captain, what’s the plan? ❜

❛ Look! There, in the distance. I see an island. ❜

❛ I see a light that faintly glows. ❜

❛ Something feels off here. ❜

❛ I say we strike first; we don’t have time to waste. ❜

❛ We should try to find a way no one ends up dead. ❜

❛ You can relax, my friend. ❜

❛ I can tell that you’re getting nervous. ❜

❛ Is this how we are supposed to live? ❜

❛ Here we have a chance for some adjustment. ❜

❛ Give it a try, it's not that hard. ❜

❛ This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms. ❜

❛ Whatever we face, we'll be fine if we're leading from the heart. ❜

❛ Stay back, I'm warning you. ❜

❛ Kindness is brave. ❜

❛ Have you forgotten the lessons I taught you? ❜

❛ I see you changing from how I've designed you. ❜

❛ Have you forgotten your purpose? ❜

❛ My life has one mission. ❜

❛ We'll make a greater tomorrow. ❜

❛ Enlighten me, what's your name? ❜

❛ If you're looking for a mentor, I'll make sure your time's well spent. ❜

❛ If there's a problem, we'll have the answer. ❜

❛ I still intend to make sure you don't fall behind. ❜

❛ Don't forget that you're a warrior of a very special kind. ❜

❛ It’s almost too perfect, too good to be true. ❜

❛ Who are you? ❜

❛ We’re just travelers. We come in peace. ❜

❛ What gives you the right to deal a pain so deep? ❜

❛ Your life now is in my hands. ❜

❛ I’ll take from you like you took from me. ❜

❛ There’s been a misunderstanding. ❜

❛ Maybe you and I could make a deal. ❜

❛ I’m so glad we see eye to eye. ❜

❛ If we're defeated, they're good as dead. ❜

❛ No backup, no chance for support. ❜

❛ Our foe must be thwarted right here and now. ❜

❛ Show me how great is your will to survive. ❜

❛ Stand up and fight for your lives. ❜

❛ Defeat is not allowed. ❜

❛ We must live through this day, so fight! ❜

❛ You’ve hurt me enough. ❜

❛ You won’t live through this day. ❜

❛ We must move quickly, we don't have much time. ❜

❛ But captain, what'll we do with our fallen friends? ❜

❛ We are not to let them die in vain. ❜

❛ Our comrades will not die in vain. ❜

❛ Mercy is a skill more of this world could learn to use. ❜

❛ The blood we shed, it never dries. ❜

❛ I am neither man nor mythical. ❜

❛ You're a warrior meant to lead the rest. ❜

❛ That's just like you, why should I be surprised? Selfish and prideful and vain. ❜

❛ Every time someone dies I'm the one who is left to deal with the strain. ❜

❛ This way, you won't plague my life. ❜

❛ What a waste of effort spent. ❜

❛ At least I know what I'm fighting for. ❜

❛ Since you claim you're so much wiser, why’s your life spent all alone? ❜

❛ This day, you lost it all. ❜

❛ Is it nature or divine or a blessing in disguise? ❜

❛ Our home's in sight. ❜

❛ Brace for a storm, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. ❜

❛ I'll ensure that we prevail. ❜

❛ We're taking too much damage to survive. ❜

❛ At this rate, we won't make it out alive. ❜

❛ Please don't tell me you're about to do what I think you'll do. ❜

❛ You've heard the legends; this proves they're true. ❜

❛ Don't forget how dangerous the gods are. ❜

❛ How much longer til your luck runs out? ❜

❛ I still believe in goodness. ❜

❛ I just don't wanna see another life end. ❜

❛ You're like the brother I could never do without. ❜

❛ Don’t forget how much we’ve already faced. ❜

❛ I need to talk to you in private. ❜

❛ I can't have you planting seeds of doubt. ❜

❛ I ask for your assistance so we at last can go the distance. ❜

❛ Sounds too easy, what's the catch? ❜

❛ Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. ❜

❛ The end always justifies the means. ❜

❛ Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. ❜

❛ Time for me to be the father I never was. ❜

❛ Why are my eyes and my heart and my soul so heavy? ❜

❛ It isn't very often that I get pissed off. ❜

❛ I'm left without a choice. ❜

❛ I’ve gotta make you bleed. ❜

❛ I need to see you drown. ❜

❛ Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves. ❜

❛ You are far too nice. ❜

❛ I've got no mercy left to give. ❜

❛ The line between naïveté and hopefulness is almost invisible. ❜

❛ I am your darkest moment. ❜

❛ What have you done? ❜

❛ Any last words? ❜

❛ There's only so much left we can endure. ❜

❛ I'm not a player, I'm a puppeteer. ❜

❛ I can’t sleep now knowing everything we've done. ❜

❛ I must say what a brilliant speech you gave. ❜

❛ I don't know who you are nor why you're here. ❜

❛ One wrong move, then you're done for. ❜

❛ All I hear are screams, every time I dare to close my eyes. ❜

❛ I no longer dream, only nightmares of those who've died. ❜

❛ I am the prophet with the answers you seek. ❜

❛ I see a man who gets to make it home alive, but it's no longer you. ❜

❛ How has everything been turned against us? ❜

❛ How did suffering become so endless? ❜

❛ Do I need to change? ❜

❛ What if I'm the problem that's been hiding all along? ❜

❛ If I became the monster, and threw that guilt away — would that make us stronger? ❜

❛ I must become the monster. ❜

[twelvemonkeyswere]

Brienne and Femininity (and Masculinity)

I’ve been musing how one of the most important topics in Brienne's storyline is femininity, and even though her story isn't finished, we can fairly see what some of her major themes are around this—particularly, how performing or failing at performing femininity affects her both internally and externally.

Often I see people pointing out that, in spite of all of Brienne’s traditionally masculine ways—her clothes, her skill set, her body shape, to name a few—she does not fully reject femininity. That she likes little cute animals and fairy tales and wears dresses, and is shy and blushes frequently. This is an important point because, very often, fantasy settings made the assumption that a woman can only be taken seriously if she goes beyond “her womanhood” and acts and thinks “like a man,” as opposed to other girls who are too busy mending or wanting romance. Brienne challenges those tendencies that GRRM saw in his contemporaries. Things have changed a lot since (hello The Locked Tomb, for example), but you can still see where he is working from, and how many of the aspects of Brienne's story still resonate with more modern audiences because, well, sexism hasn't stopped existing. It's also important because the larger asoiaf and got fandoms often refuse to see this side of her, reducing her to a walking sword or a cardboard cut out of a pushover.

Now, my main issue here is that I feel several interpretations of Brienne have now gone on the other direction, and focus so much on Brienne PERFORMING traditional femininity—wearing luxurious dresses, using make up, accepting lavishing gifts, or wondering if she can be desired, for example—that we've gone sometimes on the opposite direction. I feel like many times we’re afraid or do not know how to approach characterizing her as someone who rejects aspects of femininity without making her into another “not like other girls” stereotype.

My two cents on the matter is that if we focus too much in what Brienne can't but "wants" to perform, we forget that she is, in fact, gladly rejecting some common impositions of femininity in her society.

Beginning with swordplay at a young age, for example, she was very glad to ditch a more traditional education in order to learn how to fight the way we know men are taught in asoiaf/got. She is also explicitly more comfortable in men's clothes. We all like the scene where Jaime makes an effort to give her a dress and she appreciates it, but we don't even find out what happened to the dress, because, presumably, the dress itself is not THAT important, at least not as much as the fact Jaime gave her gifts as a form of appreciation. Dresses have been used in Brienne's past to mock her (the event with the bear being the most recent one), and the important part is that Jaime is the only one who has given her one without that ulterior motive. The point of the scene is that where everyone undermines and underestimates her, he is acting the opposite way. We’re seeing how the relationship between them has evolved and that he is doing his best to mend what has happened and what he has done. She is given a dress and a sword as symbols that someone else in the story is beginning to appreciate her for all she is.

Beyond that, we even get details on the old shield Brienne got at Harrenhal, but not a word about the dress. Brienne explicitly doesn't really like being in dresses, she prefers mail and breeches, and feels more at ease in them than anything else. This is not her hating dresses because she is above them. I can’t remember well but as far as we know it’s just her preference: I don’t recall her saying she hates dresses, just that she prefers trousers. She must have been wearing dresses her whole life! It’s not likely she is unused to them. But we do know the act of being given a dress is important in Brienne’s story. The problem is not that they can’t make dresses for her, the problem is that everyone who forces her to wear a dress wants to signal how lacking she is as a woman, trying to fit her in a box too small for her real shape and then mocking her because she doesn’t meet their standard. The problem is they want to make her uncomfortable and they want to humiliate her, because she dares to exist in a way that doesn’t conform to patriarchal ideals. And the problem is that she likes to wear trousers and mail. She likes to wear masculine clothes, and they want her to be very aware of how much they disapprove.

And we also hear a great deal about marrying and having children out of duty. There's a certain loss she feels there because she believes that, at that point, all those missed opportunities will never present themselves again. All her life, she grew up with a dichotomy that dictated that the chance of having a family or children was through duty or none at all, because she is her father’s heir and—they kept telling her—nobody would want an ugly, masculine, temperamental girl as a wife. They could only want her for the money she brought. The point of the story is that, once again, failing the standards of femininity has forced her into a mentality where she thinks she can’t be loved because nobody would like who and what she is. But even then, even with that thorn in her mind, she still feels relieved she didn't have to perform these particular duties. The only thing she’s sad about is that she thinks she's missed any chance at having a family at all and will never know what that might be like. She doesn’t actively want babies or even to be married. She is still young, and at least to me, she seems to view these things in hypothetical rather than explicit goals or wants. She thinks that, at 20, there is no opportunity for her to experience these things because of how her society works. It’s the lack of choice that she mourns, down the line. But she rejects that particularly role that femininity imposes on her now. She didn’t want it, and she is happy it didn’t go through. She literally fought an old man to prove how much she didn’t want those impositions.

All this is interesting to me because Brienne also sort of thinks of herself as her father's son as well as her father's daughter. It almost slips her mouth once or twice. She is aware, I think, that many times the differences between a son and a daughter boil down not really to gender but to the sort of duty they perform. And she wants to do the sorts of things sons do, too. Men regularly learned to fight and wore the clothes she liked best and used hard-earned skills in a way she wanted to use them. There are layers to this (we’ll get to that in a bit) but she is, I think, very aware of her masculinity, and, if left to her own devices, she seems comfortable in it. The problem is she is NOT left to her own devices.

Most of Brienne's self doubt comes from outside forces. As a woman, they underestimate her. As a woman, they think she is stupid. As a gender non-conforming woman, every jape uttered goes directly to her womanhood. As a woman, if she looks the way she does and dresses the way she does and fights the way she does, when she expresses any vulnerable emotion, any shred of “femininity,” she is mocked for it. She likes dancing and beautiful things and pretty boys but a woman as masculine as she is is not the sort of person who gets to express those preferences without judgment from those around her.

The point is Brienne’s world wants her miserable either way: being unable to be a woman the way they demand of her, because she is too much “like a man” for it, or being unable to be a man, because she is too much a woman for that. The point is she can’t win regardless of what she does. Because that’s how sexism works.

But Brienne’s story is, I think, one about choices. The thing is that the world makes it harder for her, but she shouldn't have to be one thing or the other. She shouldn’t have to be defined by one or the other. If she wants to fight in the mud and smell roses and wear chain-mail and talk to charming men, she should be able to choose all of those things. I think it’s easy to focus too much in what aspects of femininity Brienne likes or dislikes instead of looking at what the story is proposing, which is to look at what Brienne,as a person, likes or dislikes. What she wants. Her parallel story to Jaime is about how the world will always try to put folks in boxes, especially those who, for some reason or another, do not easily fit in those boxes. The question is not “what feminine/masculine parts of Brienne is she happy performing” but rather “what does Brienne want, and why does she feel like she cannot get it and doesn't dare ask.”

This is also what drives her to servitude. There’s a phrase out there that says that if you don’t think you can be liked, you try to become useful, so at least there’s a reason to keep you around. It’s heartbreaking to see how Brienne’s vision of herself has been so skewed by the emotional abuse, parental neglect, and bullying she’s experienced since a young age. She doesn’t think anyone will grow close to her, so at least she can be close to people by serving them. She wants to put her skills to use, she wants to find a place where she fits, where she can be more herself, but she isn’t sure what that looks like or how to find it. She’s still searching, and learning many things on the way.

And Brienne is still very young. We can see her confidence growing and her worldview challenged and she is beginning to see the realities of herself and of the world around her through various trials by fire. Misogyny makes her feel incomplete, but we know the things she trusts about herself while simultaneously seeing the way she constantly doubts others. How she can't never express all of herself without constant judgment or mockery.

I feel like yes, the fact Brienne doesn't reject all traditional femininity is really important to her themes, but by extension, it's as important that shedoes reject some of those traditional expressions of femininity. What she is truly rejecting is imposition, not femininity. What she truly needs to embrace is freedom, not masculinity. She's making her own vows, breaking her own promises, going through her own mistakes. She is learning the hard way. Agency in a world of limited choices is one of Brienne's main themes too. There are moral issues that go deep within her story as well as examinations of the effects of war and the struggle to find authenticity and connection in a community that refuses to acknowledge yours, a community drenched in pretense and lost in performance.

And I think it’s easy to get too caught up in her wanting to be a girlfriend or a mother or wearing a dress that we bypass the whole conversation around why that matters at all. I feel like Brienne's success isn't going to come from her fully embracing all her feminine traits or fully accepting all her masculine traits but from being able, down the line, to be exactly who she is.

[hyper-fixates]

Tears of Blood

König x AFAB!reader (no pronouns/gendered language).

Explicit content (18+)

Word count: 3.0k

Tags/warnings: unprotected sex, light choking, mentions of murder/blood (look who we’re working with), mentions of ghostsoap (yay!), explicit language, some fluff, dry humping, friends with benefits…? (let me know if anything was missed!)

Summary: König reveals a very compelling detail about himself while you prepare him for tomorrow's deployment—also inspired by this post/ask and bluegiragi’s art <3

Notes: this has been posted on AO3 for over a year and i just straight up forgot to post it here, too…oops

The barracks are eerily quiet after curfew. So quiet, in fact, that a ghost couldn’t even float around without being heard. Sometimes there is one, he’s just not of the conventional sort.

You’ve learned that Soap gladly let’s his room be haunted most nights.

König never says a word about it. If he did, he’d be a hypocrite. Especially now, as he drifts to the door of your room: after curfew.

By now, you know to leave it unlocked for him. You don’t know when it started becoming habit, but it did. A mindless gesture that makes his lips quirk under the hood when he turns the knob and feels the door give in with no resistance.

You’ve grown used to seeing his figure loom in the doorway, but sometimes your brain forgets it’s just him, and your heart instinctually stutters a beat out of fear as you see the shadows from the dim lighting hug around his broad, towering form—just as imposing and threatening even without the gear.

You’ve mentally noted that not everyone that casts their gaze, usually a fearful and watery one, upon him lives to do so again. But you are fortunate. You never let yourself forget what he’s been trained to do—what he does. He doesn’t like to indulge in it much, if at all, and his hesitance to do so makes you think it’s better if you don’t know the complicated details anyway.

KorTac has quite a different reputation than the 141. König helped make sure of that.

You finish folding the rest of your civvies, tucking them away in their small drawer, and toss a look over your shoulder to the man lingering in the doorway. “See any ghosts?” you muse, prompting König to step in and lock the door behind him.

A breathy chuckle fills the room. “Didn’t see anything, but I wish these rooms were soundproof.”

“Oh, no.” You hold a cackle, hand slapped over your mouth as you meet his amused eyes through the rough-edged holes of his hood.

“Well, that’s just Soap for you. Not even Ghost can shut him up, I guess.” You plop onto your bed with a sigh to compose yourself.

You know Soap will indulge you later.

“So, how may I be of service to the king?” You offer a playful smile as he stands at the foot of your bed. The unexpected nickname making him more interested in the flooring.

He brings a finger up to the black hood, hooking it in by his jaw and pulling to reveal a sizeable gash in the fabric. A close call with a knife if you ever saw one. “Needle and thread.”

He unhooks his finger and drags the worn material off of his head, then the plain black balaclava that hides him further under it follows. He drops both onto your clean sheets in front of him, rounding the corner of the bed and joining you.

Dark red hair flops over his forehead and hangs in thick, wavy strands. It hasn’t quite reached his shoulders yet, but it’s long enough to have a mind of its own. It’s a colour you don’t come across too often; maybe comparable to a chestnut, or old leaves in autumn before they disappear under a blanket of snow.

“Jeez, you ever gonna cut this?” You turn to face him and run a hand up the back of his neck, tangling your fingers in the dense locks and lightly scratching his scalp on the way down.

Soft blue eyes glance to you, still outlined in black from earlier. “Probably not. Can’t find the time.” His accent gently rounds out the vowels as he leans into your touch.

“Let me braid it for you, then. To hold it back. I know you deploy again tomorrow.” You tuck a strand behind his ear, following with a fleeting kiss right above his cheekbone. A faint blush creeps over his temples and the barely-there freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks.

“I promise it won’t be the worst thing ever,” you gently plead. “You can mend your hood in peace while I do it?”

You’ve definitely done worse together. But worse always seems to be easier.

“Okay.”

Usually these nights don’t go like this.

3 days ago

“Oh, that’s good—right there. Yeah. Yeah,” you nearly sob. König holds you against him, left arm reaching across your chest and hand comfortably gripping your throat as you try to roll your hips back against him harder.

His other hand is between your thighs—on your clit—which are dangling over his own to keep you spread. You’re trapped there; under his arms and over his legs as he jerks his hips up to meet your disjointed riding on the rickety office chair.

An empty briefing room. Not really smart, but Soap passed on that it was “out of service” until next week, not knowing that you’d end up in there sat on König’s cock later that afternoon.

The fabric of König’s hood rubs uncomfortably against your cheek, making you drop your head back onto his shoulder to escape it.

A breathy moan rushes past his lips as you arch your back. “No, no. You’re staying right here.” He tightens and corrects the grip he has across your chest, sliding his gloved fingers up under your jaw to keep you locked in place.

His cock slides itself in and out of you with little resistance, which would usually be slightly embarrassing if it was anyone else inside you, but the way he’s been massaging your clit with such attentiveness and grinding his hips into yours makes you forget anything you could be worried about.

The only thing you can think of right now is how good this orgasm is going to be.

Your hands snake themselves up his arm that’s pinned to your front to grip his wrist, holding on for dear life as his small thrusts become rougher. “You get much, much wetter when you’re close,” he observes. His index finger holds a steady rhythm on your clit as it works counterclockwise over you. “Fuck, I can hear it…can you?”

A whine bubbles in your throat. The zipper of his cargo pants bites against your ass on every downstroke, and you can feel how wet you’ve made the front of his pants. That’s what he gets for only caring enough to pull his cock out while he ripped your cargos off entirely.

“I—fuck. Yes, I’m close, yes,” you choke out, daring to cast your gaze upon where your bodies are connected.

You’re swollen and slick and you can hear it, too. The quick, sharp slaps of his hips against your ass does little to hide the hungry squelching of your cunt. You’ve probably dripped all down his balls at this point. He’s always happier with a big mess in the end anyway.

“Cum when you’ve had enough, Schatzi,” he chirps in your ear, breathless and lost in the wet, suffocating warmth of you—all his doing, of course. The result of far too many minutes spent with his thick cock gently sliding between your folds and nudging itself over your throbbing clit, just to be annoying, before he moved you both to the chair.

You drag in a heavy breath, focusing on the stretch of his cock deep inside your walls as the chair creaks with every desperate drop onto him.

Schatzi. “W-what does that mean?”

You’ve naturally picked up a few German words and phrases here and there from time spent with him, but this one was new. A term of endearment? A degrading nickname? Either could be possible in this moment. The sound and pronunciation couldn’t be more ambiguous to you.

“König?” It came out as a whisper, quickly silenced by the release of your orgasm throughout your body as he forces you down to the base of his cock.

—

You haven’t brought it up since. Neither has he.

Even now it sits in the back of your mind as you divide his hair down the middle into two parts. You remain on your bed, he sits on the floor between your knees with a needle and black thread in hand that he retrieved from the bedside table (stashed there specifically for him).

He lays the hood over his left arm and begins to stitch it quietly as you wind three generous strands of his hair between your fingers at the front of his scalp, pulling taught at the root. You carefully thread more hair in from the sides to have it lay perfectly against the top of his skull when finished. You’ll do a matching one on the right side.

“Let me know if it hurts at all,” you warn as you begin tugging more hair into place.

“Ha, I’ve faced adversaries far worse than your little hands,” he laughs, adjusting the hood in his hand as he pokes the needle in again.

The long vermillion markings under the eye sockets stare back at you over his shoulder. “Yeah, I don’t doubt that.”

It’s hard to not be curious about all of the parts that make up “König”. The mask is one of them.

“Why the tears?” you ask confidently while you establish the first braid.

“Hm?” He quirks his head to follow your voice, pausing the followthrough with the thread as you give an accidental yank to his hair.

“Your mask…under the eyes. Why tears?” You figured it was either something symbolic or just his personal taste. Everyone’s got a gimmick.

It seems like every aspect of his existence is a test of one’s curiosity, and you may have just failed.

He focuses his attention back on the stitch he was occupied with. “Fear tactic.” Oh.

Short and sweet. Simple and straightforward. It makes sense—

“I make them with the blood of my targets.” Oh.

Your fingers lose their rhythm for a moment, caught off-guard by the admission. Not so much surprised by the fact that he would do something like that, but rather that he confessed such a thing…to you.

“So you do that…presently?” How could you resist following up about that? It’s the perfect snare. This is the most you’ve gotten from him in weeks.

A beat of measured silence, yet it’s not uncomfortable. He likes to think about what to say, how to say it, before speaking his thoughts spontaneously.

“Only if I believe it’s truly deserved,” he explains. His tone doesn’t reveal if he’s displeased with the topic of work. “The blood actually doesn’t hold up against the black on its own, so Horangi suggested using bleach underneath so it will show better. If needed.” He runs a finger over a washed-out tear track. “Less maintenance with the chemical.”

It’s…it’s morbid, obviously, but you’re not sure if you expected anything less from someone in this line of work. And, of course, leave it to Horangi to feed the fantasy. They are nearly inseparable, besides the times that König’s with you.

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine him as murderous or malevolent—König, who has the most gentle, innocent blue eyes that have offered nothing but kindness to you, even in moments of fierce, consuming pleasure. König, who you’ve never seen, or heard, raise his voice at anyone in anger. König, who despises small talk because he can’t stand the awkwardness.

König, who enjoys the vibrant red sunsets on base and thunderstorms. König, who prefers blueberries over strawberries. König, who is obsessed with entomology books.

But there’s still another part of him that can take out entire platoons of enemies and have no more than a rip in his beloved hood afterwards.

The man under the facade of a callsign and reputation is someone who you may never truly meet, no matter how much he reveals. It feels like you’ve only met half of him despite knowing as much as you do about him, and that fact has settled as an ache in your chest.

“I see…I know it’s not really my place to ask about that stuff, but it’s hard to not wonder about you sometimes.” You’ve reached the end of the first braid, leaving the tail to sit at the crown of his head amongst the uneven layers he has going on.

You tie it off with a small black elastic. It’s a little messy considering the awkward length of his hair, but it looks like it’s meant to be there.

“It’s fine. I’m a big boy, I think I can handle it.” He gives a comforting laugh, amused at your timidness.

In every facet, he’s right. You can’t help but nod your head in agreement with a small smile, despite the fact that he can’t see your expression. “Well, I can’t disagree with you there.”

You begin the start of the second, and final, braid, grabbing the three strands at the front and twisting them into place as he speaks again. “I know it was my size that drew you to me in the first place,” he states confidently, shoulders shaking in amusement at the tease.

Your mouth gapes in feigned offence. “Wow, okay. Is that a crime?”

“No, not in my eyes. Look, look,” he brushes past the sarcasm, holding and stretching the now intact hood out in front of him to see the effectiveness of his handiwork. The seam is near invisible in the sea of black fabric (a ratty t-shirt).

It’s definitely better than the last one he did a few weeks ago. “Damn, that’s pretty fucking impressive. I’m almost done, hold on.” You hurry to tie off the hair, gently holding the sides of his head to see how even they came out. “Looks good, from up here at least. Come sit, let me see the front.” You pat one of his shoulders, freeing him from the cage of your legs and scooting further onto your bed.

“Danke. My spine didn’t love that, though,” he says with a theatric exhale.

He folds the hood in his lap, setting it on the bedside table with the needle and roll of thread. He all but tumbles back onto the soft sheets, groaning as he stretches his neck and shoulders out and lays comfortably on his back, long legs hanging over the side of the mattress.

His eyes flutter shut from the homely feeling of being in—or on—your bed. “Mm, I think I’ll stay here tonight.”

You acknowledge his thought with a small hum as you lean over his restful form to quickly assess his hair, dragging your fingertips along each side lightly. The shaggy hair will always suit him. It frames his cheekbones and jaw perfectly.

König opens his eyes at your touch. “So how does it look, doc? Will I survive deployment now?”

Another smile from you with a slight roll of your eyes. “I think it’ll do the job. Now go clean the black off your eyes if you’re staying. I don’t want it all over my pillows again.”

—

Soap saw the braids in König’s hair the next day before they deployed. An accident or purposefully, you’re not sure yet.

And now, two days later, he still won’t shut the fuck up about it.

“Would ye do that for me?” he asks, playfully quirking a thick brow.

“Probably not, no.”

An arm shoots out accusingly at you in disbelief. “That’s my point! I—”

“Wouldn’t be able to anyway with that fucking landing strip you call a mohawk.” You poorly stifle a laugh with a tight-lipped smirk.

“Away n’ bile yer heid, I’m just trying to help!” He rubs a hand over his eyes, trying to stave off his laughter too. It’s hard to be in his presence and not be overcome with a state of lively energy.

You’re in Soap’s—and sometimes Ghost’s—room, for no real reason other than company while König is at a (delayed) briefing.

Soap’s sitting on his—and sometimes Ghost’s—bed hounding you about the complex being that is König just because he can. You move about the room, finding things to tidy and organize to busy your mind.

“Have ye gone to town on each other yet?”

“Dude!?” You rip a pillow from under him and whack his head. Hard. His infectious cackling now muffled through the thick pillow.

“You’re insufferable. How the fuck does Ghost put up with you?” You try to suppress your giggling as you drop the pillow and join him on the bed in defeat.

A mischievous grin lines his lips at the question. “Well, he t—”

“No! No. Nope. I don’t need to know. It was rhetorical.” You hold up a hand to silence him, bringing it to cover his mouth. His day-old scruff pricks your palm as he tries to talk through your hand.

“Whatever you say next better be insightful or profound or else I’m gonna suffocate you with your own pillow.”

Soap, in fact, didn’t have anything insightful or profound to say about the situation.

— 

König wanders into your room again that night, and he’s filled with a gluttonous desire to consume you in any way that he can. 

It’s the least he can do for you. It’s the most you can do for him.

You rut against his clothed cock, straddling his hips tightly while your hands keep a death-grip on his hair. Once again, you find yourself on your bed with him under you, the clock on the bedside table glaring the angry red 12:56am.

His large hands have found their home on your ass, encouraging your pussy—still covered by your underwear—to rock harder over his length, which is still trapped in his briefs. 

He breaks away from your mouth when you give a rather forceful roll over him, a surprised gasp slipping through his now rosy lips. His grip on your ass slides down to your quivering thighs, rubbing over them soothingly as you work.

A harmony of softs whines and rough groans dance around the room as your pliant bodies move together. “This is somehow better than sex,” König mumbles, mostly to himself. “I don’t want to admit it, but I can cum like this if you don’t stop,” he adds with an overwhelmed huff. “Fuck, I will cum like this if you don’t stop,” he moans.

You let him, and he holds you tight as if you were something other than casual.

[do-you-ship-this-comic-ship]

propaganda:

This is for all of my fellow Two-Face and Gilda lovers out there! Personally I think that BruHarvey as a ship is underrated because of how much more popular other Rogues are (especially the Joker and the Riddler), and the prominence of ships between Bruce and various members of the Justice League (and of course the various comp het ships DC keeps trying to force Bruce into).

In comparison Harvey just doesn't really capture the fandom's imagination as much. Therefore BruHarvey isn't super popular because they don't consider it as an option a lot of the time. But that being said, I also find that a lot of people when presented with BruHarvey as a possible ship will be pretty amenable to it! It's just a fantastic ship if you want some old man/toxic/tragic yaoi! The ship has so much going for it! Childhood friends to lovers. Enemies to lovers. Friends in their civilian identities, as they try to pursue justice for Gotham together, and even friends after Harvey becomes a villain too! It's SO juicy and has SO much unexplored potential if DC weren't COWARDS and would just let Brucie kiss men already! Each of their themes of justice, duality, and redemptive love mirror one another in such an exceedingly tantalizing way that I could write a whole college thesis on it! But I'm not just here about them. I'm also here for my girl Gilda too!

Now BruHarvey may be an underrated ship... And Two-Face as a character is just about rated as a character (not underrated. Not overrated. Just rated). But Gilda...? My poor, poor girl Gilda! Writers never know what to do with her and refuse to give her the justice she deserves!!! Gilda is a big part of the reason why Two-Face was able to work so well as a character and concept all the way back in the 40's in the first place! I don't think that Harvey would have been as iconic of a character with as much staying power as he does with just... SO MANY imitators if it weren't for Gilda's presence and ability to help Harvey redeem himself! The whole point of Harvey as a character is that while he might be a villain, he is never too far gone as to not deserve a chance at redemption. He genuinely cannot help himself when it comes to the compulsion of doing crime. And in his original stories, he was able to redeem himself and reach a happy ending with Gilda helping him, supporting him, and loving him through that journey.

The reason that Batman doesn't kill is largely because of Harvey himself! His childhood friend that he deeply cares about, and who, no matter how much society at large, and even Harvey himself tells Bruce that he is beyond saving, that he still cares about nevertheless and will NEVER give up on! And Gilda was the first person to never give up on Harvey and was the one to lead him back to the light! In a time where Batman might still occasionally use a gun and where the punishment most criminals would recieve in the comics was death or a lifetime of jail, never to be seen again, Two-Face stood out because of his redemption! A redemption that the writers of the comics stuck to for decades in spite of a clear demand to have Two-Face back as a threat! (Hence the many, many imitators.) And sure, the helpless damsel who saves the bad guy through the power of love may be a tired trope these days, but it's still one that can work very well, and as a woman first written in the 40's Gilda actually has a surprising amount to her that later writers would forget or just outright ignore! Gilda clearly was a female character who had more going on in her life other than her boyfriend at the time she was first written. She was actually a sculptor!

A woman with her own well-respected career entirely divorced from her DA boyfriend's! And while Harvey was her primary muse, I have doubts that her career just stopped when he turned to crime! After all, she seems to have been a woman who owned a house and lived on her own and had enough wealth to spend her free time going to the movies (and apparently buying herself mysterious cloaks). In the 1940's! We love a woman who can get everything on her own without needing a man (though it is a nice bonus) in this household! And she was doing it as an artist when that stuff was less common! And her other biggest trait is her unshaking love and loyalty for Harvey. I think that it's genuinely interesting how the crime and murder matters very little to Gilda (and similar characters that fill her role in stories). What she doesn't like is how he lies and tries to decieve her specifically. She would die for Harvey. She would kill for Harvey. She will stay with and help him through thick and thin. No matter what.

And very few pieces of media do her character justice! The Long Halloween may ostensibly be about her, but they gave her nothing in her life other than the men she associates with, a desire for children, and murder. Not even a hint that she was a sculptor, barely a hint that she studied law or anything that other iterations offered! She's my girl! And she could honestly offer a number of very interesting story posibilities, if only writers saw her potential! But clearly they don't given that for the last several decades, they've been writing her out of stories, or killing her off in brutal fashion so that they don't have to deal with the question of what she's up to while Harvey is doing his crime stuff. Hell. Gilda was the catalyst for the Long Halloween, so why isn't Dark Victory about nor even include her in person!??? Why not explore her being Duela Dent's mother!? Why not show her standing by Bruce's side while the both of them try to help Harvey recover!??? Why do the writers try to make Harvey NOT a wife guy!? Why can't they let Gilda be around and Harvey's wife that's cooler and more chill than him!? Why must Harvey be single!? By far he has the best romantic chemistry with (out of anyone who isn't Gilda) Bruce and no other major character! But if you stick Harvey and Bruce together for that sweet, sweet tragic yaoi and angst... Well... First of all DC are COWARDS who refuse to let Bruce be into dudes. And second of all, why not just let Bruce, Harvey, and Gilda be together and poly!!!? But I'm no coward! Double the partners means double the chances for tragedy and angst! (Or comedy if you'd like!) And double the possibilities for love, recovery, and redemption! Gilda wouldn't and shouldn't give up on Harvey!

And Bruce and Gilda cheating on Harvey without his blessing!??? BROKE! Them being in a polycule? Excellent! And if you need any proof that Bruce, Harvey, and Gilda could be a functional polycule, you should read the daily newspaper Batman comics as archived on @daily-batman! Because they make a GREAT case for it there, and seeing their relationship develop in that story is just delightful! Harvey watches Batman (that he's half figured out is Bruce) kiss his wife (named Alice but like... She's CLEARLY just Gilda with a different name!) and isn't bothered by it AT ALL other than it giving her hope that he can get better! Kissing his wife? That he understands and is perfectly fine with. But giving her HOPE!!!??? Now THAT'S a line too far! Sounds like something someone poly might do! And also... That series finale!!! Lol. Harvey getting jealous of and trying to kill Bruce for thinking that he's stealing his girl? Nah. Broke. Harvey being a-okay with Bruce smooching his wife because he's already in love with Bruce too...? HELL YEAH! Let's do it! Who needs love triangles when you can have power throuples instead!??? Join the few of us that enjoy the ship! And give Gilda and BruHarvey the love they deserve!!!!

Also just LOOK at the image I sent and tell me that it DOESN'T look like Bruce, Harvey, and Gilda are getting poly-married! BruHarvey is juicy and even more juicy with the added DLC of Gilda in the mix! And Gilda deserves the whole world! Give them the world!

[misseviehyde]

GHOST LIT

Melissa had never thought she would meet the love of her life, fall instantly in love and get married so quickly, (especially after being single for so long) - but all her dreams had finally come true.  Dan was gorgeous - a well-read and well-spoken gentleman who had an impeccable taste in fashion and interior decoration and was the CEO of a small, but successful limited company.  

Melissa was a piano teacher, and she'd met Dan when he came for lessons.  As he brushed back his sexy hair and grinned at her with his confident smile, she'd felt her stomach flutter and known she had finally met the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Her heart had sank when she'd seen the wedding ring on his finger, but he'd blushed at her gaze - almost reading her mind.

"I... was... married.  She died in an accident.  I still wear the ring, though I don't know why.  My former wife... well she wasn't a very nice person.  It wasn't until she died that I realised she'd been dominating my life, gas-lighting me into thinking everything was my fault.  She had me totally under her heel and treated me very poorly.  Sorry, I shouldn't speak so ill of the dead, but I'm glad she died, I finally feel free.  That's why I'm having these lessons, I want to live - I want to finally do all the things I should have done when I was married to Cassandra."

They'd hit it off immediately and begun dating a week later.  A year later and they were married - and Melissa was finally moving into Dan's amazing mansion home.  She didn't care that he was rich, or that he'd lived here with his evil ex-wife... all that mattered was that she was finally with the man of her dreams.

Still - as they passed into the house, Melissa couldn't help but shiver.  The house still bore the marks of Cassandra's spoiled influence.  The more Melissa had learned of the evil, manipulative, vain and cruel Cassandra - the more she was glad she had never met the bitch.  She wondered how Dan had ended up with such a bad girl - or why he had allowed her to gaslight him for so long.  Dan had told him that Cassandra had even fucked other guys, but somehow made him feel it was his fault for being an inadequate lover. 

"She gets into your head and makes you her puppet," he had sighed sadly.  "Sorry - I mean, got into your head.  You know... it's funny, but sometimes I almost feel like she is still here. Crazy I know! Just ignore me, I'm being a fool of course."

That had really made Melissa shiver.  The thought that Dan's ex-wife might be haunting the house - watching them like some malicious purveyor really made her feel uncomfortable.  Good job she didn't believe in ghosts. 

"This is our home now baby," she had smiled. "We're going to be happy here.  Now forget all about your ex-wife and lets start our new life together."

****

In the dark corners of the bedroom an evil spirit gloated as it watched Melissa innocently unpack her things. At last - a woman was here.  A weak, willed, goody-two-shoes of a woman.  A foolish little slut with no idea of the transformation she was going to undergo. Cassandara smiled as she drifted close to her victim and tasted her innocent spirit.  Sustained by spite and bitterness, the spirit of Dan's former wife looked appraisingly at Melissa as an artist might look at a piece of clay.  So much potential... so much fun to be had.

Melissa shivered and she turned her head, almost as if she sensed something.  Weird, it felt like she was being watched.  For a moment the tension seemed to stretch out and then Melissa shrieked and nearly jumped out of her skin, as with a clatter, something fell from the top of the wardrobe... almost as if it had been pushed off.  Regaining her composure, Melissa convinced herself the object had fallen naturally and walked over to pick it up.  It was a jewel case containing a DVD.  Why it had been hidden on top of the wardrobe, she wasn't sure.  

"What the hell is this?" she mused, walking over to the bedroom TV and sliding the DVD into the player beneath. It whirred up and Melissa sat on the bed to watch.  To her surprise when the screen came on, it showed a video of the very bedroom she was now sitting it, only it was at night.  Red candles and soft lighting lit the room, and the sheets were white satin.

Melissa gasped and her hand went to her mouth as she saw two figures on the bed.  One was Dan, only slightly younger looking - the other was an amazing looking woman with a perfect, toned, body and firm full breasts.  Her body oozed sensuality as with a moan of pleasure she lowered herself onto Dan's cock and began to ride him.

Melissa watched in horror as the woman in the video fucked her husband.  Fucked.  That was the only way to describe it. When she and Dan had sex it was gentle love-making, this was like watching a porn video.  Dan's face was a mask of ecstasy, the woman on top of him moaning as she thrust her hips obscenely like she wanted to suck his dick up into herself and she took his straining cock deeper and deeper inside her.

"Oh Cassie, fuck me," he moaned... "I need you so badly."

"That's right Dan," she hissed, "my pussy controls you - only I can make you feel this way.  Say it."

"YES! OH YES, CASSIE, your pussy owns me - you're better than every other woman.  Only you can make me feel this way."

"Mmmmmh, good boy - I will ALWAYS be in control of your life."

Melissa felt sick to her stomach, yet she couldn't stop watching.  Cassie bounced on top of Dan with hot wet slaps, moaning and laughing as she squeezed her tight pussy around his dick and made him hers.  Dan was shaking, his uncontrollable lust for his bitch wife clear to see.  His eyes shone with devotion and with a wracking sob, Melissa realised he had never looked at her like that.  

"Oh my God Dan, why did I have to see this?" she sobbed.  "I thought we had a special connection, but now I see what you were like with her... you'll never need me like you needed her.  I can't believe this, I can't compete with that bitch!"

Hearing movement downstairs, Melissa quickly turned off the DVD, ejected and hid it under the bed.  She used some tissues to quickly blot her tears and put on a fake smile as Dan entered the room.  He walked over and put his arm around her lovingly.  "Everything okay baby?"

"Of course," she lied, "everything is fine."

****

It was hours later and Melissa couldn't sleep.  She couldn't stop thinking about the DVD and what she had seen.  The scene seemed to replay in her mind again and again and again.  As she lay in the bed, tossing and turning, with Dan snoring next to her, she wanted to scream but she couldn't.

Grinning maliciously, Cassandra floated over to Melissa and took a position up behind the bed-head. Reaching down she slid her spectral fingers towards Melissa's brow and sighed pleasurably as her phantasmal digits slid into the other woman's head.  She'd tried this before, but Melissa's unconscious mental defences had been too strong.  Now her mind was wide open.

Melissa groaned in relief as a sudden cool sensation seemed to slide into her head.  After hours of restlessness, she suddenly felt drowsy, and though the sex scene in her head continued to play - it no longer made her feel sad.  Instead she began to feel horny as she watched the lovers fuck.

The memory became a dream, and as she watched the lovers rutting - Cassie's face seemed to melt like wax and then reform.  With a gasp of astonishment Melissa realised she was now watching herself riding Dan - only, with a body like Cassie's.  Melissa couldn't believe how good her face looked on that bitchy body, all tanned and perfect.  She felt her heart beat faster and a sudden yearning to be like the woman in her dream and make this fantasy come true began to fill her mind.

Why not become more like Cassie?  Why not see if you can make Dan lust for you like he used to lust for her?

Melissa sighed happily in her dreams as strange thoughts and whispers filled her mind and her lips twisted into a unfamiliar smile.  Finally she slept, and her dreams were sooooo naughty that night...

*****

Dan blinked in surprise as he walked into the kitchen to find Melissa on a stool whistling and doing her makeup.  For a second he was struck by deja-vu then he realised why.  

"Melissa, are you wearing my ex-wife's clothes?  What the hell? I packed all that stuff away in the garage months ago!  Did you go unbox it?"

Melissa looked at him in confusion.  "Baby, I found this stuff in my wardrobe, I thought since you'd left it out, you wouldn't mind me wearing it.  I never thought of wearing clothes like this before, these leather pants feel really nice. Don't you like how they look?"

Dan had to admit that Melissa did look good in Cassie's bitchy clothes... he felt his cock twitch. There was something kind of hot about nice girl Melissa being a bit more like his nympho-ex, but why was she lying to him?  

"Melissa, tell the truth - I never left those clothes out - you must have got them from the garage."

Melissa frowned, "Dan - I promise you, they were in my wardrobe when I woke up this morning.  Are you accusing me of being a liar?"

"Of course not," he said reluctantly - but full now of spite, he snapped - "They don't fit you anyway, you'd need to lose weight and tone up to pull those off."

Melissa scowled. "Maybe I will then!" she snarled, stomping off back up to the bedroom.

Dan immediately regretted being mean to Melissa, but he was too proud to go apologise, so he left her to fester.

Cassie smiled as she invisibly watched - it had all played out exactly as she had known it would.  Floating through the wall into the bedroom she smirked as she floated behind Melissa and slid her fingers into the other woman's head.  They slid in easier now, like Melissa's mind was embracing their touch - almost pulling them in.

Melissa's eyes widened slightly and a lovely relaxed feeling throbbed through her body as Cassie's evil influence pulsed into her body.  The clothes seemed to pulse with the same corruption, Melissa was now encased in Cassie's bitchiness and it was starting to transfer into her body.

He's right - you do need to tone up and shape up - and you will.  You know you deserve to wear these clothes and you only want to dress like this.  Throw away all your old clothes, go to the garage and take all of Cassie's things - replace your entire wardrobe with hers.  Dan will only lust for you if you become more like Cassie.  Do it...

Melissa moaned as her brain pulsed with pleasure.  Standing up she walked to her wardrobe and with a sneer, began to rip her old clothes out.  It was time to upgrade... and join a gym.

****

"Yes, this is more like it," smiled Melissa as she admired herself in the mirror a few weeks later.  The amount of weight and toning up that she had achieved in such a small amount of time was incredible. In fact, it was almost supernatural.  If she didn't know better she'd say that some outside force had been assisting her - speeding up her physical transformation from a slightly frumpy housewife into a toned and athletic looking hottie.

Dan had certainly noticed, but not complained - their sex becoming more ambitious and his pleasure in her superior body noticeable.  Melissa had almost completely stopped playing the piano or taking lessons in order to shape up and Dan hadn't objected when she had told him she wouldn't be contributing to the finances this month. 

In truth, he felt guilty that he had told Melissa she needed to shape up, and his guilt gave her power over him. Power Melissa was starting to enjoy.

She walked into her bedroom and sat on the bed.  All at once the delicious tingling throbbing feeling she got in her head whenever she was in this room came back and she smiled happily.  She always had her best ideas in the bedroom - it was almost like someone was projecting ideas into her head and the more she relaxed and welcomed it, the faster the ideas seemed to come. 

"Yes, I should try on some of the tighter, bitchier, clothes that Cassie used to own. I can probably fit into them now," grinned Melissa as she opened the wardrobe where she had put all the naughtiest clothes she had found - but had not quite been able to fit into - in.  Now she was about the same body build as Cassie though, it should be easy.

Melissa shivered as she stroked the latex clothing, faux-fur, leather boots and bougie jewellery on display.  Could she really wear this stuff?  It seemed like something some sort of slutty bad bitch might wear.

"Hurry up and try them on... you're going to feel sooooo fucking hot and horny in those clothes.  Haven't you seen how Dan has been responding to your physical improvements, next you need to start acting like a bad-bitch.  He enjoys being bullied and pushed around, it actually turns him on.  Try it. Put on an outfit and go tease him."

Melissa shivered and nodded.  Sometimes it felt like there was a voice in her mind whispering such deliciously evil things to her, but she had to admit - everything the voice told her to do worked.  With shaking hands she reached out and chose a bitchy outfit.

It was tight - far tighter than anything she had ever worn.  A tight black one-piece black and white bodysuit.  It was funny how the suit seemed to squeeze her tits up and out - she was sure they seemed bigger these days.  High heels shoes also pushed her up - her feet felt smaller and more arched since she moved in with Dan and a generous application of expensive makeup made her look like a total bitch.

She was immediately aroused and she felt hotter and more powerful than ever before.  With a confident stride, she clip clopped around the room, smirking at the feeling of power Cassie's clothes gave her.  It felt like the old her was being smothered and something cruel and bitchy was taking over.  She loved the feeling and wanted more.

Striding next door, Melissa felt arousal as Dan gasped at her outfit.  His eyes lustfully drank in her body and she smirked to see the effect she was having on him.  He came towards her, but she disdainfully pushed him away.  "You'll spoil my makeup, keep back.  You've been pissing me off lately, so if you want a piece of my ass, you're going to have to start treating me better."

For a moment Dan looked like he might object... then he licked his lips nervously.  "Yes... dear, whatever you say. I'm sorry."

Melissa felt her pussy tingle and her nipples get hard.  Wow - making your man do what you wanted, felt really good.  "Good boy, perhaps later, if you're good I'll reward you - but for now I'm going shopping and I want to spend some big money.  You don't mind do you dear?"

"Of course not baby," muttered Dan.  

Melissa was acting more and more like his old wife every day - yet somehow, that was really turning him on.

******

Cassie looked around the shop in delight - her hold over Melissa had grown strong enough that she was now finally able to leave the house.  A thin cord of energy, steadily growing thicker and heavier was growing between them and Cassie could feel her influence pulsing into the other woman, feeding Melissa's lust, ambition and cruelty. 

Melissa's body had changed so much in the last few weeks and the stupid bitch hadn't even questioned how her tits had got three sizes bigger.  Instead, she was proud of her sluttier body and thanks to the constant corruptive thoughts Cassie was sending into her protegee's head - she was getting worse by the minute.

"Yes, I deserve nice things and for Dan to pay for it all," hissed Melissa in glee as she tried on a pair of $500 boots that felt so nice over her latex bodysuit. She knew she didn't need the boots but she wanted them, so she took them.  It felt great to get what she wanted and be a spoiled bitch.

Melissa admired herself as she passed a mirror.  She'd been for a full body-wax this morning and her perfect abs, big-booty and huge tits were straining to break free of her super tight bodysuit.  She looked amazing and she revelled in feeling the hungry stares of men and women alike as they passed her.  "I'm a fucking Goddess," she laughed as she strutted down the street in her new boots, heading for home.

Entering the house, Melissa found Dan in the living room and beckoned him with a finger.  "Come with me. I'm horny and I want you to fuck me."

They entered the bedroom and Dan excitedly unzipped Melissa out of her latex suit - her smooth, naked body ready to be ravished.  She smiled excitedly as she pushed him onto the bed and drawing the curtains lit a number of candles.  There - now things looked exactly as they had on the DVD.  Dan seemed confused, but also turned on as Melissa straddled him and with an excited gasp lowered herself onto his cock.

"Oooooh, yes," she groaned loving how good it felt to finally be the bitch of her dreams as she began to gyrate her hips and ride her husband, just as she'd seen on the video. 

"Oh my God Melissa, your pussy feels so tight... it's amazing," groaned Dan.  

"I've been working out," purred Melissa as she fucked her man.  "Tell me that you like the bitchy new me, tell me how much you love that I've become more like your ex-wife."

"Ohhhh yes, I love what you've become, I don't know why or how, but it turns me on so much."

"Good boy," purred Melissa as she increased her bounces.  "I love what a bad girl I'm turning into and it feels like there is still so much more for more to do."

Cassie watched proudly as Melissa took control of Dan and made him her pussy slave.  Corrupting the other woman had been so much fun and there was still so much more to do.  A bit more gas-lighting and Melissa would be even bitchier.  Cassie was wondering if eventually she could even make the other woman worse than she had ever been.

It was definitely going to be fun to try...

****

EPILOGUE (Weeks later)

Ghosts don't sleep - but they do fade in and out from time to time. Cassie had been somewhere else when she was suddenly rudely pulled into reality.

She was in a room - her living room - only there were candles lit everywhere. This wasn't something she had planned... what was happening?

In the middle of the room around the table sat Melissa and Dan. They were holding hands and Melissa had her head thrown back as in rapture.

"Hear me... spirit of this place. I summon thee and bind thee. Thou shalt obey me."

"Honey are you sure this is a good idea? You don't really believe there is a ghost do you?"

Melissa's lips twitched into an evil smile. "Oh yes honey. There is a ghost and I know who she is. But don't worry - I know how to deal with her."

Cassie felt a flash of panic and admiration. How had Melissa learnt of her existence - she thought she had been careful.

"Oh spirit of Cassie. I bind thee and summon thee into my body. All your bitchiness, all your knowledge shall be mine. I absorb thee and consume thee. Make me even more powerful!"

Cassie tried to fight, but her spirit was being pulled towards Melissa. She screamed as she was sucked into the other woman, her personality and consciousness unravelling as Melissa greedily sucked her up and consumed the concentrated evil.

Melissa screamed in pleasure, her tits swelling up even bigger and her body becoming hotter and stronger as she absorbed all of Cassies power, knowledge and memories.

In moments it was done. The ghost was no more and now only the fully evolved bitch Melissa remained.

"Mmmmh," she giggled stretching her slutty body with pride. "I love how it feels to be such a fucking bitch. Now I have ALL the power."

"Did you banish the ghost my love?" stuttered Dan.

"What ghost?" smirked Melissa fake innocently. "You must be imagining things. There was never any ghost and if there was - well she isn't a problem anymore."

Laughing cruelly Melissa strode off leaving her pussy whipped gas lit husband to tidy up the room.

She was the only bitch around here now and she wouldn't be manipulated by a ghost.

She was the gas-lighter now... and she loved it.

[wildrangers]

"Slut!" // William Nylander

Word Count: 2.8K

Summary: Famous singer reader x our boy Willy

{For my 1989 Vaults Track Challenge}

Warnings/tropes: fluff, resolved angst (very minor), mentions of anxiety, strong allusions to sex but no serious smut (like PG-13-ish), cursing

You were used to attention but even you had a limit. You’d hit it a few months ago after the tabloids latched onto you being seen with a mystery man, aka Marc from your agent’s office. When your team published that to dispel the rumors, the media reframed it as you sleeping with him for favoritism within your agency. While they hadn’t actually been yelling “Slut!” at you, they may as well have been and you’d needed to get away from New York.

You’d escaped to Toronto because you enjoyed the city whenever your tour had passed through and decided it was busy enough to get lost in without attracting the press. You were hunkered down working on your next album, doing your best to lose yourself in the rhythm of the city and get back to what you loved most—your music.

Got lovestruck, went straight to my head

Got lovesick, all over my bed

Love to think you’ll never forget

Handprints in wet cement

You’d been walking your dog, Edith, when the air changed around you—you couldn’t quite explain it, but you could feel a group of people getting excited about something and it set you on edge—had you been spotted? You froze, eyes darting around as your breath fogged in front of you.

You spotted a group of maybe a half dozen girls giggling as they walked away from a tall, blonde man with two dogs. As you let out a deep sigh of relief, Edith spotted the other dogs and yanked the leash out of your grip, charging for them and their owner.

“Edith!” you called, heart in your throat, as you jogged after her. Luckily, you were in a quieter part of the city but you were still panicked until you saw the guy grab her leash.

“I am so, so sorry, thank you so much” you called out once you were in speaking distance of him.

“It’s no problem” he replied, smiling easily at you. “I was relieved when a dog was running over—when I heard someone yelling ‘Edith!’ I worried a grandma was really in trouble.”

You chuckled and shrugged, “I mean, she’s just an Edith, you know?” Normally, at this point, you’d disengage to avoid being recognized but his face was so open and you hadn’t realized until now how lonely you’d been holed up writing. “Who are these gentlemen?”

William introduced himself, as well as Banksy and Pablo. You discovered your buildings were near each other so when he offered to join you on your return there, you took him up on it despite your reservations.

“So, what do you do for work?” William asked after a natural lull in conversation and your pulse picked up.

“Oh, I work in the music industry, what about you?”

You felt him reassessing you and his cheeks suddenly flared pink, “I’m sorry, I thought you looked familiar but it didn’t click until just now.”

“Please, don’t be sorry” you laughed, your own embarrassment rising to meet his. “It was nice talking with someone as a human being.”

“Yeah, I get that” he sighed.

“Oh?” you asked, wracking your brain for how he could possibly relate to such a strange feeling.

“I play for the Maple Leafs” he explained and you nodded, pretending to know what that meant. He must have caught on because he let out a rich laugh that made you smile from the sound alone. “The NHL team here, this is kind of a hockey town.”

“Well, that explains the girls back there…” you mused, reflecting back on the frenetic energy that comes with a person meeting someone they only know through a TV.

“They were sweet” he shrugged and you glanced over, noticing his legitimate nonchalance.

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Not really, it comes with the territory and 95% of the time people are nice.”

“Well, that’s good” you mumbled, mostly to yourself. While your fans were lovely, your mind flashed to all the times you’d been met with judgement and jealousy from girls who were into your famous exes. It was a bizarre, shame-inducing experience despite you doing nothing wrong.

“Hey look!” Will said excitedly, pulling you from your thoughts. “Come here, quick.”

You followed him in confusion towards a small section of sidewalk that had been replaced and was surrounded by caution tape. “What exactly are we doing?”

“Come on, we gotta do our hand prints, no?” he grinned and his genuine excitement made you smile too.

“Fine, but quickly” you agreed and he whooped before taking his left hand out of his glove, you doing the same with your right hand. You two quickly stuck your hands in, the wet concrete cold to the touch.

“My plan worked” he smiled and you tilted your head in confusion. “Now you have to come over, make sure we can wash that concrete off your hands. Can’t play guitar with chunks of that stuck to you.”

Lovelorn and nobody knows

Love thorns all over this rose

I’ll pay the price you won’t

You must have dozed off watching the Leafs game because you were woken by Will softly greeting the dogs. You stretched, letting the throw blanket fall around your waist as you yawned.

“I’m sorry, babe, did I wake you?” he asked quietly, placing a kiss to your forehead.

You hummed in response, wrapping your hand around the back of his neck to pull his lips to yours. His kiss was gentle and attentive—he always seemed to anticipate just what would make your heart flutter in your chest. He pulled away a moment later, his blue eyes shining with joy that warmed you from within.

It had only been a few months since you’d met and, if you were being honest, you were a little terrified by how quickly you were falling for him. Contrary to what the tabloids said, you normally guarded your heart quite closely. But with Will, it was beginning to feel like all you needed was him.

“Where’d you go?” he asked and you realized he’d sat down beside you, concern all over his face.

“I’m sorry, just got lost in my thoughts.”

“What were they saying?”

You hesitated, trying to decide how to phrase it, “It just worries me how much you mean to me already.”

“Oh, älskling” he replied, pulling you to him. Your arms wrapped around his middle and you buried your face in his neck, breathing in his scent. “What concerns you about that?”

“I’m scared of people finding out” you admitted softly.  

“Because of the media being assholes?” You nodded, pulling him tighter. “Y/N, people say shit about me all the time. It’s just what happens when you’re in the public eye.”

You sighed, pulling away slightly to look at him. He didn’t get it—how different it was being a famous woman versus a man. “What would the story be about you if it came out that we’re dating?” you questioned and he grinned.

“Just that I’m lucky to have somehow landed a woman that is way out of my league” he replied and you rolled your eyes, butterflies filling your stomach at the compliment.

“What do you think it would be about me?”

He took in your serious expression and paused to think before shrugging, “Tell me.”

“Y/N, dating William Nylander!” you proclaimed dramatically. “Another new man for the songstress! Will she ever settle down? How many famous men will she use for attention? What will her ex think? When can we expect the break up album?”

You’d tried being light-hearted but your voice cracked on the last word as tears pricked your eyes. “Hey, hey” he said quietly, embracing you again and running a soothing hand through your hair. “They can say whatever they want. Only we know what this is—how real it is. They can’t take that from us. But, if we keep hiding, think of all the things that fear is taking from us. You coming to a game, me being able to go to a show of yours someday. Me being able to take you out to celebrate a win or on a nice date.”

Tears flowed freely at his words, “I didn’t mean to hide us, I’m just scared.”

“I know” he replied, wiping away your tears. “And I’ve loved getting to know you and developing this relationship, just us two. But that’s not how relationships work—I want you to meet the team and me to meet your friends, see your home in New York.  I mean, if you’d want that” he said, faltering at the end.

You grabbed his face in your hands, placing a gentle kiss to his nose. “Of course, that’s what I want” you reassured him, getting lost in his deep blue eyes. And as he leaned in to kiss you again, you accepted that you’d likely get backlash in a way he wouldn’t. But you wouldn’t let that stop you from being with him fully.

But if I’m all dressed up

They might as well be looking at us

And if they call me a slut

You know it might be worth it for once

You were nervous as you left Scotiabank Arena with Steph and a few other girls. You’d felt safe up in the suite, watching the game with the other partners and families but away from prying eyes. Now, on the street surrounded by fans, you felt your anxiety rising. You could feel people watching your group, noting the WAG jackets—you couldn’t tell if they’d realized who you were or were just intrigued because of your relationship with a player.

As you saw Will’s car pull up to the curb, you confirmed with Steph which bar you’d all meet up at to celebrate the win before sliding into his passenger seat.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Will asked, eyes scanning your face.

“Yeah, I’m sure” you nodded, despite the nerves filling your stomach. His strong hand gripped yours as he pulled out, heading a few blocks away to the bar. You’d gone to a few closed team events to meet everyone—parties at people’s apartments, joining the girls for at-home brunch, etc. All to help you feel comfortable enough for this milestone.

“You look beautiful, Leafs blue suits you” Willy complimented as he pulled into a spot and you squeezed his hand in thanks. He quickly came around to your side, opening your door and helping you out as he always did, ever the gentleman—it was one of the things you loved about him. You paused for a second at that thought before deciding you had enough to worry about tonight without bringing the L word into it.

You were escorted to a private room where you enjoyed a few hours of joyful company, dancing and drinking, celebrating the guys and their hard work. You’d almost convinced yourself you’d overthought this outing—everything was going great, why had you been so worried? But by the time you were leaving, cheeks flushed from the warmth of the bar and the alcohol flowing through you, your fears were confirmed as cameras began flashing.

Will wrapped a protective arm around you as your name was shouted from all around, Steph tucking herself closer to your other side, bracketing you in their safety.

Send the code, he’s waiting there

The sticks and stones they throw froze mid-air

Everyone wants him

That was my crime

It was the following afternoon and you were spiraling. All those moments you thought were private were plastered across the internet. You and Steph cheering after a goal, you picking up John’s daughter so she could see the ice better, you shielding your eyes when Will had taken a hard check. Let alone all the photos they’d gotten outside the arena and of you walking into and out of the bar.

Even worse, a fan had gotten past your building’s security, knocking on your door shortly after lunch. Luckily, she’d been sweet but it still rattled you. Your building’s manager had apologized profusely, quickly changing all the codes into the building and retraining the staff on privacy procedures.

Will was at practice and wouldn’t be over until later that afternoon, leaving you to your own devices. You’d successfully fought off Googling your own name for hours before finally caving.

Y/N spotted with William Nylander—but is she still with Marc?

Y/N has gone through all of Hollywood’s men—she’s moved onto Toronto now!

When can we expect the Nylander album?

That last one had been the worst—as if your music was owed solely to the men you decided to be with, not something you worked tirelessly on. Your phone vibrated beside you and your shoulders sagged in relief as Will’s name popped up.

“Hey babe, are you almost here?”

“I’m outside, can you send me the new code? It’s a zoo out here.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry, I totally spaced, it’s 161152. I’ll call George to let him know you can come up.”

A few moments later, you were pulling Will into your apartment and locking the door behind him. You began to explain everything that had happened today but instead simply burst into tears.

“I’m so sorry, älskling—I believed you but I didn’t realize how crazy it would be. But we’re going to figure this out, okay?” And you let yourself believe him as he rubbed soothing circles on your back, his presence filling you with a sense of safety. “And I’m going to be taking your laptop away from you” he added, spotting what you’d been searching.

You chuckled through your tears, pulling away to grab a tissue from nearby, “I knew I shouldn’t but couldn’t stop myself” you admitted and he nodded. “I’m sorry about all of this.”

“Hey, no” he countered, gently gripping your face between his hands. “We knew this could happen.”

“I know but why would you want to put up with all of this?” you asked, emotion clogging your throat again.

“Because I’ll take anything and everything that comes with being with you” he answered, eyes serious as they held yours. You didn’t know what to say to that so you just wrapped your arms around his middle again. “Want to take a nap? I could use one after the last twelve hours.”

Half asleep

Taking your time

You’re not saying you’re in love with me

But you’re going to

A few hours later you were woken by kisses placed all over your face and gentle hands caressing your waist. “There she is” Willy mumbled into your ear and you giggled, turning your face so you could capture his lips with your own. His exploring hands made quick work of both your clothes and soon he was a comforting weight on top of you.

You’d obviously had sex with Will countless times by this point but this felt different somehow. You both normally favored faster, rougher sex but Will was moving so purposefully and slowly, seemingly drawing out the time you two were joined together, impossibly close.

Later, as you came down from your high and felt his rhythm falter, you opened your eyes to meet his and the look there stole your breath away. Such affection and care were in his deep blue eyes before he dropped his head to your chest, burying his face in your neck as he caught his breath.

“That was incredible, Y/N” he said softly and you pulled his face up to yours, pouring all your unsaid feelings into the kiss.

Half awake

Taking your chance

It’s a big mistake

I said it might blow up in your pretty face

A few nights later, you were curled up in Will’s bed, wrapped in his embrace. The dogs were fast asleep around you but you were clinging to wakefulness, enjoying the warmth of Will behind you after a long day in the studio.  

“Y/N?” Will said softly and you hummed in response, turning in his arms to face him.

You smiled up at him sleepily but felt yourself wake up a bit more at the intensity in his eyes. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just…” he began, swallowing thickly. You frowned slightly at his nerves, reaching up to brush a piece of hair out of his eyes. “I just love you, that’s all.”

You fought back a smile, “Oh is that all?”

“Shut up” he giggled, hiding his face in your neck, pulling you even closer to him somehow.

You ran a hand through his hair, placing a kiss to the top of his head. “I love you too, William.”

“Yeah?” he questioned, pulling back just enough to gaze up at you.

You nodded before smirking, “You may come to regret it but yeah, I love you.”

He placed a gentle kiss to your collarbone before settling into your chest again, “I could never regret this, my love.”

A/N: My first Willy story! Thanks to those who sent support for this little series I'm working on to hopefully get out of this writing slump. I wrote this in a few hours so please let me know any feedback you have ☺️ 'Say Don't Go' with Lindgren next!

[kyruskumiho27]

Warnings: •Killing • death •fluff •enemies to lovers •idiots to lovers

Summary: a bond is broken. ( you=pink/ Sukuna=red) lot of yapping in this before it gets to the actual fluff. Not related to the other one, had an idea and didn’t like how that one came out so this is a better, newer improved version.

“What a shame…” you muse, gazing at the man with soft eyes. “What a shame we’re not meant to be..”

He grunts, cocking his head at you. He’s made no attempt to approach you, to even attack you for that matter. His warmth radiates off his skin, shoulders squared like they’re prepared for a fight.

“We could be…” He looked so utterly confident in himself, like he couldn’t imagine anything else could possibly be more difficult.

You quirk a brow. “We’ve been at this longer than expected, longer than imagined.” You snort.

“It could be destiny, why not break our chains and-“

“We are enemies, no?” You interrupt, tilting your head. He grins. “Can enemies not love?”

What a joke. A joke and silly game he’s playing to try and weaken me. And what if he’s right.“There is bo rule saying enemies can’t be lovers… in fact, I think you humans romanticize it.”

“Do you love me Sukuna, truly?”

The question causes him to pause, brows furrowed. Love? How could he love someone, him, a curse. The king of curses.

“I care for you.” He says bluntly, unwilling to admit that he might be, maybe in lo-

“Yet you desire to kill me.”

He rolls his eyes. That is not what he was talking about. But yes. He did want to kill you. For centuries on end it’s been this back and forth between you two. An angel of light fighting the King of curses. And yet, no matter how close he gets, you always manage to slip away.

You giggle to yourself. “Maniac.” His eyes widen in amusement. He could listen to your laughs all day.

Your puffs of air as you try not to admit to yourself that you enjoy the Kings company. Why haven’t you killed him yet? The answer slips past your mind, you can never remember. You were made to destroy him, yes. But you never do so when given the chance.

“You are lonely.” You say, staring at Sukuna. He nods.

“It’s a never ending cycle, never ending battle. I catch you but you always manage to escape. We are doomed for eternity.”

“I am right here.”

“You are.”

So close and yet so far. A slight frown appears on his far. “Just out of my reach.” He sniffs, cracking his back as he gazes upon you.

The definition of beauty and grace.

“Why is that? I am right here.” He huffs.

“I am aware.”

You glare at him. He’s avoiding your questions and your starting to get annoyed. “Why?”

He scowls. “You know damn well why.” He snaps, teeth bared in frustration. That is not a straight answer. You stare at him blankly, frowning.

The truth seems just out of your reach. No matter how hard you try to concentrate, it’s never revealed. Strange. “Kuna.” You call softly. He melts a little inside at the name. Only you’re allowed to say it. To refer to him with such endearment in your voice. He’s most definitely in love. He looks at you.

“Kuna, something is wrong.”

Oh how he longs to touch you, to feel you in his grasp.

“Very wrong.” Your brows scrunched up.

He wants to hold you, to caress you as he crushes you. He wants you to die by his hands, and his hands only.

“The bond..” he breathes, he wants to fuck you, he wants to kiss you and love you and make you his.

Mine. All fucking mine.

You stare at him still, he rolls his eyes once again.

“The bond.” He emphasizes, only to realize you have not one clue what he’s referring to. Have you really forgotten?

“A vow, my dear, a vow I promised centuries ago. To not lay a single finger on you…” You nod like you understand. You do not understand. He sighs. Did she really forget? “Unless…”

“Unless?” He smirks.

Like he’s got you trapped.

“Come closer.” He orders. You almost laugh. “Hwhat?” He scowls at you. “Come closer.”

Oh this is rich. This is fucking hilarious. “Closer, to you. No.” He wants to kill you so bad. “This is not a joke little on-“

“Don’t call me that.”

“This is of serious importance and I demand-“

“Why?”

He heaves a big and dramatic sigh. Why must she be so stubborn? Do you not love her because of it?

“I shall tell you the condition, but I need you to come closer.” You hesitate.

Sukuna is not to be trusted. He’s far from keeping promises and for all you know he could be lying. He could be keeping you alive because of his sick little game. To torment you. But it doesn’t explain why you do the same.

You step closer, just an inch.

“Closer.” Again you take another step, your heart pounding out of your chest.

“And closer more.” Your body trust him, why does your body trust him? You’re confused, for sure.

“And closer.” You take another step. You should be careful. So very careful.

“Just once more.” He urges. And you do, till your lips are just centimeters from each other, and you can feel the warmth of your bodies. Mixing, mingling.

“Say something sweet to me, and I shall tell you.” He wants to hear your voice utter even a tiny compliment before you both die. You frown. “Is this the condition?” He shakes his head no. Just once, he wants to hear your voice just once.

“Your beautiful Sukuna.”

He steps closer to you, hands hovering just near your waist. “Kiss me.”

“That was quick.”

“Do you trust me?”

“No.” A scowl. He didn’t know why but he needed you to kiss him. It was a burning desire, deep in his black heart. “Dearest-“

“Don’t.” You knew. You knew something, but you couldn’t quite figure out what. You gazed at his lips, so perfect. “My Kuna…” you mutter, not intending for him to hear you.

“You said you would tell me.” Your gaze is sharp. He inhales. “You need to kiss me…” he murmurs, just a fraction away from where he wanted to be most.

“Are you-“

“Of course.” His voice held some desperation. He couldn’t be without you. Your eyes trail down to his lips, thinking. “And you shall kill me after this?” You ask. What the fuck?

“Yes.” For some reason, you were not afraid. You step closer, connecting your lips together. Nothing happens at first. And then a searing pain stabs you in the heart.

Finally. He thinks, reaching and cupping your head in his hands. He doesn’t break away from the kiss, shutting his eyes tightly. He breathes you in, all of you, and the pain overtakes him to.

Your hearts wind together, merging into each other in painful desperation.

The air in your lungs becomes his, and his knees weaken. Perfect.

Both your bodies heat up, burning burning burning. Until there’s nothing.

You feel the faintest touch in your cheek, soft and gentle. “Kuna?” You call out.

“Yes love.” He answers. His voice is so warm. So soothing. “Where are you?” You reach your hand out blindly, searching for him. Your hands connect.

“Are you there? Do you feel me?” He asked, wrapping his arms around you. “Yes.” He huma, and you feel it through your whole body. It spreads like a wildfire.

“Where are you?” You ask again. You don’t know why, you can feel him, just a little ways from you.

“‘M right here, just right here.” Fingers intertwine with yours. You hum delight.

The darkness begins to fill with light, trees and birds and noise. “My Kuna…”

“My dearest…”

[sassykattery]

Dollface Pt. 8

CW: Main Character is afab, uses she/her pronouns. Profanity. Smut scene: piv sex. Creampie. Rough sex. Monsterfucking.

The main character is afab, uses she/her pronouns. This story is meant to be somewhat curvy/plus-sized reader insert, but the main character is given a physical description, but it's not crucial to the story or mentioned often after Part 1.

Themes: Romance. Magic. Adventure. Sex. Smut. Diavolo x fem! MC.

Characters: Main Character. Diavolo. Mammon. Satan. Beel. Belphie. Levi. Asmo. Lucifer. Mention Barbatos.

Minors and ageless blogs DNI

18+ only

Masterlist

"Darling? Are you alright? You acted like something spooked you," Diavolo commented after sipping on his macchiato. They were a couple minutes from her house. He sniffed his coffee silently, trying to place the peculiar smell he detected.

"A man approached me at the store... and he kinda weirded me out," she confessed and then drank her cold brew, keeping one hand on the wheel.

"You could've come and got me," he replied with concern, forgetting about his previous thoughts.

"It's fine. I just don't like men approaching me out of nowhere," she answered, sounding even more despondent then.

"May I ask, did something happen?" He inquired softly.

"Throughout my life, men have seen my apparent kindness as an invitation to flirt with me, or they want something from me. Most of the time, it hasn't ended well, and it's either because they wanted sex or just to use me for some other reason," she replied matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry, my love," he replied, reaching over for her hand once she set her drink down in the cup holder. She held his in return as she turned down her street.

"That's alright. Most of the time, I either avoid the confrontation or keep a distance so they don't feel inclined. That's also why you often see me with what we call a "resting bitch face," too," she added.

"I don't think that's very nice," he groaned as she pulled into the garage of the house.

"I suppose I self-deprecate a bit," she mused, turning off the car and closing the garage door with a smirk.

Both got out of the car and headed into the house. Once inside, Diavolo went into her bedroom, and she went to the front of the house to look through the mail on the counter. Her parents weren't home, away on some family reunion vacation with further removed family.

The doorbell suddenly rang, and she grabbed the mail to continue reading as she approached the front door. Unlocking it with one hand and still looking down, she opened up and heard,

"Hey there, uh, I gotta question," a male tenor stated. She immediately looked up and froze. Keeping her hand on the doorknob, using her index finger to lock the knob silently. She looked him up and down. It was the white-haired man from the coffee shop.

"Did you follow me home?" She accused, sounding defensive.

"Ah, well, uhh..."

"Just a heads-up, women don't like that, creep! Now get lost before I get my boyfriend," she snapped harshly, closing the door more so she was partially hidden behind it. Mammon backed up, raising his hands.

Diavolo's ears perked up at the sound of her raised voice. He approached the bedroom door and listened closer.

"I just came to ask if you've seen my friend!" Mammon shouted.

"And I'm telling you, you shouldn't have followed me home! And I'll call the cops if your other friend shows up here, too!"

Mammon leaned in closer. "Just let me finish–"

"DIA!" She screamed.

Immediately, Mammon high-tailed it off the front porch and into the silver sports car that sat on the side of the street. He quickly got in and sped off while she slammed the door shut. Diavolo was at her side just as the door clicked, hands on her waist and standing in her space.

"My love," he murmured, looking out the stained glass window on the front door. He looked back down at her and saw how she trembled, and it broke his heart. Taking her hand, he led her to the couch and sat her on his lap to console her. He briefly thought he smelled that peculiar smell from earlier but quickly dismissed the thought in favor of consolation of his human.

"Who was that?" He asked, running his hands up and down her arms to calm her down.

"A guy from the coffee shop! He followed me home!" She huffed, burying her face in his neck.

Diavolo instantly huffed and held her tighter. "I'm sorry, my darling. You should have had me talk to him," he murmured in her ear, caressing her trembling form. He took hold of her as he swung his legs around to recline back on the couch cushions, holding her on top of him.

"Thank you," she mumbled into his shirt.

All seven demon brothers were sitting in the penthouse of a hotel. None of them had been to this area of the United States, and they were starting to get closer to finding their lost prince.

"You moron! Now, if she sees you again, she's going to run for the hills!" Satan barked at Mammon.

"Oi! I didn't want whoever her boyfriend was to show up with a knife or somethin' in case he was crazy!" Mammon retorted, folding his arms.

"You're so stupid. A knife won't kill you," Belphie groaned.

"No, but if Diavolo thought I was some weirdo and he was actually there, he might have killed me," Mammon grumbled.

"Are we sure that's even her?" Levi asked, playing his handheld game.

"It seemed like it was. There aren't too many humans that look like her," Beel replied, eating his ill-gotten cheeseburgers. He had run off while Mammon and Satan were at the coffee shop to get cheeseburgers, to which he ordered thirty of them and managed to not pay for them as he wasn't given any money for it.

"There is one that does look like this one. She's a famous human makeup guru. You have to give it to this one. She's pretty good at it," Asmo declared, admiring the security footage photo of the woman in question.

"Run that by me again, Mammon," Lucifer commanded, standing at the window overlooking the city, interrupting the conversation.

"When she opened the door, I said I had a question. She accused me of followin' her, and when I didn't answer, she started yellin' at me that women don't like it when they're followed home before threatenin' to get her boyfriend," Mammon recounted the situation.

"Then?" Lucifer pressed.

"She screamed somethin' and I ran off to the car," the second born replied.

"The boyfriend's name? Did you catch it?" Satan inquired.

"All I heard was -ia," Mammon answered, looking nonchalant.

Lucifer turned and stalked up to the second born, smacking him upside the head. "Idiot! She probably said Dia!"

Mammon tched his older brother but realized he was ultimately right.

"Well? What do we do?" Satan asked.

"Can't we just break in her house and see if he's there? What if she's holding him hostage?" Belphie mused.

"One, no, we can't just break in. If he's not actually there, we'd be in a heap of trouble and don't need the exposure," Satan replied. He then held up the security photo of a man that looked like Diavolo and a woman holding hands while walking. "Two, I don't think she's holding him hostage judging by this."

"I suppose it's my turn to talk to her," Lucifer finally replied, walking towards the door and grabbing his overcoat.

"We don't have much time left."

Late one afternoon a couple of days later, she was in the city grocery store looking for things to make her birthday cake. Diavolo had requested to make one with her, wanting the experience of doing so while performing a task together, something he learned was important from his research on humans. While she was in the baking aisle, she had reached down to a bottom shelf to grab some flour when she found herself on the floor, ready to catch herself, but someone had taken hold of her sides to keep her from falling completely down.

"My apologies, ma'am, I didn't meant to run into you, forgive me," a very deep, slightly nasally and airy voice called to her right into her ear.

Once she was upright, she looked at the offender and cranked her head back to stare into a set of darkened eyes, and if she wasn't mistaken, they had a crimson hue to them, framed by jet-black locks with gray streaks on the ends of his face-framing pieces, stark against his ivory skin. The man was nearly as tall as her boyfriend, wearing a black turtleneck, black slacks, a dark blue overcoat, and a set of glasses hanging on chains around his neck.

"Um, thanks. It's fine," she quipped, stepping away from the man and grabbing onto her shopping cart.

He gave a rather charming smile and softened his gaze. She gave him a wary look, glancing from his shoes to his head several times. What she didn't know was how he had been following her for going on two days to find out more about her, or potentially see Diavolo, but came up with nothing and lost his patience. However, when he was finally close and in her space, he realized he had actually made a mistake.

Oh.

"Ah, I must apologize again for staring. You are quite magnetic," he purred.

She frowned then, looking up at him under her brow.

"Thank you, but I'm committed to someone," she retorted, her body angled away from him.

"What a lucky person they are," he replied with an endearing smile, but she wasn't having it. The longer she stared at him, the more suspicious she became.

"Right, well, bye," she replied curtly.

Lucifer's gaze hardened again, a frown tracing his lips. She huffed before completely turning away and stomping off with her cart.

The eldest sighed, folding his arms and calculating his next move.

"Diavolo? What are we doing?" She asked with her hands out, searching blindly as the prince held his hands over her eyes. The demon let out a chuckle as he walked behind her.

"Just a few more steps... stop," he answered. "Alright, ready?"

"I guess," she mumbled, putting her hands down to her sides.

He lifted his hands off her eyes, and she blinked a few times to adjust. Looking down, she saw a book in front of her on her bed, one that was brown and leather bound with no title or markings. She reached to open it and saw photos of the last month or so with the demon, all the cherished life's moments held in singular photos. It was a photo album.

"I'm rather fond of these back at home, and I wanted to make one featuring my favorite person," he murmured in her ear. "Happy Birthday, baby."

She shivered as his breath tickled her neck and ear. There weren't many, but they were all the ones she had taken with her phone since he came into her life. His first coffee run with her, outings to dinner and movies, and selfies randomly taken throughout the day.

"Thank you," she turned and faced him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

He kissed the top of her head. "I'm glad you like it."

"Love it," she mumbled into his sternum.

"Well, I think I have something you'll love more," he murmured softly to her.

"Hm?" She chirped, picking her head up to look at him.

He took the opportunity to cup her cheek and kiss her passionately, his other hand purchasing her waist. She hummed happily into his mouth, letting his tongue gain access to hers.

That afternoon, neither left her bed as he kept her completely occupied with his hands, mouth, and body.

A happy birthday indeed.

A couple of days later, she had been out running errands when a certain demon decided to run into her again. She was looking through some stationary at the office supply store when she dropped her pens she selected. With a sigh, she started to set her stuff down when she turned to find a pair of crimson eyes at her level, just as he was starting to stand at full height again.

"Well, it's you again," he beamed again.

"Yeah..." she mumbled. He handed her the pens she dropped, and she took them from his large hand, noting the red nail polish and long fingers. "Thanks."

"My pleasure. If you don't mind, would you be willing to show me which pens you like here? I'm rather picky and not from around here, so I'd like someone else's opinion," he murmured to her.

"Sure..." she replied, grabbing her things and walking around to the aisle with the pens. Setting her things down, she reached up and picked a couple. "I like the glide on these for taking down notes, and they're fast-drying so they don't smudge. These I prefer for making edits on things, the sharp color is really nice and I don't have to press too hard to get it to work." She continued on, showing him the different ones, but he quit listening the moment she started speaking. Lucifer was too busy admiring her form, appreciating her looks and expressions. She could make something as boring as pens seem interesting.

"So?" She asked.

"Pardon, I was considering which ones to get. What did you ask?" He asked smoothly.

"What's your name?" She asked again.

"Luci is what you may call me," he replied, bowing his head slightly. "And yours?"

She replied what hers was, and he repeated it like it was sweet honey on his tongue.

"I apologize if we got off on the wrong foot before. Thank you for helping me. If you don't mind, I'd like to treat you to coffee," Lucifer stated. She narrowed hers eyes, so he added, "As acquaintances."

"As acquaintances," she echoed.

"Thanks," she replied, taking her cold brew from Lucifer's hand. He nodded and sat next to her, drinking his own.

"So, tell me about yourself," he said.

"I just finished some university classes, but I'll be taking on a full-time job until I get into professional school," she replied quietly, looking around the coffee shop.

"Ah, a student," he mused. He thought for a moment and then asked, "Do you have siblings?"

She cocked her head and swirled her drink thoughtfully. "Just one sister. Older. We're not close. You?"

"I have six brothers, all younger," he replied, sounding despondent.

She smiled then. "Being the oldest of that many must be tough. You probably almost feel like their parent," she mused in return.

"Indeed, and by all means I practically am," he said with a sigh.

"As the youngest, it's not easy either. Even if you're bright, attractive, or anything else that's favorable, you'll always live in the shadow of your older siblings. Yes, most of the time, people are quite lenient with us, but knowing you'll never amount to your sibling is difficult when you pride yourself in your accomplishments... and nobody else does except you," she declared quietly.

Lucifer looked at her openly then, studying her face. He hadn't ever considered such a thing, but it made sense as to why his youngest brothers may have felt jaded when it came to him.

"I appreciate your perspective, actually. That's something I suppose I never have to deal with," he finally replied after she stared back at him. She nodded and took a drink.

"What do you do for a living, Luci?" She inquired, looking out the window.

"I work in the government as well as in education," he replied. "Though, looking after my brothers is more of a full-time job than anything else." He paused for a moment and then continued. "You said you have a partner, tell me about them."

"Ah, well, we've only been seeing each other for over a month, but we're incredibly happy. My parents adore him, and he's really just... something else," she replied with a sweet smile on her lips. The demon tilted his head at this, trying to calculate his next move, while also sorting through why he would be jealous in this moment, but that was for later.

"You sound very happy with him. How'd you meet?" He asked.

"It was kind of strange how we met... He just showed up one day, and he's been with me ever since," she replied dreamily.

Lucifer felt conflicted then. If this was Diavolo she was talking about, it sounds like he's not in trouble and likely has been playing house with this human. But, certainly, the prince wasn't kidnapped or in harm's way. He had managed to find himself a sweet woman who just liked him, maybe even loved him.

"I really should get going. Thank you for the coffee, Luci," she stated, coming to her feet while looking at her phone. "Maybe we'll bump into each other again."

Lucifer watched as she stood and walked away. A glimmer on her ring finger caught his eye, but he wasn't sure if maybe just the sun was playing tricks on his vision. Even after weeks in the human world, he wasn't entirely used to the blazing light.

Damn. Barbatos is going to be absolutely livid when he hears about this, he thought to himself as he watched her car leave the parking lot. He quickly stood to leave the shop and follow her in his red sports car.

"In the kitchen, darling," Diavolo called out to her as she came in the house through the garage. She bounded up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind after finding him.

"Hi," she purred.

He was standing at the stove, making a stir-fry for dinner while her parents were out of town. Though the moment her body collided with his, he straightened up and turned his head to the side.

"What..." he mumbled to himself. Diavolo put the spoon down and whirled around to look at her.

"What is it, b–"

"Were you with someone?" He asked defensively, looking her over. A particular smell radiated off of her, the smell he was finally able to place after being amongst the hunans for this long, one with a warning known to only demons. One that said, "Back off."

"What? I mean, I got coffee with someone, and I was just about to tell you about it. What's wrong?" She asked nervously.

"You..." He started to say and then pulled her into him. His brows were tightly knit, lips pressed into a thin line.

"I didn't do anything, I just–" she started to tremble, afraid he was mad. The demon deeply inhaled the scent from her hair, trying to place its familiarity.

"Who did you meet?" He asked roughly, his arm tightening around high on her waist.

"He said his name was Luci. Diavolo, what is this about?" She started to whine slightly.

"The scent of a demon followed you home, an intentional one at that," he murmured. He rubbed his chin back and forth across the top of her head, his other arm slithering around her. He growled ferally, a deep sound coming from the pits of his core, vibrating all across his body.

In a quick series of moves, he grabbed her by the waist and sat her on top of the bar across from the stove. His lips were on hers, furiously lashing his tongue against her mouth. The prince's hands were everywhere all at once, grabbing and caressing every which way across her body.

"You're mine," he snapped, kissing her neck and sinking his teeth into her delicate flesh.

"Baby, I'm sorry, p-please," she whimpered.

"I'm not–" he panted, "Not mad at you. Just let me take you, my love. Let me claim you again, make you mine."

She relaxed slightly and finally reciprocated his touch. "O-Okay... Yes, please," she whispered. He yanked off her shirt and tossed it. Not wanting to do it there anymore, he picked her up and quickly carried her to the couch in the living room, laying her back against the seat cushions while he worked her pants off and then her undergarments too.

"Mm, I love your body, your skin..." he purred, grinding himself against her. He swiftly tossed his shirt aside, followed by pulling down his lounge pants to release his hard, throbbing cock.

"Take me, Dia, make me yours," she murmured sweetly against his cheek.

"You're sure you're ready for me?" He asked a hit hesitantly, kissing her jaw.

"Now," she commanded, wrapping her legs around his waist.

He groaned and took hold of his length, rubbing the head up and down against her clit, spreading their fluids together and making them both moan. The head popped into her entrance with ease, opening up the rest of her cunt for his cock. He groaned again, his cock fully seated inside her, like it was his throne, like she belonged to him.

"Oh, my love," he rasped, a wicked smile threatening to cross his lips.

"Fuck me," she whimpered softly, clinging onto him.

"Gladly," he grunted, taking her legs onto his shoulders and pressing down into her. His thrusts started slow but deep, quickly building to a harsh pounding. Her moans quickly turned into wails of pleasure.

"You're all mine," he growled, leaning down to kiss her roughly. She blinked and suddenly he was in his demon form again, and she felt his cock thicken and throb inside her, causing an orgasm to barrel through her like a bullet train. This spurred him on to fuck her faster, gripping her thighs firmly as he folded her further into the mating press.

"Dia! It's too much!" She cried out, feeling another orgasm already burning within her core.

"Just–" he grunted, "A little– aghck, more." He was completely feral, watching her so intently with his glittering golden orbs fixated on her beautifully wrecked face.

Suddenly, he pulled her up, still sheathed on his cock, and he turned to kneel down to the floor, carefully laying her back, a move so tender, it was juxtaposed to how hard he fucked her once she was settled with her legs on his shoulders again.

"I love you," he groaned, feeling his inner knot begin to coil and start to snap.

"I-I l-l-love you-u!" She stammered back.

"I'm close," he rasped. He laid himself fully down on her, kissing her lips and trailing down to her breasts to lick and suck on her nipples. Her body curled in around him, a silent scream befalling her mouth as her whole body went rigid with pleasure.

"Dia, Dia, Dia!" She gasped, sounding strangled and pitiful.

"That's it, tighten down on me, make me yours too," he grunted. She turned her head and bit gently into his neck, feeling feral herself. It caught him by surprise, especially with how good it felt for her to mark him in return. It was enough for him to fall down the pits of pleasure, chasing his high and pounding his cock into her as he released spurts of hot cum.

His labored breaths filled the space around them. Carefully, he lifted himself up to look at her, suddenly a heavy weight of guilt on his chest.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed

Post made by sassykattery. Do not repost. Reblogs and comments appreciated

Tags: @delphi-dreamin @itsmeninerz @biteable-pink-pixie @flemmingbamse @themythicaldisaster @marvelous-maniac @attic-club-sandwich

[defectivevillain]

this winding labyrinth, ch10

chapter ten: departure

pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Reader (reader's race & gender are ambiguous; no physical descriptors or pronouns are used)

summary:

You wish you never met Hannibal Lecter. But you yearn for his presence. You want to forget him. But he never truly leaves your thoughts. Now, you’re left to pick up the pieces of a broken design. A battle of instinct rages on in your mind—one of bittersweet relief and cloying grief, fearless resolve and poignant regret; a clashing between affection and antipathy, pride and pain. What will win, in the end? Only time will tell.

this is chapter 10, act 2 of this broken design. if you haven't read act 1 or chapters 1-9, this won't make too much sense.

ao3 version | Spotify playlist

author's notes: Frederick is so cunty. He INVENTED cunt. This man stared down Abel Gideon and didn’t even flinch. He just said “see you in court.” 💅 This man left Hannibal a copy of the book he wrote *based on him*. That shit was crazy!! I don’t care what anyone says. Frederick is cunty.

Anyway. This chapter has been eluding me for a while. I wanted to live up to the intensity from the book, but I felt like that was impossible for me to accomplish. I also didn’t want this to be a straight replication of the book scene, so… I tried to make this deviate a bit more. So, here goes. It’s a bit shorter as far as chapters go, but whatever.

I also made small edits in the first installment of this series, changing the writing from Hannibal giving you his clothing to Hannibal just giving the reader clothing in their size. I realized it wasn’t inclusive to all body types so I wanted to change it. Plus, imo, it’s even more homoerotic to think that Hannibal specifically bought clothing for you and kept it at his house. That’s very gay. Anyways. Back to regularly scheduled programming!

Warnings: typical violence/blood; kidnapping, death, vomiting. Lots of gore for this one. To avoid spoilers, I’ll put more in-depth warnings in the endnotes.

Frederick Chilton wants to pick you apart. And he isn’t the only one—far from it. That’s the danger of being in a position like yours—a federal agent tasked with chasing after killers and criminals. The thrill of the chase… It forms a relationship between cat and mouse, predator and prey. Frederick may be a predator, but you are not his prey; you have a much larger carnivore on the prowl nearby, haunting your shadows and waiting for you to slip. Frederick may be intrigued by you, but Hannibal Lecter is utterly fascinated by you. There’s no denying the harsh shift in his behavior, from silent and nearly despondent in your absence to verbose and enigmatic upon your arrival. Frederick had tried to pull that energy out of him through their sessions, but he was entirely unsuccessful. Lecter was well aware of his research interest, and seemed perfectly content with keeping his lips firmly closed in the first years of his captivity. 

The thought interests and infuriates Frederick in equal measure. After all, having unrestricted access to an intelligent, self-aware sociopath is a very rare opportunity. The sheer strides Chilton could make in the field of abnormal psychology from even a single test score from Lecter… Frederick has to actively push himself away from those thoughts. They are nothing more than a deluded fantasy, for Hannibal Lecter completely defies quantitative reasoning. 

Frederick muses on the nature of Hannibal Lecter as he approaches the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The building is still a bit of an eyesore. Since his promotion to Head Administrator, he’s made efforts to both repair the space and modernize many of their practices. Whether those efforts have done much to improve the institution’s reputation is another story altogether. 

He’s looking forward to sitting down at his desk and getting through the mountain of paperwork waiting for him. The thought has been bearing heavily on his mind over the weekend, and Frederick is eager to do something with the restless energy that he can’t seem to suppress. 

He’s one step away from the stairs leading up to the entrance when a sudden harsh pain erupts in the back of his head. Frederick topples to the ground as his blurring vision slowly fades to black. The last sensation he can register before succumbing to unconsciousness is a vice grip on his ankle. 

A harsh ringing sound forces Frederick to acknowledge his hazy new reality. His head lolls forward and he blinks open his eyes, only to be met with an unrelenting darkness. It takes him a few seconds to realize he’s been blindfolded, and a few more to register the bindings around his wrists and ankles. He seems to be restrained in a chair. 

Frederick isn’t new to being kidnapped—not after Abel Gideon. But this particular situation feels different. Something deep in his chest—an inexplicable yet unwavering conviction—tells him he won’t survive this particular encounter. Because if his captor is who he suspects… he will show no mercy. 

He immediately starts fidgeting and struggling, but the effort is pointless. Frederick has been tightly and effectively restrained. Fear strikes at his heart as his senses work to interpret the space around him. Darkness camouflages the majority of the space, but Frederick can just barely make out some sort of projector screen in front of him. There’s a projector situated right next to him, tauntingly close and within reach. But what good would it serve?

The sound of footsteps sends Frederick’s heart roaring in his ears. He almost feels trapped in the foreign room, time moving like a slow sludge as another presence makes itself known. The person—evidently his captor—steps behind him, their breath practically hitting Frederick’s neck in their proximity. 

“Frederick Chilton.” His captor’s voice breaks through the stiff air and sends a shiver down Frederick’s spine. It sounds like he has some sort of speech impediment, as his S’s are drawn close together. Frederick has very little time to dedicate to that observation, as his blindfold is roughly yanked off. “Lay your eyes upon me. If you don’t wish to look, I will make you look.”

Frederick’s eyes water and he blinks a few times, only to find himself staring at a blindingly white projector screen. Before it stands a shadowed figure, towering over him in near darkness. The man takes a step forward and Frederick just barely stops himself from inhaling sharply at what he finds.

The man is wearing an elegantly patterned kimono; he has a cleft lip, his face slightly disfigured. His knuckles are cracked and bloodied. The man looks at him with gleaming eyes, almost appearing to salivate before him. Frederick’s heart drops to his throat as he remembers everything the FBI deduced about this killer and his personality. The Tooth Fairy stands before him entirely unmasked… and Frederick is assailed with the unshakable conviction that he is not going to live to escape this nightmare. 

“Do you understand?” His captor asks after a few minutes. 

Frederick doesn’t understand anything that’s happening. But he has the wherewithal to recognize the answer the man is looking for. “I understand,” he says through gritted teeth. His mouth is growing dry and his stomach is aching. Just how long has he been confined here? 

“Do you understand who I am?” The man insists. 

“I understand,” Frederick repeats. The only thing he is able to adequately understand is the pulsing fear running through his bones, cementing his fate to die a slow death behind these crumbling walls. Frederick can’t even begin to understand or comprehend the man before him. 

“I am no man,” his captor says, as if somehow sensing his thoughts. His voice echoes in Frederick’s ears, igniting goosebumps along his skin. “I am many things, but never a man. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Frederick is too terrified to say anything else. He can’t deviate from his agreement, for fear of losing his life to this behemoth standing before him. Indeed, his captor is inhumanly tall—looming over him with a far too intent gaze. Every rational part of Frederick’s mind is reminding him of the likelihood of his own impending death. 

“Do you see?” His captor demands.

“I see.” Frederick chokes out. The man quickly breaks the distance between them, his large hand crawling up Frederick’s neck and cradling his jaw. It takes an immense amount of effort from Frederick to remain pliant under the killer’s grip. His touch is deceptively light, almost gentle. Frederick’s breaths are shaky and shuddering. He is forced to be frozen in his bonds, as this man’s thumb carve paths along his face. 

“Once upon a time,” his captor murmurs, his voice almost a whisper. Frederick is terrified of this man—terrified of the juxtaposition between his purported cruelty and the delicacy with which he’s touching him now. Frederick nearly chokes on a breath when the man’s thumb glides over his Adam’s apple, before sliding up to his cheek once more. “I would’ve killed to be like you.” Frederick doesn’t need to think about that statement too much to understand the gist of what he’s saying. He can’t imagine the kind of cruelty and harsh treatment this man has been faced with on account of his facial disfigurement. And while that is no valid excuse for the crimes he’s committed, it contextualizes the desperation behind them. The desire to be seen. The need to be perceived. 

“But not anymore.” He continues. Frederick swallows past the acidic feeling in his throat. The man’s hand keeps rising higher, higher, higher. Now, his right hand stops at the edge of Frederick’s cheekbone, his thumb close enough to make Frederick’s eye flutter instinctively. “Bear witness to my Becoming.” 

It happens in a dizzying blur. His captor’s hand twists, his fingers locking into sharpened hooks. Frederick doesn’t even have the time to flinch before the man is digging his hand into his eye socket and yanking, dragging his eye out in a brutal move that rips a horrified scream from Frederick’s lips. He has never been in so much pain before. It feels as if his captor is digging deeper and deeper into his eye socket, ripping at anything and everything. Frederick’s vision goes dark on the left, deep red tears streaking down his face. In a harsh, disgusting snap, his eyeball is firmly ripped out. His severed optic nerve hangs out of the cavern that sits on the left side of his face. Someone has been screaming in a raspy, broken voice—and it takes Frederick several moments to realize the sound is coming from him.

The killer holds Frederick’s eyeball in his hand. Frederick feels nausea bubbling up his chest and into his throat with frightening speed, barely giving him a chance to prepare before he’s lurching forward in vain and promptly throwing up. Within seconds, he’s dry-heaving as saliva drips down his lips. He’s shaking and trembling, as the vision from his right eye almost pulsates in time with his heart. 

Frederick wants nothing more than to sink into unconsciousness. But the killer is shaking him roughly by the shoulders and hitting him every time his eye threatens to slip shut. At some point, Frederick’s exhaustion is temporarily at bay. “I want you to repeat after me, Frederick,” his captor demands, a camera in hand as he stares at him. “You can do that for me, can’t you?” 

Frederick can hardly respond. He manages a jerky nod and the man hums, starting his camera and giving him the words to say. Frederick is horribly delirious, the words falling to mush on his tongue. He’s slurring through the blood in his mouth and what he’s saying holds absolutely no meaning to him. 

His captor is cruel and merciful in the same breath, for once Frederick truly starts to lose the battle against unconsciousness, he is freed from his bonds and led to collapse on the floor. His cheek meets the scratchy carpet and he blinks tears from his uninjured eye, the man before him morphing and swirling in darkness. 

A wet wipe is rubbed harshly over his face, roving over his cheekbones and following the path the killer  had made with his fingers only moments ago. Frederick lets out a pained whimper and the pressure stops, replaced with an achingly tender swipe along his skin that still seems to hurt. His mind is buzzing, a dull hum that refuses to leave him in solitude. As much as he tries to stay awake and aware of his surroundings, the pain ripping through his face is enough to drag him into the shadows once more. 

He does not wake as he is bound to a wheelchair and thrown into the back of a van. Frederick does not wake, even during the horribly bumpy car ride that ensues. If he were able to pull himself from the unseeing void, he would recognize the fate that awaits him. But he is unknowing of the horrors that have not yet ended. 

Frederick is only broken from his slumber by the harsh screeching of the van arriving at its final destination. He blinks and the doors slide open, revealing his captor standing outside with a mask secured over his face and gloves covering his hands. Frederick can discern little of the environment around him, save for the inky black night devoid of stars. The man then steps into the back of the van and rolls Frederick out onto the pavement.  

“A mortal cannot witness the transformation of a god without dying,” he remarks, his hands gripping the handles of the wheelchair. Frederick desperately tries to escape, despite knowing it’s no use. His vision is still adjusting to the loss of his left eye; he’s exhausted; and the ropes binding his ankles and wrists are rather tight. The killer seems to know this, as a strange sort of smile rises on his lips. “This has always been your fate.”

It is only then that Frederick notices the red gasoline canister he’s holding. Even through his exhaustion, his mind rapidly connects the canister to the box of matches poking out of the killer’s pocket. The Tooth Fairy is going to burn him alive. Frederick begins to writhe and squirm as his adrenaline spikes, but his struggling is futile. There is nothing human in the monster’s face as he upturns the canister, coating Frederick in gasoline. Frederick is nearly hyperventilating now, as flashes of significant moments in his life come to mind. 

He stares up into the eyes of his captor, searching for a hint of humanity to appeal to. But there is only an unfeeling abyss. Terrified, Frederick watches in mute horror as the Tooth Fairy circles around him and stops behind him. He hears the telltale sound of a match being lit; a searing warmth greets the side of his face, before a match crawls down his shirt and his entire body is consumed with flames. At some point, Frederick is shoved forwards—sending the wheelchair careening down an incline with increasing speed. He screams until his voice dies in his chest. Fire paints his tunneled vision a remarkable orange-red, with the air around him flickering and waving with the sudden heat. His last breath ripped from his chest, Frederick Chilton slumps back in the wheelchair and surrenders to the relentless flames.

warnings: gore involving eyeballs/eye sockets & ensuing blindness; kidnapping and captivity.

endnotes: Did I have to make that so homoerotic? No. Do I regret it? Also no.

Wow. I really made Frederick go through it. *Sigh.* I love hurting characters I like.

anyways, thanks for reading! <3

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[ithaquasbbg]

Almost done yay.. then I’ll find myself some more prompts sk I can stay active (I’m proud of myself)

Won’t you stay, my darling? - Ithaqua x reader

Pairing : Morningstar! Ithaqua x reader

Experimented with the idea of a very down bad, and very touch starved Helel here. Also with the idea that under his persona he shows the world, he’s still the same scared young man he was before his exile.

VERY loosely inspired by the song “curses” by the crane wives

….

The king was utterly obsessed with you, to say the very least. From the way your eyes had a lovely shine to them, to your smile that made his heart flutter every time he saw you; a sensation he believed he’d no longer be able to feel. Every single part of you made him weak at the knees, you were his dream. Though, he could never bring himself to say anything. You were like a fire in his mind, per say, and try as he might, he couldn’t put that fire out.

None of the towns men or women could enthrall him the way you did, make his heart skip a beat like you. Every day he spent without you, it was like the fire of longing in Helel’s mind and heart would grow more and more. It was embarrassing to him, the way he, the king of a utopia had fallen so head over heels for a mere commoner such as yourself. The way he was more than willing to forget his position and do everything to please you was humiliating!

But it’s not until he hosts a ball for all the townspeople to attend he speaks to you for the first time. “My, you look quite lovely tonight, my dear.” He muses, corners of his lips peeking up in that confident smile he’d show to the public, eyes hidden from the world by the mask he’s adorned. You look nervous, getting ready to boy to him before you feel a hand gently grabbing your chin, tilting it upwards towards his face. “No need to bow to me, really, just tell me your name.”

All this time of watching from a distance, and Helel didn’t even know your name! Though you didn’t know of his admiration, and seemingly thought he was looking for another person. “I’m (Name), your majesty.” His smile brightens upon hearing your name, mumbling it to himself in a tone that sounds almost adoring. “That’s a lovely name, really.” His remark causes your cheeks to heat up, a smile creeping onto your own face.

By the end of the night, you find yourself in the ballroom with the king after everyone else had left, even his guards. You had only seen him in his speeches, an imposing ruler in those circumstances. Though, when he was here in front of you now, he seemed awkward to an extent, smitten, that couldn’t be towards you.. could it? Helel’s smile never leaves his face, he can think so much clearer when you’re with him, like the flames had calmed down in his mind, though the longing for you still remained.

And that’s why he finds himself reaching for your hand as you turn to leave that night, holding onto it like a lifeline as you look back at him, a curious expression on your face. “Won’t you stay with me, my darling?” He asks, his normal smirk replaced with an anxious, almost pleading look. Though he’s overjoyed when you nod, a soft smile adorning your lovely face that he loves so much. “Is there any specific reason?” You inquire, to which Helel quickly answers, embarrassment visible on his face afterwards; “I don’t want to be alone tonight, please.”

You think it’s a little strange that the king, one who had seemed so fearsome before this, is begging somebody as low as yourself to stay with him. But something about him makes your heart beat faster, gives you the feeling of butterflies every time you see his genuine smile, not just the smirk he shows the world. A maid walks up to you two as he walks you through his palace, a smile on her face as she asks if she could get the two of you anything.

“Just a nice change of clothing for (Name), if you will” he replies, voice hardening a little more in front of her, though there’s still that hint of gentility he doesn’t have to the public when addressing her. She nods and comes back shortly later with some of the finest clothing you’ve ever seen, handing it to you with a smile. “Tell me if you need anything else tonight, my dear.” She tells you, before walking away, likely to tend to her other duties.

Helel shows you to a room and allows you to change. You meet him a moment later when you step out of the attached bathroom, seeing him sitting on the bed slowly undoing the braids in his hair. “Here, let me help with that.” You whisper, not knowing what makes you sit behind the king, hands running through his hair as you undo the braids, listening to the way he hums as you do so.

Though when it’s time for him to sleep, he hesitates, hands over his mask as if he’s afraid to take it off. “You’re alright, my lord, I will not tell anybody what I will see beneath.” You promise him, watching as he slightly calms down, taking off his mask, albeit cautiously. Though you’re shocked to see the soft features of the former prince in front of you, the man who had been presumed dead years ago. “ ..Prince Helel?-” you ask, feeling a finger press against your lips before he takes your hands, moving them so they cup his cheeks.

“(Name), please, just address me as Helel..” he whispers, shaking at the sensation of hands on his face. It’s been years since he’s been touched in this way, handled carefully by anyone. His desire for affection being buried down under a harsh persona he spent years building up, only for it to come crashing down at the hands of you.

You feel yourself acting without thinking, stroking his cheeks with your thumbs as he crumbles even more into your touch. It’s only a matter of time before he’s laying in your arms under the covers, still shaking at the lovely sensation he seems to have missed so much. “…Stay with me tonight, (Name), that’s all I ask..” he mumbles, eyes dropping in exhaustion.

You nod and whisper a quick “good night” to him as you feel Helel slowly fall asleep in your arms. You were still confused, left unsure why the king had attached to you the way he had. While Helel, on the other hand is filled with happiness for the first time in a while, not only to be good enough to be graced with your presence, but to be held by somebody for the first time in forever, to be cherished the way he craved, even if he would have to worry about putting his act back up the next day.

To Helel, you staying with him, easing the burning in his mind for tonight was better than anything, falling asleep in the arms of his Angel.

[komuite]

Dick Grayson-centric Fic Recs!

Surface Pressure by geminus_17

Study on being the (not perfect) eldest and the sacrifices that go along with it. Mentions of Tarantula and Blockbuster. A very satisfying read! Here's a sample from the fic:

“So I must calm down Todd lest he relinquish my sword,” Damian mused. “But how do I calm down a magically homicidal maniac?”

Ask Bruce , Dick didn’t say. Bruce would only ask him and be ten times more awkward about it. “It seems he’s stressed about the uptick in crime…Maybe you should help him get Crime Alley under control.” Dick held his breath because Damian always came to him when he wanted advice but the kid only took it if he thought he came up with it. A lot like his father.

Savior Complex by Arwriter

In which Dick goes nonverbal after Bruce comes back, but nobody notices! Everyone in the Batfam treats Dick unfairly, but after the hurt there is very satisfying comfort!

“He’s being a child.” And then Jason was staring right at him, and Dick couldn’t bring himself to look away. “We have the right to be pissed at you after everything that happened, Dickhead. Things are weird right now, if anyone should get that it’s you. The least you could do is admit you fucked up with Tim and give us all some time. Ignoring everyone to try and make us feel like shit isn’t fair. You know damn well Bruce has enough on his plate right now, and I don’t have time for your bullshit either. No one does.”

Home Again, Jiggity Jig by Living_Free

A comedy/crack fic that also works as a fix-it! Set during the whole "Ric" Grayson amnesia mess. One of the funniest fics I've ever read, can't recommend it enough! (Two samples because I'm obsessed:)

/Damian sat up to look at Dick. “Not even I? Forgetting Todd or Drake, even Father, is understandable. But I? Our bond transcends the stars, you said so yourself!”

Jason mimed retching onto Tim’s head./

/“Be of calm mind, Grayson,” Damian said. “Todd is merely projecting his insecurities that no one will hold his hand onto us.”

“That’s not true, son,” Bruce said, and then held Jason’s hand. Jason nearly died on the spot, becuase his dad was holding his hand in public, oh my god, people can see./

One Thousand, Three Hundred and Nine Hours by TheSilencer

Literally one of the best fics I've ever read. Basically the rest of the batfam are trapped in a time loop that ends with Dick's death, and the story is told from Dick's POV on the timeline he gets saved! Be warned, there is light(?) gore.

The older man sighed and pulled down the cowl. "It has been suggested to me that I'm demanding too much. That having you check in at least once an hour is -"

"Ridiculous?" Dick asked. "Absurd? An excessive show of paranoia?"

Bruce's lip twitched up. "A bit much."

what's past is prologue by Icestorm238

A time-travel fic where Dick goes back to his post-Robin but pre-Jason's arrival self, with the goal of saving Jason. Incredible dynamic between Dick and Jason that's just so sweet to read, and interesting plot twists and reversals that I won't spoil ;)

Dick struggles to temper his excitement when Jason opens up to him about his love of literature. That had never happened the first time - he’d found out second hand from Alfred, hadn’t thought much about it, hadn’t realised just how important books were to Jason, hadn’t cared to learn back then. When Jason returned to them it had been treated as a known hobby, and still not one he shared with Dick.

[justmeinadaze]

Take It Out On Me Part 13 (Steddie X Plus Size Reader)

Warnings with some notes: Daddy Steve/ Sir Eddie and Plus Size sub Reader and all that implies (I regret nothing!), Smut, fluff, with slight angst. Steve has a confrontation with his dad in the beginning (dad insults reader and her appearance), near the end reader tells the boys about a bad past relationship (him hiding her and humiliating her).

Her experience with an ex is very similar to something I went through with mine. Never forget that all of you are beautiful and deserve to be seen and appreciated <3

Word Count: 5415

“Shit.”

You three pause what you’re doing as you listen to the front door of Steve’s house open and slam shut. 

“Neither of you speak, ok? If he wants to say something he can say it to me. Baby, can you grab a couple of the shirts there and I think we’ll be good to go.”

“Ok, Daddy.” As you turn to do what he says, his hand tugs on yours as he brings your lips to his own. Steve softly smiles as he caresses your cheek before letting you go. 

Throwing the last of his essentials into his suitcase, Eddie takes it and allows his friend to lead as you both follow close behind. 

“Well look who finally decided to come home.”

“I’m not home, dad. Just grabbing some of my things before we head back to Wayne’s trailer.”

“Ah, so still standing by the slut?” Steve dropped the bags he was holding as he turned to face his father. Your hand shot out to pull on his arm, silently begging him to let it go. “Leave it to you to find one you can’t even properly use.”

“What does that even mean?”

“She has no connections or ties to better opportunities for you. She has no money. She’s definitely not arm candy. I mean look at your mother. She’s a gorgeous, powerful woman—”

“That you cheat on.”, he interrupted. “Y/N is a gorgeous, powerful woman and I’m sorry you can’t see that.”

“Hm. Look, don’t come crawling back to me when you realize you’ve made a mistake hitching your wagons to this horse.”

“And don’t let me ever hear again how you’re shaming her and calling her names to anyone that will listen.”

“Excuse me?!”

“You heard me. She’s going through a lot after what you did.”

“Good. I’m not going to be silent about some whore brainwashing my son—”

Steve took determined strides forward till he was almost nose to nose with his father. “Call her something else. I dare you.”

Your panicked eyes meet Eddie’s before he slowly steps towards them and tugs at Steve’s arm. “Harrington. Come on, man. Let it go. Who gives a fuck what this asshole thinks.”

After a few moments, Steve finally turned grabbing his things along with Eddie and heading towards his van. 

#########

“Wow. You three are mighty quiet.”, Masie mused during lunch that following day. 

“I’m tired.”

“Mhmm. Fun fact, gentlemen. When Y/N says she’s tired that’s code for ‘I’m overwhelmed.’”

You playfully stick your tongue out at her as Eddie grins at you both. 

“It’s been a long couple of weeks.”, you sigh as you lean against her shoulder. 

“I know, honey. I, um, I may be asking a stupid question here but are you three going to prom?”

Both men glanced at you as you shook your head. “Still no? Y/N, come on. Before you said you didn’t want to go because you wouldn’t have a date to dance with. Now you have two!”

“Do you want to go?”, Steve asked. “We can get the tickets and everything.”

Your eyes met Masie’s before scooting closer to her. 

“Ah. It seems Harrington, little miss here feels guilty about us spending money on her.”, Eddie chuckles as he takes a bit of the food from his lunch bag. 

“Why? I haven’t been cut off yet. Knowing him that will take a while. My dad may be pissed at me but I’m still a Harrington. He’s still hoping I come crawling back.”

“Then…maybe we should save that for an apartment…”

Both boys laugh under their breath and your best friend watches with amusement as she studies the dynamic. 

“Y/N, do you want to go to prom? Yes or No.”

“I…”

“Come on, sweetheart. Don’t revert back to shy you. Be open and honest. It’s us remember?” Eddie’s foot extends out to rub your leg. 

“I want to go, I just don’t want to be around these assholes.”, you gesture towards the student body. “They’d ruin it, not just for me but you guys to.”

“Fuck them.”, Steve chimes in. “Fuck these people.”

“Oh please, Steve. I like the movie ‘Carrie’. Doesn’t mean I want to live it!” That makes them genuinely laugh as you smile. “I’m going to grab another drink. Does anyone want anything?”

Everyone shakes their head, watching you as head back towards the lunch line. 

“I have an idea, if you two would be open to it.”, Masie grins mischievously. 

They lean towards her, listening as your best friend begins detailing her plan. Eddie shakes his head when she finishes. 

“Seriously, how have I never met you before? You’re so fucking badass.”

Without thinking, he leans over the table to give her hug, startling her before she grins and returns his display of affection. 

#########

“Maze, what the hell? Why can’t I keep my eyes open?”

“Because, honey, this is how surprises work. Now shut up and smile in 3…2…1.”

Her hands lift from your eyes and you giggle as you allow them to adjust before falling on a beautiful dress laid out on her bed. Stepping forward, your fingers trace the black silk of the garment as your eyes trace the white sleeves. 

“Masie…what—”

“You said you wanted to go but not with the assholes at school.”, she interrupted. “The guys and I thought we could have a prom of our own.”

“Maze. You…I…” 

Your best friend cut you off again, gently placing her palm over your mouth. “Y/N, they will be here in an hour so let’s put on our dresses and let me do your hair. I’m thinking floofy like Farrah.”

****

“Hey! You must be Edward and Steven.” Masie’s dad extends his arm out to enthusiastically shake each boy’s hand. “I’m Kenneth but you can call me Ken. The girls will be right down.”

“Uh, yeah, thank you, sir.”, Steve politely smiled slightly taken a back. 

“My wife and I had made plans tonight because Masie said she didn’t want to go to prom but when she changed her mind, we made sure to at least be here to take pictures of her and Y/N! God, I still remember when they were in Kindergarten and Y/N would come over to spend time with her. Always a sweet girl that one. I swear—”

“Dad! Stop pestering them.”, Masie scolded as she ran the rest of the way down the stairs. 

“I’m not! I’m just telling them about you and Y/N being best friends.”

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”

They didn’t hear a word either of them said. You had followed your friend down and shyly glanced their way before opening your arms a bit to display your dress. Their eyes constantly raked across you from head to toe. The dress was actually sleeveless, the white parts resting on either side of your biceps as the top part of your outfit both hugged and displayed your breasts perfectly. It was bit snug around your curves making you a bit self-conscious but they barely seemed to notice. 

To them you were always beautiful but in this dress with your hair flowing down your shoulders the way it was, you looked like an angel.

“Uh oh.” Masie waves her hand in front of their face. “Gentlemen! Is that a good stare or a bad stare? Do I need to fix something or…?”

As your friend stepped forward, Steve stopped her by reaching for her arm. “No, don’t do anything. She looks gorgeous.”

“Perfect.”, Eddie followed. 

“Thank you.”, you blush. “You guys look handsome.”

The metalhead reached for your hand as you descended the rest of way. “Why thank you. We bought these tuxes without me once agitating Harrington by getting frustrated with all the pieces and buttons at the store.”

“Apparently my friend has never even worn a suit, let alone a tux.”

“I’ve worn a suit! In 5th grade…”

You and Masie laugh at them as her mom comes out to take pictures, promising she’ll get copies so everyone can have them. As soon as you guys step outside, you gasp when your eyes land on the limo. 

“Don’t say anything!”, Steve smiles in your direction. “We already know you think we’re doing too much.” 

Both men hold the doors for you and your friend as you two climb in the back. “So where is the dance being held.”

You whine when your vision is suddenly blind folded by what you assume is Eddie’s bandana since it smells strong like cigarettes. 

“That will be the next surprise!”

***

“Oh, wow, boys. I’m impressed, Eddie Munson.”

“Thank you, Masie Collins.”

“Excuse me! I still can’t see.”, you smile. “I know we’re at Eddie’s trailer because I hear the dog across the street.”

Your blind fold is removed and you blink as your eyes adjust, Steve backing up to stand near the other boy as they watch your face. You were at Eddie’s trailer except there were white Christmas lights strung together across the yard to create a makeshift dance area. Off to the side was a table and a BBQ pit beside it already smoking. Eddie’s stereo was hanging in the window and above his front door was a banner that read “Hawkins High 1984 Senior Prom.”

“I guess Wayne started our food for us.”, the metalhead headed that way to make sure everything was ok and together. 

“Do you like it?”, Steve asks as he sticks his hands in his pockets nervously shifting.

“Like it? Oh my god. I love it!”

##########

“Eddie, these are really good. I didn’t know you could cook anything.”, Masie compliments with her mouth full. 

“I mean, not much to this, besides flipping a burger.”, he laughs. “But thank you.”

“Y/N, since you’re finished, do you want to dance with me?” Steve reaches under the table for your hand when you nod.

“Op. One second.” Eddie quickly stands and runs to his stereo before jumping up and loudly smacking the play button. You giggle, wrapping your arms around Steve as “I Wanna Know What Love Is” by Foreigner begins to play. 

“I told him to add anything he thought they would play at a prom. I’m starting to think maybe I should have listened to the tape beforehand.” The man laughs with you as he pulls you closer to him as you both begin to sway.

“Please, like you can’t dance to this.” Eddie gives him a big grin as he runs back to the table. 

Your eyes beam at him as his smile grows. “Are you have a good time, Daddy?”

“I am. What about you, baby?”

“I love seeing you both so happy. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you two smile like this.”

“It’s because of you.” You roll your eyes before you lean your cheek onto his chest. “I’m serious. Just to see your eyes light up when you got out of the car or the way you glowed when you came downstairs… that makes us happy.”

Eddie and Masie grin at you guys as she finishes her fries. “So, it really doesn’t bother you? Seeing her with him like that?”

The boy shakes his head with no hesitation. “I know she loves us both. She’s as much mine as she is his.”

“Fascinating.”

“I know, right?”

“Masie Collins, would you care to dance with me?” Steve extends his hand to her and she dusts off her own before taking it. “Your dance partner, sir, is waiting.”

Eddie grins as he heads towards you and you immediately pull him into your arms. “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper begins to play and he chuckles when you throw your head back and laugh. 

“Hey. If they aren’t playing this at prom then I don’t know what kids are into these days.”, the metalhead insists. 

“I love it. I love you, Sir.”, you smile. 

“I love you to, sweetheart. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you both so much for this.”

Steve spins Masie and she laughs as she grips his hand again. “What about you, Steve Harrington? You don’t get jealous at all seeing her kiss on him?”

“No ma’am. It’s…hard to explain. It just works. I’ve never met anyone like her before.”

“Now I do have to ask…when did that change occur? You’ve had classes together before but you never bothered to talk to her.”

“That’s fair. I always thought she was beautiful. I just wanted to impress my dad more I guess and be who he wanted me to be. I was an asshole.”, he laughs. 

“Yeah you were and should you ever revert back to that asshole and hurt her I will kill you; both of you!”

You giggle at her threat as you pull Eddie closer to you. 

##########

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?”, you ask as you walk Masie to the limo.

“It’s fine, Y/N. There would be no point in you guys coming all the way with me just to drop me off and come back here. I’ve never been in a limo before tonight. Riding alone will make me feel famous.” She strikes a pose making you laugh. “You look beautiful. I had so much fun.”

“Me to. Thank you…for helping them put this together.”

“Of course. You’re my best friend. I know you’d do the same for me.”, she grins as she climbs in. You wave as the vehicle drives down the road and disappears over the hill. 

As soon as you turn around, you’re blinded by a flash of white light. “Jesus, Daddy! “, you giggle. 

“I’m sorry. You just look so damn good; I want to remember this forever.”

You pose as he takes another picture. “Is there a way you can remember this moment without all this crap.”, Eddie whines as he tugs on his outfit. Bouncing giddily towards him, you help the metalhead remove all the uncomfortable pieces of his tux till it’s just his white shirt and slacks. “Thank you, baby. Thanks for NOTHING, Steven!”

“Hey, I got you into it. She can get you out of it. Smile!”

The boy rolls his eyes sticking out his tongue as you laugh. Steve was chuckling to as he turned mid picture to look at you two. 

“Aw, I love that one. I’m going to frame it and put it near the front door of our apartment.”

“We can go looking this week after school if you want to.”

“That sounds like fun.” Your smile faulters slightly as you sigh. “I need to look for a job to. Maybe something on campus.”

“Honey…” Steve pulls you to his side and kisses the top of your head. “Let’s not worry about that right now, alright?”

You both jump at the loud sound of thunder. “Are you kidding me?! This really is a Stephen King book. Baby, get inside and Steve can you help me move this stuff under the awning.”

Standing by the front door you, watch them as they quickly try and move everything before the rain comes. Just as they shifted the final piece of furniture it began to pour. You were in such a good mood you couldn’t help but stand in the middle of Eddie’s front yard with your arms open, letting the water fall pleasantly onto your skin. 

You saw the flash of white light again, turning to see the metalhead holding the camera this time. 

“You looked so beautiful…I had to freeze this moment.”

##############

Your back smacked into the wall as Eddie shoved you against it, his lips passionately kissing your own. He grinned against your mouth when he felt your needy, desperate hands fumbling with his belt before sliding your palm down the front of his pants to rub his growing bulge he had begun grinding against you. 

You two stumbled into the kitchen, his arm reaching behind you to clear off the counter and knocking trash onto the floor. He turns you around so your back is against his chest but as he tries to push you down onto the furniture in front of you, you cling your arm around his neck as your lips kiss any part of him you could reach. 

Eddie’s fingers roughly tug the bottom of your dress up over your ass before aggressively pushing your front half onto the countertop. One of his strong hands presses into your body holding you flat as his other yanks down your panties. 

Steve’s damp frame leans in front of your face, his lips capturing yours when you feel the other boy kick your legs further apart. You whimper into his kisses as the metalhead slides his cock into your entrance. The palm between your shoulders come around to cling to your belly as he begins thrusting into you. 

“Oh my…god.”, you pant.

“Does he feel good, honey?”

“Yes, Daddy. So…so fucking good.” 

Steve grins as he jumps onto the counter in front of you and undoes it pants just enough to free his dick as he holds the base, bringing the tip to your lips. Your arms lean against his thighs and he groans, biting his bottom lip as you envelope him into your mouth. 

“Fuck, baby. There you go. Our beautiful girl.”

Eddie grunted behind you as he placed his hands on your shoulders, clinging to you tightly as his pace slowed and he slammed his hips into you roughly. Each stroke pushed you lower onto Steve causing you to gag around him. A ring laced hand suddenly took hold of your hair, forcing your mouth further down the other boy’s cock as he began pumping into you faster again but not any less hard.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. That’s it, pretty girl. You can take it.”

After what feels like forever, Eddie tugs firmly on your hair, forcing your head up to look at Steve. You placed your palm around him, continuing to stroke him as you moaned. 

“Are you about to cum?” When you nodded, he lightly smacked your cheek. “Say it.”

“I’m…I’m gonna cum, Daddy.”

“Don’t you—mmm—don’t you dare stop stroking my dick. Even when you cum. Do you hear me?”

“Ye-yes, Daddy.”

“When you do cum, you should thank him. I think…your Master deserves it for how-how good he’s making you feel.”

Eddie’s chest fell against you as he rolled his hips, wrapping his arms held you tightly. Your body started to shake as your head flew back and you came.

“YES! Fuck me. Thank you, Sir! Thank you.” You repeated your last sentence over and over as you rested your forehead against his sweaty cheek. A strangled groan left his lips as his rhythm  sputtered and you felt him warm your insides as he aggressively pumped his release into your core.

Steve hopped off the counter, capturing your lips with his own. As soon as his friend pulled out, he was guiding you down the hallway towards the metalhead’s room. While you unbuttoned his shirt, he tried to fully remove his pants, failing as he tripped over them and fell onto his back on the floor near the bed taking you with him. 

“Whoa! Everyone ok?”, Eddie asked.

You grinned when you saw Steve’s nose scrunch as a silent laugh rippled through his body. 

“You alright, baby?”, you giggle as you tenderly run your fingers through his hair. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Oh my god. I think I landed on my pride a bit but—” You cut him off with a kiss, mewling when you feel him grind his hips against yours. “Are you ready for me, honey?”

“I’m always ready for you, Daddy. I’m yours.” You turn your head to find Eddie who was leaning against the door frame. “Both of yours.”

The boy beneath you grips his cock, groaning as you slowly slide down onto it. As you gradually grind your lower half, the metalhead comes up behind you and delicately lifts your dress the rest of the way off your body. While you crane your neck to kiss his lips, Steve sits up to nibble on your throat as his hands roam all over you.

Eddie stretches out on the bed above you both, occasionally reaching out to play with your hair or caress your face as his friend starts pumping his hips up to meet yours. 

“You’re so beautiful, princess. I love watching you like this. I love the way your body moves and the pretty sounds you make. I love you.”

“I—mmm—I love you to, Sir, so much. Th-thank you…both of you.”

“For loving you?”, he chuckles. “You don’t have to thank us for that.”

You shake your head, trying to form your thoughts into words but it’s so hard with Steve roughly hitting all the sensitive spots inside of your pussy that drive you wild. 

“What-what are you…trying to say, baby girl?”

“I can’t…please…please Daddy. Make me cum.”

He grabs your cheeks, bringing you down with him as he lays on his back. Your hips bounce back to meet his thrusts as you pant heavily into his face. The coil in your belly snaps and he grunts as your pussy tightens around him. 

“Thank you! Th-thank you, Daddy.”

Steve strangles out a breathy fuck as he quickly follows after, his spend coating your insides.

“Thank you both…for being you…”

It takes them a minute to understand what you’re saying. 

“Hey, crybaby.”, Eddie grins as he playfully taps your arm. “You don’t have to thank us for that either.” You smile softly up at him as he rises to his feet, lifts you off his friend, and carries you into the bathroom. Right as the shower begins to steam up, there’s a loud clap of thunder and the power goes out. “Shit. Harrington!”

“Yeah! I’m coming!”

“There’s a candle on the dresser and lighters…everywhere.” You giggle when he nonchalantly waves his hands at the last word. A deep sigh left his chest when he felt you lean forward and place soft kisses on his skin.

A flicker of light illuminates the bathroom as Steve comes in and hops up on the counter now donning his boxers. Eddie guided you under the water and went to work cleaning your body. 

“Daddy, you should take a shower to since you were out in the rain. You don’t want to get sick.”

“Eh, I think I’ve been through worse.”, he smirks.

“You can tell him ‘I told you so’ when he he’s rubbing snot all over my stuff.” The metalhead grins when you laugh at his joke. “Can I ask you something, princess?”

“Oh, that was weird.”

“What?”

“Misters I-don’t-ask- I-take asking me if he can ask me a question.”

“Well, excuse me for considering your feelings and shit.”

“Aw, don’t pout, Sir. You can ask me anything.”, you beam up at him.

“Do you remember last year before that last week of school when we snuck into your room?”

“How could I forget?”

“Yeah, yeah.”, he chuckles as he reaches behind you to turn off the water and holds your hand as he guides you out. “Steve asked why we had to put a label on our relationship and you said because you had been burned before. Is that why you always feel the need to thank us the way you do?”

Eddie couldn’t see your face as much as he wanted to but with the minimal light, he saw enough to know that your eyes became a bit glassy as you time traveled to a moment in your past. 

“You don’t have to answer but I’ve been kind of curious myself. You don’t really talk about any exes but neither do we so…” Steve saw the same look the metalhead did and it made him worry. They didn’t want to ruin a perfect night by making you sad. 

“Do either of you have a yearbook from last year or even before?”

“Fuck no.”

“I might.”

Their answers made you laugh as you wrapped the towel around your body and headed for the bedroom. As Steve searched through his things, Eddie put a shirt over your head and helped you into some comfy shorts. 

The man made a tiny aha noise when he found junior year’s yearbook and jumped onto the bed beside you before handing it over. The metalhead climbed in next to you as well, shining a flashlight over you so you could see. 

When you found what you were looking for, you sighed before pointing at one of the photos. 

“Christian Wexler? Why does that name sound familiar?”

“He’s the douchebag from the theater club who always needed to be liked.”, Eddie rolled his eyes. “Last I heard, he moved out of Hawkins because he pulled some stunt that made some…parents…angry.” His chocolate irises met yours as he slowly came to realization. 

“What happened, honey?”

“I had the biggest crush on him for years but I was always so scared to say anything. One day he asked me out and I was just so elated. I dressed up in this really cute outfit and did my hair all nice. On our first date, we didn’t go anywhere. We stayed at his house to watch a movie. We dated for six months and we only ever went out once. He took me to a movie an hour away and we still ran into people he knew. Christian told them I was his friend.”

Steve’s hand reached out to rub your leg comfortingly as Eddie pushed your hair behind your ear so he could see your face better.

“That night I told him, he needed to tell people the truth or we were over. He said he would take me to a party one of the upper classman were throwing. Made a huge speech about how he would get on a table and tell everyone we were together. After two hours of waiting for him, I went to the party by myself and found him making out with one of the cheerleaders. He told the kids around him that I was obsessed with him and he ‘did me a favor’ by taking me to a movie but he realized I was too gross and ugly for anyone to date.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill him. Where does he live now?”

“I was at that party.” You and Eddie turn towards Steve. “I didn’t hear any of that or see it but I do remember seeing you run out the front door. I didn’t think anything of it. I was—”

“Making out with Karla Thomas.”, you nod. “I remember that because it made me leave quicker. The last thing I needed was Carol and Tommy being themselves.”

“What got him to move?”, the metalhead asked. 

“Timing essentially. When I got home after that my mom happened to be downstairs and saw me crying. I broke down and told her what happened. She went to his house and screamed at his parents who in turn signed him up for military school.”

“Well, I can’t say I feel bad for the asshole.”

“That was a couple of months before I got detention.” You meet their gaze as you watch full understanding come crashing down in their eyes. Why you originally wanted to be left alone. Why you were afraid of the feelings they made you feel and your fear of being hurt by them. Why you had that strong need to be seen and to identify what your relationship with them actually was. Why you constantly thanked them for everything they did like taking care of you, telling you that they loved you, and not suddenly changing into people you thought they weren’t. 

“Y/N, I’m so sorry.”, Steve reached up pull your lips to his. 

“We would never hurt you like that. I swear, sweetheart, you’re safe with us.”

“Thank you.” You giggle when Eddie playfully wraps his arms around you and squeezes you into a big bear hug. 

############

“Hey there, Mrs. Y/L/N.” Masie flashes her a polite smile when your mom opens her front door. 

“Hey, honey. It’s nice to see you. Did you want to come in?”

“Oh, no, I can’t. I told Y/N that I would go with her to look for some jobs near the university. I did want to swing by and give you these.” Your best friend hands her an envelope as she thanks her. “My parents made a ton of copies so… I, uh, I know you guys aren’t talking to her but I thought you might like to see these.” 

Maze turns to head for her car, stopping to look at your mom again. “You guys missed a big moment in her life. I hope that those photos convince you to not miss another.”

“Who was it?”, your father asked as his wife came back into the living room. 

“Masie came to bring us some photos.”

“Of what?”

She opened the envelope and pulled out the photos from your prom. Grinning, she flipped through them, slowly absorbing every image. You looked so gorgeous in your dress as you posed with Masie in front of her house. Even though they were technically your dates, Eddie had positioned your best friend next you with both boys on either end as you guys were mid laugh. 

There were images of you in the limo leaning your head on Steve’s shoulder as he held your hand. Another of you straightening up the metalheads bowtie and jacket as he looked down at you fondly. She didn’t start to tear up until she got to the pictures of you dancing with the boys. You gave off a different energy that she had never witnessed from you before. It reminded her of when you were a toddler and you would dance on your father’s toes as you giggled. 

Her head hung when she got the final photo. Masie must have set a timer on the camera and ran to be next to you guys. As the flash went off, both men had leaned in to kiss your cheeks. Your eyes were closed as you smiled, scrunching your shoulders up as you blushed. Masie was on one knee, throwing her hands in the air like she had seen the cheerleaders do numerous times. 

Your mother rose to her feet and tried to hand the photos to your dad who shook his head. “I don’t want to see that.”

“I think we made a mistake. We should call her and hear her out.”

“Fine. You go call her but nothing she says is going to make me think this isn’t wrong.”

“Why is it wrong? Look at her.” She holds up one of the images and he promptly looks in the other direction. “She looks…happy. She looks like I did when you took me to prom.”

“Don’t. Don’t do that, honey. It’s not the same.”

“Baby, I’m not saying I understand it all either but let’s give her chance.”

Your father’s lips formed into a hard line before shaking his head. You mom huffs in frustration as she heads up stares towards your room.

***

“Uh, sweetheart.”

Eddie tries to get your attention while you are play fighting with Steve. You were trying to help him study for the final exam but he was trying to distract you by tickling you when you focused too hard on the questions on the paper. 

“Y/N.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Your mom is on the phone.” You and the other boy freeze as you turn to look at him. “You don’t have to talk to her if you don’t want to, babe.”

“No, no I do.” A nervous sigh escapes your lips as you scoot closer to him and take the phone from his grasp. “Mom?”

“Hey. Hey, Y/N. How are you doing? You, um, you doing ok?”

“Physically I am.” Her sad sigh on the other end makes you feel immediately guilty. “I miss you.”

“I miss you to. Masie gave us some pictures of your prom. You looked so good…you and your dates.”

“Thank you. We had so much fun.”

“That makes me happy, honey.” She pauses for a long while before finally speaking again. “I understand if you don’t want to see me after what happened but I’d like to have dinner with you sometime. Maybe we could talk about Edward and Steven…”

You glance up towards them to find them both watching you intensely. 

“O-Okay. I’d like that.”

###########

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[fipindustries]

oppen heimer style

let me just start this by saying that this is not necesarily nolan being back to form, necesarily. i would place it just above the rest of nolan's dark period known as intersrellar, dunkirk and tenet. but that is not an exceedingly high bar to pass.

he has sadly become a director that i still respect appreciate and whose movies i enjoy but whom i can no longer say is an unmatched genius.

lets start with the bad.

its too long, and its pacing its a little awkward, no need to worry for spoilers here since we all know the history. the big money shot that we were all expecting, the trinity test, it happens roughly at the middle of the movie and after that the movie struggles to reach any other point of heightened emotion as high as that one.

its a solid three hour experience and more than once it had me wondering "ok, how much left, are we done yet?" but i will say this: once i reached the final scene and the credits start i did not feel a tired relief that it was finaly over, thank god. i feel dread, i felt doom and dread. i was fucking terrified. this movie has a good strong final scene that makes you forget of previous tests of patience you might have gone through watching it.

it tries to do this weird parallel story telling between lewis strauss and oppenheimer that it feels like they tried to film two different movies and then awkwardly splie them together. it jumps back and forth between the past and the present told form different points of view and a lot of it feels like it could have been cut out and the movie would have worked just as well. im not sure how necessary was the whole lewis strauss subplot to be honest.

the characters and dialog work a little better than in previous movies although we still get a lot of scenes of people talking in a clinical manner with expository dialog and deep philosophical musings. but once again i will say nolan seems to be learning some lessons, we do get a lot of scenes where actors are allowed to flex their emotional muscles.

in a lot of ways this is nolan's most lurid film. i think this is the first time we get to see breasts and naked people having sex in a nolan movie and it hits hard, both because of how unexpected it is in a nolan film and because of how out of context it shows up in-universe. i dont actually want to spoil this one because the effect it achieves actually worked really well.

and now moving on to the good, if i mentioned this might be nolan at his most lurid, it is certainly also at his most poetic. sure there is inception, but in here we get to see a lot of surrealist or downright metaphorical scenes without the excuse of being inside a dream. we get to see things that are not happening literally in universe but that are an artistic representation of what the characters are feeling. it felt really effective.

the man himself

this is a movie that is very much about the titular guy and trying to understand his inner world, trying to understand who the hell was this person, and honestly, where did he get off.

it seems oppenheimer was a complicated man, whose actions and desitions were sometimes confusing, sometimes downright contradictory (there is a nice wink to this when talking about the paticle/wave duality at the beggining of the film). he was a communist, he was a proud american, he was a genius, he was painfully naive,he was merely following orders but he had absolute control over his little town in los alamos, he worked hard for peace, he created nuclear war, he built a bomb that he didnt want people to use.

i heard criticisms that this movie romanticizes his work, that it may excuse or justify the use of the bomb, that it may be too kind with the guy. rest assured it doesnt. the movie brings up multiple times how the japanese were basically already surrendering, how senseless and callous and cruel the use on japanese cities was, how attrocious and horrifying the effects of the bomb were. and how oppenheimer definely contributed to it. if it shows the guy hand wringing or feeling gulty or trying to be a martyr of sorts, the movie definetly calls him out on that too by saying that its very rich of him to have done the deed and then regret it as if he didnt knew what he was doing or as if he had no control over it. a lot of times the movie shows the man as spineless, as a moral coward, as someone who was too weak to take on a position. "you dont get to commit a sin and then make everyone else feel pity for you because there are consequences!" is yelled at his face.

yet all the same, either because he is portrayed by cyllian murphy and his puppy dog eyes or because nolan deep down still admires who he was and what he did, you cant help but feel bad for the guy and like him still. he was a person, a complicated person with ugly sides that this movie in no way ignores, but still a brilliant man who at the very least had the basic decency to feel bad for the atrocities he contributed to.

going back to the movie itself

its has a weirdly star studded cast. if you were surprised by the sudden appearance of matt damon in interstellar, get ready to have that feeling multiple times during this film, every other scene suddenly shows up a hollywood megastar and it will take a few seconds before you accept ok, i guess gary oldman is in this film, and is that rami malek? and oh right, robert downy junior and oh my god is that fucking kenneth brannagh. in fact the one hollywood actor who is NOT in this movie, is surprisingly, inexplicably enough michael caine.

truly, breaking new ground.

and the cameos dont stop at the stars, the characters themselves are a constant delightful surprise if you are into the history of quantum mechanics and science in the first half of the 20th century. you have einstein of course (presented as this old exiled king, his time of glory long past but still sough after for his wisdom) but you have also bohrs, heisenberg, feynman, fermi, and fucking gödel somehow (they managed to shoe in a comment about his paranoia and hipocondry)

the actual explosion

time to talk about the thing we all went to see this movie for. is the atomic explosion cool? is it big? is it loud? does it go boom? does it look cool?.

suffice to say. yes. one of the coolest experiences i had in watching film ever in my life. it has a build up of a solid 30 minutes or so (arguably its been building up the entire movie) the tensin keeps on rising all through out. the countdown slowly advances, the expectations are at the highest theyve ever been and by the time the bomb was actually about to go off in the middle of the american desert, the first atom bomb ever exploted, my heart was hammering out of my chest.

its fully worth the price of admission and the three hours.

final comments

i want to double back to the poetic filmmaking i mentioned early to comment about the main thing its used for. nolan makes it clear in no uncertain terms the horror that atomic weapons unleashed on the world. the man goes out of his way to make it clear, these things can destroy the planet. we've all become perhaps a bit desensitized to atomic explosion in film, made more and more espectacular with the advancement of cgi. but this movie brings it back home and leaves you with a last message about the danger of nuclear proliferation.

i walked out of the theatre with my legs shaking and my eyes falling out of my skull. i had a hard time talking a bit afterwards, i was a little shell shocked.

so, i guess in the end, my thoughts on this movie are just as complicated as the man himself, the man who oppenheimed the world.

8/10

[stevesbestgirl]

Dreamweaver

Dream of the Endless x f!Reader

Warnings: mentions of depression, a few curses, briefly mean!Morpheus, soulmate tattoo bs, I took liberties with the lore

A/N: I started this forever ago when I was dealing with some stuff with my brother, so if it feels like a self-insert 🤷‍♀️ (no descriptions of reader's appearance)

5775 words

"Dream."

Lord Morpheus, also known as Dream of the Endless, raised his head from his desk, where he was pouring over a book.

"Dream!"

He heaved a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose before standing.

"Dream of the Endless, I hold your sigil and I call to you."

"Yes Death, I am on my way to my gallery as we speak."

"Forget your gallery, come here."

Morpheus suppressed a sigh. But with a sound suspiciously like the flutter of a raven's feathers, Dream disappeared from his library, appearing instead beside his sister. Death's gaze did not waver; she appeared to be watching a young pair seated on a mattress on the floor of a simple bedroom. One, a young woman, seemed to be comforting the other, a young man with enough resemblance to be a sibling.

Dream spared only a quick glance, "Why am I here, sister?"

Death finally tore her gaze from the two mortals, "Can't you see it?"

Morpheus watched the pair again, unsure of what he was supposed to be seeing.

"Maybe I'm just bad. That's why she left." Dream could see the wisps of despair puffing up around the boy, evaporating like drops of water on a hot pan.

"You took the fall when I broke Mallory's lamp when we were ten. Don't tell me you're bad," the woman insisted despite her soft tone. "And nothing you did made Bella leave."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Dream's gaze swiveled back to his sister, "I am unsure what it is I should be seeing."

Death huffed impatiently, "Open your mind for just one moment and consider that a mortal may surprise you." When he still stared at her, his jaw growing tight with impatience, she rolled her eyes, "She's dream weaving, Dream. You of all people should be able to tell."

"The dream weavers died out hundreds of years ago."

Death grabbed her stubborn brother by the shoulder, twisting him to face the girl again, "Watch."

Dream watched, albeit a bit disdainful, as the young woman continued to speak. She offered musings about their past. Their childhood seemed to have been a difficult one. But she made jokes, reminiscing and reflecting on what they could learn- how they could create better for themselves. And then he saw it.

Human consciousness, all consciousness really, clung to the Dreaming with tethers. Needless to say, humans clung particularly closely compared to most other sentient life. Each dream, though they varied in strength, was a connection to the dreaming. When a being began to lose the will to live, those tethers weakened.

Her brother's tethers were weak; not quite on the brink of severing, but looking rather exhausted. And while it wasn't possible for her to strengthen the tethers- only their owner could do that, she was reinforcing their connection to the Dreaming. The dreams she was sharing were indeed woven into an intricate web, right on the cusp of his realm.

Her own web was vast, ethereal silver glimmering in elaborate knots and designs, each one a waking dream. This girl's very existence was tied up in his realm.

His only show of emotion was a small parting of his lips, but that was enough for Death. "I told you so."

Dream said nothing, watching the girl speak.

"What are you thinking, brother?" Death prompted, clearly awaiting some kind of response.

"It appears that a new age of Dreamweavers may be upon us, sister."

"Are you going to speak to her?"

"I suppose I am duty-bound to make contact. Soon, more like her will appear, if they haven't already. If they go on unsupervised, they could damage the realm."

Death cocked an eyebrow, "Why do you sound so reluctant? You've never had issue with dream weavers in the past, have you?"

"Not yet. But I have an odd feeling about this one."

*

After departing with Death, Morpheus tasked Matthew with keeping an eye on the girl. She stayed with her brother through the night, the pair of them departing early in the morning and returning a short while later with what appeared to be a third sibling.

Only once the two young men were in each other's company did the girl leave, returning to her own home a short distance away.

She seemed lost in her own thoughts as she puttered around the house, cleaning up odds and ends before changing into a tee-shirt and climbing into bed. Underneath her eyes, dark circles were beginning to swell. She was exhausted.

Morpheus almost felt bad for her; this sleep would not be as restful as she might be expecting.

*

Y/N always had vivid dreams, both waking and while asleep. But she immediately knew tonight was different. Dressed in nothing but her tee-shirt and underwear, her bare feet were chilled against the dark stone floor underfoot.

A shadowed figure sat in a throne at the head of the large room, as though waiting for her.

"Hello?" She took a hesitant step forward, hands clinging to the too-short hem of her tee-shirt, which was barely covering the tops of her thighs.

"Approach, Y/L, L/N."

She did as the voice instructed, stepping forward on unsteady legs. It was male, authoritative and nearly stern. But it wasn't aggressive, or even raised in volume. He simply spoke and expected compliance.

It was also beautiful, deeply toned and unrushed in its delivery. He had an accent she couldn't identify, her mind reeling with thoughts as she approached the throne, still cloaked in shadow.

She felt exposed, painfully aware of his gaze on her. She gave her shirt another nervous tug down, trying to make sure she was covered. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she asked, "What is this place?"

The silence stretched, her fingers abandoning the hem of her shirt in favor of fidgeting with the cuticles of her fingernails. But her hands parted hastily and she sucked in a gasp as she suddenly found herself fully clothed in a pair of dark jeans, socks, boots, and a black jacket over her tee-shirt.

She was relieved for both the privacy and warmth granted by the clothes, but her heart was pounding at the magic, "Am I dreaming?"

The figure remained in shadow, "Yes," he confirmed. "But more importantly, you are in the Dreaming."

She blinked, willing her eyes to make out the figure in the dark as questions bubbled up inside her, "And that would make you-?"

He rose slowly from his chair, towering over her at his full height, somehow still shrouded in shadow, "I am Dream of the Endless, creator of the Dreaming, King of Nightmares."

It suddenly became quite clear to her as she gazed up at him that he wanted her to be intimidated. The question of why still loomed.

"King of Dreams then too, right?" She couldn't find it within herself to give him the reaction he wanted, king or no king.

His voice remained level, "Yes."

"Am I forbidden from laying eyes on the King of Dreams?" She cocked her eyebrow, only slightly, in a challenge. She took a step backwards, inviting him to step into the light.

There was another long pause before he answered, "No, you are not." But instead of moving, the shadows seemed to loosen, pale skin blooming behind the darkness until his face was wholly visible.

It seemed the perfect match for his voice, slim with sharp cheekbones and a shock of deep ebony hair. Long, dark lashes framed his eyes, which were dark, almost entirely black in a way that should have been eerie. But they glimmered like stars, little specks of light dancing deep within their depths and seeming to invite her inside. She felt as though she was falling forward until the darkness swallowed her up.

But inside was far from dark. It was a massive stretch of blackness, yes, but far from nothing. The black was a canvas, swirling with color and light and looking like entire galaxies.

A mess of incoherent thought washed over her, driving her own thoughts from her mind. The galaxy showed her a beautiful woman. She felt insecurity, fear, but also something warm and safe she could only describe as love. Then she saw the sun, but the sun as she'd never seen it before. The sun through the eyes of someone who couldn't go blind. And then came pain, rejection, grief-

"You should not be here."

Then she was back in the throne room, balled up on the floor, her cheeks wet with tears. She sat up, hastily wiping her cheeks, but Dream was already hauling her up by the shoulder of her tee-shirt, her extra layer of clothing stripped away in an instant, "You dare to invade my mind?" His dulcet tones were reduced to a mere hiss. "As the King of Dreams, it is my responsibility to warn you that if you or others like you meddle in the affairs of my realm, it will cost you dearly. It seems that every time I show compassion to a human, you are determined to make me regret it. Cross my path again and you will not receive such mercy a second time."

She wanted to plead with him, to make him understand that it had been an accident. She didn't even understand what she'd done- were those his thoughts?

His change in demeanor stung more than it should have. But his sudden rage combined with what little she'd seen made it clear he would not leave himself vulnerable to her, and perhaps for good reason.

"I apologize for any offense, it was not my intent. I will do my best not to get in your way again." She offered him a sad smile, "And I'm sorry for your suffering."

His eyes glimmered in a brooding smolder and then she found herself jolting awake in her bed, a sheen of sweat glittering on her skin. She made a half-hearted attempt to tell herself it had only been a dream, but there was no denying what she'd seen- what she'd felt.

She felt out of place going back to her everyday life, but her work wouldn't wait for her. And there was plenty left to do for her brother, so she put it behind her, hoping that whatever she had done to draw the King of Dreams' ire was a one-time thing. Their interaction had left a lingering bad taste in her mouth.

She had hoped that her responsibilities would drive the memory from the front of her consciousness, but it continued to creep up on her each time she had a moment to breathe, haunting her rare moments of rest with nightmares. She suspected the King of Nightmares was wholly capable of sentencing her to a lifetime of nighttime terrors, but she wasn't convinced this was his intention. But if she was connected to Dream, as he'd called himself, the only way to fix it would be to visit the Dreaming again.

And now she was thinking about it again. She gave herself a shake; she had another long night ahead of her. So she turned up the music in her car and left for her brother's apartment.

*

"I thought I might see you back here, brother." Death looked smug as Dream appeared beside her in the same place they'd watched from last time.

"And why are you here again, Death?"

"To catch you in the act, obviously."

Dream made a disapproving noise at her joke, but didn't press further. He watched as she and her brother played a video game together. He'd done some reading in her book after her uninvited foray into his mind, though mostly out of spite. It had done nothing to reassure him that he'd acted appropriately.

Her childhood had not been an easy one. Teenage parents, poverty, and drug use had rendered her functional guardian to her two younger siblings at a young age. Once he arrived at the abuse resulting from her first romantic relationship, he'd stopped reading.

The two Endless watched for quite some time before speaking again, but surprisingly to Death, it was Dream who broke the silence. "Why are you truly here, sister?"

"It is part of my responsibilities to check on the humans whose ties grow weak."

"Do you spend this long on every one?"

She huffed a sigh, "No." Stealing a glance at Y/N, she admitted, "When she weaves the dreams, that strengthens the connection, giving a weak tie more time to recover."

Dream tipped his head, "Yes, as you explained last time."

"I'm starting to suspect that the dream she's woven around the center tether may be permanent."

"Is such a thing possible?"

"I don't know. Like you said, this could be a new kind of dream weaver." They both watched her laugh, drawing a laugh from her brother as well. "I wish I could just ask her what she's capable of."

Dream looked back on the way the girl had collapsed in his throne room, realization making his stomach sink, "She is unaware of her abilities."

"As far as I can tell." At Dream's silence, Death glanced at him sharply, "Why do I get the sense that you may have done something foolish?"

Dream was silent, reassessing his interaction with this new information. He'd brought her into his realm, exposed and confused, then put on a show of being intimidating and immediately lost his temper, resorting to threats and expulsion.

He refused to feel shame over actions taken to protect his realm, but he couldn't identify the strange pit that seemed to have opened in his gut. She likely thought him a monster, a nightmare himself instead of their king.

"Dream, what did you do?"

Death's voice broke him from his stupor, though he kept his gaze on the girl, "I brought her to my realm and lost my temper."

Death couldn't suppress an eye roll, but Dream didn't seem to notice, "What was it this time?"

"I suspect one of those new abilities allows her access to memory."

There was a long pause. "She got inside that thick skull of yours?"

Dream broke his gaze to send his sister a scathing look, "Yes."

Death sent her an appraising glance, "She seems to be holding up rather well, all things considered." It was meant to be a joke, but Dream thought the circles under her eyes were damning.

"You are typically far slower to admit you are wrong, so I ask you again, brother, what are you doing here?"

"After my meeting with the girl, I spent an entire evening working on new dreams and nightmares. It was the best work I've done in ages."

Now Death did smirk, "She inspired you then? Is she your latest muse?"

"My days of muses are behind me, sister. Aside from the fact that she is a mortal, my realm needs my full attention."

"Of course, brother."

*

That night, when Y/N fell asleep in her bed, she found herself back in the throne room. Muttering a curse under her breath, she stood, grateful that she'd slept in a pair of shorts this time.

"Approach, Y/N."

She did not obey the voice this time, stubbornly remaining in place and gazing resolutely into the dim light, which was only slightly improved from her first visit.

A moment, then two, passed before there came a sigh. "Very well." Several long strides later the King of Dreams had left his throne to stand before her. She avoided his eyes, afraid to repeat her mistakes.

"Dream King."

"Yes, I suppose I deserve that as well."

Tipping up her chin, she nodded, "You do." She seemed to catch herself, "I'm afraid I'm not sure what I did to end up back here."

"I brought you here- in both instances. You've done nothing wrong, I have realized too late."

She was stunned. She hesitantly met his gaze, relieved when her feet remained planted on the floor.

Dream held his expression steady and nodded, "I apologize for my prior behavior."

She surprised herself by tipping her head, "Thank you." She chewed her lip for a moment, "I'm sorry too. For before. I'm really not sure how I did it."

She knew she didn't have the leverage to flaunt a grudge against the Kind of Dreams. She was pleased with her own politeness, but she would not trust easily.

Dream was silent for a long pause, "What exactly did you see?"

She looked away, "Not much. A woman- a beautiful woman. The sun. And I felt-" His eyes seemed to pull her gaze back in, "I felt some of your pain, I think."

"I apologize."

Her brow furrowed, "For your suffering?"

He shook his head, "For yours, at my hands. We have much to discuss, but you will not struggle with nightmares from tonight on."

The corner of her mouth twitched upwards in a smile, "So, I can rest assured?"

Dream either didn't catch the pun or was ignoring it, nodding, "You may. Now come, have a seat." He led her back toward his throne, where a small tea table and a wooden chair sat on the dais beside his own.

She waited, watching him take his seat on the throne before she sat on the wooden chair, ruefully thinking of her own chair at home. And then it was her chair she was sitting in. No sound or movement accompanied the change, it simply was.

Dream raised an eyebrow, as if challenging the action, "Did you just alter the Dreaming?"

Face flushing with warmth, she stumbled over her words, "Not with intention."

His gaze seemed inquisitive, "Have you always manipulated the Dreaming so skillfully?"

She raised a brow, a reluctant smile forming at the corner of her mouth, "I'm not sure that was a compliment."

"Simply an observation."

"Sounds a bit sinister though, doesn't it? 'Manipulating the Dreaming.'"

"What would you call it if someone were to create their own clay sculpture on a block already used by someone else?" Dream wasn't offended by the action so much as he was curious.

"If it serves a new function, I would call it repurposing," she replied thoughtfully.

There was a long pause, "Indeed." She couldn't decipher his tone. "What if I told you that the person who made the original sculpture also created the clay? And that the only clay that would ever exist was his creations."

She sobered up a little, "I'm sorry if I've ruined your work. Once again, not my intention. I have a lot to learn about your realm."

His gaze trailed over the chair she'd conjured, noting the details. The golden colored thread in the stitching that glinted in the dim light of the throne room. The slight wear to the fabric around the arms. Dreams were often vague, even half-formed, because mortals struggled to shape the Dreaming. But Dream suspected he'd find a perfect match to this chair if he were to visit her home.

"Clay is never ruined for having been used for creation. However, some do not take kindly to their working being- repurposed. But that is what I brought you here to discuss."

She gave him a nod, "I'm listening."

His dark gaze seemed to pierce her, "You are something known as a dream weaver. Historically, dream weavers used their abilities to tether many humans to the same dream."

She blinked at him, expression blank for a long time, "I don't mean any disrespect, but could you be mistaken?"

"I could be, but my sister is almost certainly not."

"Your sister?"

"Death."

She shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts that had grown thick and slow.

"Why would you want humans to have the same dreams?"

"Back in the early days of human development, human dreams were chaotic and disorganized. Dream weavers helped drive human development by uniting many humans under the same dream."

"Dreams affect human development?"

That drew a surprising chuckle from the Dream King, "Dreams are human development. The world exists as it is because of dreams- because of the Dreaming." There was a marked note of pride in his voice at that.

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"So like, the depths of the ocean and all the scary stuff down there was all dreamed up by humans?" He nodded. "What about space- the entire greater solar system? Is any of that real?"

"Created by dreams, but very real." She took a moment to process that, stifling a sigh. "You are displeased?" Dream raised a curious brow.

"That's a very human-centric reality. I kind of liked it when we were just little specks of dust among the vastness of the uncharted cosmos."

The corner of his mouth lifted in almost a smile, "You still are. But only because humans have dreamed it so."

"How have we survived this long? It seems to me that human beings have a tendency to destroy more than we create."

"Humans can be very destructive. But they are also very clever. No other species has demomstrated such an capability to dream up solutions to its problems like humans."

"So like, climate change. The solution to all of the pollution, to the whole climate crisis, exists?"

"Not exactly. It may or may not exist now. But it could exist if enough humans were to dream of it."

She rested her head in her palm, forcing a breath; she was starting to get light headed. This was overwhelming. Her next breath did not come as easily as the first, a fact not unnoticed by the Dream King.

"Are you alright?"

"I-" she swallowed hard, trying to get past the lump in her throat, "I think I'm having a panic attack."

Dream calmly reached out and brushed his hand over her forehead, his intent to soothe her distress. Instead, a sharp spike of heat burst through his palm, quickly going icy. He heard her gasp, but couldn't tear his gaze away as the trails of ice left behind dark lines of deep purple criss-crossing over his wrist.

"What the fuck?" Her voice was barely over a whisper, the only evidence of distress the high-pitched strain that overtook her tone. Tearing his eyes from his hand, he saw the same design decorating her hand in a blue so dark it was almost black.

Her wide-eyed gaze flicked up to his, "Did you-" She left the question unfinished, not wanting to make an accusation and unsure of what to ask even if she did.

"No."

"Do you know what this is?"

"No." His voice had gone cold and hard, just like it had been their first time meeting. Her eyes flicked back to the lines marking her skin and Dream saw the panic begin to rekindle in them.

After only a split second of hesitation, he pressed his palm to her forehead again, "Sleep, now. We will speak again soon."

Her eyes grew cloudy, but she fought against his magic with surprising vigor, "No- the- n-nightmares-"

Dream's hand seemed to slide down over her cheek to cup her face of its own accord as her eyes started to glisten with fear, "You will suffer no bad dreams tonight, Dreamweaver."

And as she faded from his realm, her consciousness joining her body in sleep, Death's words about the girl's resilience to seeing inside his head echoed again. But the lines swirling over his wrist stretched from his fingertips all the way up his forearm, nearly to the elbow, demanding his attention. They were delicate, weaving together and knotting at the crossroads between, like a tangle of flower stems and intricate lace. And at the apex of it all, the palm of his hand had an empty circle at the center.

As he stared at the mark on his hand, Dream of the Endless felt something he was neither accustomed to or fond of- he felt lost.

*

"You look like a kicked puppy today, brother," Death remarked, not breaking pace on her way to the next destination. The city street seemed to blur behind her, though her pace appeared normal. Dream's long strides quickly made up the distance, though he said nothing.

Death's raised eyebrow slowly lowered as she noticed the markings on his hand. "It appears that congratulations are in order."

The frown lines on his face only seemed to grow more pronounced.

"Unless-"

"Unless." Dream was unamused.

"Unless you are not pleased to have found your soulmate."

If he were mortal, those words might have rung in his ears, the vibrations enough to make everything he'd known crumble. But they were not enough because he was not mortal and he did not have a soulmate.

"You believe such foolishness, sister?"

"You are so confident it is foolish with the evidence staring you right in the face?"

"This?" He raised his right hand, "This is not evidence. I have never encountered such delusion in any text or reading-"

"And you will not. But if you sought out the people who can remember the farthest back in human history, they would remember."

"If it is so certain, why is it not documented?" Dream sounded annoyed that it was becoming more difficult to be skeptical.

"It is. But it has been changed in writings, splintered and embellished, transformed into something not quite the same. They never quite get it right. But they dream of it. Surely you have seen that."

"I have. Yet I have never met a mortal with markings like this."

Death suppressed a chuckle at his determination to disprove her theory, "I myself have not seen a soul mate marking in a long time. But they exist. I suspected as soon as you'd told me the girl got in your head."

"I suppose that was a sign as well," he mused bitterly.

"Yes, it was. Why are you so determined not to believe, Morpheus? You aren't usually the type to ignore evidence. I thought you would be happy."

"Happy at a cruel joke? Even if I accepted this as truth, it is clearly the result of Desire's interference once again."

Death shook her head, "Soul mates go even beyond Desire."

"Then why is my soul mate a human?" he demanded. "Am I meant to destroy human-kind in my pursuit of happiness, sister?" He knew he was being unfair, demanding such answers from his sister, but he would not allow her to light the hope inside him. He would not have what he wanted, that much he knew.

"Of course you aren't. I don't have all the answers, Dream. But be patient. They will make themselves clear over time."

That was not what he wanted to hear. "Thank you, sister. I must go." And he did, leaving Death alone just as a sigh fell from her lips.

*

All day long, Y/N got remarks about the lines twisting up her wrist. After a night of blissfully peaceful sleep, she woke up feeling refreshed, taking a moment to examine the designs that had followed her from her dreams.

The lines had filled in more since while she slept. What had been dainty lines had thickened to nearly an eighth of an inch- she'd measured. What was more, the deep, rich blue that had made up the original color was deeper now, with glimmers of royal purple, black, and the occasional glint of something golden- like a raven's wings.

The lines seemed to connect at every possible juncture. The empty circle at the heart of her palm seemed like the center, although she didn't quite understand why.

There was a lot she didn't understand; why did she have a tattoo at all? It wasn't exactly normal to wake up with new ink. And based on the Dream King's reaction, it was also not normal for ancient royalty to find themselves with a flash tattoo. But she would hopefully get more answers tonight.

She was embarrassed- mortified actually, at the way she'd freaked out last night. But she had to go back. He'd called her a Dreamweaver, whatever that meant.

But when she climbed into bed that night, she tossed and turned, anxious thoughts keeping her mind active. She felt a strange sense of trepidation whenever she visited the Dreaming; she wasn't exactly in a hurry to piss off the Dream King any more than she already had at their first meeting. But more concerning than the shadow of fear was the sliver of excitement at the prospect of seeing him again.

Despite her efforts to convince herself it was the remnants of the dream, muddling her emotions, even now she could feel his pull. She could practically feel him waiting for her on the other side of her consciousness. And when she finally did drift off to sleep, she never reached a state of rest.

Instead, she found herself seated in the chair she had left behind the night before in the throne room of what she presumed was the Dream Castle. Dream was waiting for her, his throne no longer shrouded in shadow. In fact, the whole throne room was warm and well-lit, her breath catching as she gazed around at the stunning architecture.

"Did you sleep well?" Dream's voice broke her stupor, somehow managing to catch her off guard.

"What?" Her head snapped to the throne, where he was waiting.

She watched the corner of his mouth curl up in a faint smirk, "You were concerned about nightmares, if I recall."

"Oh. No- yes, I um, slept fine." She wasn't sure why she was so flustered.

Dream let out a low hum, "Excellent."

She wasn't sure what to say, especially since Dream hadn't seemed to be in the best temper when she'd been here last. She had questions, starting with what had happened to her arm and ending with what the hell it actually meant to be a Dreamweaver.

"I'm sure you have questions."

She nodded, "A couple, yes."

"I will answer to the best of my ability."

Though her gaze lingered on the marks on her arm, the words that came out were, "What do I need to know about being a Dreamweaver?"

Dream was pensive before answering, "You must remember that the Dreaming, no matter how it responds to you, is my realm. What I say goes." You had to consciously suppress the shiver that wanted to rattle you at the intense way he held your gaze while he spoke.

She nodded, "You mentioned others- who may not take kindly to my abilities."

That elicited another pause, "That question leads to many more questions. Rest assured, I will provide an overview on my siblings, but not tonight."

She bit back the torrent of follow-ups and asked instead, "Are there more like me?"

He gave his head a solemn shake, "There were a great many Dreamweavers at one point in time. But eventually they stopped emerging and died out."

"No immortality then, I take it?" She was only joking, but he shook his head seriously. She suddenly felt shy meeting his eyes, "Are you immortal?"

He cocked his head like he was determining her intentions, "Not as you might think. I am not mortal- I do not age, grow old, or die by natural causes. Though it is exceedingly difficult, I can be killed."

The silence seemed to stretch as she processed what she had just learned. Everything should have seemed overwhelming- she shouldn't believe it. But she could feel the truth of it.

Finally, she held up a clenched fist, her eyes on the dark lines glistening in the light, "What is this?"

Dream was silent for so long that she almost asked again, but he finally said softly, "It is a soul bond."

Her gaze flicked to his eyes; the dancing lights there seemed to be waiting for her reaction. Then it fell to his own left hand, where the matching lines seemed so much more elegant on his pale skin.

"What does that mean?" She asked even though she already suspected.

"I do not know." That caught her off guard; she expected him to know everything. He certainly seemed to know more than she did.

She surprised him by asking, "Is there anything you want to ask me?"

He'd expected her to push for more information. "Have you always had these abilities?"

She offered a chagrined smile, "I didn't even know I had abilities, to be honest."

"You are quite skilled."

He made a vague hand gesture and she wasn't sure what he'd done. Then she caught a glimpse of light above her head, her mouth falling open at the intricate web of silvery white that seemed to hover over her head. She didn't quite understand how she had created this masterpiece of dreams, but she believed him.

It took her a moment to realize that he had paid her a compliment, "Oh- thank you." Her face felt a bit hot. "I have another question." At his nod, she continued, "Will I see you again?"

She couldn't explain it, since his eyes were so difficult to read, but he seemed pleased as he mulled that over, "You are not bound to me; you are free to go back to your life. But should you have need of the Dreaming, it is always here. I trust you can make your way back."

She couldn't place why she felt as though he were flirting with her; he clearly avoided expressing any kind of desire to see her again of his own volition.

She felt the urge to admit she wanted to see him again, grateful to her own good sense for stopping her before the words formed. Dream hadn't spelled out what kind of being he was to her, but she knew he was likely high above whatever a 'soul bond' meant. He was the definition of being out of someone's league.

So she nodded her head, "Thank you, Dream King."

A beat of silence. "Morpheus. You may call me Morpheus."

Her lips curled into a half-smile, "Thank you, Morpheus."

He wasn't prepared for how his name sounded when spoken from her lips. She wasn't prepared for the soft smile that graced his handsome face. Even solemn, he was beautiful. But a smile, faced directly at her- because of her- it was like knowing the sun was shining because of her.

She was so unprepared that she blinked, waking up in her own bed, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. A wave of emotions washed over her; loss, frustration, hope, longing. She felt desperate to fall back asleep, to see that smile grace Morpheus' face again. But if that was going to happen, she would have to go to him.