#oh the angst of being in love with a necromancer who cannot let go of her cavalier so much that she lobotomized herself to save her soul

[tarithenurse]

Cookies and Chaos - Halloween Challenge

Pairing: Loki x reader Prompt: 10 - “Okay, who’s raising the dead when I’m trying to sleep.” Contents: Quoted lyrics from James Brown’s “I feel good”, maybe some swearing, angst and panic, sweet and fluffy compensation, hints at smut. A/N: I’m not an expert on Halloween because it’s relatively new in the country I live in. Also I don’t bake because…the results are frankly disastrous. Still I hope this little treat is okay ;) Thanks to Devilbat for creating a challenge with fun prompts!

Cookies and Chaos

Bustling around in the kitchen with the earplugs delivering your favourite tunes, it’s hard to keep the pessimism up. The scents of pumpkin cookies is starting to spread through the Tower’s shared kitchen as a sweet compensation for the creepy decorations Loki full-heartedly has adopted the use of – the entire holiday is perfectly suited for the god’s esthetic. Perfect, the time of year and doubly so Asgardian. Loathe as you might be to admit it, a huge motivation for your efforts today are fueled by him and an irrational craving for his approval and…well why think of his love when it’s out of reach?

*Woah!* The next song starts with a cheer that makes your hips swing. Oh yeah, you feel good. Brushing with milk and lemon. *Like sugar and spice* Sprinkles of cinnamon sugar. The “wizard hats” are ready to go into the oven with a promise of chocolate-oozing perfection.

You gather the dirty utensils, each item plonking into the sink on time with the beat as it fills with hot water. Soap bubbles dance on the surface, and you mimic them through the room to make sure nothing’s forgotten.

*And when I hold you –* James Brown croons and you join, “- in my aaaarms, my love can’t do me no ha-arm –“ The dish brush is a perfect mic as you and Mister Brown have a private kitchen-party. “And I feeeeeel ni-ice –“ You twirl joyfully.

You twirl joyfully straight into the hard chest of Loki.

Shit! You were supposed to have kept quiet, the guy’d been called in last minute by Strange for something and you’d promised yourself to let him sleep in after getting back at 7AM. Glancing up at his face with the perfectly sharp cheekbones, you can see how annoyed he is.

Cool hands reach out and pluck the music from your ears. “I woke up to a ruckus, little mortal, and I thought to myself…’Who is raising the dead when I’m trying to sleep?’”

Partially ashamed of having been singing out loud, but mostly pissed at his belittling comment on the quality, you ignore the voice in the back of the head which tells you to be meek. God or not, don’t come and insult me on my singing. Not that it is good, but it’s one of the things that brings you joy and makes you feel normal.

“Well, I’m sorry, bud!” You poke his chest with a bubbled finger (only then realizing the man is shirtless). “But I happen to be enjoying some baking time while singing. There are no death rituals or ghouls or whatever here…just delicious treats.”

An eyebrow arches and his calculative gaze takes in you and the surroundings. Oh damn. A smirk, dangerous and tantalizing, forms to show those perfect teeth and you know you’ve gone much too far. If only you could go back, but it’s too late now.

“Is that so?” he purrs, “the sounds I heard could be the wails of the souls eternally trapped in damnation…however a real summoning ritual would be much…much…different.”

With a snap of the fingers, the light leaves the room even though it’s the middle of the day and plunges the place into an unnatural darkness only broken by an acid-green glow from Loki’s hands. What? Is he for real?? A pattern appears on the floor as he motions with a sweep for you to stay still, and you do because you’re much too nervous to step on the glowing runes. Suddenly you recall how Thor once talked about Hela, the goddess of death, being their sister. Tony’s gonna kill me.

“You mortals have always been obsessed with death. With what lies beyond life,” the god hisses into your ear, raising the hairs on your body, “You do not fathom the true power of necromancy.” Deep-purple, translucent blobs are rising from the floor. “A few have been close to harness it but we, your gods, know the secrets.” Each blob is a skull that grins at you with empty eye sockets and clicking jaws and you know Loki has lost his mind and gone back to his old ways again. “The living do not control the dead…the dead tolerates the mortals.”

Step by step, you back away from the menacing god and the skeletons reaching for you with the boney hands. Poisonous colours flicker like demonic fire meant to melt the flesh from your bones, the heat already too much. But Loki advanced. Tall. Powerful. Dangerous.

“No…” It’s just a whimper leaving your lips. “Y-you can’t…you’re not a necro-“

“Necromancer? Perhaps not,” he grins menacingly, “but do not forget who my sister is or the purpose I had when I first came to this measly, little planet.”

There’s a gleam in his eyes you’ve never seen before in real life…but now it’s clear. The footage from Stuttgard. The madness is the same and it’s a craze that cannot be reasoned with, forcing you to turn to flee…right into Loki’s open arms. Thrashing in gut-freezing panic, your heart threatens to stop as his grip tightens around you and every thought in your mind is crushed with the exception of one: I just wanted him to make him happy.

Laughter withers, overgrown by soft murmurs – your name, apologies – and the embrace is no longer aggressively possessive but rather a gentle rocking interspersed by soothing strokes. Gone is the darkness along with the unnatural fire and the skeletons that had seemed to lust for your soul or…or…

“Shhh, my dove, shhh,” Loki kisses the words against the top of your head, “I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you so, please forgive me.” He’s cradling you, sat on the floor with you in his lap. “I beg, do not cry…I love your smile and your voice…I love your wits and companionship…please forgive me.”

The words tremble, causing your to quiet down with surprise at the realization that you’ve never heard him sound so broken before. This is not a trick. No, Loki apparently does care deeply about your wellbeing, that he can see the error in his ways, and the normally sharp-tongued god is searching for a way to say that…

“With my life I will protect you and shield you from harm…I love you.”

What? The world stops along with your heart and breathing. Too afraid to believe it’s true, you force yourself to find his gaze and be swept into the whirl of pain, fear, hope, truth. Love. Nose to nose, forehead to forehead, his sincerity permeates the air you breath and seeps into your lungs, diffuses into your body to change away every lingering grain from the living nightmare he’d conjured, leaving behind a warmth that stands in contrast to the cool chest you’re pressed against. Reaching for his jaw with a trembling hand, you act without thinking and kiss him. Slow at first and so light that lips barely meet, but then you feel the response shudder his body and the press deepens to allow Loki’s tongue taste the seem before delving past your lips. Tasting. Exploring.

Allowing himself to accept reality, the god effortlessly repositions you to straddle his legs stretched out on the floor and he allows you to set the pace, to push him into a lying position free for you to admire while your hands create ripples of goosebumps and your lips swallow the softest of sighs.

Loki’s eyes are closed when you glance away for the briefest moment. “Hold the thought.”

A quick maneuver, a few steps, and the oven’s clock beeps just as you grab the mitt to pull out the finished pastries to cool. Oh! Cool hands skirt your waist, already skimming underneath the shirt.

“Do…am I forgiven?” Loki whispers in your ear and you can’t help but roll your eyes a bit because isn’t it obvious?

Letting him wait, you finish securing the kitchen from any mishaps in case you get distracted (while trying to stay as close to Loki as possible so he can feel your body against his). When you finally do turn to face him, his eyes are dark with need, but brows pinched with insecurity.

“You still need to prove just how sorry you are, my love.”

Your words are absorbed slow enough to see the stages he passes through before he pulls you close and steels your breath away with his lips, tongue, hands, and…oh god.

[carafinn]

won’t be soon before long

victuuri fairytale AU inspired by a tumblr post, ft. georgi who cannot get a break

It’s a beautiful summer morning, and Georgi’s seated on a large frond in the middle of the magical swamp in his backyard, trying his best to brood dramatically about his beloved Anya despite being silhouetted against a lovely magical forest full of cheerful woodlands creatures rather than the preferred bitterly cold wintery day or a cliff overlooking a tragically fleeting sunset.

“Help!” comes a man’s cry.

Georgi sighs. Dramatically.

It’s not the first time a traveller has wandered into his residence and strayed into his swamp; this is precisely why he’s erected multiple signage around the area to deter people from entering (and disrupting his very precious, very sacred brooding sessions): “DO NOT ENTER” “DANGER KEEP OUT” “WITCH NECROMANCER EXTREMELY DANGEROUS SOUL-SUCKING DEMON CREATURE OF THE DARK’S RESIDENCE” “MILKMAN TO LEAVE MILK UNDERNEATH POPPY PLANT THANK YOU”

Georgi rows himself to the source of the noise with a discarded tree branch and sees a young, silver-haired guy struggling to keep afloat. The man, upon spotting Georgi, immediately reaches his hands out to grab hold of Georgi’s tree branch to keep himself afloat. There’s a moment of silence as the two men tussle for ownership of the branch; Georgi loses his balance and almost falls off the frond.

“Who are you, and how dare you trespass upon my residence,” Georgi demands in his most impressive voice. Next to him, the tiny hatchling perched on his left shoulder lets out a particularly menacing chirrp. Smoke billows out ominously from Georgi’s cottage through the chimney, accompanied by the refreshing scent of freshly baked honeysuckle pie.

“I’m sorry,” begged the man. “I am Viktor Nikiforov, and I am the Royal Prince. My dad, the king, wanted to marry me off to some princess, but I didn’t want to, so I ran away into the forest and got lost.”

A royal scandal? A lost love, never meant to be? Now that’s the tragic backstory Georgi’s always dreamed of. He nods, and Viktor takes it as a sign to continue.

“- and then I was walking along a random path and I didn’t realise where I was going and I caught sight of a beautiful face in the swamp and was so enraptured by his beauty, I walked straight into the pond –”

The halfwit got distracted by his own reflection in the swamp. Everyday Georgi finds new things to be depressed about.

Georgi decides that it’s the last straw; if he’s is to deter other travellers from bumbling into his residence, he’s going to have to set his foot down and punish these wrongdoers, damnit.

“I’ll save you,” Georgi tells Viktor grimly, “In return for your most prized possession.”

Viktor considers the statement for a second. “Seems fair. What do you want?”

Georgi blinks, surprised. Clearly he hadn’t thought through it carefully. “Uh, how much do you have with you now?”

“I’ve, like, three bronze coins,” Viktor confesses. “And an old creaky violin.”

That won’t do. “Any other prized possessions?”

“I’ve a secret family recipe for a blueberry tart that’s famous in certain knitting circles,” Viktor offers.

Tempting, but… “Anything else?”

“I could offer you my virgini-”

“YOUR FIRSTBORN,” Georgi says, loudly. “YOU WILL GIVE ME YOUR FIRSTBORN CHILD.”

“Sure, but how can you make sure I won't lie and run away?” Viktor frowns, concerned.

“We’ll enter a magically binding agreement,” Georgi decrees grandly, pulling out his wand with his free hand and gesturing to the air around them. “You will pass me your firstborn on the pain of death. Until you do, you’re not allowed to leave this forest.”

“Deal!”

A spark of magic flies out from Georgi’s wand, and then fizzes away; now Viktor will have no choice but to obey him.

“By the way,” Viktor says, “Were you trying to brood while sitting on a piece of banana leaf? That’s like, so uncool.”

Georgi lets go of the tree branch.

   Days turn into weeks turn into months, and Viktor still hasn’t found a better half to breed a spawn with.

Georgi realises, with a rising wave of panic, that being trapped in the forest as a means of escaping his royal arranged marriage might have been Viktor’s goal all along.

Desperate times beget desperate measures. If Viktor’s not going to actively try to do something about the state of his singlehood, then Georgi is going to intervene.

Georgi’s concept of romance has, thus far, involved a lot of one-sided pining, angst-ridden poetry, and inconsolable weeping.

Trying to get Viktor a partner yields pretty much the same teary results.

“Viktor, look outside! It’s Mila Babicheva passing by with her dad!” Georgi would say, peeking through a gap in the fence surrounding his backyard. Everyone knew Mila, even magical spirits like Georgi who lived in the middle of a forest, for her beauty was truly legendary. “Quick, run out before it’s too late!”

“Not interested,” Viktor would singsong, from his half-reclined position on Georgi’s favourite frond in the middle of the swamp, where he is playing his violin and sipping cranberry juice. “Be a lamb and refill the juice for me, won’t you?”

  “Viktor, an exquisite looking young man’s sleeping underneath the toadstool outside with his equally exquisite husky! Didn’t you say that you like dogs?”

“Only fat, woolly ones, Georgi! Try harder!”

  “Viktor, look at that beautiful golden-haired sexy beast of a man who’s drowning in the swamp! Naked. Totally naked. You have to save him!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Georgi, it’s low tide today. The water level’s barely at my ankles.”

  Georgi’s almost resigned to living the rest of his life in Viktor’s company. At this point, because there is clearly no god, Georgi’s pretty sure that he’s the one being punished.

This goes on until Viktor comes running into the cottage one day in the midst of Georgi’s baking session, butt-naked and dripping wet.

“Georgi, Georgi, I found the man of my dreams,” Viktor breathes.

“What the hell are you doing here, get out of the house and get together with him!” Georgi orders shrilly, dropping the spatula in his hands in favour of jabbing a finger towards the general direction of the door. “Do so at once!”

To his horror, Viktor burst into tears.

“I tried to,” Viktor says. “I was soaking in one of the hot springs outside and I saw – I saw this gorgeous man, playing his flute to woodland creatures and – and he’s so perfect, Georgi, so perfect – and I just – I didn’t think – and I ran out of the water and started to chase after him.”

“You… chased after him,” Georgi says faintly, after a moment of silence. “Naked.”

“He ran away from me,” Viktor wails, as if that he hadn’t expected that to be the logical conclusion of the story. “I will never find true love again. Never." He trudges into his bedroom – his bedroom, in Georgi’s house – and leaves a trail of sad-looking muddy footprints on the floor. Within a few minutes, the house is filled with the sound of weepy violin music.

And people think Georgi is dramatic. Georgi lets out a long-suffering sigh, and goes to take the mop from underneath the kitchen sink. 

  In order to ensure that Viktor succeeds in wooing the mysterious flute man, Georgi decides to tap on his witchcraft to gather information about him. Know thy enemy, and so on.

The man’s name is Katsuki Yuuri. He’s the ex-apprentice of one of the most famous musicians in the country, Celestino. He wanders into the forest every other day of the week and plays some sad drippy flute music to woodland creatures, for reasons that largely elude Georgi. He’s soft-spoken, owns a pet dog , and has the sort of fashion sense that makes Georgi wants to scream in pain and anguish.

The woodlands creatures adore him.

Most humans don’t make it out of magical forests alive; Yuuri wanders in and out of the place, blissfully ignorant of the fact, like it’s his own backyard.

Viktor, traumatised from his disastrous encounter with Yuuri, has taken to pining after Yuuri from afar instead.

“I mean, it’s not pathetic at all,” Georgi says in a monotone, because romance is dead. Romance is dead because Viktor Nikiforov killed it. “You’ve only been pining after him for six months.”

“Oh, shut up,” Viktor snaps from his hiding place behind a large magical toadstool.

Katsuki Yuuri is sitting serenely by the river bank, playing his flute. Clearly, Viktor is not the only besotted creature here – as he sits down, the sunflowers within a ten metre radius immediately unfurl to full bloom and turn to face him, basking him in a faint, yellow, ethereal glow. A baby owlet descends shyly upon Yuuri’s shoulders, and is soon joined by what seems to be its entire extended furry family. Two grizzly bears are perched docilely on a large tree trunk, curled up snugly together and pretty as a picture, as if they hadn’t been trying to claw each other’s eyes out fighting over a small rodent just moments ago.

Viktor remains immobile behind the toadstool for the next hour, and then visibly wilts as Yuuri packs up and disappears into the forest.

“Definitely not pathetic,” Georgi repeats himself. The whole pining-after-someone-from-afar routine had been fine when he was the one doing it; Georgi mopes tastefully. Very tastefully. Viktor’s sickening moping, on the other hand, just involves a lot of snivelling, hiding behind toadstools, and binge-eating on pies.

The foolish man is self-deluded enough to insist, “our child will be beautiful and adorable and musical.”

“And imaginary,” Georgi murmurs darkly. Time to take matters into his own hands; he will get hold of Viktor’s firstborn.

  The next time Yuuri comes to the forest, Georgi strikes. He summons a gust of wind that lifts Yuuri up from his place beside the river bank, above a few magnolia bushes, across a large willow tree – almost snaring the boy’s pants in the branches in the process – and dumps him in the middle of Georgi’s swamp.

In the middle of Georgi’s swamp where, conveniently, Viktor is practicing his morning yoga on his frond (fully clothed; Georgi had made sure of that before carrying out his evil ploy.)

Viktor turns his head towards the source of the noise in alarm, and visibly pales to realise that it’s Yuuri.

“Go get him,” Georgi whispers furiously under his breath, crouched behind his window in the cottage. He’s not proud of his hare-brained ploy, he really isn’t, but because the alternative is spending the rest of eternity with Viktor Nikiforov, Georgi can’t even bring himself to feel ashamed.

Georgi watches as Viktor gets over his shock and tries, valiantly, to manoeuvre his frond towards Yuuri’s general direction. He makes it about three yards before wobbling dangerously and then promptly falls off the leaf into the swamp.

Georgi is left to gape in horror as the next sequence of events unfolds in slow motion.

Katsuki Yuuri freezes for a moment, before he gathers himself and starts to swim – no, bulldoze – towards Viktor with a few strong strokes, just in time to catch the other man who, overcome by shock, has fainted, face-down, into the muddy waters. He wraps one (beautiful, toned) arm around Viktor and, with the remaining (beautiful, toned) arm, paddles his way to shore within five seconds, with the strength and grace of a motherfucking mermaid.

“Please wake up, wake up!” Georgi hears Yuuri say as he shakes Viktor’s shoulders. Viktor coughs, makes a revolting choked sound reminiscent of a badly constipated troll, and falls limply back onto the ground.

Georgi runs towards the two men and barely makes it in time to watch, agog, as Yuuri takes a deep breath, shuts his eye, and kisses Viktor.

A few unbearable seconds pass as Viktor lets out another series of cough and opens his eyes.

“Am I dead?” Viktor murmurs, peering at Yuuri through his long, long lashes. “Is this why you’re here?”

“It’s okay.” Yuuri lets out a shaky laugh. “You’re okay now.”

Georgi doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing.

  As it turns out, Viktor’s disappearance had triggered off a nation-wide search for their beloved crown prince, who, as rumour had it, seemed to have vanished overnight into the enchanted forest. The reason why Yuuri had taken to venturing into the woods to play his instrument was, in fact, an attempt at seeking Viktor out, as if the latter were some shy, fragile woodland creature to be lured out with sad drippy flute music.

“But you ran away from me,” Viktor says, because he is incapable of getting over the insult. “That time, when I met you at the hot spring.”

Yuuri looks at Viktor in a way that makes his opinion of dubious men who leap out of hot springs to chase after unsuspecting strangers, while being naked, abundantly clear.

“Fine, fine, fair enough,” Viktor concedes. “What did the king promise for my return?”

"Five hundred thousand pounds and a lifetime supply of pork cutlet bowls. But," Yuuri blushes deeply, “that’s not why I’m here, though!”

“Oh, Yuuri –”

“I’ve always,” Yuuri says, blushes even deeper, and looks down demurely at his clenched fist. “Ever since I was a kid – when I saw you play the violin at the royal wedding –”

Viktor takes Yuuri’s hands into his own. “I’m glad you found me, in the end.”

“Yes, yes, very touching,” Georgi interrupts. “Now, Viktor, if you’d remember your promise to me –”

Viktor lets out a soft sigh. “But I can’t go back to the country. The king will just try to marry me off again.”

“We could stay here, in the woods, together,” Yuuri exhales. “Forever.”

Wait, what?

“You’re right,” Viktor gushes. “I like it here. And the cottage is big enough for one more person.”

“No,” Georgi whispers faintly. “No, no it isn’t –”

“That’s it, then,” Yuuri says with a watery smile, completely oblivious as to the way Georgi is clutching onto the tabletop to prevent himself from passing out. “I still can’t believe this is happening.”

“And when we have children,” Viktor says, eyes sparkling with pure unadulterated joy, “Georgi can be the godfather and the nanny.”

Georgi finally passes out. 

    bonus:

 because georgi's life is one cosmic joke, their firstborn turns out to be yuri fucking plisetsky, which further cements georgi's belief that his life is one doomed to eternal hell. despite all appearances, however, yuri is actually fond of godpa georgi and conveys this by spending a large part of his infancy flinging his booger at him. at the age of three, influenced by his parents' musicality, yuri also picks up a musical instrument; yuri chooses neither the violin nor the flute, and settles for a banjo instead, just to be fucking contrary. they hold regular concerts for the woodland creatures, where georgi acts as the emcee.