#prey fic

[velvet-paradox]

Taken (Part Two)

Summary: Things definitely aren't going as planned and you find out there IS something stalking the woods, will it leave you or take you out?

Length: Long

Warnings: NSFW, 18+ ONLY, reader discretion is advised, established relationship, oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v, mentions of death, mention of animal death, mentions of blood, animal death, smut, strong language, explicit content, pregnancy talk, kidnapping.

Tagging: @synnersaint @da-zais @maskedforareason @am-1983 @erensbrow @mynameisabsinthe @capondi

ENJOY!!!

Taabe slotted his fingers between your own at the apex of your thighs, resting them against your spread legs. His eyes were closed, clouded in bliss while his mouth worked you over. 

You gasped his name and bucked your hips, only a few others had gotten pussy clearance level like Taabe and he was the only one to do her justice. He was quick to figure you out two years ago, he had a good memory and picked up on cues, even if they were just barely visible to remind himself the next him he was granted permission to taste you.

You arched and wiggled around on the bed. 

"I know petal, I know. Feels good though, doesn't it? Having my tongue on you... mmm, best dessert ever." Your husband, drunk on you already, half moaned against your thigh. He snuck a quick bite of the meat but soothed it with a soft kiss. 

He had a way to make you forget, to clear your mind and wipe the slate clean. You felt him watching you as you ate outside, enjoying the quiet before heading back to the hustle of the city in a few days. Vacations never long enough to thoroughly enjoy, let alone with something preying on animals out here added to the plate. At least if it's an animal or some sick sinister poacher, you two were warm and safe in your cabin.

Taabe moaned against your cunt, poking and proving his tongue with short, pointed licks to your leaking entrance.

He rolled you over at some point, your bodies becoming one tangled, sweating, moaning mess. You cried into the pillows when you felt the blunt head of his cock rub wetly between your folds, the crown of it catching on your entrance. 

You could feel him chuckled when you lifted your rear to hurry and get him inside you. He titled his hips a bit to give him the leverage he need and pushed all the way in, taking his time to bottom out.

"Fuck yes." The wispy ends of his long hair danced over your shoulders.

"Fill me up so good." You held onto the sheets, gathering them up in your hands.

"Mmmm I know petal, you take it like a real champ," Taabe leaned down and kissed the back of your head as he started to move his hips. "You like that don't you, baby? having me work you open for me. Still so fucking wet and skin fucking tight around me."

"Yes. Yes I love it."

Taabe chuckled again, pushing himself up to his elbows and worked himself against you, your slick coating his cock, slipping in and out at a breath punching pace.

"Fucks sake... if I didn't fuck a baby into you last time I sure am tonight!"

You squirmed and mewled for him, one hand leaving the hold on the covers to grab at his bare and thick thigh, nails digging into the meat of his cheek. He praised you, sneaking a hand underneath you to cup your mound, to press and circle your clit to get you off.

"Oh fuck, fuck me just like that. Just like that."

" 'm so fucking deep in your pussy right now, incredible."

You hung your head and tried your best to hold onto the engorging coil in your belly, fire stoked and played with by your thrust husband. "Not gonna' last baby, please. Make me cum, need to cum."

"Oh I know baby, I know. You're doing so fucking well, just hold on a little bit longer. Can you do that for me, petal? Wanna' cum together, I'll fuck you through it."

Taabe was out of breath, panting your name like it was the only thing he knew how to say. You smiled, blissed the fuck out and riding the tidal wave of pleasure and desire. The want to please him and yourself, to cum together. Taabe liked to mention how cock drunk you'd get, now here he was drunk and slurring from your cunt.

....

As if your husband knew what lay ahead, holding your head and nuzzling his smooth face against your own did you hear the foreshadowing words; "Keep an eye out for bears."

You wanted to return the favor as Taabe had done for you that morning, going down to the lake bed wasn't off limits or an unfamiliar route. You wanted to bring him a few rocks to add to your collection back home. You weren't expecting to see two cubs playing and rolling around across the way, so easily. Granted , yes, you were out in the elements, in their surroundings and home of the forest but, every other time you and/or his family had come up to the cabin, you had only seen footprints of bears, not actual, big fuzzy creatures. You ducked and flattened your chest and belly to the grass on your side, the rushing current deterring any other sound.

Fuck.

The two cubs were more preoccupied with tussling amongst themselves then with you, that tipped the scales in your favor but you weren't sure and couldn't see where their mother was. That made you nervous and as much as you willed yourself not to think and worry a fucking hole into the situation about it to cause your heartrate to jump, you couldn't help it.

You inched your way from the tumbling cubs, one pounced on the others' back, chomping lightly on the thick skin of their siblings neck with a cute but terrifying growl.

There was a clicking, almost rattle like behind you. Yet there was nothing there when you stole a chance to look. You quietly rolled along the bank, dirt and grass covering your city-girl scent the longer you and your husband stayed out in the wilderness. An added bonus, you thought, but not good enough.

The next unforeseen roll in the had you yelping as you pinched your back on a storm thrown branch. The little bears stopped in their play, beady eyes searching for the disruption. You held your breath.

Too late.

The loud sniffing of the mama bear thankfully came from the other side of the lake, but still way too close for any inkling of comfort. You pressed your face into the dirt. Shitshitshitshit.

It wasn't enough. You took a peek and unfortunately caught the eye of the giant bear, she stood up on her hind legs and roared. You'd been spotted. It was far too late and well overdue to try and yell and clack the rocks you'd found together to frighten her away. Your heart lurched into your throat. She roared again and wobbled a bit into the rushing water.

You jerked at the burly sight, another unfortunate event which made her snuffle the air again. That strange clicking clicked behind you and instead of looking for its' source you carefully pulled the long, flat grass and slipped into the water. Maybe, just maybe if you kept a low profile you could use the current to your advantage and coast along with it. If you could just cover your mouth, these waters were jagged like teeth from the rocks that had tumbled down. It would shred your clothes and your body, bears can smell blood...

Mama bear dropped down onto all fours then, another roar and gnashing of her teeth echoed as a few rocks tumbled into the water behind you. Knowing to never turn your back on a beast, let alone one in the absolute wild, you took your chance and hopped up in the middle of the lake and bolted. Your panicked splashing on two legs was drowned out by her four.

You didn't scream. You didn't dare scream even though every joint in your body willed you to. Even when you heard that clicking sound.

There was a well built beaver dam just ahead, the mama bear close behind and you felt the rush of her air and speed and chose to dive under the current. Catching the hole the (thankfully!) plump beaver had built you pulled yourself through the thick lake mud, coating your body and clothing. The bear rushed up to the dam, a harsh wave in her flurry doused you with water as you covered your mouth, terrified of the gnashing teeth and razor sharp claws.

....

Your clothes were ruined, your body still reeling and shaking from the encounter of a fucking lifetime. It was so big, so ravenous. Your socks were squishy and the evening air made you shiver as you held yourself and made it back to the cabin.

Without a care in the world you watched Taabe hum to himself in the doorway of the kitchen, moving a light tune coming from an old radio that until now, you were certain was for decoration only.

The smell of sautéed onions filled your noise, better than the dirt and grim from the lake bed.

Your steps were soggy.

Taabe moved from one side of the kitchen to the other, only stopping with a genuine smile when he caught sight of you. But that quickly changed and he was rushing towards you, you couldn't hear what he was saying but his facial expressions were frantic as he shook you.

"Hey hey! petal, what's wrong? what happened?"

You came to and stared at your husband, he cupped your face.

"It's not... not safe out there."

"What? what happened? jeez, you're fucking soaked! let's get you out of these clothes before you get sick." Taabe helped you into the bathroom, the two of you just barely fit as he sat you down on the toilet and he helped take off your socks and shoes.

You stood under the water, watching the dirt glide down the drain. You wanted to scrub the junk from under your nails, images of what happened or could have happened by the lake flashed behind your eyes every time you shut your eyes.

Fur. Fangs. Claws. Blood.

"Here," your husband softly said with a steaming mug of tea, sitting you down on the couch, wrapped in an oversize hoodie and spare sweats. "Do you feel better?"

"Better would be an understatement," you chuckled without humor. "We should go."

"Why? did you run into someone out there?"

"No. Not exactly," you took a hot sip and let it warm through you before turning to look at him next to you, concern on laden on his eyes and mouth. "There's something out there, Taabe."

"What did you see?"

You took a shaky breath and another sip before explaining. 

"... it was massive, bigger than the mama bear and twice, no... ten times as ferocious! it was like I could only make out half of its' frame, like it was shrouded with something. It made this terrible clicking sound and killed that bear, right next to me in the lake. Swiped it right open. Blood went everywhere, it covered its' head with it," you recalled with a shiver, seeing something so grisly up close made your mouth water. "I was lucky it was preoccupied so I could get out of that dam and coast down stream."

Taabe wiped his mouth.

"It wasn't from here... or maybe it was but-- it's face..."

Taabe looked at you then, taking the warm mug from your hands. "What about it?"

"It was like..." you brought up both hands and pinched them together. "Like pincers or mandibles. Not like--"

"Mandibles" Taabe took a long drink of your tea and set it down on the coffee table. "Yautja."

"What?"

"Yautja. The elders used to tell us stories about them, warned us about them, tried to frighten us before bed so we'd come home on time, in fear of getting caught in one of their nets. They're hunters, predators," Taabe gave you a curious look as he spoke. "You weren't a threat to it."

"What does that mean?"

"That's why you were able to escape it. They're supposed to have these helmets that can sus out the nearest threat, it only challenges something the deem worthy of a fight. To the death. Thankfully then, the bear was revved up because of her cubs being close to you, it attacked her and not you."

"Do you think it would follow me then, follow me here!" you jumped up and ran to the door and locked it, even though it was already locked up tight. 

"No petal, you weren't a threat. It wouldn't track you unless you meant harm to it." Taabe was after you, his warm hands on your shoulders. "You're safe now. But you're right, if that Yautja is out there we should leave."

"Taabe, I'm scared."

"I know, petal. Lucky for you, you have an incredibly brave and capable husband." He chuckled at your guff of approval, hugging him tightly when he turned you around.

He was right but you were still nervous about that thing outside, the name of it circling your head like tiny, cartoon birds.

Yautja.

....

You couldn't sleep. Quick flash images of that bipedal creature, with it's claws and working jaw, drinking blood, no doubt the creature that took down those buffalo. Took trophies. That unexplainable sound, the clicking.

You sighed and got out of bed, mindful of a soundly sleeping Taabe beside you. He snorted when you placed the hand that was on your hip, to the mattress and went to the window.

Wind blew through the trees, the moon shone brightly between the gaps in the leaves. You hoped that it didn't follow you, that whatever heat signature you'd left wasn't enough for it to catch on to your heat.

"What're doin'?"

You looked over your shoulder, no matter the season Taabe was one to sleep shirtless, and rubbed his jaw on his shoulder.

"Can't sleep."

You just caught a small smile on his face. "Thought so. Want me to eat you out again?"

You chuckled. "Really?"

"Yes really," he preened in the darkness. "You know I'll do it just for fun."

"You're insatiable."

"Isn't that why you married me?" He joked and patted your empty side of the bed.

"No," you left the window and climbed back into bed, wrapping your limbs around him. "I married you for your cock, not your mouth."

"Yeah right." Taabe laughed and kissed you. "You're a terrible liar."

Your husband was right, you weren't any good at fibbing or white lies, even omissions made you sick and you had an eager need to confess when you did. Taabe had you out of your mind, nothing of what happened at the lake made any coherent sense as he spread your legs apart, his mouth seeking out any flesh he could get his lips and blunt ends of his teeth on once he got those sweatpants off. 

Nipping the chunky flesh of your inner thigh, groping the outsides of them as he navigated his tongue between your folds. Taking his time to capture your inner labia between his lips, making you arch and reveal that part of yourself.

"Baby, you read me like a book..."

Taabe nodded against you, hooking his arms and hands around your hips, an attempt to slow your wriggling. Your labored breathing like music to his ears, you could tell he couldn't help himself and nor you as he left your pussy wanting more, rolling you onto your side, his hand beneath your shirt as the other pulled down his own pants and rutted against you. Slipping hotly between your wetness, gathering what wetness he could before plunging himself deep in one fluid, rocking motion. You mewled and bit at the sheets.

....

It's noticeable how quiet the woods are, no chirping, nothing. You hoisted your bag over your shoulder, following your husband down the path to your car, to sanctuary. A leak but safe air hung around as you walked, noting the empty headed skulls of animals laid at your feet, bloody pools that stunk. Even small creatures were considered a threat apparently.

Taabe cut down a few wiry vines and bushes along the way, making way for your feet. You trudged behind him then stopped when that clicking sounded again. You stopped and looked around. Nothing in sight, you kept on until a single, thick metal arrow nearly clipped your ear.

You ducked and grabbed for your partner.

His wild eyes told you to be silent, a single finger to his lips as he crept a bit further, telling you to stay put.

Peering around, another arrow shot out, just beside you into a fallen log. You held your breath.

The clicking sound was deafening, covering your ears after tapping where Taabe had slipped through your fingers. You called his name as another arrow came flying through the air, ducking down as you had by the lake you made out the creature. The monster. The Yautja. Sizable and menacing it sniffed around, its' bone helmet seeked you both out behind the brush.

Taabe circled back and attempted a headlock, your husband was big but not big enough to engross the predator. Taabe landed on his back with a grunt, fishing for his weapons when you clapped, trying to get its' attention. It snarled and started towards you in heavy, thick strides. 

"Petal! iNo!"

The scary creature chased you down the hill, even when you tumbled and rolled, kicking up dirt and debris. Vines roots roots tore your sleeves as you landed in a small clearing. You caught your breath and ran, zig zagging through trunks and brush untii you thought you were out of reach.

You tucked and rolled behind a thick fallen log, catching what you could for breath. Taabe threw his hatchet towards it, landing into the trunk with a CHUNK.

The air was stifling, a fog of heaviness leaves you panting for breath, hidden behind the log. Another arrow hit the trunk of the tree in front of you, scrambling back you knock your head against the barrier. Tears have long spilled from your eyes. You're exhausted. You're desperate. The safety of your car miles and miles away by now seemed hopeless. You'd die out here.

You didn't dare look behind you, the sounds of Taabe grunting and fighting, whooping when he'd made a direct hit. You did steal a glance when it grew quiet.

Peering just over the log you watched the alien beast turn in circles, Taabe wasn't in your line of sight but you knew he was around. The creature made that clicking sound again, with a rush of leaves Taabe came running full speed, an attempt to spear the thing with its' own arrow your husband had plucked at some point.

Taabe broke through its' skin, it gave out a terrible screech as Taabe used the talon sharp edge to slice at its' legs. He came quickly to your side of the tree, hiding behind the opposite side, out of breath and waiting.

The alien stomped and roared. Taabe hopped over the log to you, a few scratches slashed his face and hands, you'd have to disinfect them with that little emergency kit Naru had given you for Christmas last year.

"This is as far as I go. No more." Taabe grabbed your hand, bloody and covered with muck, he gave it a squeeze. He gripped the hilt of his hatchet with the other. "This is it."

"What? no no no don't say that."

"It thinks I am the threat; not you."

No. This was wrong. Taabe wasn't supposed to use those words unless he meant them, and surely he didn't mean them now. He'd be willing to do just about anything for the comfort and safety of hiss family and friends, you were certainly more than that. He couldn't mean them. He just couldn't!

"No! We're supposed to do all things together, Taabe."

"And we are, petal."

"I don't want you to--"

"You can't go where I'm going," he cupped your face, squishing your cheeks like he'd always done, assurance that you weren't able to say anything further. His glassy brown eyes told you more than his voice ever could as he pressed his forehead to yours. "Not yet."

"Taabe!"

"Take care of our family." His kiss was feverish and on the verge of being sloppy. It tasted salty. "I love you petal."

"No Taabe wait!"

He didn't.

He let out a war cry and went to fight another round. Only this time you scrambled up after him. You took out your blade and made your way to help but... the predator was choking Taabe with both claws, hefting him up into the air. Your husband kicked and scratched at the gnarled hands, his hair shaking from side to side.

You screamed his name and they both turned to you. The alien snarled and moved out of the way when you took aim and chucked your blade at it, it stuck into the meat of its' thigh.

Taabe held out his hand for you to stay put. You aren't the threat...

As the creature looked at you, he gave Taabe a hard shake by the neck and tossed him like a used tissue, Taabe's head hit a tree funny and made a sickening sound. The laid limp and still face first in the dirt. 

Your scream was shrill and terrible.

Through your hysterics and shock you fell to the ground, a mechanical hiss sounded behind you. Large footfalls crunched the branches and debris on the ground, the Yautja Taabe mentioned, bent on to its' haunches and looked over your husbands' body.

Its' large clawed hand cupped the back of his head and you screamed.

"No! you leave him whole," the Yautja, without it's bone-like mask tilted its' head to you. You swallowed and got your bearings, what was left of your nerves and at this point without your husband, you had nothing to lose. Its' features completely foreign with or without the armor. And maybe it would kill you too. "He needs to be whole."

The beast looked down at Taabe, longer than what was comfortable. You wiped your face and eyes.

"You should be proud to have a warrior for a mate, he was a worthy opponent."

You felt your knees weaken at the low timbre and sound of this alien creature speaking to you. In English and not some garbled space language.

"You... Y-you can talk."

It looked at you and took its' hand off your husbands' skull. "Of course."

"And you understand..."

It nodded.

"Fuck you," you shook out and stumbled to your feet, kicking up some dirt and leaves as you marched up to it. "Fuck you! You took my partner you big fuck," you pushed his scaly flesh but he didn't even move, just gave you a curious look. "You-- he was my husband! My Taabe and you just... fuck you."

"Apologies little one, just know he will make a fine-"

"He won't make a 'fine' anything! If you need a fucking trophy take this instead," you spat on shoulder, again he didn't make a move as you crouched down, stroking Taabe's fine hair. You'd never feel them between your fingers again, to help wash and condition it in your shower back home. Home seemed so far away. You sniffled and blinked the tears that slipped out, splotching on the ground as you dug in Taabe's back pocket, fishing out his keepsake.

You held it to your chest and rolled it over one final time in your hand. "Here. This is Taabe's trophy, he earned it on his first hunt with his father."

The alien took the leather wrapped antler, it looked puny in his palm, the nail of his thumb was damn near twice the size. He sniffed it and his mandibles twitched, they looked insanely sharp and just as menacing as he did when he stood at its' full height. To your surprise he gave it back to you.

"You keep it."

"Why? Taabe said you guys are head hunters, collect trophies."

"We do," he stood, slowly and placed his mask he was clutching with his other claw, back on, tubular almost dreads swaying over his shoulder. "As I said; your mate was worthy. Which means so are you."

"Huh?"

"You'll make a better trophy, I can put you on display for my brothers and sisters."

"What? No. I'd rather you kill me."

"That can be arranged."

Without so much as another peep the alien grabbed you by the collar of your shirt, hoisting you over his shoulder as if you weighed nothing. Your piercing screams and flailing didn't slow the alien down, with a stead pace he carried you into the forest, away from Taabe, away from your life, your world. 

"Put me down! No no no," you punched his shoulder and cried, your arms aching to stay with your husband, to hold him. "Taabe!"

The alien grunted out something in another language and punched what looked to be coordinates onto his arm that held you.

"Taabe..."

Tears streamed down your face and your palm felt hot, gripping the bound antler tighter as he carried you away. Through blurry vision and sobs for your partner, you swore you saw him move. Maybe lifted his head a little, one arm out stretched to you on the forest floor.

But you couldn't be sure.

[teal-fiend]

you get eaten by a stranger. You barely are able to catch a glimpse of their face before you're gulped down and deposited in the stomach.

You were in public before, a park that you'd been to many times. So when your predator starts moving, and the stomach starts to become more active, stimulated by the walking, you can imagine in your minds eye where they have gone in the park.

They're heading to the edge, now you feel the footsteps hitting concrete as they go along the sidewalk.

you yell for help; there must be other people around who can help you. Your pred doesn't even bother trying to silence you, or acknowledge your protests at all.

You're still following along where you imagine they are, until they stop, leaving you hanging motionlessly for the first time. Its kind of like being in a hammock, but cramped, and the hammock is trying to digest you.

You hear a click, and the opening of a car door. As the pred gets in, you become much more cramped, squished by their legs and torso, and the car. And their stomach keeps squeezing you, trying to make you smaller.

Now the car is moving and you have no idea where you are. You are sloshed back and forth by the momentum of the vehicle or what could be an hour or more.

Eventually it slows down, the car parks. For the first time the pred gives you a little pat before getting out of the car.

They're moving up some stairs. You can feel and hear their heartbeat at the exertion. And you get thrown back and forth with each step.

You hear a door open. And a sigh. You're in a house, you assume. Or an apartment? It could be anywhere, you dont even know if you're still in the same city.

You are likely in a strangers home, and in their gut. You're going to be digested far away from any place you are familiar with. No one will know where you went. And if someone saw this pred with their full belly, they'd have no idea who the meal was.

Your world shifts, the pred has laid down. You hear a muffled rustling of sheets and there is extra weight over you. The pred is tucked into bed, and its not even night time. A mid-day rest, as they prepare to digest you fully.

You dont want to accept this. Your efforts to escape have been useless so far. But you try to do your best. You yell at them, to get their attention. You kick at their stomach, which is hard because of how restricted you are.

You feel the pred roll onto their back, letting you wriggle uselessly ontop of them. You feel silly doing it, seeing as how little an effect it has.

Then, you feel them tense their belly muscles slightly, and there is a loud bubbly gurgle. You feel the pred thump on you lightly. You figet in response, doing your best to irritate them further. But all you get is a loud burp from above, before you feel the pred relax again.

you hear their voice for the first time as they excuse themselves. But after that, they have nothing more to say.

You wonder what the room looks like. And what the pred looks like. You can barely remember.

You wonder what you would look like from the outside. A gurgling bulge in a stranger's abdomen. An anonymous meal. The pred had probably seen that many times. If they looked in a mirror later, they'd be able to see you. Well not you, the pred would only see their own stomach, but you would be inside it

[msgexymunson]

One Slow Blink Part 2

Second part right here due to Tumblr restrictions

Description: As a nurse, you want to help people, as many as you can. But, with the insane things that have been going on in Hawkins, and the crazed look in Dustin's eyes when he stumbles into the ER covered in blood with an impossible tale to tell, it makes you wonder; how much are you prepared to give? 

Warnings: NSFW, Minors DNI, *Here there be monsters! Honestly, there's straight up monster fucking in this so if you're not into that do not read*, AFAB sub nurse reader x dom monster Eddie, kinda Alpha/Omega without them knowing it, injury descriptions, S4 does happen and Eddie lives but he be a monster, hand job, fem oral receiving, male oral receiving, consensual predator/prey dynamic, fingering, very rough sex, biting/marking, unprotected p in v, knotting.

A/N: This has come from yet another deranged dream of mine. I imagine Eddie looking kinda like a mix between the Beast from the original Beauty and the Beast, and the dog/kangaroo guys from Tank Girl, but with a longer snout. If you don't know, that's a dirty mix between a lion, a bear, a wolf and maybe a little of Venom's tongue (because I am a whore.)

22k words for both parts, I know, mental, but it's worth it ;)

Masterlist Part 1

You must have fallen asleep like that, as once your eyes open it looks to be almost night, the sun dipping past the horizon. The light slipping past your makeshift curtain is a deep red. You ache all over, especially your shoulder, but it doesn't stop you from smiling. 

At some point he must have pulled you on top of him, both arms circling you possessively, holding you to his chest like a child's doll. His member has slipped out of you; you can feel the stickiness of his release coating the sensitive flesh of your inner thighs. 

Breathing changes as he stirs beneath you, opening his eyes in a squint. 

“Hey you.” 

He murmurs a soft sound from his chest, licking your cheek with his long tongue. 

“Ew! Eddie, you've got dog breath.” 

“Charrrming.” 

You laugh, hitting his chest playfully, shifting above him so you're straddling him.

“We better get cleaned up, I've got to get to the hospital in a few hours.” 

Eddie whines, grabbing your hips as you try to stand, pushing your wet heat against his twitching bulge. 

“Eddie…”

You breathe out in a warning, but it sounds too needy. He's not listening, rubbing you back and forth over his swelling length. 

“Eddie I don't think I can take another round, you were- oh fuck-” 

The sentence falters as he catches your clit, setting a thousand butterflies loose in your tummy. 

“I’ll… be gentle.” 

You hiccup a little laugh, staring down at him with a raised brow. 

“I don't think you can.” 

“Forrr you… I can.” 

You reach out to stroke his fuzzy cheek and he nuzzles into the touch. The affection he shows from that simple gesture has you relenting, guiding his member into you, slipping in easily, his previous sticky release helping its journey. 

Sitting back and allowing yourself to revel in the beautiful stretch, you experience that familiar wash of relief, a calm caressing your very soul. Eddie seems to feel it too, letting out a long breath as his shoulders lose tension. 

“This feels right,” you confess, hand running down his chest, “like, like-” 

His gravelly purr interrupts your spill words, reverberating through your ribcage. 

“Like you… werrre made forrr me, sweet-hearrrt.” 

It's much slower this time, more of a languid grinding as you both move against each other, that undercurrent of need more of a smouldering heat, rather than the unquenchable fire from earlier. Eddie pants as he watches you, tongue hanging from the side of his mouth as you reach your precipice, your eyebrows knotting and body shuddering around him. 

Falling against his form, entirely spent, skin glowing with sweat, you hold onto him as he chases his own release. True to his word, he's much more gentle, gripping your hips and moving you to meet his shallow thrusts. You see his snout scrunch when he's on the brink, just before he pulls you off of him and holds you to his torso. You can feel his cock pumping out his orgasm against your stomach, glueing the pair of you together. 

“Eddie, you didn't need to-” 

“Last time we werrre… stuck togetherrr, for half hourrr.” 

You giggle, astonished at his words. 

“Really? Damn, I must have fell asleep.” 

“You did. Couldn't move. Was… nice.” 

Reaching up to play with the fur on his cheek, you think about what he just said. 

“You know, I think that's knotting. You know, like d-”

“If you say… dogs…” He warns, winding a finger in your hair and tugging gently. 

“Fine. Canines.” 

He grabs you, holding you in place as he slathers your face with his tongue, drooling all over you. 

“Eddie! Yuck, stop, stop!” 

“Thought I was… dog. This is what dogs do… rrrright?” 

You squeal loudly trying to extricate yourself from his hold. 

“OK, OK! You're not a dog! Stop!” 

He finally relents and you get up, unpeeling from the sticky skin and matted fur of his stomach. 

“Right, I'm gonna have a shower before you start humping my leg.” 

He snaps his teeth at you playfully as you leave. When you're standing in front of the bathroom mirror, you see why your shoulder hurts so much. There's teeth marks in it; pinpricks of broken skin tinged with blood. They aren't deep, but the redness around them looks like it's going to leave a hell of a bruise. For some reason, you're not mad. The opposite in fact. It feels like a claim. You are his, and this is so the world can see. 

Once you're clean and relatively dry, you go into the living area to find some food, throwing on one of Eddie's new t-shirts. It may as well be a dress, the hem kissing your mid thigh. 

Something doesn't feel right though. Suddenly there's a rolling in the pit of your stomach, a sense of impending doom. The light streaming through the partially boarded windows is still an ominous red. Risking a look, you peer out of the slats and see the sky. 

It's flashing red and blue, as if there's an enormous thunderstorm boiling the heavens, but there's no sound. It looks unnatural, colouring the landscape around in the same foreboding hues. You feel hot, and sick. 

Eddie barrels into the room with a towel still around his waist, tackling you to the ground. 

“Eddie, whats-” 

“Stay low… some-thing coming… smells wrrrong.” 

You whisper as quietly as you can.

“What can you smell?” 

He takes a moment, snuffling at the air with his eyes closed. 

“Outside… woods, dirrrt. Frrriends, coming. And… can't ex-plain in worrrds. Sticky… chem-i-cal… pulsing… grrey blue. Wrrrong.” 

You suppose that's what you get for asking a question about something you can't possibly understand, what with the stark differences in your senses. You try a different tact.

“Have you… smelled it before?” 

“Differrrent… but, similarrrr… to up-side-down.” 

There's the shoe that you were waiting to drop. Now the feeling in your gut made sense. 

“Eddie, you said… friends were coming?” 

“Harrrrrington… and Henderrrrson forrr surrre… smell the damn hairrsprrray.” 

In spite of the situation, you giggle. He flashes his teeth, dropping his guard for just an instant. 

There's a powerful knock at the door that makes you jump. Eddie leaps up and flings it open with such force that it slams into the wooden wall sending dust flying. 

You just about make out the figure of a girl with a shaved head and a bloody nose who thrusts an outstretched hand toward Eddie. Dustin's voice rings out behind her. 

“Elle no!” 

There's a strange force, like a gust of wind with no air that buffets around Eddie's snarling form. You feel it pulling you, ripping you backwards as you roll across the floorboards. Eddie seems unaffected, not moving from his spot. 

“Eleven, stop! You think monsters wear pink towels??”  

The girl looks baffled and turns to where Dustin is running forward, waving his arms wildly. Steve is following quickly behind. They both look battered and bruised. As Steve comes into focus you see his entire front is covered in blood. 

Instincts kicking in, you shoulder past Eddie and run toward him. 

“Steve, what happened!” 

“It's alright it's not my blood. Eleven, this is Eddie.” 

Ah, Eleven. It makes more sense now. The powers, the shaved head. 

“Who- is she?” 

Eleven stares at you with a confused expression. You introduce yourself, and explain what you think you are. 

“...I'm, er, Eddie's girlfriend.”

Eleven's eyes widen but she doesn't say anything. Dustin, however, can't possibly stop the words spilling from his mouth. 

“Girlfriend?? Seriously? But-” 

“Henderson, focus! That's not important right now!” 

“I was just asking, Steve!” 

“Well don't we have other stuff we need to-” 

“Hey!” 

Shocked, you realise the shout came from you. 

“Everyone, just calm down and get inside so we can talk, OK?” 

Your words seem to cut through all arguments as everybody makes it inside, standing and looking at you for direction. Attempting to keep the authoritative air you've managed to concoct, you order them to sit down whilst you and Eddie get dressed. 

When you're no longer feeling so exposed, you come back into the living room holding Eddie's hand. 

“Right now, Steve, you first. What the fucks going on?” 

He weirdly looks at Eleven first, who gives a curt nod. 

“Right, right, so, it's a little-” 

Dustin cuts in. 

“-Vecna's back from the Upside Down with his Demogorgons and bats and stuff and they're taking over Hawkins and we need Eddie Dog to help defeat him!” 

Stumbling back a little stunned, your wide eyes search his vainly for the sign of some prank. There is none. 

“So… you're saying there's monsters in Hawkins??”

Steve responds calmly, juxtaposing Dustin’s trembling form.

“ ‘fraid so. Nance and Hopper and everyone else are holed up in the library. Everyone left in the town’s there. Well, everyone who's not dead or ran away.” 

“Wait, so Hopper’s alive??” 

“Yes! He was captured by evil Russians but Mrs Byers got him back and-” 

“Alright, alright,” you hold your palms up to Dustin, “what does Eddie have to do with this?” 

“Listen, Henderson's got this theory that Eddie's… powers… came out so he can stop Vecna.” 

“But that's absurd, he was bitten!” You turn to Eddie but he looks just as shocked as you. 

“Yeah but, we've seen a lot of people today who've been bitten by something. No one else changed.” 

“Exactly,” Dustin says, grinning, “Eddie's got super strength now, he's all healed, I bet he's got other powers.” 

Eleven starts talking unexpectedly. 

“I tried to throw him. He did not move.” 

“See!? He's a superhero.” 

“So, wait, Eleven can't throw him,” you begin, “but that doesn't mean she can't throw stuff at him. What's to stop Vecna throwing a car or something?” 

Everyone looks at Eleven.

Wordlessly, she focuses on a lamp that sits on a side table. To your astonishment, it begins to float in the air, then hurls itself at Eddie with remarkable force. Then the strangest thing happens. It hovers a few inches from Eddie as if stopped by an invisible barrier, then falls to the floor uselessly. 

Silence. You break it, voice splitting as it goes high pitched with worry. 

“Right, but that doesn't mean Vecna can't hurt him, just because Eleven can't, right? Right??” 

Eddie's the one to respond, holding your hands in one bearish paw. 

“Sweet-hearrrt, they'rrre rrright… I can help… I should help… need to prrotect the Shirrre… prrrotect you.” 

“But-but-” Tears well in your eyes as you stare back at him. 

“I need to… otherrrrwise… I am… this… is all a waste.” 

You nod, but pull your hands from his and walk into the bedroom, shutting the door behind you. The pain is too much to bear. It does make sense, if you were being rational, but right now you aren't rational. Nothing about this is rational. You've just found the love of your life and you might lose him to this stupid fight. 

Fuck. You love him.

It's finally clear. The feeling in your stomach, the draw you have toward him, the fire in your veins, in your heart. You barely know him, but you love him. 

And now that might get ripped away because of some damn fight that shouldn't have had anything to do with him in the first place. 

You perch on the bed, head in your hands as tears leak down your cheeks. There's no fight in you to stop them, grieving for something that hasn't happened yet but seems inevitable. There's whispering in the other room, plans being made, but it all sounds like it's underwater, drowned by the power of your tears. 

After a while, Eddie opens the door and shuffles in the room, sitting down on the bed next to you. He slowly starts to explain the plan to you, how Will can sense when Vecna or the monsters are near, how Elle will help clear a path, how he has the strength to defeat him, since Vecna's powers are all he has. He doesn't have the speed or strength that Eddie does. 

There's a loaded quiet when he's finished. You're angry, wiping away stray tears fiercely from your face, but you're not angry at him. You're angry at the situation, at Vecna, at the Upside Down. Angry at the powers that seem to be pulling you apart. 

“Fine. But I'm coming with you.” 

“No,” he snarls, pulling his arm around you, “they need… heal-ers. You… can help.” 

“But what if- what if you get hurt?” 

“Won't.” 

“Promise?” 

Staring up whilst you are brimming with tears, he cups your face, looking back at you with soulful eyes. 

“I'll do… everrry-thing I can.”

“No!” You shout, tears falling once again as your face heats up, “you can't say that, they say that in the hospital and people die!”

Wringing your hands, flipping them over and over each other in your lap, you barely notice Eddie falling to the floor in front of you. 

Then his burly arms are circling you, his maw pushed into your abdomen, inhaling you deeply, sweetly. It stops your incessant fidgeting, fingers resting in his long locks. They wind into his hair, twisting through to massage his scalp as he purrs into the flesh of your stomach. 

“Eddie, if you love me you'll come back to me. Do-do you love me, Eddie?”

He looks up at you, deep chestnut eyes searching your face. 

One slow blink. 

There's a soft knock at the door and Dustin opens it. 

“We have to go soon. Are you ready Eddie Dog?” 

Eddie growls low in his throat, swivelling to face him on all fours, hackles raised. Dustin immediately attempts to backtrack, arm raised to try and protect his face. 

“I mean, I didn't mean- it's from the demogorgon, you know, demodogs, Eddie Dog, I did think DemoEddie but Dog-”

Eddie pounces, pinning Dustin to the ground. Dustin's eyes scrunch shut as he screams, voice breaking in terror. 

“Shit shit shiiiiiiiiiit!!!” 

You giggle inanely as Eddie licks Dustin's face wetly. He bounds off him and shoots a wink at you, before lending Dustin a hand and dragging him to his feet. 

“I am not… a dog.” 

Dustin is laughing in relief, nerves racking through it. 

“No you're not, I'm sorry I'm sorry-” 

Steve appears in the doorway. 

“Guys, get in here.”

All mockery forgotten, you make your way into the living space in silence. 

“Steve, what's going on?” 

“That's just it. Listen.” 

You all stop, ears working in overdrive as you all try to hear what he hears. Breaking the quiet spell that had drifted over everyone, you speak. 

“I can't hear anything.”

“Exactly. Don't you get it? All over town, all through the woods, there's been these things. Demogorgons, bats, horrible things. But here, there's nothing.” 

“Eddie, you smell anything?” 

Eddie closes his eyes, snout wiggling in effort as he opens his preternatural senses. His voice rumbles out in its usual gravelly purr.

“That scent… it's herrre, it's on them… up-side-down smell… therrres nothing close by… except a few deerrr.” 

Steve holds a hand up, stage whispering to you.

“He can smell that?” 

“Yes… and hearrr acrrross rrrooms.” 

“Sorry big guy, I just- that's awesome.” 

Dustin is beaming, staring at Eddie like he's a superhero. Steve continues, making sure he's looking at Eddie, you notice, keeping him in the conversation. 

“So, if those things aren't nearby… maybe, maybe they're afraid of him? Hate to say it but I'm starting to agree with Dustin. Maybe you're supposed to be like this Munson.” 

Sighing in acceptance, you turn to Eddie. 

“Fine. If you think you can help you should go. Don't let me stop you. But you have to come back to me.” 

He gives you a slow blink, and you nod, accepting fate. Then you move into action, grabbing the partially used trauma kit, along with anything else you think might be helpful. Everyone else is doing the same, as if they were waiting for your approval. 

Pretty soon you're being bundled into what appears to be a stolen pick up truck with Eddie sitting in the back, as you race back into town. 

If you could call it town anymore. 

Your mind rolls to every post apocalyptic movie you've ever seen, but none of them compare to it happening in front of your eyes. Crumbling buildings that you recognise send spears of hurt through your heart. Over there, the gas station where you bought your first underage beers, now a smoking wreckage. On your left, the drug store where you used to pick up your mom's prescription, cracked and half buried in rubble. 

A cloud of chattering sound passes quickly overhead; you hear Eddie growling low as batlike creatures wing their way to another destination, seemingly unbothered by your presence. It's either that, or they don't want to tangle with your boyfriend. You pray that it's the latter.

Steve takes a sharp left turn and you fling to the side in your seat. 

“I thought we were heading to the library, isn't it that way?” 

“Yep, if you wanna cross a gorge. The roads opened so wide that nothing can get through.” 

The enormity of the situation is sinking into you, winding around your spine, fear clasping you in its unwanted clutches. 

Ignore it. Don't recognise it. Turn your back on it. There's people that need your help. 

Steve pulls up a few yards away from the library, and you clench your jaw, telling your tears to fuck right off. Now is not the time for tears. 

You and Dustin jump out of the truck, and he rushes to the library to bring everyone who needs to be part of this final stand. A final stand that doesn't involve you. A final stand that has the love of your life sitting front and centre. 

Running around to the back of the truck you grab Eddie's head firmly in both your hands. 

“You- you remember what I said? You need to come back to me, you hear me? ‘Cause if you don't I'll kill you myself. Get it Eddie? You do this and you come back to me!!” 

Eddie holds your hands in his enormous paws, enveloping your soft flesh instantly. Nuzzling his snout against your cheek, he breathes in your ear. 

“I'll come back… to what's mmine.” 

You press fierce hot kisses to the soft fur of his face, over and over, until he pulls you from him, holding your hands away. 

“You love me Eddie. I know you do.” 

One slow blink. 

In an instant, he's gone, quieter than snow. Falling to the floor, you hold your head in your hands, crushed by the barbarity of the situation. 

You didn't say it. You didn't tell him you love him too. Saying it out loud would make it more real. Saying it out loud would make the pain worse if you lose him. 

Soft fingers pry at you, leading you onward, inside. In a daze you follow, feet on autopilot as you clutch the trauma bag in front of you like a shield. 

Inside is a bustle of activity, a hive of ants that all have a purpose and none of them involve you. You're guided gently down onto a seat and the insects run about, fetching food, water, bandages. It all seems to be happening outside of you, following a rhythm that you can't hear. 

“Hey, hey!” One of the swarm seems to be addressing you. Tilting your head, you look towards them. It's an older woman; half her face is concealed by a makeshift eyepatch. 

“You're a doctor, right? We need someone over here now!” 

Instincts take over. Legs rising of their own accord, they march over to a camp bed that's been set up. Another woman lays there, breaths shallow and humanising. There's an enormous gash in her side. 

“OK OK, I can help, just don't move too much, I'll try and stop the bleeding.” 

Then the next person. And then, the next person. 

Mind floating into a subconscious haze, your memories take over. That situation before at the hospital, the textbook you once studied, a hypothetical conversation with a doctor. You take it, all at once, power beyond what should be possible, but you do it. 

You do it for him. 

Minutes pass into hours unseen as you tear through every available useful item, every strip of gauze from your bag, until it happens. 

A pain so profound that grips your shoulder and your heart hard enough for you to look around for the shotgun. It emanates out of the bitemark, pulsing into your veins with alarming force. 

“He's hurt.”

Collapsing to the side, you hold a firm hand to your own heart, as if you could will it to slow. Legs give out from under you, your rear landing on the hard surface behind. For a minute you sit, unable to move, unable to think, wondering why everyone around seems so controlled. Don't they realise your entire universe is shattering into splinters before their very eyes? 

There's a hand shaking you by the arm, someone asking if you're OK. They lift you, place you in a seat, and keep asking, and asking. Your tongue feels heavy, unable to form words to explain the hurt you're feeling. This deep hurt is rooted into your bone marrow; heavy, hard and cold. 

There's a familiar face in front of you, a round childish face with curling boyish locks and a worried expression. Dustin. 

“Hey, you there? Can ya hear me?” 

Nodding wordlessly, you point to your chest, directly over your heart, eyes wincing in pain. 

“Did you get hurt?” 

You shake your head, and manage one word. 

“Eddie.” 

Before Dustin can respond, Nancy runs in, face covered in grime and dark blood, panting for breath. 

“They… did it… Hoppers here with Eleven. The gates are closed. But, Eddie-” 

Hearing his name you rush back into your body. 

“Where is he?” 

“Steve and Jonathan are taking him back to the cabin. He's unconscious. He’s… in a bad way, but he's alive.”

He's alive. 

“I need to get to him. Dustin, grab any bandages you can find. Nancy, you got a car?” 

She nods and leads you outside. The sky has quietened, no longer flashing in supernatural colours. Looking upward, you  can almost believe this is a normal night in Hawkins. Taking in the streets, the truth is far from it. 

Three monstrous things lay on the sidewalk, covered in some slimy substance and splattered in unnatural blood. Their skin has a blue grey sheen to it, and their limbs are twisted awkwardly. Their heads seem to have been split open, but then you realise it's just one gigantic mouth, unfurling like a gristly lily. The fleshy petals are lined with dozens of tiny sharp teeth. 

You press a toe to one of them nervously. Its head lulls to one side, utterly lifeless. 

“Hey I got the band- Holy shit!!” 

Dustin's voice cracks mid sentence, then he sighs in relief when he realises the monsters are dead. Nancy calls at you both to hurry and you bundle into the car as she races through the cracked, ruined streets of Hawkins. 

The gas station, the shops, town hall, it's all unimportant. What matters is getting to Eddie. You need to save him. 

Suddenly a heavy feeling in your chest lifts, but not in comfort. It's as if someone's tugged a weighted blanket off of you, exposing your vulnerability for the world to see. Eddie's presence, once a firm hold coddling your heart, is reduced to a whisper of a thought. Gossamer threads tie you instead of lead ropes that you hadn't even realised were there until they were nearly gone. 

“Nancy, we need to hurry, he's almost gone!” 

She doesn't question how you know, just presses her foot to the accelerator and bombs through Hawkins and onto the familiar country road. She gets as near as the woods will allow, until you're yanking the door open and continuing on shaky legs, feet pounding at the bracken and tears streaming from the corners of your eyes. 

A singular thought races through your mind with each footfall. Save him. Save him. Like a heartbeat. 

The cabin starts to appear out of the darkness, the lights inside a beacon of hope. As you reach the front door it flies open, Steve standing in the frame. 

His hair is sticking out in every direction; part of it is plastered to his forehead with blood. A bat with nails in it is hanging limply at his side and his clothes are torn. There's gashes in his front, as if gigantic claws had swiped at him. Previously you would have stopped, gaping at his wounds in horror and done anything you could to help, but after everything you've seen tonight they seem almost trivial. 

“Is he here?” 

Steve takes a deep breath in, swinging the bat at his side as if on instinct. 

“He's here, I guess. He was awesome, then- he wasn't him, in the end. He's not said a word after Vecna, then when Mrs- well, he passed out. Just, be careful.” 

You nod and shoulder your way through, past a long haired guy with the intense expression who you assume is Jonathan, and into the bedroom.

It's a familiar scene, so much so that it borders on comfort. He's strapped down to the bed, a belt wrapped around his feral maw. His breaths are shallow and wet sounding. A snarling whistle of a snore escapes on each exhale. 

His wounds are deep, much deeper than before. There's blood pooling at his side from a gaping wound, it looks like one of those bastard monsters took a bite out of him. That seems the worst damage, that and a bite on his shoulder that almost mirrors your own. You'd laugh at the irony if you weren't so upset. On top of that, there are so many scrapes and claw marks and bruises that it makes your heart ache. 

“One of you, come in here and help me.” 

Steve appears in the door frame, bat held high as if Eddie were about to pounce. 

“Steve, put the bat down. I need your help cleaning these wounds.” 

He lowers his arm and moves nearer to you, but doesn't let the bat go. 

“I don't think you get it. When Vecna- when he realised he couldn't hurt him, those demogorgons got him. He fought three of them at once and then he… well, he tore Vecna in half. Since then he's not… he was a beast. Tried to attack me and Hopper, until Mrs Byers whacked him over the head, knocked him out cold. I'm not sure he's Eddie, anymore.”

There's a tug at your heart, a spindly web like thread that pulls you to your love. 

“He's weak, but he's there. I know it. Help me clean these wounds and bind them before he bleeds out.” 

The two of you work in silence, Steve flinching when Eddie stirs, but he doesn't wake up. When the hole in his side is padded with gauze and tightly bound with bandages, you work on the rest. There's just so many injuries, it's a wonder he's still alive and hasn't bled out yet. 

When it's done, with Eddie patched and bandaged as well as you know how, you collapse onto the floor, hands on your knees. All you can do is wait for him to wake up. That's if he wakes up. If he wakes up as him, and not some mindless beast. 

“Listen, you've done what you can. You're awesome, really.” 

Steve's hand grasps yours on top of your knee. 

“If he's gonna come back for anyone, he'll come back for you.” 

The smile he flashes melts your heart as he gets up to leave. A second later, he returns with a musty blanket and a worn cushion. You take them gratefully and get comfortable on the floor, hoping against hope that your love wakes up. 

********************

A roaring growl shatters through your nerves and startles you awake, rocketing through your senses before you have a chance to think. Hot breath blows across your face, messing your hair and making you blink in its turbulence. 

Eddie's on all fours on top of you, crouched low and teeth bared, bindings in tatters all about you. The belt is gone from his jaw; you can only assume he managed to break it with sheer force. A dribble of slobber hangs from his maw; for some reason it's all you can focus on. It wobbles in your vision, as you scramble for some way to get through to him.

He barks roughly, snapping his teeth barely an inch from your face. 

“N-now, you listen to me, Eddie!” 

Your voice squeaks, belying the stern demeanour you're attempting to convey. He growls low, crouching even further over you, giving you an undeniable urge to flee. You can't, not with Eddie on top of you. Not just that, you know deep within your bones that if you attempt to escape, you're dead. 

It suddenly dawns on you that it doesn't matter. You could just throw yourself out there and be eaten. Sure, it'd be painful, but since he's hovering right over your jugular it'd probably be quick. Living without him seems far worse. Or, you might just succeed, and live. 

There's no time for hesitation and pleasantries. So, you grasp the fur around his maw and clutch it desperately, fingers winding into his pelt. His eyes widen, jaw closing slightly, and you take the opportunity to pull his head closer. Your forehead sits flush with his, searching his eyes for any sign of the Eddie you know. 

“Eddie Munson, you listen to me! You know who I am! Can't you smell it? My smell, your smell? You're mine, and I'm yours. You promised you'd come back to me! So do it, come the fuck back to me or I swear I'll kill you myself!” 

Releasing one hand, you pull your t-shirt over your shoulder and show him the mark he left you. 

“You see this? You know what this is? Remember, Eddie!” 

There's a flicker in his hard gaze, a flash of something that just might be your Eddie. Pressing his snout to the mark, he inhales deeply. Then, he's pressing his jaw to yours, nuzzling your neck with his nose. Moving your head to meet his affection, you rub your faces against each other. The tension in the room dissipates as you finally start to see the human behind the beast.

As he pulls his face away, you stare deep in his eyes. 

‘I love you Eddie Munson. I knew you'd come back. You had to, because you love me too. Right?” 

One slow blink. 

Then, he's falling to the floor on his side, seemingly exhausted with the strain. There's no way you'll be able to get him back into the bed, so you throw your blanket around you both and snuggle into his warm pelt before you fall asleep in his arms. 

When you finally wake up, he's still asleep breathing heavily through his nose. The breaths sound much better than before, a stark difference from the heavy, wet sound he was making previously. 

Every joint hurts from sleeping on the wooden floor. You stretch in place, click your elbows, and glance back down at Eddie. 

Even a few hours seems to have helped Eddie with his recovery. The small grazes you didn't bother to cover up are completely healed; just tiny fine lines of scars are all that's left, like the inking of a delicate pen. 

You try to stand up but Eddie's heavy paw is resting on your hip, keeping your back flush to his torso. 

“Eddie,” you whisper, half ashamed to disturb him, “I need to move, my back hurts.” 

One chestnut eye blinks roughly at you then opens, shrivelling from the light pouring through your ad hoc curtains. He's not said a word yet, a fact that is eating your insides up with worry, but you don't mention it. 

He pushes himself off of the floor, managing to stand shakily before flopping to the bed. Even this small movement has him exhausted beyond what should be possible. 

“Eddie, do you want me to get you something to eat? You know, to help the healing?” 

Those soulful deep eyes bore into you, stretching time for just a moment. Then he blinks deliberately at you, twice. 

“No? So, what can I do?” 

Wordlessly, he holds his arms out. You crawl into his embrace as he clutches you to his chest tightly, as if he's scared you'll run away. You couldn't though. Not now, not ever. 

********************

After a few hours, he's breathing deeply, and you risk moving to the living space. Once you enter you see Steve and Jonathan there. Nancy climbs out of an armchair and makes her way towards the group, diplomatically standing exactly between them. 

“We didn't want to disturb. How's he doing?” 

Nancy's soft voice breaks the quiet and you allow her a small smile. 

“Great. I mean, he's healing like crazy, seems to be something he can do, and he remembers me for sure. He's not spoken yet, but give him time.” 

She beams at you, then flashes a thousand watt smile at Steve. Shaking her head slightly, apparently at her own actions, she grabs Jonathan's hand and gives it a squeeze. You don't miss the slight frown that flickers on Steve's face, or the little wanton appraising look he gives Jonathan. It's funny, viewing something from an outsider's perspective. They're the perfect little threesone and they don't seem to even know it. 

There's a stirring noise from the bedroom and you run immediately toward it. Eddie's sitting up in bed; it looks like he's trying to inspect the hole in his side with clumsy fingers. 

“Hey, it's OK Eddie, don't touch it. I'm gonna look after you, alright?” 

A flicker of relief passes across his face and he settles down into the mattress, placated. 

You inspect the wound; his recovery is remarkable but there's still a way to go before it's healed. By rights he shouldn't be breathing at all. 

“It looks good, it'll take a while to heal completely but I think you're gonna be alright.” 

A large hand reaches tentatively to your face and cups it, shaking slightly with the effort. His face scrunches, an internal pain crossing it that seems too much to bear. Then, words emerge. 

“...love… you.” 

Instantly welling with tears, you cup his hand in your own. 

“I love you too Eddie. Now sleep, you need to rest. I'll bring you some water, and some food in a while to get your strength back up.” 

He blinks slowly at you, then settles his head back into the mattress, palm dropping from your cheek almost instantly as he falls asleep. You take the cushion from the floor and anchor his head up, slipping it underneath so he doesn't strain his neck. 

Staring at him for a moment looking so peaceful makes your eyes well. Wiping furiously at your face, you disperse the tears and turn towards the doorway. 

“You alright?” 

Steve's standing there, thankfully no longer holding a bat. You nod and walk out of the room with him, after a final glance at Eddie's sleeping form. 

********************

Now the danger has passed, the rest of them leave to go get some much needed sleep. The snippets you've been told about the battle for Hawkins sounded bloody and taxing, they all need to recuperate. 

When Eddie starts eating you breathe another sigh of relief. It's a good sign. He seems to be having trouble again with picking things up and using words but it's getting better by the hour. 

Collecting a bucket from outside, you fill it with warm water and grab some soap and a washcloth from the bathroom, then take it to the bedroom. Eddie's sitting up in bed, having just finished a whole chicken. He's licking juices from his furred fingers when you walk in. 

“Hey, that good? Want any more?” 

“Good… forrr now.” 

You smile at him and waddle over with the heavy bucket. Placing it on the ground with a heavy thud, you soak the cloth and add some soap to it. 

“What… doing?” 

“Oh, well you've got too many bandages on for me to clean you in the tub, so I thought I'd wash you in here, if that's alright.” 

Flashing his teeth in the epitome of a wolfish grin, he purrs out a response as he whips off the blanket covering him. 

“Hot nurrrse…. Giving me… sponge bath? Yess please!” 

You roll your eyes but you're smiling as you do it, and help him wriggle out of his sweatpants. He's naked, cock already kicking up with your proximity. 

“This isn't about that, Eddie!” 

“-Orry.” 

“And don't just drop your s'es to be cute, I know you can say them!” 

He gently grasps your hand in his and you melt just a little. 

You start cleaning him as best as you can, tenderly mopping in between the bandages, taking care to remove as much of the crusted blood and grime as possible. 

As you work, you feel his furred finger curl under your chin, guiding you to look at him. 

“Eddie?” 

“You… rrreally carrrre about… mme, don't you?” 

Trying to move out of his grip shyly, he holds your chin firmly waiting for your reply.

“I mean, yes, of course. I told you Eddie, I love you.” 

Damp fingers twine in his thick burly hand. His eyes are on you but seeing through you, deep in thought. You squeeze his fingers in encouragement. 

“What's on your mind, Eddie?” 

He huffs a laugh, shaking his head. 

“It's stu-pid… I just thought… when it all ended… when gate closed… I'd go back… be norrrmal.” 

Emotion floods those brandy hued eyes, you force a lump in your throat to go away. 

“Eddie, you've never been normal,” you say, smiling at him, whilst he growls a little chuckle in his throat, “but that's not a bad thing. You're different Eddie. You've always been different. You're odd, and funny, and intense. I love you, and not in spite of those things. Because of them. Because you're you.” 

Eddie roughly rubs a hand over his eyes to disguise the tears. 

“Love you… what the fuck… did I do… to deserrrve you.” 

“Don't know, but it must have been pretty awesome.” 

You smile as you finish cleaning him, drying him off as best as you can, and let him get more rest. It seems each time he naps his healing quickens exponentially, so you encouraged as many as you could. 

It was late evening by the time you saw him again. You had fallen asleep on the couch in front of the TV, curled up wearing Eddie's black t-shirt and nothing else, with a cushion between your knees for comfort. 

There was warm pressure just on the inside of your thigh, a heaviness that for some reason made you feel safe. 

Cracking one eye open, you see Eddie is sitting on the floor facing you, his furred cheek resting on your leg. His snout is just breaching the hem of the t-shirt, dangerously close to your heat. 

“Eddie, what are you doing?” 

He takes a deep breath in and your cheeks flood with embarrassment. 

“I miss-ed you… miss-ed this.” 

“We can't, like, do anything Eddie, not until you're healed.” 

Lifting his head up, he points wordlessly to his side. The bandage has been removed. Amazingly, it's knotted scar tissue; a few tufts of fur are growing on it already. In a few days you'd be surprised if you could even tell the near life threatening blow had even happened. 

“Wow, thats- fuck, that's incredible. You're amazing!” 

He makes a little satisfied noise at the praise and sits up, towering over you on the sofa. 

“So… arrre we good? Forrr… a little game?” 

Tilting your head, you mockingly appraise him, looking him up and down and checking each knot of scars. 

“Well… seems I can give you the all clear. What did you have in mind?” 

Opening his maw, he flicks his tongue over his teeth, and stares at you hungrily. 

“I've got… an i-dea.” 

He stands up and pulls you to your feet, reminding you again of the sheer size of him, and wordlessly leads you to the back door. 

When you're outside, the lack of noise really strikes you. There's not a sound in the woods. An eerie quiet washes over you, making each breath, each heartbeat all the louder. The air is crisp, but not freezing. It nips at your bare legs, trailing goosebumps up your thighs. You look up at the sky; a beautiful array of shining stars fill it, and the moon provides a little light so you can make out the dark shadow of trees about you. It's ethereal and beautiful. 

“It's really pretty Eddie, but what's this got to do with a game?” 

He stands just behind you, firmly grabbing you by your hips as he bends to speak in your ear. 

“We'rrre tied… in ourrr little chases… thought we could…” 

“Out here? In the dark? Eddie what if theres-” 

“Nothings herrre… animals fled frrrom the monsterrrs… can smell. It's just you… and mme.” 

The thought sends a little shiver down your spine, pins and needles rushing from the base of your neck. 

“You like the… i-dea. Can tell.” 

You curse your own body for betraying you, but he's absolutely right. You're already wet just thinking about it and it's starting to dampen your thighs. A heat floods through you, making you forget about the cold. 

“OK… say I'm interested, what are the rules?”

“Two minutes head starrrt… then, when I catch you…” He playfully licks the shell of your ear, “I can do… whateverrr I want.” 

“Within reason?” You say, voice already shaking. 

“Within… rrreason.”��

“Five minutes.” 

“Thrrrree.” 

“Done.” 

Immediately you tear away from his grasp and run, giving him no time to think about it. The forest floor is surprisingly soft under your bare feet, a carpet of pine needles allowing you to run comfortably, unhindered. 

Your ears are occupied by the sound of your own beating heart. It's pumping wildly in your chest, pure adrenaline coursing through your veins, making each decision. You zig zag, double back a little, and turn in a circle, to try and throw him off the scent. A part of you wishes there was a river nearby to help confuse the trail further. Then again, most of you is glad there isn't. It's not like you don't want to be caught. 

A fallen branch makes you trip and you sprawl unseen in the dark. The rush is still there, but you try to be more careful and take a little time looking for anything on the ground that could harm you. Squinting in the dark, you make out a huge stone in front of you which could have seriously injured you. Skirting around it, there's a copse of close together trees to one side. Then, there's an alrighty roar. 

He sounds so close, you must have made less progress than you thought. Dashing for the trees, you enter a little circle of pines and press your back against one panting for breath. You can hear him now. It sounds like he's galloping through the forest on all fours, crashing through branches and twigs like a hot knife through butter. 

You daren’t move, you daren’t breathe. This close there's no chance he won't hear you. Thighs clenching so hard you're in danger of losing blood flow, you feel your slick covering them, nearly slipping apart because of it. It's uncanny; you don't know why your body seems to have this visceral reaction to his presence, but really you don't need to know. All you know is that this feels so right, so natural for you, that it's accepted without hesitation. 

The absence of noise is what makes you jump. One minute there's crashing and breaking branches; the next, silence. You grip onto the rough bark, fingers white knuckling in fervent anticipation. 

You hear him then, soft footfalls crunching and sniffing noises. Keeping your back pressed firmly against the tree trunk, you try to breathe as quietly as you can. Each second that goes by feels like it stretches on for an eternity, as you hear him get closer and closer… and then walk past behind you. Breath leaving you in a gasp, you relax your muscles slightly. 

Until he's directly in front of you, completely naked, the sheer weight of him pressed up against you as he pins both your arms by your sides. His cock is throbbing against your stomach, huge and painfully hard. Bending his head to your level, his snout nudges your ear. 

“I win… you’rrre mmine.” 

He nips at your neck, his sharp teeth breaking the skin. Pain blossoms out from the mark, but it's followed by a wave of pleasure that sends another wash of wetness out of you. 

Eddie growls so deeply that you shiver, and suddenly your world is shooting upward as he grasps you firmly by the ass and lifts you up, your t-shirt riding up to your chest. The hard bark of the tree is pressing into your naked skin as he holds you there like a play thing, claws digging in your flesh. His tongue laps through your folds, tasting you with such ferocity that it makes you moan wantonly, your nails scraping into his scalp, hanging on for dear life. 

Cloying heat is surrounding you, suffocating you. You pull the shirt over your head and toss it in a vain attempt to get some relief but it's no use. Eddie's tongue is buried inside your tight cunt, a dizzying tornado that's making your head spin, but you need more. 

“Fuck- please Eddie, I-I need- oh God- I need you inside me.” 

He lifts your back off of the tree, then slams your spine against the rough wood, expelling all breath from your lungs. He's shaking his head back and forth, long snout rubbing over your clit. A hard no, but it's setting fireworks off inside you all the same. He lets up for a moment, just one, rumbling out words so close to your pussy you feel the warm air of his breath and the vibration of it on your clit. 

“You want me… so bad… then fuckin’ cum. Now.” 

His thumb breaching your weeping sex is a complete surprise. It's just so thick; moving inside you with such animalistic intensity that you're clenching and coming with an obscene scream directed at the heavens. You crumble to ash and dust within his very clutches, the smouldering fire flaming bright and burning all of you, inside and out. 

There's no time to recover, to breathe. He slides you down the tree trunk and onto his waiting member, forcing it inside with barely any warning. Tears spring from the corners of your eyes as he forcibly lifts you by your hips and slams you back down, over and over, his powerful thrusts pulling whimpers out of you. You're just so full, his swollen length pulsing inside, throbbing you to ecstasy. 

The strings tighten inside you, firming the pressure in your belly, which suddenly snaps, dissolving into an intense wave of pleasure that gushes from your hole and threatens to push him out due to its violence. He shudders with you, holding you close and grinding into you, helping you ride it out with almost gentle movements that bely the ferality he displayed only moments ago. Your foreheads touch softly, breaths in tandem. 

For a second you think he's finished. You couldn't be further from the truth. His voice is strained, as if he's trying to keep it under control. 

“You… do that… again.” 

Before you can blink his knuckles are dragging harshly over your clit, back and forth, sending a shiver through your spine on each rough pass. 

“Eddie- oh holy- oh fuuuck!” 

You're barely able to speak, to think. Sentences fail to form, in fact your bordering on drooling at the way he's fucking you dumb. In moments you're clenching around him, walls fluttering uncontrollably as you sob out another release, muscles contracting involuntarily and quivering all over your body. After a while, you realise you're weeping, tears streaming with no barriers to stop them. 

It still doesn't stop Eddie and his violent conquest over your form. He seems intent on owning you, ruining you, taking every last ounce of pleasure out of you to leave you a shattered blubbering mess. It's as if he needs to get his pain and anguish out; it's pouring from him and into each movement of his hips.

“Again.” 

Sobs are bubbling out of your mouth, wet and round, spit gathering at the corners. 

“Eddie, I- I can't-” 

“Again!” 

Then he's pinching your clit hard between thumb and forefinger, as his teeth nip at your breast. The overbearing pain and the zealous pleasure are too much. Shamefully, you release yet again, slick running down your legs and onto the forest floor in a sticky web. 

It's only then that he holds you close, hard arms snaking around your back as your legs shake wildly either side of his hips. His bearish hands grasp you tightly as he throbs his own messy climax deep inside you, roaring loudly, pulsing and pulsing until you've milked him dry. Even then he remains, hard and swollen, locked in and unable to separate. 

His touch is far more gentle now, lifting you by the hips as if you are to be cherished and placing your back softly to the pine needle covered ground. He hovers over you, almost in fear of breaking you, one rough hand stroking at the delicate skin of your cheek. Staring into his eyes, you see the shame harbouring within them.

Before he can speak, you're grasping his furred cheeks and holding his gaze. 

“Eddie, it's OK, honestly. I mean, it was a little rough… but fuck me… that was amazing. You're amazing.” 

He nuzzles into you, deeply breathing in your smell as he cuddles you in the softest embrace. 

“-Orry.” 

“You trying to be cute with me again, Eddie Munson?” 

Your stern words just earn you another squeeze, a slightly tighter hold from his firm arms. For a while you lay there, feeling the other's heartbeat and listening to nothing but the wind between the trees. 

It takes a bit, but the knot finally subsides and you are able to extricate yourselves from its hold. As soon as Eddie's comforting arms are no longer around you, you start to shiver massively. 

“Need.. get you home… climb on.” 

He's on all fours, crouching low in front of you like a tamed lion. 

“You've got to be fucking kidding me.” 

There's a soft rumble in his throat that almost sounds like laughter. 

“Get on… beforrrre you frrreeze.” 

You can't really argue with that. 

Hesitating with your knee up high, you're trying to work out where you need to be. You've never ridden a… a wolf? A lion? A monster? Briefly, you think you've never ridden an Eddie, but you blush profusely when you remember that's simply not true.

Finally deciding on swinging your leg over near his waist at the thinnest part of him, you settle into the soft fur. He swings a paw up and grasps your hand, leading it toward the longer hair down his spine. 

“Might want… to hold on… sweet-hearrrt.” 

You twine your fingers delicately into the thicker part of his pelt. That is, until he starts running on all fours through the trees. You grip tightly when you feel the sudden rush of speed, fingers losing blood as you hold on in fear of crashing to the floor. 

Once the initial shock is over, it's electrifying; a thrilling, hedonistic mix of riding a horse and a motorcycle at once. The wind whips through your hair and stings your uncovered skin, making you feel oh so alive. The constant push and pull of powerful muscles beneath you make you realise just how strong Eddie is. It suddenly dawns on you that no matter how rough he's been with you, he's holding back. If he showed you half his power you doubt you'd live to tell the tale. That stark realisation has you falling for him all over again. 

It's that power that seems to flow up from him and through you. You feel like some sort of heathen queen, riding through the forest on your monstrous steed, naked as the day you were born. Wild, savage, and formidable.

Too soon, your impromptu ride is over as he lopes toward the lights of the cabin, eventually coming to a stop. Sliding off of his mighty form, you land on both feet practically buzzing with excitement, caring not a jot for the fact that you were still naked. 

“Eddie, that was incredible! We need to do that again, like, every night. Fuck, I'm shaking!” 

You beam at him, glowing inside and out. 

“If anyone else… said that… I'd bite them. But… it's you. I'll be you’rrre… steed.” 

“You just want me to ride you again.” 

In the short time you've been together, you've gotten used to the subtle signs in his face, in the looks in his eyes, enough to be able to read him. You don't need any of those though, not when his usual whiskey eyes are blackened with desire. 

“You… not done?” 

Grinning profusely, you open the back door and beckon him with your finger. 

“Nope.” 

“You… animal.” 

You laugh; a messy, loud, belly laugh at the pure irony of the situation. 

Walking into the bedroom, you watch him follow you in. There's pine needles stuck in his fur, and mud crusted into his hands and feet. The very air surrounding him is of forests; of damp and bark and moonlight. 

All it's doing is stirring up your insides further. Right now, this heathen queen needs her monster king. 

“Lay down.” 

He huffs lowly, towering over your tiny form. 

“You… telling mme… what to do?” 

“Yes. I am. You got a problem?” 

You push lightly at his chest, making him collapse mockingly onto the bed, face twisted in taunting pain, as if you had caused him serious harm. 

“Don't… hurrrrt mme, prrrincess.” 

“I wasn't going to… hurt you, exactly.” 

You straddle his body, backwards, mouth hovering near his already firm length as your ass swings tantalisingly just out of reach of his drooling maw. 

“Now…. Sweet-hearrrrt, fuuuck… so unfairrr…” 

You can feel the breath expelling from his mouth, the way the sweep of his tongue creates air that is failing to make it between your folds. It makes your cunt throb from the lack of attention, still puffy and drooling from your encounter in the woods. 

You lick a firm stripe from his heavy balls to the tip of his engorged purple member, watching it shiver with the affection. There's a salty, brutish taste to him, mixed with the sweet, feminine tang of you, that makes you want to lick him over and over. Rolling the tip of his weighty length into your mouth, you roll it around with your tongue, licking any trace of you and him together away, to be stored in your memories forever. 

“Sweet-hearrrt… please!” 

He's panting, each short breath firing bursts of air at your cunt. You don't let up, not yet, suckling at his tip, pressing firm kisses to the slit on the tip. He's growling and whining, muscles twitching all over. 

There's no way you can take more than a third of his threatening member into your mouth, but you do what you can, stroking firmly with both hands what you cannot take. Spit dribbles out of your mouth and down to your fisted palms, wetting the rest of his length with soaked, messy need. 

He roars, lion-like behind you, fingers pressing further bruises into your soft flesh. You don't let up, you can't. You need to make him tremble beneath you; to feel those controlling muscles fold under the feel of your mouth. 

The thrust up into your wet lips has you gagging around his length, gargling and spluttering around his thick head. You can't chide him for it, not since the movement sets your insides ablaze with need. 

He curls as hard as his spine will allow; the tip of his tongue ghosting over your slick heat. Quivering, you let up on your assault with your mouth, and twist so you can face him. Whines and whimpers expel from his throat as his thick fingers wind around your waist. Before they can contort into growls and snarls, you sink down onto his slippery cock, all the way to the hilt, as if he were the perfect sword to your tight sheath. 

“Lay back and relax… There's a good boy.”  

Instead of taking control, he gives it to you. A whine, high pitched and needy, rolls out of his mouth. 

Bending down, with him still flush inside you, you press your pretty lips against his slathered maw. Open mouthed kisses are pressed onto his jaw, tongue sneaking in and feeling his pointed fangs delicately. He licks purposely into your mouth, dancing against your tensed muscle. 

Grinding hard into him, his solid weapon presses harshly against your g spot, stars forming in the corners of your eyes. He sits up so he can lace his thick arms around you, as if he needed to be even closer somehow. Responding in kind, you position your legs around him, holding tight as he thrusts up into you. 

Sweat is glistening, dripping down your spine at the proximity of his boiling hot body. Your fingers wind into the thicker fur on his spine as he rocks into you, feeling him in your very core. 

Suddenly he's grasping your hips, about to pull you off him. Whining, you shake your head, forcing yourself back down. 

“I'mm gonna-” 

“I know, please, I need to feel it, fill me up, please!” 

Those words are all it takes for Eddie, pushing him over that precipice, free falling into ecstasy. You join him, plummeting into your own release as the feel of his knot consumes you. 

For a while you hold each other, the only clue that time had failed to stop being your panting breaths. Your head is snuggled into the soft coat of his neck, his chin resting on the top of your head. As his hardness finally begins to subside you still remain, the sanctitude of the moment ongoing. It feels as if it will be an ongoing memory to play on a loop in the back of your mind, forever. 

********************

The following two weeks flew by in a hum buzz of activity. You're pulling shift after shift at the hospital and helping out at the emergency shelter when you can. The town is pulling together, trying to heal and coming to terms with what will forever be a little bit broken. 

Eddie's mood has been in a shifting, unstable state since the night he defeated Vecna. The nightmares were the worst part of it; on more than one occasion you've had to physically hit him to get him to wake up and stop thrashing in panic on the bed. You try to soothe with words, soft touches and kindness. It's helping, but you know he's got a long way to go. 

Being busy has helped. He and Hopper have come to form an odd friendship. To his credit, Hopper never treated Eddie any different despite his appearance. In fact, he said he's one of ‘Hawkins’ finest upstanding citizens’, since he can't go out and cause trouble. It's not like he can be the town's weed supplier, after all. 

Eddie needed something to do. Hopper understood that deeply, he explained, from his own past traumas and grief. So, he started towing cars to the cabin, getting Eddie to fix them up and send them back as an impromptu mechanic. Fixing things and earning a little money have certainly improved his mood. When he wasn't doing that he was working on the cabin which was starting to feel like home. 

You're on your way there right now. After the conversation you had with Hopper this morning, a huge smile is glued to your face. 

Approaching your home, you see Eddie outside working on a car. When he sees you he bounds over, grabbing the two enormous suitcases you've been struggling with and lifting them with ease. 

“What's all… this?” 

“Take them inside, I've got some news.” 

He does as you ask, depositing them on the floor before he holds you close, snout breathing in your scent at the crook of your neck. 

“Eddie, I spoke with Hopper. He's agreed to give us the cabin for nothing. I just gave away my apartment, so I can stay here with you.” 

Eddie barks with delight, picking you up and spinning you around. You giggle, holding onto his shoulders. He presses his maw to your tummy, breathing you in. 

When he puts you down on the floor, there's a queer look in his eye. 

“Eddie, something wrong?” 

Shaking his head, he falls to his knees so he can look you in the eyes as he holds both your hands in one enormous paw. 

“Not wrrrong… differrrrent. We'll need the cabin, forrr all of us.” 

You tilt your head, confused. 

“What do you mean? There's only me and you.” 

Staring at you as if to gauge your reaction, he presses one bearish hand to your stomach reverently. The hint isn't lost on you, eyes widening in disbelief. 

“Eddie, are you saying that you think I'm… pregnant?” 

One slow blink. 

Legs wobbling, you sit on the floor in front of him. 

“I'm on birth control, I mean, surely I can't be… are you sure?” 

Eddie taps his nose. 

“I'm sure. Is it… a prrroblemm?”

Searching your thoughts you realise it isn't. It really isn't. There's nothing you want more than to spend your life with him, to have a family, no matter what that looks like.

“No, not at all. It's a little… fast, but I want this.” 

Holding your cheek with his rough hand, he makes sure you keep your eyes trained on him. 

“Are you surrre? What… if it's…” 

He gestures to himself, in all his monstrous glory. Cupping his hand on your face, you shake your head.

“I don't care if we have a baby, or a-a cub, or a pup, as long as it's yours and mine.” 

He holds you then, softly and close as you twine your fingers into his thick pelt. 

A life lies before you, one that you couldn't have possibly predicted. A fairytale life; one where the monster gets the girl, and gets the happily ever after. 

Taglist (if you want to be added/removed please PM me)

@liminalpebble @eddies-puppet @rip-quizilla @micheledawn1975 @vanilla-demon @millercontracting @roanniom @josephquinnsfreckles @leelei1980 @mrsjellymunson @usedtobecooler @eddiesprincess86 @ali-r3n

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Things Are Changing (Part 14)

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Jason waited at the bar, tapping his fingers on a pint of beer he was too nervous to actually drink. Danny had gone out with the birds of prey tonight to either look after, or make a mess of, crime alley in his absence. He’d find out which one in the morning, though he trusted Danny to keep most of the Chaos under control since he loved their home almost as much as Jason did. 

He wasn’t nervous about what they were doing, he was nervous about meeting Roy again. Which was probably why he was early for the meeting, early enough to get a beer that was no longer as cold as it had been. He sighed at himself and took a sip. 

“Hey buddy,” Roy greeted, biting back a chuckle at the way Jason jumped. 

“Damn you and your light steps. You'd think after growing so much you'd make a little more noise,” Jason sighed, taking another sip from his beer before getting up and hugging Roy so tightly it made him wheeze. “It's good to see you too.”

“Damn, you got strong,” Roy gasped, patting Jason's back awkwardly. “You were such a scrawny kid too.”

“Ya,” Jason chuckled, putting Roy down again. He stepped back a little while Roy ordered a beer and glanced around for a more secluded table where they could talk a little more openly. Once Roy had his beer Jason jerked his chin towards the table, Roy nodded so Jason led the way over to it and they sat together. “It was from being malnourished as a kid, but a dunk in the pits seems to have repaired a bunch of that shit and I absolutely shot up! 

“It was kinda weird because for the first… year there I was barely conscious so when I finally came back to myself it was already to a body that was so much larger than the one I was used to. The LOA had been drilling me on techniques and shit so unconsciously I knew my new size and strength but anytime I tried to do something and thought even a little to hard about it I’d be so fucking clumsy! And you wouldn’t believe how many doorways I hit my head on before I got used to this height,” Jason chuckled, and Roy laughed along with him.

“Damn that's crazy, but also I totally get it. I was kept unconscious by Cadmus for years, when I finally got out of that fucking tube I’d lost my arm,” he held up his prosthetic, which was so good Jason had barely noticed it before. “And my muscles were so atrophied moving around felt nothing like it used to. I didn’t grow That much but it still… it was so fucking weird.” He sighed and took a bigger gulp of his beer, it clearly wasn’t easy to think about still.

“That’s fucked up,” Jason sighed, patting Roy’s shoulder. “Cadmus are a bunch of bastards. If you ever want help blowing up any of their shit let me know. I’m pretty good with explosives and guns now, and Danny would help too, and let me tell you,” Jason whistled softly and gave an almost feral grin. 

“Both you and Dick always go for the powerful ones huh?” Roy cackled, elbowing him.

“Hey! To be fair to me I didn’t know he was this powerful when we got together! I knew that he had a healing factor but that was all I knew until after we moved in together.” Jason said with a dramatic pout. 

“Still, I bet you picked up on the vibe,” He said and Jason sighed because he couldn’t refute that.

“What about you though? You said Lian’s mom is in prison now but who was she?” Jason asked, he figured it was fair game after the teasing about his own relationship, though he second guessed himself when he saw Roy sigh and slump a little.

“Cheshire,” he murmured, tracing the lip of his glass with a finger. 

“No shit!” Jason breathed, shocked but at the same… she was an interesting character, Jason knew she wasn’t all bad, and she was pretty.

“Ya, and she’s a good mom. She adores Lian, but you know how she and Artemis grew up right? They never really had a chance. I tried for years to keep her with us, but I don’t think she can get out of the life for real when she doesn’t know anything else. I can’t keep waiting for her, me and Lian, we gotta move on and make the best of things you know?”

“Ya, I get that, Do you have anyone else in your life now though? Since I’m assuming you and Cheshire aren’t really a thing anymore?” Jason asked curiously. 

“No I haven’t,” Roy said with a little shrug. “I tried at first you know? Especially since people kept saying Lian would need a mom, but dating with a kid is hard. I’d rather just focus on her then try to chase any skirt. Artemiss lives with us off and on so it’s not like Lian doesn’t have a female role model, me and Artemiss just don’t fit together. We tried to kiss one and it felt so fucking wrong! She’s like my sister.”

“I’m glad you’ve got support, and you’re doing great. If you ever need any help I can give, just let me know okay? Maybe it’s kinda sad to say since we haven’t talked in years, but you’re still my best friend.” Jason admitted, shifting awkwardly in his seat.

“Nah, it’s not that weird, you might still be my best friend too,” Roy said with a wry little smile and a shrug. “Sad… maybe, but honestly I’d say we’re both pretty fucking sad already.”

“Well, you’re not wrong, so cheers to that,” Jason laughed and they clinked their glasses together, giving each other sardonic smiles. 

They were quiet for a moment, just drinking their beers before Roy put down his drink and cleared his throat. “So, I assume Danny is your boyfriend I’ve heard so much about?” 

“Ya, that’s him. He’s been with me a long time, even before we started dating. He’s… He’s absolutely amazing Roy, I’m not sure I deserve him,” Jason sighed.

“Oh come on now, of course you do, you-” Roy started but Jason was shaking his head and biting the inside of his cheek.

“There’s a real power imbalance Roy, and you wouldn’t think so given how physically powerful he is, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters more is he worked for me before we got together, and he’s so fucking broken after everything he’s been through. And I’m not kidding Roy, what he’s been through makes what happened to both of us look like a vacation. He sees me as his saviour, he’s said multiple times that he would do anything for me and he means it. 

“Roy…” Jason bit his lip, he hadn’t admitted this to anyone, hadn’t talked about it with anyone. Suddenly he was nervous as hell someone would overhear. “Do you mind if we go back to one of my safehouses to talk about this actually?”

“Sure, you got one nearby? We almost should have started there honestly,” Roy agreed, already pushing himself away from the table. 

“Ya, probably,” Jason chuckled awkwardly, putting down some money for their drinks and following Roy out. “There’s one in walking distance.” 

Neither of them spoke again until they were inside and settled on the beat up couch. “So, what were you going to say?” Roy prompted and Jason groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. 

“I’ve had some serious anger issues since coming back, the Lazarus pit really did a number on my temper and my self control. Danny never defends himself. He’ll defend other people if he thinks I’m going overboard. But I don’t know if he has any self worth beyond what he thinks he can do for me you know? I love him, and he loves me and I love how devoted he is, but he’s almost too devoted you know?” Jason said, having thought better of actually admitting to beating Danny.

“Oh shit man, ya, that’s… complicated,” Roy said with a sympathetic frown. “I’ve never had to deal with anything like that, I don’t really know what to tell you, except I guess, encouraging him to make his own friends and shit, and try to be worth his loyalty?” 

“Ya, I’ve been trying,” Jason sighed, rubbing his face again and ruffling up his hair. “I can’t push him away, both because I love him and I don’t want to, and because he’s explicitly told me losing me would break him, like actually kill him.”

“That’s fucked up,” Roy agreed uncertainly. 

“Ya… But I mean other than that things are great. And He’s hot as hell,” Jason joked, trying to lighten the mood again after all that. It wasn’t fair to have Roy to have any actual advice, this situation was so far outside the realm of the normal.

“Ya? I believe you, the crazy ones usually are,” Roy joked back, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “But pics or it didn’t happen.”

Jason laughed and pulled out his phone, swiping through the pictures he had of Danny, and of Danny and himself. Most of the pictures on the camera were of Danny honestly, and not all of them were fully appropriate. Danny liked to feel watched during sex and the camera would do.

“Damn, he is hot,” Roy agreed with a low whistle and punched Jason’s shoulder lightly. “Good for you dude.

“I can’t wait for you to meet him, you’re going to love him I’m sure. And hey, if you do like him, we like sharing,” Jason said with a meaningful little smirk that made Roy blush and choke. Jason laughed softly at him and switched apps to text Danny he was good to come join them now when he was ready too.

----------

Danny was having fun running with the birds of Prey, they were busting up a trafficking ring Seline had found and doing a damn good job of it too he’d say! The girls were responding better to the ladies and Danny’s obviously queer self than they might have to the bats, and none of the traffickers had stood a chance against them!

Once it was done they went their separate ways, Harley and Salena wanted to make sure the girls got to a trusted shelter safely, and Ivy wasn’t really a people person so without her girlfriend there to help she left quickly too. Danny didn’t mind, he was just waiting for Jason to text him it was alright to come back, it shouldn’t be that much longer. He had already gotten a text that the visit was going well, which made him smile and eased his worry. 

He was just gazing up and the smog covered sky, considering going for a fly to see the stars when he heard a thump on the roof behind him. Danny had a bad feeling about who that was, since either of the brothers would have texted him before showing up. He sighed heavily and turned around seeing Batman looming on the other side of the rooftop. Though maybe it was Danny’s imagination that his posture was more uncertain then it had been before?

“What do you want?” Danny drawled, looking back up at the sky.

“I just want to talk,” Batman said, and Danny definitely wasn’t imagining that his voice sounded softer and less rough. “I… misjudged you at first, I couldn’t accept what Jason is capable of now and you were an easy scapegoat. I understand now that… Well, that it’s not your fault.”

“Huh,” Danny sounded, blinking in surprise and looking back at Batman consideringly. That hadn’t been what he expected. “Well, thanks I guess.”

“Constantine thinks he knows what you are.”

Danny barked a laugh and leaned back a little. “So what’s the old magician’s theory?” He asked, cocking his head to the side with a knowing little smirk. 

“He says you're a halfa, the first one in thousands of years,” Batman shared, and Danny froze for a moment. 

“Huh, I hadn’t expected him to get it right,” He sighed sitting down on the edge of the roof and propped his elbows on his knees. 

After a moment of hesitation Batman came closer and sat down next to Danny, still out of arm's reach, which he appreciated. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, truly. And I’m sorry about what my colleagues said, whether the beings of the Infinite Realms are threats or not, it was an incredibly inappropriate response.”  

“If you just came to apologize, then apology accepted, and you can go now,” Danny said, giving Bruce a suspicious look. 

“No, that’s not all,” Bruce said, steepling his fingers and leaning forward on his knees. “Constantine told me that according to legends Halfas were creatures of balance, guardians of sorts. Do you have any way to learn about your… cultural heritage?” 

“Some of the ancients lived when halfas were still around. Frostbite and Clockwork have told me some. I’m still very young, I’ve been dead less than 6 years-” He noticed Batman wince slightly but ignored it- “It’ll take me a long time to grow into whatever it is I’m supposed to be.  Don’t you hold your breath when I do though. Balance and Justice aren't the same things after all. If I do ascend I’ll be fighting against you as often as I’m on your side I expect,” he chuckled.

“Right,” Bruce sighed. The disappointment in his voice made Danny cackle, though he muffled it with a hand since Batman was playing nice. “Well, the Justice League have a few supernatural consultants on call if you need to talk to someone. And if you need any help, really, let me know.” He stood up and held out a card. “Not that you need it with how close you are with both my-... All of my sons, but if you need any help. Call me. Being alone isn’t easy.”

“I absolutely won’t, but thank you,” Danny said, but after a moment of hesitation he slid the card into one of his pants pockets. Batman seemed satisfied with that, nodded to him. “And I’m not alone, I have Jason.” 

Batman froze for a moment, looking at Danny with wide eyes before Danny realized how that had sounded. He shook his head with a laugh. “No, Jason isn’t a halfa. His resurrection was under completely different circumstances! He’s got a bit of the Realms in him, but it doesn’t flow through him like it does me. He’s still, like, 85% human.”

“That… That’s good,” Batman sighed, his shoulders slumping a little.

“Did you have any more questions?” Danny prompted, cocking his head. 

“You offered help with any Realms beings. Do you expect we’ll have any trouble?” Batman asked, cocking his head a little. 

“Maybe,” Danny said with a little shrug. “It depends if the GIW still has an active portal somewhere, and how good their security is on it. Must be better than my parents used to be or we’d already be up to our eyeballs in confused ghosts, but it’s always a possibility.” He noticed the considering look Batman was giving him and gave a crackling laugh; “I haven’t been back to the realms in years. If anything’s going on there I don’t know about it. Though I’m sure Clockwork knows where I am if they really need me.” 

“Right, thank you for the offer,” Batman sighed and stood up. “And just think about my offer alright? If you need help, or protection, call. Not just from the GIW.”

Batman hesitated, opened his mouth to say something else and then sighed and shook his head. Whatever it was he seemed to have thought better of it as he turned away with a swish of his cape and grappled away. Dramatic bastard. 

Danny chuckled and shook his head at the older hero’s behaviour and pulled his phone out again. He had a text from Jason, telling him which safe house he and Roy were hanging out at and that he should come. And maybe… if he wanted to, to bring lube and the three of them could have some fun. 

Danny grinned sharply and licked his lips beneath his muzzle, well he’d just swing by their nest on the way over then! He texted Jason he would be there soon, and asked if they’d need condoms too.

[nomstellations]

Your friend wants to eat you. Badly.

It's been like this for a while now- they've been staring at you a lot lately and wanting to be in your company a lot, always asking to hang out and hovering nearby. You can hear their stomach EASILY since they're so close- growling and groaning impatiently. They've taken to wearing thick sweaters to muffle the sound, but no matter how much they've eaten or how many layers they wear, it still insistently growls out for living food. Like you.

They know better than to just gobble you up; you've never been very receptive to the idea from other people and have fought your way out of jaws before. So you'd never let them, surely... But watching them struggle with this was agonizing. They were either going to snap, or starve themselves. It had to stop at some point, and you'd rather your friend not get hurt.

One day you've had it. They've come over for movie night, but their stomach is once again making a racket just from being next to you. You pause the movie to get up and get a snack, and they mumble that they'd like one too... When you come back, you set down your things and turn to your friend. Their curious expression turns to one of shock and surprise as you practically press yourself onto them, feeling the vibrations of their stomach through their hoodie as you grab onto their face.

"I want you to eat me."

[i-am-church-the-cat]

Corporate wants you to find the difference between these two pictures

[britany1997]

Cat and Mouse

Hope y’all love this! Comment to be added to my Spike Taglist:)

Spike x fem reader slayer

Warnings: SMUT minors DNI, predator x prey (sort of), roleplay, lotsssss of foreplay and a little bit of smut, cunnilingus, biting (duh), blood drinking (also duh), I think that’s it

You ran through the depths of Spike’s cave, desperately searching for a way out.

The tunnels seemed to wind on forever, and every turn seemed to lead you to a dead end. You feared it was only a matter of time before you met your own end.

As you raced down another tunnel, fear crept into your heart when you found yet another cold cave wall. A whispered “no” fizzled from your lips.

“Bad luck pet,” you tensed as a familiar voice purred from behind you.

In a flash, your back was pressed into the wall, held in place by the forearm of the most despicable vampire you knew, Spike.

You scowled down at him, your eyes full of ire.

Spike returned your scowl with a smirk. He leaned in to whisper in your ear. “I will know your blood, Slayer. I will make your neck my chalice... and drink deep.”

Your hateful expression melted to one of amusement.

“Did you script this?”

He glared at you, “you’re not supposed to break character.”

That was a yes.

The corner of your lip pulled up slightly, but you suppressed it before you could smile. Spike had obviously put a lot of thought into your little game, you’d hate to ruin it for him.

“In your dreams bloodsucker,” you bit back, pushing Spike off of you and into the cave wall across from you.

His smile was catlike as he brushed rubble off his clothes.

“Yes pet, exactly.” He grabbed your hand and yanked you towards him, “now tell me, do you dream of me too?”

You threw him off you, pulling your stake from its holster. “I dream of the day I can drive this through your hollow chest.”

He mock pouted. “You wound me love, who’ll you play with when I’m a pile of dust?”

You scoffed, moving forward to press the point of the stake into his chest, “vamps like you are a dime a dozen.”

“You’re half right pet,” he smirked, “Sunnydale may be overrun with vampires…”

In a flash he grabbed your wrist, wrestling the stake to the ground and maneuvering you against his chest, “…but there’s no one quite like me.”

Your thighs clenched as he slowly licked along your neck.

Spike had carried you out from his tunnel network, and into the bedroom area of his cave.

He threw you onto the bed before crawling over you, “your mine slayer,” he said as his lips moved to capture yours.

“Wait.”

He groaned, “what??”

Your eyes narrowed. “You catch me, ‘the super powerful, only slayer in all the world…’”

He nodded.

You pursed your lips, moving off the bed to think.

“That kinda makes it seem like you win.”

You could have sworn if he had any blood it would have rushed to his cheeks.

“Win?” He asked, laughing nervously. “You must be- no. Win? What?”

You crossed your arms.

He sighed, “can you just get on the bed.”

“Mhmm,” your finger reached out to caress his chin. “Since you’re the big, bad, strong vampire that defeats me, shouldn’t you be able to…you know, take me?”

He groaned, “believe me love I am trying.”

You giggled, “you know that’s not what I meant.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. You cleared your throat to suppress your laughing.

He looked up, “can’t you win next time?”

You smiled, “ok Spikey.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled as he picked you up and spun you around, making soft giggles fall from your lips.

“Oh no! The evil vampire has captured me again! Whatever shall I do now?” You threw your arm over your forehead dramatically.

He rolled his eyes, but smiled. “No stakes left, no friends around to save you slayer?”

You raised an eyebrow, “hmm guess I’ll have to resort to your methods,” you sunk your teeth into the skin of his neck.

“Oh fuck love.” he moaned, gripping your hair and pulling gently.

You sucked the skin of his neck between your teeth. God you hoped vampires could still bruise.

The hand not currently tangled in your hair slid to your waist, pulling you closer and squeezing.

When you finally pulled away, Spike’s eyes were practically all black. He was dripping with desire.

“My turn,” he pushed you back, pressing you into the mattress and letting his teeth sink into the familiar spot where your shoulder met your neck.

You let out a breathy mew and wrapped your legs around his waist as he drank.

“Mmm slayer,” he purred into your shoulder, “you’re too sweet to drink dry…I’d rather keep you instead.”

You bit your lip and rolled your hips, grinding against him. “What are you going to do with me?” You forced a scared look onto your face.

He lifted his head from your neck to peer down at you, “what I always do pet…” he paused, “make you scream.”

You couldn’t help it. You crashed your lips into his in a searing kiss. “Well then hurry up already,” you teased.

He smirked as he tore your clothes off, prompting a gasp to fall from your lips. “So impatient,” he teased back.

He tossed the remains of your clothes to the side and kneeled between your legs.

“You’ve got the prettiest cunt love,” he sighed wistfully.

Your ran your fingers through his hair, before pulling him in closer with a bit of slayer strength. “Yeah? Bet it tastes even better.”

His hand snaked around your leg as he leaned in to nip at your thigh. “Mmm I bet it does.”

He gently parted your legs further. He pressed soft kisses to each thigh, before leaning in to kiss your lower stomach.

You whimpered, desperate for more. “Enough teasing,” you grit through your teeth.

He chuckled as he moved to lick softly at your clit. As you did your hands threaded through his hair once more.

Spike, encouraged by your response, sealed his lips around your clit and began to suck. His eyes fluttering closed as he felt your thighs shake around his head.

Spike’s hands came up to hold your hips, and squeezed as he licked and sucked.

When you felt yourself getting close to the edge, his tongue licked a stripe upwards before laving at your clit, desperate to make feel you release into his mouth.

You screamed his name as you coated his face, causing him to moan in approval.

He left soft kisses on your thighs as he licked them clean, before crawling into bed beside you.

You hummed as he wrapped himself around you from behind, his head fitting into the crook of your neck. “You were right,”

“Right about what?” he asked as he planted a kiss on your cheek.

“There’s no one quite like you,” you turned to beam up at him.

He smiled back at you, stroking your cheek. Then his gaze turned sinister. “Just wait until round two slayer.”

You smirked. Your night had just begun.

Note: yes that’s an actual Buffy quote about him making reader’s neck his chalice lmao

Spike Taglist🦇:

@sad-ghost-of-garbage @6lostgirl6 @misslavenderlady @bloodywickedvamp @crustyboypix @dwaynesluscioushair @lostboys1987girl @anna1306 @arbesa-mind @ria-coolgirl @the-glitter-wizard

[momodita]

snapshots. [—millions knives]

TAGS / WARNINGS: trigun stampede verse, no crash       au, gender neutral reader, possessive behavior,       plant mating cycles (implied aphrodisiac       effect), jealousy, implied predator/prey WC: 1,000 NOTE: buff knives save me. save me buff knives.

✗ MINORS / AGELESS / BLANK BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED.

“What do you think of Vash.”

Knives doesn’t ask questions—he makes demands. You’ve barely set the tray with his supper down before he speaks. This side of the ship is out of range of the hull’s lights. He’s facing away from the window, but even his reflection seems to stare. The air is noticeably sweet—almost unbearably so. Like honey.

“Good evening to you, too.” The tease comes first, reflexively. His nose wrinkles, expression testy. He’s confined himself to the ship’s residential sector all day: no wonder he’s extra irritable, you didn’t hear anyone else en route to his room.

“Answer me,” he commands.

You appraise him, pausing. His clothes are loose—as casual as he’ll allow himself. He looks no less ruffled than normal, but his body is poised: the eerily motionless outline of him stark against the midnight stretch of glass.

“We’re friends? I'm sure he would say the same.” You pull words with careful truth. Since childhood, Knives has stuck to Vash like glue. Rarely are they seen apart, except the occasions they fight and when duty pulls them to different sectors.

Vash is companionable and easy to approach; the same cannot be said for his brother. Yet over the years you’ve come to consider Knives somewhat of a close friend as well.

You tell him this—cheerful despite his mood—but he merely stares, expression pinched; unsatisfied. The honeyed air is so thick, you can almost feel the crawl of it in your lungs.

“You’re hiding something,” he insists, agitated. “That’s not all, is it?” He’s losing patience. You’ve no idea what inspired these questions, what he hopes to gain from asking them. Is he perhaps envious of his brother’s wide network of friends? In no lifetime would he care for tips on getting along with people. That’s how he's always been—a far cry from his personable, people-loving brother, but no less intelligent.

Head tilting, your confusion is obvious. “…What’s with the interrogation?” If you’d known he was in the mood to scrutinize, you wouldn’t’ve volunteered to bring his dinner.

“Answer me.” He steps forward, closing the short distance between you. Instinct tells you to flee, but it’s just Knives. He’s just Knives. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. How he dotes on you.”

Vash dotes on everyone. He supplies you snacks during long shifts, he cracks jokes that make you laugh, he listens to your worries, he keeps you company in the wee hours—but he does that with everyone. He’s let you nap in his room a couple times, but it’s closer than yours and you’ve been found dozing off in the kitchens. A bed is better than the floor.

“Knives, are you alright?” He’s got all the movement and concentration of a hunting animal. The kind you’ve seen from archived media. You take an instinctive step back.

He descends upon you like a wall. The years have been kind to his height and build: he closes the distance between you in just three strides. Fear blooms, unbidden and merciless—you think he’s going to hit you. But there’s a bruising pressure around your arm, his grapple like iron as his heaving chest presses against you—into you—forcing a hasty retreat until your heel knocks the door.

The movement pushes air from your lungs, and you realize late—much too late, far too late considering who you’re dealing with—that he is the reason for this sweet aroma. It fills your nose as he aligns your bodies together, all but squishing you into the cold steel.

“Stay,” he hisses. A wide, hot palm pressing into your hip. “Tell me what you think of my brother.” The hairs on your nape stand straight as he speaks against your temple. “All of it.”

(The other crew members had seemed apprehensive. One suggested to wait for Vash so he could do it. But it’d gotten too late. There was no guarantee he’d come back. They’d been apprehensive, but maybe… maybe not for the reason you initially thought.)

“You’re not for him,” he’s saying, sounding almost delirious. “You’ll never be for him.”

“I’m not for anyone!” Alarmed by his strength—his unwillingness to release you, struggling is an easy choice. “Knives, let’s think rationally—”

“I am thinking rationally.” He looses a rough, clipped breath. Nerves splinter a fierce trail down your spine when his face presses into the length of your throat.

“You’re not.” It’s useless to admonish him in this state: he listens to nothing. Not logic, not facts, not even Rem. “Knives, let me—let me get Vash. I’ll get Vash and we can—”

The teeth are a surprise. They scrape up your throat—a ragged breath flickers down your esophagus, fingers jumping up to fist into the material of his shirt. The heat of his body is unrelenting. The saccharine smell is so violently potent. It makes your knees oddly weak.

“You’re mine.”

…What?

You nearly go limp against him—the shock saps you of any fight. He’s acted this way a handful of times before. The memories are finally resurfacing: being easily aggravated, making impossible childish demands. It happens infrequently, but on a schedule. And this syrupy fragrance… you’ve experienced it before in a diluted form: years ago, when Vash had been red-faced and forced to tell you about certain cycles—

“Knives, this smell isn’t—don’t tell me you’re—”

“You came to me willingly,” Knives breathes, rough and low. His markings begin pulsing with light. His mouth is hot and wet as it moves over your rabbiting pulse. Hungry. “You knew.”

Oh. Oh no.

“I came to deliver your food,” you protest, muffled into his chest as his arms tighten, squeezing you against him. He looses something like a growl into the dip of your shoulder, rubbing his face there. “Knives,” you plead.

Distant thundering footsteps approach. His eager fangs are sharp—they threaten to break skin. And you, for all your struggle, cannot muster the coherence to protest.

[mortuary-reads]

Superhero morals had no place on a drunk and horny animal...

🐇🍓Fruit Bunny🍓🐇

Wolverine x Female OC

Summary~ Wolverine takes advantage of the cute girl that comes into the bar for a lonely birthday drink.

Warning~ Non-Con, Primal/Prey, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Mention of blood and saliva

Word Count~ 3,115

Author's Note~ This is my first Tumblr post, so I hope it looks alright. I wrote this story on Ao3, and with the help of @romanarose, I was able to make a post here!

Divider 1 made by~ @plum98

Divider 2 made by~ @mmadeinheavenn

Logan had just opened another bottle of cheap beer when he heard the bell above the front door open. He turned his head out of lazy curiosity and saw a short, chubby girl with pale blonde hair walk in. Her walk was timid as she made her way up to the middle of the bar where the bartender stood. It just so happened to be right next to Logan. He caught a whiff of her perfume with his sensitive mutant nose.

Strawberries.

In his tipsy state with an empty stomach, he found her scent mouth-watering and couldn’t stop himself from leaning a bit closer to her. She didn’t seem to notice.

“How can I help you, sweetheart?” The worker leaned on the bar.

“Um… Do you make mixed drinks here?” She asked shyly.

The bartender made eye contact with Logan, and they both chuckled. He looked back at her. “I do if you’re 21. Can I see some I.D. please?”

“Oh! Right.” She sheepishly opened her pink satchel purse and pulled out a lacy wallet the same color. She grabbed her identification card, showed it to the man, and he nodded with approval.

“I’m guessing you’re wanting something fruity?”

“Yes, please. If you can.”

“I’ll see what I can whip up for ‘ya.” The barkeep grunted and stretched while turning to look at his alcohol stash.

The brunette man examined her as she put her wallet away. Her outfit made her stand out in the grimy bar. Pristine black Mary Janes held her tiny feet, covered by baggy cream leg warmers with knitted strawberries on them. Under those were white tights that hugged her thick thighs followed by a short denim ruffle skirt and a heart belt. She wore a tight white shirt with a huge strawberry printed on the front and a small bow to hold back her side bangs. She was so cute it made him feel nauseous. What a lovely little rabbit.

“Can…I help you?” The girl asked, her voice filled with unease.

“Mm!” Logan cleared his throat and leaned away. “My bad, I just thought you smelled nice. Don’t mind the old, drunk bastard.” He took a swig of his beer.

Happy to hear a compliment, but still weary, she smiled at him. “Oh, thank you. It’s a new perfume I got for my birthday.”

“The big 21?” Logan asked.

“No, 22. My friends couldn’t make it this time, so I’m just here, drinking alone.” She chuckled nervously.

That was her first mistake.

Something in him turned. He didn’t know if it was the alcohol swirling in his stomach or the growing hardness in his pants, but his body felt extra hot. “Ain’t no shame in that.” He drew from his big cigar.

The bartender set down a martini glass filled with a light red liquid and a big bright strawberry on the side. “I figured you liked strawberries.”

The girl mock-gasped, “How could you tell?” then laughed.

Logan found her laughter almost as intoxicating as the beer in his hands.

“That’ll be-” The bartender started, but was interrupted by the burly man with the cigar.

“On me, Tim.” Logan held his hand up slightly.

The barkeep nodded his head, and walked to the register to put it on his tab.

“Awww thank you! You didn’t have to-”

“I know I didn’t.” He gulped down the rest of his beer and placed it on the bar a bit too heavy. “Add me three more shots and I’m calling it, big guy.” He called out to Tim.

Feeling uneasy again, the girl took her drink and thanked him again.

“Mhm.” Was all that came out as he puffed his cigar.

Logan clenched and released his fists multiple times after she walked away to sit at a table in the back of the bar. After getting his shots he snuck multiple glances at her. He didn’t understand where this yearning feeling came from. He’d already swallowed so much pooling saliva in fear he’d drool all over himself, and it made him angry. He could even smell her strong fragrance wafting over to him, like an invitation. He watched as she kicked her legs on the stool that was too high for her. He watched as she took too many selfies and made silly faces into the camera. Her movements were so delicate that it made his entire body quiver with need.

The evening saw the sun go down, and a blue-gray fog enveloped the windows of the bar. Logan noticed the girl clumsily hop off her stool, and straighten out her skirt and purse. He quickly turned his back to her as she headed in his direction towards the door. Biting his knuckles, he stopped himself from whimpering as the chime from the bell above the door rang out twice, signifying her departure.

Blowing out a deep breath, Logan got off his stool and popped the collar of his leather jacket before throwing back his last shot.

“Hey, Logan, Have a nice night, man!” Tim shouted from the end of the bar where he’d been in a conversation with another customer.

“Yeah.” Logan mumbled, dropping a one-hundred dollar bill on the counter before walking out the front door into the cool air. On the pavement he checked his watch and sighed.

6:37 the time read. He didn’t have time to think of anything else before the familiar scent of strawberries assaulted his nose. With a deep inhale, he looked to his right and noticed the small girl making her way down the sidewalk headed towards the deep wooded area next to the bar.

Her second mistake.

Why that way? Kid’s gonna get herself killed. He hesitated, just standing there as she kept walking. The sway of her hips was mesmerizing to Logan. He clenched his fists and scowled, as if in a war with himself. He knew it was wrong; lusting after a girl so young. Wanting her so aggressively. The idea was so tempting…

The concrete sidewalk vanished into naked ground, as she made her way through the treeline on its dirt path.

Oh, she’s asking for it.

Superhero morals had no place on a drunk and horny animal. There was no justification for all the things he wanted to do to her. Walking in her same direction, he decided that he didn’t care; his mind was made up.

Logan stuck his hands in his pockets and honed in on her scent. In a tipsy haze, he had to focus somewhat harder than normal to keep her in his line of sight, but his need for her kept his animalistic instincts in check. As the lights of the bar melted out of view, his eyes stayed glued on her. He knew exactly where to crouch, duck, and hide every time she turned around. And each time she did, he could feel his heart skip a beat. He almost felt like he could laugh with the rush of adrenaline he was experiencing. The way she hummed romantically to herself made him feel like he was floating. Stalking his prey, his body twitched, waiting for the right moment to strike. Signs of life outside of the forest grew quieter, which meant he had to as well.

He was right up on her, two trees away. He was slightly surprised he was able to get so close.

No spatial awareness… dumb fucking rabbit. Wolverine scoffed to himself.

For the first time the pretty prey stopped. She checked her phone for what he felt was the umpteenth time.

        “Still no service.” She mumbled to herself and sighed. “This phone company sucks ass…”

He couldn’t take it anymore. Logan forced himself to come out of the trees and onto the path, about ten feet away from the girl. Hearing the rustling, she turned around and jumped.

A surprised shriek came from her throat. “Oh, my God! Wha-what are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you the same question, little rabbit.” He said in a low growl, taking a few steps towards her.

“I’m just trying to get home.” She gulped. “This way is a short-cut.”

“It’s dangerous for an attractive thing like you to be out here-” he surveyed the vast area around him, “-alone.”

“Hey, um… I can pay you back for the drink, that's no big deal.” She laughed nervously, fumbling with the flap of her purse.

Trails of wetness ran from his mouth, down his neck, and soaked the collar of his wife beater. Wolverine spit on the dirt path beneath him, letting the last of his pooled saliva dribble over his lips. “I don’t want your money, princess. But you can give me something else.”

He started walking steadily, and noticed her chest rising and falling rapidly. Each step he took towards her, she took backwards. She tripped over loose items on the path as the animal in front of her kept a steady pace.

“Please, sir, I-I don’t want any trouble.” She slowly held her hands out.

“Mmm, say that again.” He slowly peeled off his jacket and tossed it aside.

Both figures kept the same pace and distance on the ground. Logan could feel his claws unsheathe themselves, his sanity gradually slipping from him. The only thing on his mind being the pretty piece of flesh in front of him. She gasped and took a handful of hurried steps back as tears formed and fell from her eyes. He thought they looked so delicious on her pale cheeks. 

Her nose twitched, and in an instant, she turned and dashed through the woods.

“You run your sweet, hoppity tail off.” He said to himself before he booked it right after her, running on all fours, claws piercing the ground with each burst forward. Blood curdling screams rose out of her body as she ran. Wolverine gained on her with almost no effort and pounced directly on her back. She screamed again as they both hit the ground, landing on a bed of dead leaves and sticks. His claws receded and he aggressively flipped her over on her back as short yelps escaped her mouth. She fought him in vain, pounding on his arms and chest, only to send shooting pain through her arms and legs. His metal bone structure would only hurt and wear her out faster; exactly what he was hoping for. He easily overpowered her, pinning her arms to the side of her head, with his knees on her shins.

“Fighting me won’t get ‘cha anywhere, bunny.”

“Fuck off!” She screamed, thrashing her head in hopes to hit him.

Wolverine gripped her wrists tighter and she screamed again.

“Knock it off!” He barked.

“Get off of meee…!” She cried out, but did slow her moving.

Her wiggling body underneath him sent a wave of heat to his twitching member, straining to free itself from his jeans. He lowered his head in the side of her neck and inhaled deeply the inebriating smell of strawberries, sweat, and fear.

The chilly fog in the air had thickened, giving the illusion of just the two in their own, messed up world.

“I'm gonna have so much fun with you, pretty girl.” He said, almost sickly-sweet.

Logan released his right hand from her wrist and not a moment later she slapped him hard across the face. She cried out in anguish, coiling her hand into her chest.

“Owwww…” She sobbed, turning her face away from the animal holding her down. “P-please…”

He gripped her face and twisted it hard to face him. He loved looking at her chubby cheeks crushed between his hand. Her movement ceased. Big blue eyes stared up at him in pure horror.

“P-p-please.” He mocked her and frowned dramatically only to break into maniacal laughter. Unsheathing his claws once more, he hooked them under her bra and shirt, and swiped up, tearing open each. After, he did the same with her skirt and tights, leaving her black panties intact and for show. He didn’t touch her leg warmers or shoes, only caring about how to achieve his goal fastest.

The girl dared not move as Wolverine lifted himself to his feet. She watched him throw off his top, unbuckle his pants and quickly pull off his gray boxers. She looked in shock at the mammoth sized cock protruding from the man’s muscular body. Her lips quivered as she looked back up at him, only to see he’d been watching her the whole time.

“Not so delicate now, are you?” He whispered to himself, bringing himself down to her level. He crawled towards her, drool dripping again from his mouth. He stopped between her legs and got up on his knees.

“If I offended you in any-” The pale blonde squealed as he ripped her panties clean off, exposing her cunt.

He grabbed both her ankles and forced her legs wide open and high in the air, leading her to scream out in agony as her muscles tensed. “Aahhhh…!”

“Mmm. Such… supple prey. Mine… to ruin.” His grasp on her ankles strengthened as his saliva fell in thick drops over her groin. He towered over the girl, looking down to admire the snow-white, chubby body below him. The dirt had stained her skin, and small cuts from the sticks smeared her arms with blood. Wolverine spit hot saliva on her twitching pussy, providing the first bout of lubrication.

She winced as he slapped his heavy cock on her vulva. “I-I can’t take that. I’ll die…”

Logan knew that was an exaggeration, but she believed it, and that's all that mattered. Panic re-entered her system and she started to try and pull away. He stopped her almost immediately by spreading her legs wider, that followed with another cry of pain.

“Maybe after I ruin you…” He lined his cock against her vaginal opening, “...I’ll make myself a nice rabbit stew.”

The poor creature yowled into the night as Wolverine penetrated her. Given no time to adjust to his size, all she could do was dig her hands into the soil beneath her and take it. Loud, broken grunts escaped from her as he shoved himself inside. He craved to go deeper, but was halted by her cervix.

“Fuck.” He growled, looking down at the lude scene before him. He still had more to give her. He wanted- no, needed- his entire dick sheathed inside her tight hole. 

“Go-od, please stop.” She begged. To him, her smeared makeup and tears made her even prettier. “It hurts. It hurts so bad!”

Without acknowledging her words, Logan bent himself down to hover over her, taking her thighs into the crook of his arms, spreading her wider. “I need to-” He moaned as he forced the remaining bit of his cock into her over stuffed pussy. “There… We go!”

“Be good…sweet bunny.” He sank his teeth deep into her neck as he rammed himself in and out of her.

“NooOOO!” 

Her blood tasted like candy on his tongue. After a while, her screams turned into dazed sobs, and her body fell limp. Her vagina had self lubricated as a protective measure, making it easier for him to pound harder and faster, bruising her cervix. 

His heart fluttered as she moaned incoherent things in her stupefied state. Her hands had landed themselves on his body, feebly grabbing at and rubbing his chest. He slowed down slightly to really feel the moment, and the body he was abusing.

“Please…I…oohh fuck…” She threw her head back as her body shook in an involuntary orgasm. He removed his teeth from her neck, blood flowing freely from the four deep puncture marks. Her cunt tightened around him, making him moan with her. She started sobbing again, embarrassed at her lack of control, but too exhausted to do anything about it. Her new cries revitalized him, and he picked back up to his brutal pace.

“Take… all of it.” He said brusquely as his own orgasm approached. Wolverine’s eyes rolled back and he slammed into her to the hilt of his cock. Prey wailed out as cum gushed directly into the deepest part of her vagina. She felt herself being filled with hot, thick liquid, and they both moaned as it overflowed and spilled out. He hovered over her, panting and cursing. He moved his arms, releasing the girl from her painful position. As her sore legs dropped and straightened out, he fell on top of her naked chest. He could still smell the strawberry perfume on her, though it was extremely weak being covered by the scent of earth and sex. 

He didn’t want to pull out of her. In all honesty he could lay there for the night and use her as a pillow to sleep.

It’s not like she could do anything about it. Logan thought, But I need to get out of here before I’m found out. He picked himself up off of her and stared down at her spent figure. Her eyes were half lidded, chest rising and falling softly. She looked somewhat peaceful, if it wasn’t for her twitching legs and gaping cunt. After putting his clothes back on, he grabbed his phone out of the left front pocket and dialed the crisis number.

“-What’s your emergency?” The woman on the line asked.

Logan cleared his throat, “Uh, yeah, I found a girl unconscious in the woods off of 3rd and 5th. About a mile in. She looks like she might need medical attention.”

“Alright sir, I have an ambulance on the way to you, can you please remain on the li-”

He pressed the red disconnect button and shoved his phone back in his pocket. The ravaged girl behind him stirred.

“Wha- where…?” She started pitifully.

He crouched down next to her. “You’ve got help coming, they’ll take good care of you, kid.” The brute softly ruffled her hair and caressed her tear stained cheek. 

“Hel-p…?” She looked up at him with sad, distant eyes. There would be no getting through to her. He’d completely broken her- mind and body, and was weak from blood loss. It would take a long time for her to recover.

He felt a twinge of guilt ruining such an innocent girl, but was proud looking at his immoral masterpiece. “I have your scent memorized. Maybe one day I’ll find you again and mark you a second time. Would you like that? A matching pair of bite marks sounds good, don’t it?”

She winced and curled her body away from him. 

Logan chuckled as he stood up. “Happy birthday, little rabbit." He said as he walked through the woods away from the path.

Thank you for reading! <3

[archonsbane]

BEAUTY IS TERROR

The gods crafted all mortals to have weaknesses, and foremost of many of Il Dottore’s is you. So when you ask him to be your companion to an annual winter ball, he is powerless to refuse. 

pairing. prime!dottore x reader, implied segments x reader, implied harbingers x reader, implied dottore x pantalone 

cw. gn!reader. reader is the tsarita’s child. reader referred to as they/them. dottore is a warning by himself. mentions & thoughts of violence + murder + human experimentation. drinking. biting. biting hard enough to draw blood. a bit suggestive but not nsfw. 

wc. 15k

an. first ever fic! hope you enjoy :D the title is from ‘the secret history’ by donna tartt. 

Dottore is no stranger to running away. 

He remembers the first time. He had been a child then, wide-eyed and tongue-tied, so unknowing about the world. His parents were fighting — they always fought, about money and work and him — and his father, a big man with small-set eyes and a hard mouth made for scowling, had begun to go on one of his drunken rants, prompting his mother to scream louder. He was crouched behind the stairwell, watching their shadows flicker and dance with the candlelight on the yellowed walls of their home. 

How hard he prayed that autumn day. His lip quivering, hands clasped together, every atom in his body searching for a hint of mercy from those who claimed to love him, both gods and parents. Stop, he would chant in his mind, stop, stop, stop. As brown and red leaves fell outside, as day turned to night, he prayed. He had never prayed so long or so hard until that day. The shouting never stopped and the gods remained silent.

Autumn reigned outside, and his faith died with the spring. It was a season of rot: the rot of the earth without, the rot of faith and soul within. He sucked in a harsh, shaky breath as the walls trembled from the screams. For a moment the house pulsed as though it had a heart. If it did, it had long been poisoned. 

He slipped out when the house went quiet, his parents dragged to exhaustion by their fight. There was no real goal in his mind, only that he wanted to run far, far away. He ran as fast as his little legs could take him, the wind in his hair, the distant call of birds at his back. He ran and ran and ran, and sooner or later the sun found him alone in the woods and free. 

Not for long. His parents found him three days later, surviving only on berries and the leavings of other beasts, grass-stained and muddied, yet cleaner than he had ever felt. He had shed his faith like a dirty coat, and his shoulders trembled with new-found purpose. That little rebellion earned him the worst beating he ever took in that house, but it no longer mattered. 

The next two times were far less pleasant. Even after all these years, they still rankle him. It had been a dark, starless night when the villagers came to cast him out. For his ‘madness’ and ‘monstrosity’, or whatever the hell they were shouting at him. He was too busy trying to not die to listen to all that. Some carried pitchforks, other crudely-made cudgels, and bats, yet all carried torches. It was like all the stars had come down from the sky to enact upon him his inevitable destruction. Inevitable, but Dottore did not believe in such silly lies anymore. He would take his fate and crush it with his hands and build a new one from smoke and ash. That house was the chain that tethered him to that broken old village. He burned it down that night, his parents still inside, and the chain broke; it was more than liberty: it was rebirth. He likes to think he was born on that ashen grass surrounded by the house’s fire and brimstone remains, sweaty and stained with blood. The Tsaritsa claims all the Harbingers are her children, but he knows he is not a holy child, just a creature forged from Hell. But Heaven imparted on him a farewell curse: the jagged scars that run down the left side of his face to his neck, smoking with resentment and remembrance. He left before the villagers could find out he was, in fact, not dead. 

Sumeru Akademiya, he thought, would be different. All the scholars were mad for knowledge, he had heard. So was he. He had expected to find a treasure trove of opportunity. He found old gray sages scared of their own shadows and peers who could not tell the difference between madness and truth. It was a shame, really. Nothing is as pitiful as something with wasted potential. But he had long learned if life did not go as planned, he would carve his way through, as a river changes the earth. And so once more he ran. 

The next time, fate would not catch him running like prey pursued. The Fatui had given him the opportunity to create the enhanced humans he knows could surpass the Heavens above. The next time, the gods above would meet their equal: a mortal man who, too, has learned the divine act of creation. 

“You’re thinking again.” Your voice pulls him from his thoughts and back into the planes of reality. “Am I really so boring of a companion that your mind has to wander off?” 

He frowns, tapping at the armrest of his chair. Sometimes the memories come back to him unbidden, especially when he wants to think of anything but the present that sits in front of him. You sit across from him (it was his intention that he sit as far away from you as possible), legs informally crossed, your elbow resting on one knee and your chin cupped by your palm. You look nothing like the feared heir to Snezhnaya you normally are. Your grin is as pure and unfiltered as the spring sun, amplified by the fire roaring in the hearth, the look in your eyes warm and guileless. It’s a facade, unnoticed by the untrained eye. Your teeth are bared like a beast’s and your gaze is as sharp as a predator’s. When it pleases you to play the darling child of winter, you do. But he knows better. You like playing this little game with him — with all of the Harbingers, really, he’s seen how you’ve attached yourself to them, not only him, and it makes his chest tighten with some unnamed emotion — teasing him and complimenting him and following him around like some malignant ghost from the children’s tales. You’re a cruel little wolf like that. You play with your food before swallowing it whole. 

“You, boring? No.” Never boring. As irritating as your frequent visits are, he will always be kept occupied by one of your antics. “Unexpected? Yes.” You barged into his wing of the palace unannounced in the night, having completely evaded all his guards and segments, and casually sat down on his couch with a tray of tea and biscuits that seems to be a pacifying gift.

You pout mockingly. “Still haven’t forgiven me?” 

Irritation flickers against his skin. He readjusts his mask and scoffs. “It’s been five minutes, I require much more time than that.” 

“How ‘bout your gift?” You clasp your hands together. “Please? It’s your favorite. I got it from Lonnie.” Your leg bounces, an anxious habit of yours. What could possibly make you nervous? Certainly not his presence, you had made that clear, with all your unabashed visits to his lab, his foreign workshops, and now his own rooms. 

“I’d really rather have whiskey.” 

You raise a brow. “I didn’t bring any, and there aren’t any glasses.” 

“There’s a bottle in my drawer. Under the…” He trails off. He keeps indulgent snacks underneath a false bottom, just because, but you seem to already be aware of it. You slide out the wooden plank and hold up the bottle, the brown turned golden in the light of the fire. “... of course, you know.” 

He reaches for the tea cup on the coffee table, hot in his palms, but that never bothers him anymore with all the modifications he’s made to his body and swallows it all in one large gulp. Black tea with a twist of lemon. Four sugar cubes. His favorite. Somehow that makes his mood even worse. You hand him the bottle as you sit back down (closer to him now, which he does not fail to notice). He pours into his teacup until it almost sloshes over the edge.

The moment of silence stretches for a moment too long. He really wishes you’d just get on with it and end his misery, he wants to sleep or work or do something that removes the stain of you from his mind. Your face flickers like a flashlight in his peripheral vision, ghostly in the smoke. Your eyes glow terribly bright, a godly trait from your mother. It’s as beautiful as it is eerie. He transfers all his weight to his left foot, then his right, then back again. You wait for him to finish drinking, your gaze never leaving him. 

“Have you forgiven me now?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, his voice dangerously calm. He swirls the whiskey around in his cup. The grandfather clock in the room ticks and tocks and he wishes for time to go faster just so he’d be rid of you already. “Do I have to?” He’s always dealt insolence back tenfold, ask any of his segments, or the poor, cursed souls who lie in his personal mortuary, many of whom have committed lesser crimes than breaking and entering into his personal space. “You really think you’re that special?” 

“Yes.” 

He wants to strangle you and wipe that self-satisfied smirk off your stupid face. He wants to carve out those eyes so they’d never make him squirm under their gaze again. He wants to — he does not know what. 

He scowls and runs a hand through messy curled hair. “Five minutes, before I have my segments drag you out.” 

Amusement flickers across those too-bright eyes. You know that he knows he won’t. You let him pretend anyways.

“Wonderful!” You say happily, like a child just told they could play in the playground for a little while. “I need a favor.” 

There’s an unexplainable drop that he suddenly feels in his chest. He had expected you to be here simply to annoy him or make fun of his sleep schedule (that does not exist) or something stupid like that. Why, he cannot say it out loud. His company has never been termed as pleasurable anyways, as much as you continually seek it out. This is expected, it should have been. 

You place a cream-blue envelope with gold lining on the coffee table. He tears it apart, secretly smiling at the way your brows furrow in annoyance. The tattered paper has elegant calligraphy that marks it as from some noble-born priss, one of the many in Snezhnaya whose names he has never bothered to learn. They wrote that they were cordially inviting Their Imperial Highness to… 

His eyes narrow. “The Sokolov Winter Ball.” He waves the paper in front of your face. “No. No. No. Absolutely not—”

“—yes, oh, come one now, it’ll be fun—” 

“—you know how much I hate these things, and all those useless, simpering lords and ladies hate me—” 

“—they’re not simpering. Some of them are nice, like Duke Romanov’s daughter, and anyways, you’ll be with me the entire time and they won’t dare to insult a Fatui Harbinger to their face.” 

He slams the paper down on the table. The teacups rattle from the impact. He leans forward, chin raised in defiance. “No.”

You cross your arms and lean into the couch. “Too bad. I command you to go.”

"Can't you ask the others? Why torment me, specifically?" He gestures wildly with his hands to emphasize his irritation. 

You place a hand on your heart, eyes blown wide for extra effect. "Torment? Dear Doctor, you sadden me so. Can't I spend time with my favorite Dottore?" 

"Oh? And here I thought Gamma was your favorite."

"You're my favorite of all the non-Gammas. Anyways, I can’t really take an eleven-year-old to the ball."

"Just take Theta and be happy with that." 

"But I want to take you." 

There’s a desperate lilt in your voice that weakens his resolve. Could you really? This wasn’t just another one of your jokes, was it? He hates balls, hates the moronic socialites of Snezhnayan society, but absurdly, hope becomes a twittering hummingbird in his heart. 

He grits his teeth. "I should file this as some sort of abuse of power." 

He wants to deny you, he does. He knows he can’t. He feels the insidious truth squeeze at his black heart. 

You reach out and pat his head condescendingly. "You do that, dear." 

"Is there anything I can do to make you take someone else?" He waves his hand at nothing. "I'll give you my entire secret stash of chocolates." It's hidden beneath the false bottom of his desk. A very obvious hiding spot, but he doesn't think anyone should care much for a simple stash of chocolates. He prides himself on it, for all its insignificance. He's collected chocolate-covered hazelnuts from Mondstadt, boxes of assorted chocolates from Fontaine, white almonds encased in matcha-infused chocolates from Inazuma, and choco pies from Liyue. 

"Er," There's a strange, sheepish smile on your face. "No." 

“Will you leave even if I still say no?”  

“No.” And then, in a hushed tone barely above a whisper, the final blow to his resolve: “Well, yes, if you really don’t want to go. But consider it, at least? I want to do this with you.” You don’t look at him as you say it, you don’t turn that captivating gaze of yours on his body to make him squirm. Your face is turned towards the fire, the glow of it making your cheeks red. He almost believes you. He wants to believe you. 

You sigh at his silence. “You can get something out of this.” 

He raises an inquisitive brow. “Like?” 

“Archons, I don’t know. A favor for later. More funding. More… resources. Whatever. Anything I can wrestle out of the others.”

It’s a good deal, he muses. Your influence as heir apparent is not one to be undermined. Moreover, the other Harbingers are strangely fond of you. They would bend for you, and not just out of duty. 

A pause, and then, with a world-weary sigh he puts his face in his hands. He does not want to see your ebullience, it would hurt his pride too much. “Alright.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wants to snatch them back and stuff them down his throat, but it's too late. 

A joyful sound leaves you. He hears the rustling of cloth and excited steps on the wooden floors before he’s enveloped by the warmth of your body. Your hands wrap around his shoulders, and your head rests on top of his head.

He flinches slightly. You pull away but your hands remain on his shoulders. He hates, hates how his heart leaps to his throat, how every atom in his body starts to vibrate with life. He cannot, will not, let you have this power over him. He tugs on his heartstrings like a puppeteer and wills his heart to turn to stone. 

“You’ll have a fun time, I promise.” You disentangle from him your hair falls over your eyes, and without thinking, he lifts a hand and brushes it away. You grab his hand and entwine your fingers together. “You won’t regret this.” 

“I’m there to accompany you and leave as fast as possible,” Dottore replies wryly, but his heart lurches. 

He cannot explain to himself why he allows the moment to go on longer than he should. You both stay locked in position, half-hugging with your hands intertwined. Your eyes are half-lidded, your eyelashes fluttering with a mix of embarrassment and playfulness.  His gaze trails from your lashes to your lips, red as cherries. His throat feels suddenly parched and his cheeks flush with warmth. From the fire, he tells himself. 

The grandfather clock chimes midnight. 

You watch with amusement in your eyes as he jumps back, elbow hitting the armrest, swallowing the noise that threatens to escape his body. Suddenly all the irritation comes rushing back up to the surface of his skin. Many a man has fled from that look, from the green children Arlecchino supplies them with to veteran soldiers who have faced blood-soaked horrors on the battlefield. 

You blink innocently. 

He rubs at his temple, glaring at the fireplace in order to avoid looking at you. You quickly school your lips into a languid smile and start to ramble on about the details — white tie, no theme, dinner, and a ball, don't be late, and remember your manners — and his mind has started to drift to the experiments he needs to finish. There's a particularly annoying disease that's been sweeping through the masses, and the Tsaritsa charged him with taking care of it. He's already gotten a dozen test subjects but one particularly insolent one destroyed a week's worth of research while trying to escape. Then there's a whole batch of delusion prototypes in need of a field test, and it's almost time for his segment's monthly inspection. 

"—and you need to learn how to dance." 

His head snaps up. "You're kidding—" 

"Nope," you say, cutting him off. Archons, one day, he swears to himself, he will make you shut up (How? A voice inside asks. He has no answer.) and his life will be all the better without your grating voice sniffing at his heels like a hungry dog. "You'll be taking classes with me starting next week. Mother says it's about time you learned, too. Everyone else knows." 

He scowls at you. You've got him by the hook — no matter what, the Tsaritsa's will cannot be questioned. A thousand times he deflected, making up excuses or sending segments in his place. He does not think it ever fooled his Empress, but she never pressed on it. She would forgive them a thousand little times over, but when she was steadfast in her resolve, her will was as unconquerable as a glacier. 

“Fine. Just get out already.” 

Your little chuckle rings in his ears. “Mother might call in the army to search for me if I linger.” 

Oh, thank Tsartisa. “Then go,” he says dryly. He really, really does not want to be accused of high treason today. Your mother was terrifyingly overprotective.

You roll your eyes. “That’s no way to see off a guest, but I’ll forgive you from the kindness of my heart.” 

For his personal gratification, he launches a throw pillow in your direction. You catch it with one unamused brow raised. You throw it back and it hits him in the face. 

You put on your boots and your cloak and slip out the door, gently closing it with a click. The fire is still roaring, but the room feels much colder now. There’s a strange, hollow place in the room he cannot help but feel that your shape should be filling. There’s a dull ache pounding in his chest. 

He rubs his eyes and moves to his desk, his perpetual sweet tooth aching for that chewy heaven in his taste buds. He almost thinks he's opened the wrong drawer when he finds nothing there, but with a flash of anger, he realizes there's a note in your familiar handwriting. 

Sorry. I'll pay you back. :) 

You insolent little minx. You ate all of it. 

He sighs and pulls back his leather chair. He falls into the soft fabric, all the tension in his body dissipating into the air. He’s too tired to be annoyed. All the energy he exerts in your presence could do that. He sinks deeper into the plush chair and stretches his legs underneath the desk. If there’s ever been a miracle in his life, it’s that his spine hasn’t broken yet from all of the bone-shattering positions he puts himself in. 

He’ll have to adjust his non-existent schedule now. The Doctor operates on impulse and instinct, rotating between experiments and whatever’s captured his attention, sometimes not leaving the lab for days on end or going out and doing more… personal research. He’s begun digging deeper into Ruin Guards, and what he’s found has fascinated him. You would like it, he thinks. He’ll have to tell you all about it one of these days. 

Archons. What have you done to him? Slipping through the iron walls of his heart and plunging yourself deep into the myocardium. You’ve infested his body like a disease, and now it seems all thoughts and actions have been dedicated to you. He hates it, he enjoys it, he cannot tear you out of him no matter how hard he tries, and he’s tried. Oh, so many times. 

Now that you’ve left, he allows his lips to curl into a sneer. That moment — the entire night, really — was just a weakness he has not yet stamped out. He wishes he could tear his heart out and stomp on it until it stopped doing that infuriating flutter whenever you’re near. He sucks in a harsh breath and taps frantically on the armrest. He is so, so fucked. 

Dottore is no stranger to running away, yet it seems you’re the one divinity he cannot escape from.

The morning before the first lesson finds him sleep-deprived, exhausted, and in an absolutely foul mood. The previous night (or, rather, three a.m. that morning), a Chaos Core went wild and exploded. It was the last in his stock. He sent Beta to hunt for more, but it would be a while until he returned with a sufficient amount and he had to put a hold on his studies ‘till then. One of his test subjects had also been spitting out defiance after defiance as of late, dragging his research longer than it should’ve gone on. He killed them, of course, sometimes you just have to cut your losses and be done with it, but it wasted so many days spent conducting test after test. The thought of it makes him furious all over again, but he cannot be in a mood today. 

Dottore has never found out the secret of looking as though he’s just waltzed out a Fontainian perfume commercial like Pantalone, but today he looks worse than ever when inelegantly he rolls out of bed. His appearance has never bothered him before, not with his mask covering the worst of it, but his hair sticks out in so many directions it looks as though he’s just been hit by lightning, his skin is sickly pale, and his eyes are wide and bloodshot. He drags a hand down his face and moans in exasperation. He knows you won’t care, but court conduct requires just a little bit of dignity from him. 

A much-needed shower and eye drops solve the worst of it (or so he hopes). He still looks like Death himself has come to haunt the palace’s hollow hallowed halls, but that was his common appearance anyways. 

The Fatui and the servants who go in and out of the palace keep their eyes trained on the ground as he passes by, a manic grin that shows sharp ivory teeth on his face. It’s an effort to keep up the appearance running on three hours of sleep, but the memory of that night rattles around in his mind, and he will not be that weak again. Just for fun, he turns his gaze on one of the new-bloods. The way they flinch brings a sliver of confidence back to him. 

A familiar figure makes him pause in his tracks. His grin is genuine now, and he feels this is a wonderful restart to a day that has, so far, been miserable. 

“Well, well, if it isn’t the Regrator.” 

He does not have to see the front of his head to know Pantalone rolls his eyes and stares pointedly off to the distance before turning around to face him. He looks as youthful as ever, still looking like an early thirty-something, as he has for the entire time Dottore’s known him. The smile on his face is polite and patronizing. 

“Dottore,” Pantalone forces out. He folds his fingers together across his stomach. “How… lovely to see you.” 

“Is it?” He gives the man a mocking smile and tilts his chin up with his hand. “Lovely, but so cold. Where are the happy smiles for me, my lord?” 

Pantalone scoffs and crosses his arms, half-turning away. “A wretched creature like you doesn’t deserve one.” So he’s dropped all formalities, then. This would be interesting. 

Dottore places his hand over his chest for dramatic effect, in a comically similar way that you had all those nights ago. “I thought we were getting along so well. You wound me, Lonnie.” 

“Good. I hope it kills you.” 

A faux gasp leaves his mouth. Pantalone’s eye twitches. He turns to leave, but Dottore wheels ahead of him and blocks his path, stretching his arms wide. As much as you annoy him, he can’t say he does not understand what you feel when you do. Pantalone, his favorite target, always elicits the best emotions that keep him entertained for weeks after. His rotten heart beats with energy. 

“Pantalone, Pantalone, Pantalone,” he says, in a child’s sing-song voice, “Won’t you indulge me just this once? You’ve been so busy, you’ve barely had any time for me and our oh-so-enjoyable meetings this month.” 

Pantalone looks close to pushing him out of a crystalline window. Dottore hopes he does not, the Tsaritsa does love her windows. 

“It seems you’re the one who does not have time today, Dottore,” He says, “You’re expected for your dance lessons in about, oh, five minutes, aren’t you?” 

Dottore hisses, his mood turning sour all of a sudden. “Who fed you that morsel of information?” 

“People like to gossip,” Pantalone shrugs, amused and unkind, “but if you must know, it was Theta who told your maids who told the guards who told my maids who told my secretaries who told me.” Damn that Theta. Dottore makes a mental reminder to reboot that impertinent pillock’s system without you finding out. “You really must hurry,” he continues on, oblivious to how Dottore glares a burning hole through the pillar behind him, imagining the ‘scolding’ he’ll give his segment when he sees them, “You wouldn’t want to keep them waiting, do you? I feel enough pity as it is that you’re their chosen partner. I can’t imagine why they would choose you…” 

“... over you, my dear Regrator?” 

Pantalone simpers, but an emotion Dottore knows all too well flashes across his eyes. They’ve known each other for too long and too closely, no matter how much he tries to hide, Dottore can break down that steel skin of his and pry out the truth from his chest. “I am far more handsome, and sociable besides.” 

“But they chose me.” 

Pantalone levels his gaze to Dottore’s. The corners of his mouth are curled down, his eyebrows are furrowed, and his narrowed gaze is sharp as a knife. He says nothing.

“You’re jealous,” Dottore says, jumping well over the line that all of the Harbingers put between their facades and the truth. His grin is wolfish and triumphant. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?” 

Pantalone glares at him and turns to leave. “I have better things to do than be jealous of you. Good day, Dottore.” 

Dottore takes long strides to stand in front of him, blocking his path once more. Before Pantalone can open his mouth and spit out insults that could have him thrown into the far northern military camps if it were any other person, Dottore leans in and whispers into the shell of his ear, “I know,” he says, soft as a lover’s kiss, “things like being jealous of them, too.” 

He whistles a happy tune through his teeth as he leaves, the Ninth Harbinger paralyzed behind him. He does not pay any mind to how his skin has been set aflame or how his heart beats wildly in his chest. 

Yes, if he could only be that way with you, everything would be alright. He cannot understand why it’s so different from you. It’s the power, a voice whispers. It always circles back to that. Only three people stand above him now: that rat bastard Pierro, your mother, and you. You and your irritating smiles and your irritating laugh and your irritating jokes. You unnerve him with the way you hold his life so carelessly in your hands. A single touch, a mere look, and you could send him spiraling down to the depths if you so commanded. Everything he’s achieved in his life undone. In this pack of wolves the Tsaritsa calls her children, both by blood and bond, there’s a clear hierarchy in which you stand above all others. 

He and Pantalone can devour each other whole, but when it comes to you, he’ll have to force the bitter taste of defeat down his throat. It’ll take everything in his power not to gag. 

He’s ten minutes late when he finally arrives at the Queen’s Ballroom. The ballroom is beautiful, made of marble and gold furnishings. The floor is polished hardwood arranged in complicated swirling patterns that mimic the winter winds. The ceiling is painted with scenes of the nature of the north: galloping wild horses and sly foxes, wolves prowling through the green underbrush, golden ivy snaking at the edges as clouds raced on a blue sky. The crystal chandeliers are unlit and unneeded, the pale light of the morning provides enough to see clearly. This part of the palace is rarely ever open, the Tsaritsa is not one to throw balls and parties like so many of her aristocratic subjects do, so the doors stay locked. Of course, any exception can be made for winter’s favorite child. 

He barely even notices the dance instructors wheedling about in the corner. He immediately finds you, leaning against a floor-to-ceiling window. One leg is crossed over the other. With the morning light coming in through, you’re bathed in the brightest living gold. For a moment old prayers come crowding to the forefront of his mind. For a moment all that time spent on his knees seems to be reasonable, if only it had all been dedicated to you. For a moment you’re baptized by the sun, for a moment you’re holy. 

The cocky smile on his face, a remnant from that moment with Pantalone, crumbles. His breath hitches in his throat. Oh, shit. 

You turn to him, mouth pressed in a thin line. Your pointed steps ring across the floor as you stalk toward him, and he cannot help but feel like a trapped critter. He wants to fight or flee or do something —

“I thought you wouldn’t show,” you murmur, reaching for his gloved wrist with the lightest of touches. He swallows at the sensation of touch. “I was starting to think you had flaked out on me,” you say teasingly.  

“Oh, no, I was just… occupied with another business,” he mutters, looking back at the entrance. A smirk cannot be restrained. You raise an eyebrow and he shakes his head, still grinning. “It’s alright now.” 

Your answering smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds. The two of you walk side-by-side toward the instructors on the other side of the room, close enough for your shoulders to brush against each other, a united front. He realizes, quite abruptly, that you were nervous too. 

The dance he has to learn is the Varsovienne Waltz. Their instructors are a pair of siblings, boy and girl, who look very much alike with dark eyes and dark hair. They regard him with the fearful respect most everyone regarded him with, taking care not to seem too patronizing. 

He first learns the fundamental dance positions. He thought he was mechanical, awkward, and unsure for the first time in years (Archons, how do you manage to coax these emotions out of him?). You said he was doing well, and the instructors affirmed so, but he cannot tell if that was genuine or from a place of fear. 

And then comes the actual dancing. 

They demonstrate it beforehand. Together, the pair of siblings glide across the floor with the gracefulness of swans fluttering about in the lakes. You had already learned this dance as a young child growing up in the icy walls of Zapolyarny, and so after the instructors had finished, you request to dance with one of them, if only to test your muscle memory. You take the role of follower, prompting Dottore, who guesses he would be assigned the role of leader, to imprint each step and twirl into his mind. 

He hates the sick feeling of anxiousness brewing in the pit of his stomach as he watches you dance. But it does not go away as he watches you laugh and toss your head back, not a hair out of place. It’s not a surprise you’re so good at this, each move perfectly executed, your angles a wonder of geometry. This kind of life was your birthright. But not for him, not for the boy who had grown up in an indigent village on the borders of Sumeru. His history is not what bothers him, though, he had shed it from himself like a coat a very long time ago. What bothers him is you. 

Vexation pools in his mind the longer he watches. He begins to impatiently tap his foot against the floor, his mouth twisting into a sneer. This was your life, not his. Dancing is not something the Second Seat of the Fatui Harbingers should be doing. Such a frivolous and foolish activity was not meant for a man of his nature. Heavens, what was he doing here? Hundreds of years ago you couldn’t have dragged him into the ballroom kicking and screaming if your life depended on it. Now he stands here, awake at six-in-the-fucking-morning operating on barely any sleep for you and your dance lessons that’ll be put into use for only one night. One night! 

You could do this to him. You could force him to take dance lessons like some twelve-year-old lordling. You could tear down the meticulously made steel and calcium walls that surround his heart with a sharp smile and bury yourself within the bloody tissue. You could make a home there, familiar and warm, floating above a poisonous black rot. Only you could coax half-forgotten emotions out of him that he thought he had sealed away centuries ago. Meeting you, he thinks, has been the worst thing that’s ever happened to him thus far. 

He wants to turn to leave but finds his feet rooted to the ground. 

He barely notices you’re done before you saunter up to him, hands your hips, your mouth pressed into a thin, worried line. 

“Are you alright? You look…” You cock your head to the side. “... not good.” 

“I’m better than I’ve ever been,” he rasps, extending a gloved hand. “Can we get on with it now?” 

You open your mouth, then close it, then open it again. A moment passes before you decide to stay silent and take his hand. 

The girl instructor lifts the needle on the gramophone and the record begins to spin. The music is a sweet, simple melody. He has never heard it before, but memories of days spent exploring the surrounding forest of his village catapult to the forefront of his mind: dipping small toes into warm springs as he ate sticky sunsettias, the juice running down his fingers, the warm, incessantly lovely sun on windblown hair. He shakes his head like a wet dog shaking off water. 

He does not realize just how much tension his body holds until you hum as he spins you around, your back to his chest, his left hand on your hip, and his right hand cupping yours. “You need to relax,” you say. 

“I am relaxed,” he replies stiffly. 

“No, you’re not.” 

“Your Imperial Highness,” he mutters, a sardonic smile on his face, “I think I am much more qualified to say what my body feels more than you.” 

You purse your lips but say no more. The look in your eye tells him you don’t believe him at all. 

The next three hours are agonizingly slow-paced, yet somehow when he reaches the end of it, are a blur of colors and shapes and unintelligible music as though he had been shot past it all. He would not be surprised if the gods somehow made time move slower then faster then slower than normal just to play another cruel trick on him for their own amusement. 

He isn’t terrible, and his rarely-used combat experience has finally found some employ, but he lacks your practiced poise or the easy grace of the instructors. He moves less like a human and more like some forest creature, his physicality more wild and jagged than it was elegant. The instructors tell him his lordship took to the dance more easily than most, and with a few more sessions could be flawless, but he does not pay any mind to them and instead places his gaze on you. Something unpleasant lurks behind your carefully-blank expression. His mind lurches with the sudden urge to find out what had gone wrong and go back in time and fix it. Trial and error is something he is intimate with, and his mistakes do not bother him, so long as he fixes them. He realizes, suddenly, that he wants to please you. 

Pantalone does not need to push him out a window, he’ll very well throw himself from one after this. 

“Walk with me,” you say, slipping an arm through his. Your expression is almost quiet. He has no choice but to let you lead him out the door and into the hallways. The guards at the door bow their heads and murmur the appropriate greetings. He does not miss how their eyes land on their interlocked arms for a second too long. People will talk. 

You both stroll through the hall in strained silence. He flexes his fingers. 

“Are you alright?” 

His head snaps to the side, his ears unbelieving. He had been bracing himself for a reprimanding, for jeers, for mockery. Not this. “Pardon?” 

Was that pity in your eyes? His jaw clenches. Anger, black and brutal, burns within. “Are you alright?” 

He tries to disentangle himself from you, but an iron grip keeps him locked in place. He forgets how truly strong you are. “I’m fine.” 

You sigh and look at the arched ceiling, as though exasperatedly asking it if it could hear his words. “Dottore, I’ve known you for a very long time. You overestimate your ability to lie to me.” 

He grits his teeth, forcing the words out of his throat. “I am fine. I have weathered much worse than dance classes, Your Imperial Highness. If you found some fault in my conduct or wish to admonish me then please, don’t drag it out.” 

“Admonish you?” Your eyes widen, startled. “What? No, I’m just—” 

He barks out a laugh, self-deprecating and cruel. “What? Pitying me?” 

“Worried about you.” You stop. You step forward and face him, eyes bright and shining, the corner of your lips curled into a frown. “Don’t be mean.” 

Worried. You were worried about him. His anger ebbs away and morphs into soft bemusement. You don’t move from your position, instead, you cross your arms and tilt your chin up in defiance like an angry child. He almost believes you’re genuine, but he knows better than to argue with that stubborn jut of jaw. 

He huffs, willing up his signature grin. It’ll be easier to make you happy if only to get this over with. “I’m sorry to hurt your feelings.” He flicks your forehead and thrusts his fists into his pocket and starts to stride forward. “I’m quite alright. If you’re wondering about my less-than-stellar performance, it’s the three hours of sleep I got.” 

You roll your eyes and scurry after him. Before he can escape, you grab his hand and lead him toward a wing of the palace he has been in only a few times before. Your own. 

“No, no, no, you’re not escaping me today.” A childish groan escapes him and makes you giggle. “You can sleep after this, but humor me for a bit and have breakfast with me.” 

“You didn’t have breakfast?” 

“Did you?” Fair point. 

He wants to go back to his room and sleep until sunset, but he cannot help but feel a spark of interest. Most of the time you simply hang about his laboratory and annoyed him, but for you to actually invite him to something as simple as breakfast with seemingly no other motivation than to spend time with him was a break from your norm. A very unfamiliar break. 

All his instincts call for him to flee. 

“Alright,” he says, against the better judgment of his head, “just this once.” 

The imperial family’s apartments are bigger than the Harbingers’, and much emptier. The hall is big and white and echoing, with wide hardwood flooring that was arranged in an intricate repeating diamond pattern. There are paintings of you and your mother, silver embellishments in the likeness of frost plastered on the walls, the furniture was elegant but plain, and the windows had no curtains. The only hint of your personality is the vases of your favorite flowers. Everything had an eerie, deserted look, haunted by the ghost of you. There were barely any people, only two stoic guards posted at the entrance and a maid that scurried past them. He never realized just how isolated you were from the rest of them; no wonder you sought the Harbingers out so often. 

Breakfast appears with instantaneous magic: fried bacon, sunnyside-up eggs, blinis, and biscuits. His stomach rumbles at the sight. He hasn’t had anything to eat that was more than trail mix in close to thirty-six hours, not that it bothered him significantly, he was used to getting distracted by his studies and forgetting to nourish himself. Thankfully, he had improved his body long ago so that it could weather mortal flaws like hunger. 

He wolfs down a slice of bacon while you slather a blini with butter and honey. He rarely eats with company if not forced to. Outside of that, he only ever eats with his segments on the off-chance they’re all free, which is simply a microscopic natural disaster filled with food fights and whining and endless bickering. But breakfast with you is a quiet affair. You eat with calm, methodological grace. He subconsciously looks at you, noting your dining habits, wondering if this was your favorite food. You catch him staring and send him a bemused smile. He looks away, suddenly interested in the tapestries that adorn the walls, feeling heat rush to his face. The windows are open and he can hear the world outside: birds twittering about, the recruits at their morning drills, servants rushing to do this and that. A stillness settles within his bones that he has not felt in a very, very long time. Part of him wants to rip it out, but another part shushes it. He is tired, sleep-deprived, and busy. He still has experiments to do, reports to check, papers to sign. But right now the sun is coming in, soft as a caress, and you are sitting across from him and smiling.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” you say suddenly, your words cutting through the silence like a sword. “but you seemed really out of it earlier.” 

He raises one eyebrow and takes a pointed bite of his bacon. “Is this a therapy session or breakfast?” 

You kick his leg beneath the table. “Archons, ‘ttore, I just want to be nice.” 

Nice. Inwardly, he laughs. He absently pushes the runny eggs around on his plate. “Hm. There were just a few things on my mind, nothing to worry about.” A pause. “I’m very surprised you haven’t teased me yet for my horrible dancing skills.” 

“Ah.” You prop your arm up on the table and rest your cheek on your fist. “Actually, I was expecting they’d be just as bad as your harmonica skills. But you’re actually okay. Not good, but you’re getting there.” 

He splutters. His mouth opens and closes, much like a fish, before he erupts. “My harmonica skills are amazing! You’re just deaf or inane or have horrible, horrible taste.” He pokes his silver fork in your direction. “I’ll have you know I was the best harmonica player in Sumeru, thank you very much.” 

You bite on your lower lip, vaguely amused. “Really now.” 

He leaps to his feet and leans forward, hands on the table, a flurry of feathers and cotton cloth and fury. “Yes, really now! If you weren’t heir to the throne I’d have you chopped up into little pieces and sold to the butchers for that.” 

“I think you’d miss the pleasure of my company too much to do that.” 

He harrumphs and jerks his head away. “You presume too much.” 

You laugh. It’s warm and comforting and familiar. He wants to never hear it again. “You’re so pretentious. Can’t you admit you’re just a little bit fond of me?” 

“Fond? I—” The word coils around his throat. No, he wasn’t fond of you. He was simply slightly more tolerant of you than everyone else. “—no. No, I’m not.” 

He isn’t, really, he isn’t. All these little moments were just lapses of mortal weakness he has yet to stamp out. Something else to add to his itinerary of things to modify. This acquaintanceship with you was getting too bold and too powerful and one of these days he’s sure it’s going to come crashing down on him. 

“I think you are.” You dangle your fork between your fingers. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.” 

He waits for you to continue. But you don’t. You sit there and stare at him, twirling your fork, those eyes bright and big and full of inexplicable warmth. One corner of your lips curls up into an absurdly endearing lopsided smile. He banishes the thought from his brain. The silence stretches, on and on and on, until it becomes a blanket that suffocates him. 

He taps his fingers against the table. “You’re madder than I am.” 

“You of all people should know the difference between madness and truth.” 

“It’s not the truth.”

You peer up at him and cock your head to the side. “Is it?” 

You stand and circle around the table, dragging one finger on the wood. He turns his head to the door and away from you. You hover next to him, just a breath away from his skin. He fights to shove back down the shaky breath that threatens to escape him. He does not know why he doesn’t just move away, putting those barriers back up that he allows you to shatter over and over again. The pieces are on the ground, ready to be gathered and assembled once more. He is a scholar, he knows how to eliminate weakness, how to tear down and rebuild over and over again until his product becomes perfect; he can build on the evident fragility of his resolve when it comes to you. 

All it takes is discipline. He must throw you back as he throws back enemies on the battlefield. He must deny you any more ground. 

One hand intertwines with his while the other holds the pulse of his wrist. His heart begins to beat itself to death in his chest. He relents and turns to look at you, your face carefully blank, but he has known you for too long. Something stirs within your eyes, something hungry and wolfish.

You bring his hand to your lips and gently turn it over to expose the scarred skin peeking out from in between his sleeve and his glove. His wrist is barely an inch away from your mouth. You lean forward and bite, hard. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to sting. 

He jerks away, eyes widening with incredulity. “You—” 

You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. There is no hint of remorse or disbelief for what you just did in your eyes. You smile at him, affable and innocent as a puppy. But there was nothing puppy-like in your eyes. How could he have let himself forget? You wild little wolf. His wrist throbs, but to his surprise and disgust, the sensation was not at all unpleasant. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, not sounding the least bit sorry, “I wanted to see what that would be like.” 

“You wanted to see what it would be like to bite me?”

“To mark you.” You move forward as he moves back, a twisted iteration of the waltz you danced earlier. “I don’t understand why you don’t let me in. Did I do something wrong?” His Adam apple bobs up and down as his back hits the wall. “Tell me, please.” 

He looks at you and runs his tongue over his teeth. Every coherent thought evaporates within the confines of his brain. He cannot let you know the truth. He cannot. 

“Get away.” His voice is hoarse. 

There’s the slightest hesitation in your muscles before you take a small step backward. In one swift motion, he lurches forward, grabbing ahold of your shoulder and your chin. He leans over you, red eyes blazing underneath the mask. Something cruel and sharp slithers in his veins and buries its fangs into his anatomy. He does not know who he is angrier at — you, or himself. You for being an inescapable prison where he was the prisoner. Himself for never trying to escape or not trying enough. 

He grazes his thumb against the outline of your lips. “You insufferable little brat,” he spits, “the other Harbingers may allow you to do whatever you please with them, but that weakness is not inside me, and you cannot root it out. You—” He squeezes your skin. “—you cannot conquer me, no matter how much you try.” 

Will you have him thrown out of the Fatui for this? Locked up in the deepest cell? Will you ask your mother to impale him on a glacier, forced to slowly wither away? He watches and waits for your response.

You smile and easily disentangle yourself from his grasp. You lean forward, one hand on his shoulder, your lips brushing against his ear. 

“Liar.” 

He does not think he’s upset you, but you’ve abstained from interacting with him outside of your dance lessons, which themselves have become awkward and brief. You regard him with the same absentminded politeness you would a waiter or a maid, your eyes glazed and the candor of your voice mild. Ever since that night, you’ve made no move to tease or touch. Even as you dance, your bodies locked in a tangle, every time skin brushes against skin your new-found coldness burns like ice. 

He tries not to dwell too much on your last conversation, on the phantom throbbing of his wrist where your teeth had bit into his skin. 

His life has become strangely empty now. There’s a hole in the shape of you begging to be filled, but no material could ever replace your flesh and bone. No one’s barging into his laboratory to annoy him or sneaking into his apartments at odd hours of the night. All for the better. 

Except it isn’t, because now it’s the night (or rather, morning) before the ball and he can’t seem to sleep and the past few weeks have been absolutely insufferable. He’s irritable, much more than he normally is, prone to commonplace mistakes, and worst of all, unfocused. His segments have noticed, even the younger ones, who have been increasingly more competent than him. He knows that they know the reason why; he sees the various looks of disapproval, amusement, and disgust. Zeta even had the gall to make fun of him for it, to his immediate regret, as Dottore scolded him with such ferocity they all went quiet in a rare show of obedience. Perhaps he should scold them more often. The resounding silence, if it happened more often, would undoubtedly improve their research and his moods. 

He stares down at the unfinished reports on the metal table, acutely aware of the laboratory clock ticking away the minutes. Another and another and another go past. He’s been staring dumbly at the thrice-damned half-empty papers for two hours now. He can feel Theta’s bemused eyes burning into the back of his eyes as he mops up the blood from their latest failed experiment. Suddenly the sloshing of the water is too much for him to bear. 

“Go. Leave that for the maids,” Dottore barks. He hears swift footsteps before they pause right at the door that leads into the segments’ living quarters. 

“You should sleep,” Theta says. Dottore turns in the swivel chair and shoots him a pointed look. “I’m not saying that out of, urgh, concern,�� the segment hurries to correct, “only that, don’t you have something to prepare for tomorrow—” He shoots a glance at the clock. “—I mean, today?” 

“None of your business.” 

“We’re the same person if you hadn’t noticed, so yes it is my business.” 

Dottore rubs his eyes and stays silent. There’s too little energy within him to bicker right now. Theta is still rooted in his spot, smirking silently. He crosses his arms.

“Maybe,” he continues, with a mischievous lilt in his voice, “if you’re feeling too tired to attend, I’ll be glad to—” 

It’s almost comical how fast Theta goes flying into the metal cabinets. He lets out a groan of pain. Dottore does not even comprehend when he stood up and punched him. He only knows the way rage flared in his chest, that wild emotion that he could not name roaring in his ears. He had been the one asked to the ball. Him, over Theta. Theta was your favorite of all the adult segments, for who-knows-what reason, the segment that was him during his final year in the Akademiya. You always claimed it was because he was the most fun to be around (Only the Archons can understand your definition of fun) and so it was him you often asked after. 

But this time it’s Dottore that you wanted, and he would not let anyone take away what was rightfully his. (Your voice seems to whisper in his ear, as though you were standing right beside him, “I want to do this with you.”)

The second he realizes his thoughts, he’s tempted to shoot himself with one of the expertly made and modified Fatui guns. It’s the tiredness, he reasons to himself. The lack of sleep was poisoning him with irrationality. The last time he slept was… well. Approximately four days ago. 

He remembers the last thing he said to you, and thinks of your wolfish eyes and predatory grin. You cannot conquer me, and your sly answer, Liar. How is it, he thinks, that he has barely seen you in weeks yet your presence has enlarged and completely overtaken him? The scholar in him wants to pry around for answers, but another part, a mortal part he thought he had killed long ago already knows what the answer is. 

He wonders if you still actually want him to be your partner. With the way you’ve been ignoring him these past few weeks, you might truly prefer taking one of his clones instead. The only adult segments in Snezhnaya right now are Theta and Zeta, the latter of which was on the other side of the country doing research on the mysterious disease. Theta was the only true threat to his position… unless, of course, you decide to ask one of the Harbingers or your subordinates instead. 

To his surprise and mild disgust, uncharacteristic fear grips his heart. Shit. If you took someone else to the ball, he would lose the reward you had promised to grant. He needed it — Tsaritsa only knows how much people, especially certain bankers, love to get in the way of his research. 

The thought of you swaying in another person’s arms tonight almost makes him punch Theta again. 

Theta is rambling about something insignificant, still scrambled on the floor and clutching his bruised face, glaring daggers at his creator. Dottore would have paid more heed to a rat squeaking in the corner. Dottore jerks his head to the door. A dismissal. 

An annoyed sound leaves Theta’s artificial throat. “Looks like I touched a nerve there, Prime. Scared I’m gonna steal them away?” 

“No.” 

He huffs. “Whatever. It’s just one date, I’m always gonna be the favorite.” 

Dottore wonders if he can get away with Theta’s permanent deactivation without you finding out. Probably not. “It’s not a date.” Until now, he had never thought of it as such. But Theta speaking it into existence makes his heart thump. “It’s—it’s a business agreement,” he insists, privately cursing the stutter, “an acquisition of advantage.” 

“Uh-huh. That’s why you’ve been applying that skin cream Pantyliner gave you every night? Even though you’ve never opened it until now?” 

“A certain image is required of me, not that your rat ass would know.”

“Honestly, it’s hilarious watching you fall over yourself for them.” 

Dottore hisses. “I’m not ‘falling over myself’ for them.” 

Theta grins, all that sharp teeth flashing in the fluorescent lights. “Sure.” 

“I’m not!” He sounds indignant, like a child protesting their involvement in mischief they were very much involved in. 

Theta rolls his eyes as he stands and disappears into the other room, snickering. “Whatever helps ‘ya sleep at night, Prime,” he calls after. 

Dottore sighs and massages the bridge of his nose. “I’m not,” he says softly, almost desperately, though, of course, no one hears it. Just the empty air, eating his words. 

He sighs again and glances at the clock, still ticking away. It’s half past three in the morning. You had agreed to meet at six in the evening. You had told him on the day of the last lesson, very aggressively, that under no circumstances should he be late, which he was infamous for being. If he slept now, he could get some much-needed rest before the ball. 

It’s a fitful sleep, though any sleep is better than none. He oscillates between the waking world and darkness, his body simultaneously feeling like it has been doused in fire and thrown into the icy-cold bays of Snezhnaya. Three-quarters after one o’clock he’s woken, gently and fearfully, by one of your subordinates. In a quivering voice, she tells him you had sent an entire team to “ensure full preparedness”, which he knows really was just to say, “don’t show up in a fucking lab coat”. He reluctantly lets them pull him around in a flurry of various outfits for him to try in a long, awkward, and agonizing two hours. He allows them to style his hair, clenching his teeth all the while, thinking about how furious you be if he harmed one of yours as his fingers twitch. In the end, the effort is barely seen — it’s really just a cleaner, shinier rendition of his usual hairstyle. 

They don’t do makeup. They know better than to cross that line. No one, save for the Tsaritsa and the Harbingers, has ever seen what's underneath the mask. 

The outfit they chose, in the end, was appropriately glamorous, though not as fancy as something Pantalone or Signora might wear. The royal blue fabric is soft against his skin, though his cravat seems tight around his neck. Strange, since he was the one to do it and did not deviate from how he usually did it. He tugs on the white fabric and realizes his hands are shaking. They haven’t in centuries, not since his expulsion from the Akademiya. White hot rage sears through his bones. You are the reason behind this resurfacing weakness. He has no doubt about it.

He almost wants to dive back into bed and flake out on you; it would be terribly amusing, but ultimately pointless. The consequences are not ones he wants to bear. 

He does not want to see the looks his subordinates will undoubtedly give him once they catch him on his way to the foyer of the imperial family’s private apartments, where you had agreed to meet. It was a revolting thought: The Second Seat trudging through the halls like a tamed dog The thought of it makes him want to puke. He’s already heard the multiple rumors of your relationship, has heard the giggles, has seen the coy smiles. He wonders if the other Harbingers experience it as well. 

Instead, he takes one of the palace’s secret passageways known only to the top three Harbingers, Pierro, you, and the Tsaritsa. The narrow stone hallway is dusty and dark, rarely used and reserved only for emergencies. He can see well enough with the enhanced vision he gave himself when he moved to an artificial body. He knows there are many more passages snaking through the walls that he does not know about, yet for all his explorations and the hours spent poring over the palace maps, he has never been able to find them. He supposes they’re for only you and your mother. Zapolyarny Palace was a strange place, filled with magic of a thousand years past. He’s heard rumors of ancient spells and complicated runes imbued in the walls of the palace, keeping out any who dare intrude.  

The passageways are filled with twists and turns, with multiple ladders and stairs and secret doors he had long since memorized in his mind. He emerges from behind a tapestry and steps into the deserted hallway adjacent to the foyer. 

Truth be told, he likes this part of the palace. He keeps his private estate and rooms in a similar sparse fashion, mostly because he just can’t be bothered to decorate. But he feels that the emptiness here is intentional. The beauty is quiet, serene even, as silent as the first brush of snow. Especially when the Empress is in one of her moods and true frost conquers the walls and floors and snow impossibly starts to fall indoors. When that happens, suddenly, the palace is transformed into a winter wonderland, conjured out of childlike whimsy. 

You await him at the bottom of the staircase. 

He pauses mid-step, the breath caught in his throat. He has never seen you so… dressed up, before. He knows you like going out on this excursion or that: to the opera with Pantalone or taking a pleasure barge with Columbina, and when out in the public’s eye a level of regalness was expected in your fashion. But alone with him, usually shut up in the labs or in his private estate, you wore simple clothes that allowed freedom of movement. 

But tonight you were glittering, doused in jewels he knows could fund him for years. The moonlight slants in through the windows, making you shimmer. He has never seen you look more ethereal, as though you had just stepped out of one of the Snezhnayan fairytales you so loved. And although he never grew up in Snezhnaya, looking at you he feels as though he has read those fairytales, has spent nights under the covers living in every word in his head. He looks at you and sees magic.

He realizes, suddenly, that he wears the same colors as you: royal blue and white. And then, just after that punch to the head, he remembers: royal blue and white are the colors of the imperial family. 

He swallows an emotion he does not want to touch with a hundred-foot pole. 

“Hello,” you say softly, terrifying warmth blooming in your eyes, “you aren’t late.” There’s a tease in the words. 

He harrumphs and looks away, trying to conceal the growing red in his cheeks. He thanks the Tsaritsa she does not keep her palace well-lit, even at night. “You ought to have better expectations of me. I know I’m not known for punctuality but I know when something is important.” 

You smile. It is blank and careful. “Well then.” You extend your hand. “Let’s go.” 

He takes your hand and lets you lead him to the awaiting carriage. Suddenly the room is too hot and stuffy and your body is too close yet too far. He wishes you’d press yourself closer but you haven’t in weeks, not since that fateful day. He almost misses it, before he catches the feeling and inwardly scolds himself.

Not for the first time, he wonders what game you’re playing at. You had declared, though indirectly, that you could conquer him, yet had made no move to do so. He squints at you from underneath the mask. Your face is set in a neutral, almost air-headed expression. It was the expression you used during boring meetings that you couldn’t care less about. Was he boring you? Exasperation and aggravation flood his mind. Him? Boring? He supposes he hasn’t been trying to poison you as of late. And anyway, it was you who came to him. He had never sought you out before if not for business reasons. Was he expected to make some kind of move? 

The ride to the Sokolov estate is coated in a heavy, awkward silence. Or at least, he thinks so. You don’t seem to notice. Or care. Zapolyarny Palace is situated outside the capital city, so the carriage ride takes more or less an hour. The hour is the longest he has ever experienced, except perhaps the hours he spent dancing with you. You say nothing the entire time, simply stare languidly out the window, your chin cupped in your hand. Midwinter already rules over the land, not that it really mattered when it seems two-thirds of the year saw snow. From time to time you put your hand through the open window and catch a snowflake. There were fleeting moments your eyes would meet, there would be a pause, then a quick aversion and you would both retreat into the invisible walls you had built around yourselves.  

He wonders if you expect him to apologize. 

The silence is enough to suffocate. 

Then, blessedly, the manor materializes in the distance. He almost breathes an audible sigh of relief. He has to restrain his body from jumping out of the carriage as soon as the door is opened. He exits the vehicle first and extends a helping hand to you as you shuffle out, like a proper gentleman. Not that he was one. 

You smile at him. Still, blank.

The Sokolov Winter Ball is an event for aristocrats by aristocrats. There are barely any Fatuus in sight, exempting the noble children who had joined to cur favor and prestige, though such children were few and far between. Though the Tsaritsa rules over all, there is undoubtedly enmity between the nobility and the Fatui; the two factions are caught in an uncertain back-and-forth of power, constantly at each other’s throats and on the verge of bloodshed. In public, members of both groups were expected to be cordial and pretend there was equality among them. So Dottore did get a certain satisfaction in seeing the lords and ladies of Snezhnaya bow before him, even if it was really to you rather than him. 

He almost falls asleep internally as you go through the motions of socializing, him following behind as he has nothing else to do: trivial small talk, false fawning and compliments, pretending to care about the latest gossips sweeping the city. You did seem to actually care about the latter, one of the many characteristics you shared with Pantalone. He, on the other hand, was utterly uncurious to the silly little lives of the people. 

They mostly pretend he does not exist. Not rudely, but fearfully. They understand Dottore is not exactly in the best of moods and offer only commonplace courtesies. 

He wonders how long you can go treating him like this, like some distant, half-hearted acquaintance and not… whatever he should be to you. He has never, ever been the slightest bit interested in socialization, but he wishes, just once, you would turn your head to him and chat. Even if the talk was the silliest of topics, even if he did not care a wit about them. He simply wants to hear warmth flood your voice once more, wanted to hear your ringing laughter.

He flinches slightly when he fully realizes the thought that had crossed his mind. 

“You should smile more,” you say to him as you wheel around the ballroom, trying to avoid another mother who hoped to introduce her dashing children to you, undoubtedly in hopes it will blossom into marriage. The thought of you marrying one of these pathetic pups stirs fierce vindication in his chest. “You’re scaring them.” 

“I am smiling,” he says, frowning. 

The utterly annoyed look you give him makes him laugh, the sound deep and full of heart. 

A little later, when the clock strikes nine, Duchess Sokolov practically materializes in front of the both of you with an element of surprise even Arlecchino would admire and only scheming, middle-aged women can conjure. Your startled half-smile makes her smile in turn, the look of it sly. After a session of unabashed bootlicking, where she complimented almost every piece of your body, from your feet to your eyelashes (the only other person he has ever heard say such things is him), she asked, with a grandiose show of humility, if Your Imperial Highness would do us the honor of opening the dancing with my son? 

If anything, Dottore admires her gall.

His body moves before his mind can comprehend what he is doing. He places his hands on your shoulders, smiling widely, making sure his sharp teeth are visible to anyone who dares steal you away. 

"The geir has already promised their first dance to me, Your Grace." The words come out wild and aggressive, like the barks of a wolf. "I'm afraid your son will have to wait his turn." If I let him have one. 

The duchess pales slightly and steps half a foot back. "Forgive me Lord Harbinger, I wasn't aware." 

You laugh and press your gloved hand to your mouth, a lovely gesture.  "Oh, please excuse Lord Dottore. He's a very particular person. I'll be glad to dance with your son after."

The Duchess visibly brightens and blunders away after numerous thanks, eager to tear away from Dottore's burning glare. You slip your arm through his and weave through the sea of bodies to the center of the ballroom, the party guests skillfully parting to let you pass. He does not think he is imagining your smirk.

As you near the center, Dottore ignores the hot flash of anxiety in his stomach. It has been so long since he has felt that emotion or other adjacent ones that it takes a moment for him to recognize it. Memories of those torturous hours spent dancing, and dancing, and dancing again resurface in his memories. Though not as graceful a dancer as you, he had reached a level of acceptable elegance towards the end that received glowing praise from the instructors. You had smiled, shrugged, and said nothing. It had left a strange empty feeling lingering within him. 

What reaction did he even want from you, anyway? He thinks the instructors weren’t lying; the fear in their eyes was minimal. He would most likely never dance again after tonight. So, it truly did not matter what you thought of his dancing. It did not matter. He had gotten over the anxiousness that came with socializing a very long time ago, and it is not the crowd that is making him nervous. So what is it that he fears?

He feels himself getting more and more agitated as you both pull yourselves into position: two hands outstretched and intertwined, his hand on the small of your back, yours resting on his shoulder. He feels the sharp, curious eyes on the both of you as the music starts.

“Relax,” you whisper. 

“I am relaxed.” 

“No, you’re not.” You squeeze his shoulder. “Your body is so stiff.” 

“I’m doing fine,” he grits out. 

“You’d do even better if you’d stop fidgeting and relax.” 

How could he relax when you’re so close? He can hear your breaths and count the lashes of your eyes. Your eyes already shine naturally with unnatural brightness, but beneath the light of the chandeliers, they seemed to gleam like the faces of a diamond. 

“Is something wrong? You’re staring quite intently.” Your voice evaporates his thoughts. He swallows nervously and looks away, his gaze darting around the room, hoping to see anything but you. “Dottore?” The tone of your voice has been nothing but level for weeks, so the sliver of genuine worry that escapes into the words makes his heart jump. 

He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.” 

He moves as though he’s in a dream, lost and dazed. He cannot explain to himself why he leans in closer, or why he squeezes your hand cupped in his. He messes up — once then twice then thrice, missing a step or taking the wrong turn even though he memorized the entire routine in his head the night after your first lesson. It cannot be his memory, flawless as it is. 

It’s his heart, his Archons-damned heart, thumping against his ribs. It’s your inquisitive eyes on him, your cold skin pressed against his. It’s the way there is something genuine and vulnerable living in the light of your eyes. It is the way there is a very dangerous mortal emotion flooding his veins. It is the way he cannot help but want to press closer, wants to take you into his arms and sweep you off your feet this night, and many more. 

It is an utterly terrifying thought. This is what he is scared of, he realizes with a jolt that earns him a questioning look from you. This closeness, this… intimacy. Your hands on his skin, warm enough to make him believe you’re both human. 

How long has it been, he wonders, since he has wanted to stop running away. 

The music reaches a crescendo quietly, as though from far away. For all he can hear is thump, thump, thump, his mind all but submerged in the fervent tide of his own beating heart. 

When the dance ends, he needs more than one hand to count the mistakes he’s made. You had gracefully saved him from each mistake, maneuvering your body in such a way that the flow of the dance was upheld. As he bows to you, the crowd bursts into rapturous applause.  

Before he can even blink, numerous lords and ladies have already swarmed the both of you like angry bees, buzzing with life. Each vy for your next dance, the questions flying so fast you barely have time to plaster on a polite smile. You’re generally a sociable person, but your eyes widen as the crowd presses closer, each bothersome member trying to be louder than the next. Your gaze lands on him.

He wraps a protective arm around your waist, scowling at the crowd. Briefly, he remembers you had promised a dance to the son of Sokolov, and then decides he could give less of a fuck about that. 

“Their Imperial Highness needs space,” he snaps. The response is instantaneous; he almost laughs at the way one girl jumps almost a foot back, banging into a boy behind her.   

You grace him with a thankful smile. He thinks he would kill all of the people in this room to earn it again. 

“I need air,” you declare, more to yourself and him than anyone else. Before someone can get in the way of your plans, you hook your arm through his and lead him out into the gardens. 

The Sokolov estate is massive, though not as big as Zapolyarny. The hedged gardens sprawl north, east, and west, with the manor at their backs. Though there are lots of small flowers here and there, it is mostly made out of small trees and shrubbery, unlike your own gardens back at the palace, which were bursting with all kinds of plants. It was hard for most greenery to withstand the cold so far up north, but the Tsaritsa had scoured the land for every flower that could grow in Snezhnaya and created for you your very own Eden. 

The glow from indoors lights up the pathways but slowly grows dimmer and dimmer as you both wander down the winding stones. He has no trouble seeing, a perk of inhabiting a modified body, and, it seems, so do you. A godly trait, perhaps. He would love to thoroughly study you one day, though your mother would probably not approve of it. 

You walk in companionable silence, arms still linked together. He wants to say something. What, exactly, he does not know. 

The manor has all but faded into the distance when you stop at a quaint marble pavilion, the night outside cool and still. There is a large pond next to the pavilion, bright and silver as a knife in the moonlight. Faintly he hears the chirping of crickets in the underbrush, the gurgling of water from a nearby miniature fountain, the honks of swans. 

You cross your arms and lean against the railing, eyes glazed and unseeing, lost in thought. He hovers behind you, uncertain as a child with an angry parent. The breeze cards its fingers through your air and makes it flutter with the wind. The air is sweet, and even the annoying chirp of the crickets softens into a mellow sound. You remain silent, your gaze trained on the water.

In the steady stillness, all those emotions from the dance rush back into his heart. Rage — at himself, at you, at the world — burns through his chest. How could he have been so stupid? So weak? He thought if only he played the game right, if only he took the correct steps, he would escape unscathed. He had not realized he never stood a chance. 

Gods and their goading, tricking everyone into believing fairness was not a shadow on the wall, fickle and false. He would have never won. 

You cannot conquer me, he had declared to you, already conquered. The more he writhed from your grip, the deeper your claws sank in. And if he ever does escape, it will be with claw marks on his soul. In this game you both play, he has played and lost. Defeat is a bitter taste on his tongue. It happened again. The gods have bested him again. 

And you. You did not even know it. You still gaze thoughtfully at the pond. He resents the way you still stand so serenely as his entire world comes crashing down around him. 

He has always been a man of action. He never waits, never stays still. Yet here he is. Staying still. 

When the silence swells into something unbearable, he says, "Am I really so boring of a companion your mind has to wander off?" He levels a cool gaze at you, hoping to mask the way his fingers flex at his side, the way his teeth grind against each other, and the way his heart thumps and thumps inside his chest. 

You turn your head to look at him. Your answering smile is amused. "You could never be boring, Dottore. Not you."

"Is that why you've been ignoring me for weeks?" The hurt slips into the words before he can catch it. He winces inwardly at himself, embarrassed at the sordid display of emotions. There's a flicker of pleasure in your eyes as the words soak in. 

You shrug like a child denying their wrongdoings. "I thought… I thought you’d be inclined to dissect me and damn the consequences if I approached you again outside our lessons, after our last encounter." His wrist throbs with the memory. Mischief slips into your voice. "Why? Did you miss me?"

Yes. "Hardly." 

"Really."

He scowls. "I barely noticed your absence." 

You rest your chin on your fist. “Mhm. Theta told me you were miserable without me.” 

That stupid, loose-lipped segment was asking for deactivation. Dottore truly does not know where the young segment got his penchant for gossiping. It was something that he, Prime, never did. But it did stem from spite, which is where ninety percent of his decisions originate from. “Theta, as you know, is a serial liar.” 

“I’ll be sure to tell him that the next time I see him. Anyways, I don’t think he’s lying. Pantalone told me you’re behind on submitting your financial reports,” you hurry to correct when he gives you a look, “more than usual, I mean. And I heard from a little dove you’ve gotten nothing done these past few weeks.” He makes a mental note to lock Columbina out of his lab. It’s a futile pursuit, he knows she’ll find a way in through Archons-knew-what means, but it doesn’t mean he can’t try. 

He arches a brow, though you can’t see it through the mask. “How arrogant of you to assume you’re the cause behind my recent… difficulties.” 

“I don’t think it’s arrogant to be correct. Or maybe it is. Would certainly explain the reason you have oceans of arrogance.” 

“Haha. What evidence do you have, anyways?” 

“Gut instinct.” 

Despite himself, he laughs. The sound is scraping and throaty. “You would make an absolutely dreadful scholar. You need evidence, my liege, before you go around making such far-fetched claims.” 

You say nothing. You slowly walk towards him, a wolf on the hunt, smiling all the while. He stays rooted to his spot, frozen. Watching. Waiting. There is a part of him, a concerningly large part of him, that longs to feel the warmth of your skin again. Another part wants to eviscerate that part. But he stands still, and he knows, oh he knows why. 

Was it truly such a miserable fate to be conquered by you? To be desired by you? He wonders if deer run only because they want to be caught by the wolf. 

You lift your palm to his neck. Your thumb pokes and prods underneath his jawbone. He leans into your touch, baring the hollow of his throat. You’re so close. You could do what you wanted, and a sick feeling tells him he would let you. You were poised to maim, to kill, to devour. But you don’t. You simply continue to press against his skin with the flat of your thumb. 

He realizes too late what you’re looking for. 

Your devilish grin is equal parts terrifying and utterly gorgeous. Mischief truly becomes you, he thinks dimly. “There,” you say softly. “Tell me, Doctor, why is your heart beating so fast? Hmm? And—” You remove your hand from his throat and his heart screams for you to place your hand on his body once more. You grip the edge of his mask, tilting it slightly up. Enough to imply your intentions. “—May I?” 

He does not mean to nod, but his body moves of its own accord. 

You let it fall to the ground. He has never considered himself to be the most handsome of men, even before the scars. And he has never cared much for his appearance. But suddenly he is aware of his rough skin, of the jagged lines that cut through the left side of his face. He wants to pick up the mask and hide once more. But the way your eyes sparkle as you take him in, all of him in, makes him feel crafted by the gods themselves. You gently brush your thumb against the bottom of his eye. 

“Dilated pupils,” you whisper. “Whatever could be making you anxious, my lord?” 

His eyes narrow and his scowl deepens, but he does not move. “Maybe I’m coming down with an affliction. Maybe I’m having a heart attack, or my drink was poisoned. Maybe your presence is so foul it is enough to kill me.” 

You laugh softly. He wants to record it and play it over and over again until his heart beats to its rhythm. “We both know that’s not true.” You caress his scarred skin with your knuckles. “Do you think I can’t tell? This is my mother’s domain, after all.” You do not say that foul, four-letter word. But you let it hang between the two of you like the blade of a guillotine. 

He's doomed himself, he knows. Human connection is not something the Second Seat should trifle with. Attachment is humanity's weakness, to be exploited and used for his own gain. The burn scars on his face remind him there is always, always something else the gods could take away. But though he has cheated death for these past four hundred years, he cannot cheat his own humanity. It is something he can never escape. It terrifies him. It beckons him closer. He thinks of your smile and your laugh. 

Your smile transforms, though your lips do not move at all. It becomes brighter now, something true and warm. He wonders how long you've been waiting for this. The sight of your smile is the most beautiful thing he has ever laid eyes upon. A voice, unbidden, whispers in his ear: there are things worth burning for.

The breeze has stopped, he realizes. As though the very world is holding its breath. 

Oh. Damn it all to the Abyss. 

He closes the distance between the both of you and presses his lips onto yours. 

You taste like wine and chocolates and all things addicting and sweet. Your lips are softer than he ever dared dream of. The shocked gasp that leaves your mouth makes him smile against your mouth. He jumps at the opportunity faster than you can react. He surges forward and grabs your waist, pressing your chest against his. His teeth graze your lips and he can see your eyes widen as he bites down, hard. Your resounding whimper makes his chest bloom with pleasure. He understands, truly, he does, why you play your game with him. With all of them. To have you weaken in his grasp, to finally, finally elicit the same vulnerability you seem to conjure so easily from him, is an experience he will never forget. There is nothing in all of the world that is as addicting as stripping monsters into mortals. 

It seems like an eternity before you finally pull away, his hand still on your waist, a silver string of saliva connecting your lips still. Your eyes are blown wide and our fingertips brush against your lips, against his teeth marks. They come away red with blood. 

“You—” The word catches in your throat, and you splutter out weak noises before you regain your voice. “—you fucking bastard!” 

If I have to burn, you burn with me. 

He shrugs, grinning. “See? It’s as you said. I’m never boring.” 

His heart thumps with equal parts terror and euphoria at what he had just done. There is a part of him, smaller now, but still there, that still flinches in his head, utterly consumed by terror by what he has just done. To announce his heart’s desire so brazenly, so thoughtlessly. Yet it was a fair exchange. He had forced you to offer up your own heart as well. Catching you off guard was such a sweet sight, it excited him more than anything had in these past few years. If he had known the sensation of kissing you would be so sweet, he would have done it long ago. 

“Fuck. Fuck. What the hell?” Though he does not believe in karma, your panicked state cannot be described as anything but. “I didn’t think you’d…” You shake your head, laughing weakly. “Fuck.” 

You bury your face into his shoulder, still cursing softly. He debates pulling away, but instead, he wraps his arms around you. You seem so small, so fragile, like a baby bird that has fallen from its nest. He hums as he traces soothing circles on your back.  

"Did you miss me too in the past few weeks?" He asks impulsively. It is out of a desire to satiate his curiosity more than anything.

You draw in a shaky breath. He feels you smile against his skin. "Of course I did." The reply vindicates him.

Beat.

“Is everything alright?” He asks, looking down at your head. 

He nudges you. Had you fallen asleep somehow? It wouldn’t be the strangest thing you’d ever done. 

He does not catch what you say, what with the softness of your voice coupled with it being muffled by his chest. But you stir in his arms, still unable to look at him. 

“Is everything alright?” He repeats. 

“No.” A pause. “I’m a bit afraid.”

“Of what?” He asks, puzzled. 

“That if I look at you, my heart is going to burst from my chest.”  

It starts as small chuckles, then wheezing, the bellied laughter as he doubles over. Now you were the one holding him in your arms. There’s nothing funny about what you’ve just said. It’s not even a joke. But wasn’t it, in some twisted way hilarious, after all this time, how the scales have balanced themselves? 

You stare at him, incredulous, your previous anxious state shed like a snake skin. You disentangle yourself from him and slap his chest, hard, which only causes him to double down in his fit of laughter, clutching at his sore sides.

“What’s so funny?” You say shrilly. “Don’t laugh at me! Dottore!” 

“I’m not sorry,” he says after recovering himself, wiping a tear from his eye, laughter still laced in the words. 

“This isn’t funny!” You pout and stomp your feet on the ground indignantly, like a child. “You’re so mean to me.” 

He smiles. “Always, my dear. What did you expect?” 

You sigh. The sound is drawn out for dramatics. You cross your arms and turn your body away, chin up, a comical imitation of an irritated housewife. “I should’ve just taken Theta.” 

Suddenly the smile dies on his lips and his body is flooded with an ugly, twisting rage. Stupid Theta. Always ruining everything. “You don’t mean that,” he says coolly. “I’m the one you wanted to take tonight.” 

That evokes a sly smile from you. “Aww, are you jealous, my dear Doctor?” 

Definitely. He scowls. “Of course not.” 

“You seemed jealous back at the ball, too,” you tease. 

He recoils as though the words materialized themselves into the physical plane and slapped him in the face. “Of those low lives? Never.” 

“So, you wouldn’t mind going back to the dance I promised the son of Sokolov?” Urgh. He had hoped you’d forgotten about that. Anyways, it’d be a bit awkward to go back now. You’ve both been gone for so long you might as well ditch the party. And if you insisted on going back… well. He wouldn’t let that happen. You’d be forgiven, of course, and people fear him too much to make it an issue. He wonders what excuses you’ll have to draw up when you inevitably apologize to the Sokolov family for leaving so early. 

“It’s not worth your energy.” 

“But I only danced once tonight!” 

“It was good enough.” 

“You were not that good. I kept having to cover up your mistakes.” The words, though snarky, hold no actual venom. Though, it does prickle him. The overachieving scholar within yearns to be more than ‘not that good’. And anyway, who is Il Dottore, if not someone who goes above and beyond? Your smile urges him to take the bait. 

He does.

“Then,” he says, soft as a lover’s kiss, extending a gloved hand, “would you allow me to make up for it?” 

You place your hand in his.

Dancing has never seemed fun to Dottore. Little things (well, little socially acceptable things) have. It’s a waste of his time, in his opinion. The constant pursuit of knowledge has been his entire life. Even when he was mortal, he never understood what happiness such frivolous activities could elicit that books could not. Yet he does not recall a time he has ever felt such soft, weightless happiness as he does now. As he sways with you to invisible music in the sweet grass of the night. You mess up, and he does too. You trip on stray roots. He is unbalanced on the uneven ground. He blames it on your shared jumble of nerves. You giggle and smile and blame him. But you continue to dance, letting him spin you around as the moon bathes you in silver. Now all those years running from divinity seem so silly. How could he ever fathom running away from this? 

It disgusts him somewhat that he’s fallen into… whatever he could call this… so easily. All that time spent battling you, battling himself, all evaporated in a single night. All that effort turned to cinders. He finds that he does not mind as much as he should. He does not think the game has ended, no. You’ll play it again and again and again, until time reaches its empty end. He does not know whether he wants to devour you or be devoured by you. He does not find the latter as unappealing as it once was. Who could have guessed that pain could be pleasure? He pitied — no, he still does pity — mortals for their sad, forever-yearning hearts that beat for contentment, for companionship. Yet he finds that same weakness in him. It is utterly terrifying.

But as you spin in the moonlight, your laughter ringing in his ears, and his heart thumps and thumps, he thinks it is utterly, utterly inescapable. 

[peachdues]

I’m horny so I’m making it everyone’s problem BUT

sincerely thinking about Werewolf!Sanemi’s first time experiencing Netherwood!Reader’s ovulation week and losing his damn mind

[teal-fiend]

preds who are liars:

"idk where your friend is lol?"

"I just had a big lunch."

"Idk why I'm so bloated today haha"

"What do you mean my stomach's moving. no it isn't."

"I promise I won't eat your partner"

"You can bring your friend over, they'll be just fine."

"It's okay, you're safe around me"

"I have never eaten a person"

"I'm not hungry."

"Yeah I have something planned for dinner"

"I don't want to eat you"

"I would never eat you"

"I would never eat anyone, that's crazy. You're crazy"

"Idk who you're talking about"

"Can I eat you rq? I promise I'll let you out after"

"PLEASE let me eat you It'll just be for a little while..."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to eat you - it just sort of happened."

"Don't worry, I won't let my stomach digest u"

"I'm going to digest you"

"I'll never let u out, I never let my prey out."

"You're trapped in here forever."

"i'm just going to take a quick nap don't worry I'll let you out in like an hour."

"I've never digested my prey before"

"Calm down, you're completely safe in there"

"I think if you squirm hard enough, you might make me sick and I'll have to spit you up..."

"Ah, no don't wriggle so much, you're hurting my stomach!"

"Maybe if you stay completely still you won't trigger my stomach acids"

"Don't bother struggling anymore, I can't even feel it, it's not doing anything."

"You weren't even filling"

"Yes, you were tasty"

"You're my favourite prey" "You're the best prey I've ever had"

"I'll reform you"

"I'll remember you"

"Sorry for eating your friend.... It won't happen again."

"Oh, no, don't worry, they wanted to be digested by me."

"I still have plenty of room in here"

"I'll let them out if you give me a belly rub"

"Yeah, you can touch my stomach if you want, I'm full now anyway."

"It's okay, I just need you to come a bit closer..."

"Sorry I digested him yeah he's gone forever sorry."

"It's too late, I've already finished digesting"

"What do you mean I look different? I look the same"

"oh haha, my partner's just been feeding me a lot of snacks I guess"

"yeah, I gave up on eating prey"

"I'm not hungry anymore"

[msgexymunson]

One Slow Blink Part 1

Description: As a nurse, you want to help people, as many as you can. But, with the insane things that have been going on in Hawkins, and the crazed look in Dustin's eyes when he stumbles into the ER covered in blood with an impossible tale to tell, it makes you wonder; how much are you prepared to give? 

Warnings: NSFW, Minors DNI, *Here there be monsters! Honestly, there's straight up monster fucking in this so if you're not into that do not read*, AFAB sub nurse reader x dom monster Eddie, kinda Alpha/Omega without them knowing it, injury descriptions, S4 does happen and Eddie lives but he be a monster, hand job, fem oral receiving, male oral receiving, consensual predator/prey dynamic, fingering, very rough sex, biting/marking, unprotected p in v, knotting.

A/N: Part 1 of 2, only due to Tumblr restrictions. Adding the second part in a minute. This has come from yet another deranged dream of mine. I imagine Eddie looking kinda like a mix between the Beast from the original Beauty and the Beast, and the dog/kangaroo guys from Tank Girl, but with a longer snout. If you don't know, that's a dirty mix between a lion, a bear, a wolf and maybe a little of Venom's tongue (because I am a whore.)

22k words in total for both parts, I know, mental, but it's worth it ;)

Masterlist Part 2

Tires screech off of the road and onto a dirt path as Nancy turns erratically in her station wagon, the whole car shuddering in protest. Her hands are shaking on the wheel; so much so that you place a placating hand on her knee to try to calm her down. 

You didn't know Nancy, not really. Hell, you only knew Dustin because he came into the hospital for a nasty cut on his leg when he fell off his bike three months ago. Then all of a sudden he shows up in the emergency room covered in blood, grime matted into his curly locks and tear streaks cutting through the dirt on his face. 

He swore until he was blue in the face that it wasn't his, that he needed a doctor, anyone that could help. You tried and failed to convince him to call an ambulance but he insisted that no one else in the hospital would understand. 

There was something about the desperate look in his eyes. It was frightening; those innocent eyes were hard, harder than they had any right to be. Dustin had seen something no child should have had to witness. With Max being admitted blind and unconscious with both arms and legs broken, and all the talk about strange occurrences around town, not to mention the freak earthquakes, it wasn't difficult to believe. But there was something he was not telling you, you were sure of it. Who comes to the ER without a patient and begs a nurse to come with them?

A feeling had settled in the pit of your stomach. The same thing had happened when the mall caught on fire. A feeling that things weren't what they at first glance appeared. Something strange and unnatural was going in, you were sure of it.

Maybe that's why you stole a trauma kit out of an ambulance. Maybe that's why you got in the car, pushed into the front seat by Dustin and Nancy. Maybe that's why you're being bundled out of said car and running through the woods, bracken cutting your ankles through your scrubs and leaves whipping at your face. 

A light in the distance cuts through the dark, glowing and growing as you quickly approach. A small cabin, you see, ramshackle and falling apart. Stepping towards it, you're about to go in when a bellowing roar echoes throughout the woods and into your chest, vibrating your very lungs and stealing your breath away. The kind of roar that makes your survival instincts run wild, telling you to flee. You would listen to it, if your gut wasn't telling you that you were right where you were supposed to be. 

A minute later, Steve is slamming the front door open, looking dishevelled. There's crimson smeared on his cheek; two long cuts run from temple to jaw dripping blood. 

“Is he why-” 

“Henderson, what the hell dude! You can't just bring anyone here!” 

“I know Steve! She can help, she's a doctor-” 

“Nurse, actually,” you interrupt rather sheepishly. 

Steve rubs his hand through his mussed up hair and takes a pace backwards.

“Great, that's just great. When I told you to get someone-” 

Dustin's response is high pitched and hard, tuning through the clearing. 

“I did. I got someone! It's not like I could freaking advertise!” 

“Look, you said you need help. What can I do?” 

Steve and Dustin exchange dark glances. 

“Alright, you better come with me.”

He heads back inside and you follow quietly wondering what the hell you've gotten yourself into. 

The cabin is quaint, and clearly used to be a well loved home a while ago. Now however, there's a gaping hole in the ceiling and dust trailed across the living area. Robin is sitting on an old sofa, you remember her being in band at school. She looks terrible, cracking her knuckles and mumbling to herself incoherently. 

“He's through here.” 

You trail Steve as he leads to a door that's slightly ajar. Pushing it open with one finger he leans on the doorframe and gestures with the other hand at the most impossible thing you've ever seen in your life. 

“What… is that?” 

“That is Eddie.” 

There's a figure strapped to a double bed with strips of fabric bound to its wrists and ankles. Torn clothing is clinging to parts of it, and what skin you can see is a mass of blood and hair. No, not hair. Fur. Its spine seems wrong, curving more than a humans, and its fingers are thick and adorned with semicircular black claws. The face is not recognizable anymore. You see a huge maw, lips curled in anger with razor sharp teeth on display and spit gathering down its matted chin. That's been bound too; a leather belt wrapped tight around it, you assume to stop it biting. It writhes around on the bed, snarling and growling deep in its throat as various wounds bleed out in front of you. One of its arms, if you could call it that, is bent at an odd angle and seems to be limp compared to the rest of it. 

Standing there open-mouthed, you gawp at the thing.

“You said this is- this is Eddie??” 

“Listen, I know it's insane-” 

You step into the room, pulled by an invisible thread. It turns its head and looks straight into your eyes. Wide, warm eyes, full of pain, pleading with you. They're a soft brown, burnt umber, with a whisper of honey and summer days. Familiar eyes. Human eyes. 

“Its- his arm is broken I think, and these wounds… isn't he wanted for-” 

“He didn't do it. He could never. Just- just do what you can. Please. He- he's a hero.”

Standing by the edge of the bed, you reach out with shaking fingers to touch him lightly on the shoulder. He whips his head around, jaw inches from your trembling hand. His chest is heaving, arm struggling against its bindings. 

“Eddie.” 

You kneel to his eye level and stroke softly at the tatters of his t-shirt. He looks panicked, wide eyes rolling like a cornered animal as he continues to struggle. 

“Eddie, I'm here to help you.” 

Nothing but low growls and broken whines come from his tightly bound maw. The thrashing intensifies; he nearly lifts the bed up with sheer force. Steve takes a step back, but not you. 

You climb up on the bed and straddle his floundering form. Blood smears your scrubs as you grasp his head firmly and turn it to face you. 

“Eddie Munson, you listen to me right now! Stop squirming and listen!” 

The silence is deafening, ringing in your ears. He stops his incessant battle against his confines and looks at you, the look of a frightened boy. 

Voice softening, you stroke at the newly grown fur on his cheek. It's soft and warm. 

“Eddie, do you remember me? We used to have English class together two years ago, with Mrs O’Donnell? You sat next to me. Remember?” 

A flash of recognition dawns behind those soft brown eyes. 

“You were late nearly everyday. You used to draw amazing things in your notebook, all sorts of creatures and symbols and I thought it was incredible. You- any time you caught me looking at you, you winked. You know I nearly failed that class because I was too busy staring at you, seeing what you'd do next?” 

His breathing starts to slow down, his heaving chest moving up and down almost rhythmically now. 

“You are Eddie Munson. You're in there, I can tell. I know you're scared, I get it, but I need to try and treat you. OK?” 

He breathes deep, and something akin to a nod happens which seems to hurt him judging by the way his face tightens. 

“Right. Stay still. I need to try and set your arm. I've got some painkillers in the trauma bag, so I'll need to inject you. Can you- can you blink once for yes, twice for no?” 

He closes his eyes slowly, tight shut, and then opens them again. 

“That's it, that's good. I'll be back.” 

Clambering off his huge form, you turn to Steve who is already clutching the bag in his hands. 

“That was- how did you do that?” 

Filtering through the bag to find what you need, you pull out a syringe and unpack it, and find the drugs you're looking for and start setting up the needle. 

“Listen, if I think about this too much I'm gonna panic, so shut up. I've never done this before.” 

A strange calmness has descended upon you. Taking the needle you move back to Eddie's side and find a vein in his muscular arm. 

“Eddie, I'm gonna inject you with some painkillers to take the edge off, OK?” 

One slow blink. 

“Good. You'll feel a scratch, doing it now.” 

Once the drugs hit his system you know they've helped as the tension seems to leave his body. 

“I need to set his arm, can you try and hold him steady?” 

Steve looks like he'd rather run for the hills, but to his credit he nods and approaches. 

“Right, hold up by his shoulder there, keep him still.” 

You untie his limp wrist and Eddie whimpers when his arm falls to the bed. 

“Now, Eddie, this is gonna hurt like hell, but once it's done it'll feel alot better.” 

Instead of counting down you just arrange his arm into what you think is the right place and twist in one smooth motion. 

Eddie's body convulses; you can see Steve trying to push all his weight into him, knuckles white from the pressure. The howling growl that rips from Eddie is muffled by the leather strap around his muzzle, and then it cuts off. 

Eddie is completely still. After a second, a snarling snore fills the room. 

“I think he passed out.” 

“That's probably for the best. Now I need two straight sticks or something, and the bandages from my bag. I suppose I need to splint this.” 

“What do you mean you suppose?” 

“Steve!” 

“OK OK! Jeez, you sound just like Nancy.” 

He jogs off to get what you asked for, and when you have your materials you tie his arm into a makeshift splint. 

“Now, there's trauma shears in the bag. I need to cut his clothes off and treat these wounds.” 

Steve fumbles through the bag as you get more bandages and gauze ready. He passes them to you and you methodically remove the scraps of grimy torn clothes, eventually leaving him in a pair of tatty looking boxer shorts. 

“Are you gonna, erm, cut those-” 

“I think we can leave those on,” you rush it out of your mouth, a little faster and more high pitched than you meant to. 

“Now, I need warm water and a clean towel or something.” 

As you work together, Steve following your directions, you clean and bandage each wound you see as best as you can. After what seems like forever, you're finally finished, collapsing onto the floor exhausted with your back flush against the wall to keep you upright.

“He's probably gonna need some antibiotics. Those bites looked pretty gnarly. Maybe a tetanus shot. Fuck, maybe a vet.” 

You huff a laugh with zero amusement in it as Steve sinks to the floor next to you.

“That was awesome, how'd you know all that stuff?” 

“I'm studying to be a doctor, and I read every chance I get. I'm a junior nurse. You get to see some shit in the ER. Nothing like this, but apparently I must have learned something.” 

“Sure did. You wanna go and get some rest? There's a bed next door.” 

“No, I'll stay here, keep an eye on him. He's gonna need food, and water though.” 

“I got it.” 

Steve gets up and leaves, returning with a chair and a blanket. 

“Thanks Steve. Is Dustin alright?” 

“He fell asleep on the couch, when he's awake we'll tell you everything.” 

He goes then, and you hear the front door shut softly. 

********************

You ache, your back bending, contorting in a way that makes it burn. A warm blanket is covering your shoulders though, and the pillow underneath you is firm and fuzzy. There's an odd pressure on top of your head; it's slightly comforting. Risking opening one eye, yesterday's memories begin to flow into your consciousness. 

You're sitting in a chair, bent over Eddie's sick bed, and that's not a pillow. Your head is resting on a furry shoulder. Reaching a tentative hand upward you realise his huge paw of a hand is resting on your head. Fingers find coarse hair, rougher than the fuzz on his chest, and his thick fingers taper into a bone like claw, smooth and curved. 

With the patience of a bomb defusal expert, you lift his hand ever so gently and place it on his stomach. There's much less fur there, you see in the daylight, mostly skin and rippling muscle. It flexes under your gaze as his paw settles on top of it, absentmindedly scratching his skin in his sleep. 

Careful not to wake him, you sit up and stretch, hearing pops and clicks from your backbone. He looks peaceful, huge chest rising and falling gently. The hair on his head is still long, matted and dirty but soft looking. There's a fuzz on his cheeks, and that maw of his is no longer snarling in pain though his canines still jut out slightly. An ear peeks out from his curls, the flesh still soft and pinkish, but it curls into a rounded point with downy fur at the tip. 

Your eyes rake down, over his chest with the tattoo near his heart. The fur is thinner here too, and starts growing thickly in a long rope at his belly button, towards the hem of his underwear. A small gasp escapes you when you see the tent in his boxers. His member is pressing hard against the fabric, trying to break free from its cotton prison. It's thick, and clearly enormously long, your thighs clenching at the thought of touching it. 

Well that was unexpected. You tear your eyes away almost shamefully. Just look at him, he's almost monstrous. Stop thinking about his package. 

The door behind you creaks open, and Dustin is standing there. His gaze sweeps over Eddie, then sees what you just saw. Eyes widening comically, he slaps a hand over his face to block his view. 

You stand, shrugging off the blanket you had wrapped around you, and place it delicately over Eddie. Taking one last look at his peaceful features, you follow Dustin out. 

He and Nancy tell you everything. The demogorgon, the Upside Down, Will, Eleven, Vecna. It takes a couple of hours but you're patient, only asking questions to clarify some points. It's not like you don't believe him. After last night, you think you could believe anything. 

By the time he's done, Steve is back with food, dumping bags in the kitchen. 

“I took Robin home, she's in shock but she'll be alright. So how's Eddie Dog?” 

“Eddie Dog?” You question, brow furrowing. Dustin pipes up. 

“Demogorgon, Demodogs, Eddie Dog. I did think DemoEddie but Dog seems more-” 

“I get it. He seems alright, I think. I mean, he's sleeping. I'll have to check the arm, and see if he gets a fever or anything but that seems like the least of his problems.” 

Nancy speaks then, looking at you gently. 

“You're being really, calm, about all this. You OK?” 

“Oh I'm fine. I don't know why, but I'm fine. I sort of knew, deep down, what's been happening wasn't normal. Something told me I needed to be here, and I was right.” 

Steve nods, happy with your response. At least he doesn't need to worry about you freaking out right now. Nancy just purses her lips and doesn't say anything else. 

“I'm gonna have to untie him, you know. He needs to drink, and eat.” 

“I'll help.” Dustin stands up, but you wave him down. 

“No, I'll do it. He calmed down for me yesterday. I can do it.” 

You stand and walk back over to Eddie's room, pushing the door open carefully. He stirs, looking at you with one eye. 

“Eddie, how you feeling?” 

He snorts, trying to paw at the leather around his muzzle with his injured arm. 

“I'm gonna take that off and untie you. Are you… are you gonna be nice?” 

He settles in the bed, head low to his chest. You take that as the best sign you can get right now. Walking over to him slowly, he turns his head to you. His eyes are soft. 

You reach your hand out and cup his face gently, working the belt off with the other as you make shushing noises at him. You're not sure if they are for his benefit or yours. 

When it's off, Eddie stretches his mouth wide, giving you a flash of rows of sharp teeth, and a long, thick purplish tongue. He snaps it shut and licks his lips dryly. 

“You want some water?” 

He blinks slowly at you. His eyelashes are thick and long, and almost look weirdly feminine against his wolfish face. 

“Oh you remember that?”

Another slow blink. 

“Good. Let me get you some water.” 

You stand up but Steve's already at your elbow with a glass. 

“Hey Munson, still alive then?” 

Eddie stares at Steve for a second, lifts his injured arm up gradually, and unfurls his middle finger. Steve laughs loudly; relief coating it. 

“Seems like you're still you. Good, I can't handle Dustin on my own, he's exhausting.” 

A weird huffing noise comes from Eddie, almost a laugh. You hold the water up and he sits up slightly. No idea of how to get him to drink it, you tip up his chin and trickle some water gently into his open maw. He splutters slightly but manages to swallow it. 

“I'm gonna untie you now, OK?” 

He blinks slowly at you again and an unexpected warmth floods you. You begin at his feet; unbinding them, rubbing his ankles where they are red and sore, and rotating his feet around to get his circulation back. When you move to his bound arm he stares at you intensely, so much so it makes you blush. You take the same amount of time inspecting it, rubbing the redness away and circling his wrist. 

When you move your hand he grasps it awkwardly so you can't move away. An odd noise is coming out of his mouth, a drawn out rumble of sound. His eyes crease with the effort.

A word emerges. 

“...Thank.” 

It's low, animal like, almost a growl, but it's a word. 

“Eddie, you can talk?” 

Tears spring into the corners of your eyes, though you don't know why. His face scrunches again, another bubble of growling sound forcing its way out of his maw. 

“...harrrd.” 

He looks like he's about to cry. You hold his cheek, stroking at the soft fur.

“It's alright, I'm sure it'll get better. You're just not used to it. I'll talk enough for the both of us, OK?” 

He blinks deliberately at you again. A moment passes where you just stare at each other. Shaking your head as if to clear it, you cross to the other side of the bed to look at his broken arm. 

“This looks… this can't be right. Eddie, does it hurt?” 

He blinks once. 

“OK, does it hurt a lot?” 

Two slow blinks.  

Untying the bandage, it looks almost healed. You change it, and inspect his other wounds. They look like they're already scarring, a mass of dried blood sticks to each patch of matted fur and skin but you could swear the damage happened weeks ago. They're healed so much that you take the wrappings off and don't bother to recover them. 

“They've healed. I don't know how, but look.” 

Eddie looks down at the scars on his abdomen, pawing at them in disbelief, causing dried blood to crust off in crimson flakes. 

“Do you think you can stand up? We need to get you clean.” 

He nods softly and you move to hold his uninjured arm to help him up. Placing two elongated feet on the floor, he manages to bend his knees and rise from the mattress. 

He's huge. Seeing him unfurl makes you realise just how huge. He's got to be at least seven feet tall, with a broad chest and thick, powerful legs. He turns to the door and whips you inadvertently. 

“Ouch, be careful with your tail Eddie.” 

He spins, turning to look over his shoulder and stares at you with wild eyes. 

“Yes, tail. Look.” 

His paw reaches and feels it, face twisted incredulously. He shuffles forward toward the door frame with it still in his grip approaching where Steve is standing. 

“Don't play with that you'll go blind,” he jokes. Eddie pats him in the chest with what should have been a mock hit, but the force of it pushes Steve back into the wall. 

“Woah, easy there, big guy.” 

You angle Eddie toward the bathroom and he ducks low, shuffling sideways through the doorway. 

“Hmm,” you say, thinking aloud, “no way you're standing under that shower. Tell you what, if you sit in the tub I should be able to clean you.” 

He stares wide eyed, glancing down to his tattered underwear and back up to you. 

“You need help, Eddie, your arms broken and you shouldn't get it wet. Don't worry, I've seen- no wait, I've not seen anything like this before, but I'm a nurse. I can help you.” 

Eddie continues to stand there, a low growl beginning to vibrate out of his chest. You close and lock the bathroom door, then turn back to him with your arms folded. 

“Enough of that, you don't scare me. Pants off and in the tub. Now.” 

Snapping his teeth in annoyance, he hooks claws into his underwear and pulls them down. As he clambers awkwardly in you briefly see his member hanging between his legs before he cups himself and settles down, squished in the enamel bath. 

“Right, stick your bad arm out to the side, that's it, let me get the water running.” 

You unclip the tiny shower head and turn it on, directing the stream to the plug hole until it's warm enough. Then, you begin to clean him methodically, rinsing all the blood and grime away. His fur is soft, muscles flexing under each gentle touch of your fingertips. You rinse his head of hair under the shower head, massaging his scalp, and a noise bordering on a purr exudes from him. 

You're not sure if you should use shampoo over his whole body, but since all you can find to scrub him with is some drug store 3 in 1 and your bare hands, you suppose that will have to do. You begin to lather his head, rinse it off, and start working down his torso. He squirms, getting more tense the further down you go, until he starts hissing at each brush of your fingers.

“Eddie, what's wrong?” 

Voice tight and strained through his tense jaw, he manages a word. 

“Hurrrt.” 

“I'm sorry, I'm trying to be careful. Where does it hurt?” 

Throwing his head back, it smacks into the wall so hard the room shakes. 

“Eddie, I can't help if-” 

He looks at you and nods downwards towards his crotch, the one place you've avoided entirely so far. You follow his gaze and he awkwardly uncups himself. 

His cock is standing to attention, twitching and throbbing. The end is bulbous and as purple as his tongue, the shaft thick and long, snaking out from a base of matted fur. 

Your face glows with heat, blood pumping viciously to your cheeks. 

“Did- did it get, er, injured, yesterday?” 

He shakes his head, wincing with the movement.

“Do you want me to leave you for a minute?” 

It's practically a whisper. Eddie looks anywhere but your face. Moving his hand, he shows you that he can't hold around the shaft with his thick claws. 

“OK I get you,” you say, nerves shaking your voice.

You said you'd help him. You can just help him, right? 

“D-do you want me to help?” 

His eyes snap to yours, wide and wet. He doesn't move or say anything further, just stares. You reach down with your hand, checking up with his face. There's no change in his beastial features. Hesitantly, you cup the swollen head with your palm. He flinches, water cascading out of the tub, but doesn't take his eyes off you. 

Reaching down, you gather some lather from the grubby water and begin to move your hand up and down his bulky shaft. It feels hot to the touch, and solid as a rock underneath the soft feel of his delicate skin. The noise he makes is almost a sigh of relief, head leaning backward as his spine arches to your touch. 

You're struggling to get your hand around his thickness, so you extend your other arm and wrap both hands around his impressive length, stroking firmly up and down. Eddie starts whining in his throat, a desperate noise. He's thrusting into your grip, eyes rolling back in ecstasy. You start to feel throbbing between your own legs, a pulse thumping deep inside that's difficult to ignore. Focusing on your strokes, you push the feeling to the back of your mind.

You watch him instead, his chest heaving, legs beginning to shake as his dick leaks pre cum down your hands. Adding a twist to the tip of his head with each upstroke, he whimpers and whines in his throat. Impossibly, he seems to be getting even larger. You feel a bulbous growth at the base of his cock at the same time he releases, splattering cum over your fists, his chest, the water, his legs. You've never seen so much cum in all your life. He tenses all over, stifling a broken grunt from his maw. You go to move off him but he places a paw over your hand, a silent plea to keep you in place. So, you keep holding him firmly as his breath starts to regulate again. 

A few minutes later he lets you go, his cock still half hard and slightly submerged in the water. Not saying a word, you rinse him down, cleaning any remaining suds and sticky release off of him, not daring to look up at his face. Once that's done, you cough and stand up, grabbing a scratchy towel to dry him off with. As he gets out of the bath, water winding down the drain and gurgling in protest, you dry him off as best as you can, taking care to be gentle around the scabs and scars. The room smells like wet dog. Finally wrapping the towel around his waist, you step back, looking over his body to check if anything is bleeding. 

A clawed hand reaches to your face, the rough furry knuckle tucking under your chin, lifting it up. For the first time since it happened, you look back into his eyes, shame tumbling in your gut. 

“Thanks.” 

“Don't mention it.” 

He gestures widely at his torso, and you snap back to your senses. 

“Clothes! I'll- I'll find you something to wear, just- just hold on. I'll be back.” 

You stumble quickly out the bathroom, back slamming against the shut door and close your eyes. 

What in the absolute fuck was that? 

You have no answers. Surely you were just being a good friend? A really good friend. It didn't explain why you are turned on so much, your own thighs feeling wet and sticky, slick dampening your underwear. 

Nancy approaches as you snap your eyes open. 

“You OK? Can I help?” 

“Yeah, er, we need some clothes for him. Big clothes. Real big. Is there… anything?”

“Hmm,” she says, “I think I saw some of Hopper's old things in the closet. I can go out? Grab some things?” 

“That would be great, thanks.” 

She nods, flashing a tight lipped smile, and grabs her keys from the side. You search the closet and find a white t-shirt and some sweats, returning to the bathroom to help him put them on. The top is a stretch; on anyone else it'd be baggy but on him it looks like a muscle shirt. After some minor adjustments to the pants, which included cutting a hole for his tail, they fit well enough. 

“Listen, Eddie, I need to leave.” 

He snaps his head towards you, whining. 

“It's alright, I've just got a shift at the hospital. Nancy's getting some more clothes for you, and Steve's brought some food. Go. Go and eat, and I'll be back in a few hours.” 

He huffs, but moves carefully to the living room anyway. You explain what's happening to Steve, making sure to tell him to change the bedsheets, and turn to the front door. As you're about to leave, you hear a low, growling word that shakes through you and makes your eyes brim with emotion. It's your name. 

********************

You shower and change at the hospital, willing your shift to be over and done with. Managing to explain away your disappearance last night to your boss with a trite story of helping with Search and Rescue, you breathe in the relief that you won't lose your job. He even understands that you need a couple of days leave; after you hint heavily that you had lost your family in the earthquakes of course. It's a dirty lie, your family doesn't even live near here anymore, but he doesn't need to know that. 

With all the medical emergencies, you're rushed off of your feet, which at least makes the time fly by. After the shift you race back to your apartment, flinging things in a bag. Changes of clothes, a bunch of leftover food from the freezer, and a tape player with a few tapes that you hope will cheer Eddie up. You change as well, putting on a summer dress and tennis shoes, trying to convince yourself you're not doing it for him. 

It's inexplicable; you're aching to see him again. It's like a limb has been severed and the phantom pain is excruciating. Which is fucking mental to say the least. You barely know him, and he's… changed. 

Driving like a woman possessed, you reach the dirt turning in record time, slamming the breaks when you reach Steve and Nancy's cars. At least he's not alone. 

As you jog toward the cabin, you hear a roar, one so loud it dislodges birds from their nests, flapping anxiously to escape. The jog turns into a run as you fly toward the front door, unceremoniously slamming it open. 

“Thank Christ it's you! I can't. I can't deal with him. Please.” 

Steve looks drained, begging you with wide eyes. There's a fresh cut under his eye with a small bruise forming. 

“What the hell happened?” 

Nancy approaches, placing a thin hand on your forearm. 

“Eddie, he's… we can't do anything, he just keeps calling your name.” 

“Roaring it, actually,” Steve adds, looking at your hand with the bulky bag in it. “Are you staying?” 

“Yeah, well I thought, I mean- I live alone. No one's gonna miss me for a few days. The hospital knows, so yeah. I suppose I'm staying.” 

A crash next door makes you all jump. 

“Are you gonna-” 

“Yes, I'm going in there. I'll be fine.” 

As you tiptoe to the door, you hear Steve mutter, ‘she must be one of us, she goes towards the scary noises.’

“Eddie.” 

It's nearly a whisper, but he hears, whipping around to face you. Before you can do anything he's striding forward and wrapping his fierce arms around you. You tense, expecting him to break your ribs, but you relax when the hug is soft. 

Your eyes scan the carnage in the room. The chair you'd sat on whilst nursing his injuries is in splinters on the floor. A cabinet looks like a bull ran into it, and there's glass under your shoes. 

The bed seems fine at least. Coaxing him gently, you lead him to it and perch on the edge. He sits next to you, not letting you go. 

“Eddie what the hell happened?” 

Unclenching his grip, he looks at you with tear filled eyes, anguish etched into his very skin. He's trying to form words, you can see it in the way he's concentrating, but they just won't come. Face screwed up, he balls his fist and howls when a claw digs into his own flesh, which only serves to exacerbate the ball of emotion that's fighting his insides. 

“It's OK, I'm here, just breathe.” 

His maw continues to open and shut, paw gesticulating wildly. You grasp it, being careful of his sharp claws, and try something else. 

“Alright, you can't use your words. That's fine, you can just let it out. Just like, awoooo!” 

You let out your own mini howl as he stares at you in disbelief. 

“Go on, it'll feel good. See? Awwooooo!” 

He stares at you with wide eyes, an almost amused look dancing within them. 

“See? I feel better. Awwooooo!” 

Shaking his large head, he gives you a side glance and tilts his head back to the heavens. 

“AARRROOOOOOO!” 

It's long and loud, bursting in your ears as a wall of sound. 

“Eddie that was awesome,” you gush, hand reaching to wind fingers into his curls. 

“Are you OK, I heard- oh.” 

Steve bursts in and sees you smiling, Eddie staring at you like a puppy. 

“Right, now that's just- what in the- I'll just-” 

He leaves looking stunned, never finishing a sentence. A giggle bubbles out of you, a silly little thing that dances in your chest. Eddie reaches to touch your hand in his hair but the claws hit first making you flinch at the sharpness. He looks at you, pained. 

“It's alright, you didn't hurt me. At least I can do something about that. Come with me.” 

You guide him up and out the room. Steve and Nancy leap off the couch, staring bug eyed, on the cusp of running. 

“It's fine, he's just- frustrated. It's a lot to deal with. I'm sure he's very sorry for scaring you, aren't you Eddie?” 

The last words are directed at him and he looks down at his feet. 

“-Orry.” 

“See? If you calm down a little you can speak. We're gonna cut his cla- his nails.”

Steve shakes his head, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, but Nancy? Nancy just smiles, looking between the pair of you, like she just heard a secret. 

“I think we should go Steve,” she says, holding him by the elbow to guide him towards the door. 

“But we- what if he-” 

“Steve!” 

“Alright, alright! Keep your pants on. I hope you've got food in that big bag of yours, ‘cause he ate three whole rotisserie chickens. Three! Bones and everything.” 

“We’ll be fine. Trust me.” 

Nancy drags Steve out the door as he's shouting over his shoulder. 

“We'll check on you tomorrow!”

“OK!” 

The front door shuts and it's silent in the cabin. Coughing awkwardly, you look around the room searching, speaking as you do so. 

“Right, so, let's sort out the bedroom first.” 

A broom rests against a nearby wall, so you take it and sweep up the glass shards and bits of furniture and dump them outside. It's not perfect but at least you shouldn't cut your feet. 

“OK, nail clippers are not going to work. We need something…  is there a toolbox or…” 

Mumbling away, you finally locate a dusty red snapbox by the back door and extricate a pair of tin snips and a metal file. 

“These should do. Sit down Eddie, I'll put the TV on.” 

He does as he's told, carefully tucking his tail under as he perches on the couch. It screams with the weight but holds steady. 

You get to work, sorting out the claws on his feet before moving to his bearish hands. The TV mutters indistinctly in the background as you clip and file his claws to half their size; as close to his fingers as you dared. When you look up you see Eddie's gaze is transfixed on you. Ignoring the heat of his stare, you finish up, prodding the end of each nail with a finger pad. 

“See? No more scratching. Should be able to practise using your hands more too.” 

A heat rolls across your face at your own dirty thoughts. If Eddie notices, he doesn't say anything. 

“I brought some beers, you want one?” 

He can nod and shake his head now without pain, you've seen him moving with ease, but he chooses instead to blink slowly at you. Gasping a little, you get up and fetch the beers from the fridge and hand one over. It's tricky, but he manages to hold it, looking at you for validation. 

“See? That's great! You just need practice.” 

“Prrractice.” 

“Yes! That's really good, Eddie.” 

You beam a sunny smile at him but he looks down and away from you. 

“What is it?” 

Turning back with glassy eyes, he waves a hand at his new form. 

“-rreak.”

“Sorry, what?” 

“F-rreak.” 

“No! No, Eddie, stop,” you respond, holding one huge hand in both of yours, “you're not a freak. You're scared and, and different, and God knows this is a strange situation, but you're not a freak. You were never a freak.”

He brings one burly arm around your shoulders and hugs you tight to his chest. You can feel the pads of his fingers now, stroking at your arm. For some reason, that's what makes you cry. Tears fall unbidden, streaking down your face alarmingly fast. Eddie pulls away to look at you, eyes brimming with concern. 

“I'm fine, it's fine. Really. I just- I can feel your fingertips now.”

Eddie flashes the closest thing to a smile his new face can allow and laces his tough, furry fingers with yours. You sit like that for a while, drinking your beers and staring mindlessly at the TV. Eyes beginning to close of their own accord, you realise you need to go to sleep before you pass out. 

“I need to sleep Eddie. Hang on, I'm gonna go change.” 

You stand up, fishing a tank top and sleep shorts from your bag as well as a toothbrush, and go about getting ready for bed. 

When you return, the TV is off, and Eddie's sitting in a pair of plain black boxer shorts that Nancy must have bought him. 

“Eddie, do you think you can brush your teeth or do you need a hand?” 

He gets up determined and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Trusting he knows what he's doing, you make your way to the spare room. The bed is tiny and there's no duvet or pillow, just a ratty blanket. 

Eddie appears in the doorway. 

“No.” 

“Huh?” 

You turn and he waves a hand at the bed almost in disgust. Taking you by the arm, he leads you to the main bedroom. 

“You, herrre.” 

He turns and the word is out of your mouth before your brain has a chance to wake up. 

“Wait!” 

As he looks at you expectantly, you blush and stammer over your sentence. 

“I mean, that other bed- it's too small for you Eddie, and theres- there's no pillows and-” 

Reaching out with a paw-like hand, he settles it on your forearm gently. 

“Herrre?” 

“Yeah? If you don't mind, of course.” 

Without a further word he climbs onto the bed, covering himself with the duvet you'd found in the closet. You shut the light off and get in too, laying at the very edge of the bed, knees dangling over thin air. 

Eddie's not having that though. His arm swipes over and pulls you close so fast air leaves your lungs in a gasp. You settle into him, hand laying on his chest, a furry leg underneath your knee. 

“Goodnight Eddie.”

“-Night.” 

********************

When morning rolls around you find yourself alone in the bed, a cold dip in the mattress next to you. There's noise coming from the kitchen area but it sounds contained; nothing like the sounds you heard when you arrived yesterday. 

The bandage and sticks you hastily splinted his arm with are discarded in a pile on the floor. The material looks like it had been ripped apart by sharp teeth. 

Padding out of the room on bare feet you see Eddie's back. The fur along his spine is longer and thicker than the rest, and his tail is swishing. It's sticking out of the hole you made in a pair of sweatpants as he wiggles a frying pan. 

“Morning Eddie. Your arm healed already?” 

He flicks a glance over his shoulder and flashes his canine teeth, waving the arm around to show you. 

“-orrning. Bet-terr.” 

“Are you making breakfast?” 

He points to a plate next to him where a haphazard tower of pancakes sit. 

“Prractice.” 

You walk over, shivering a little. Someone's going to have to do something about the holes in the ceiling here. Making a mental note to speak with Steve, you cross the room and stand next to Eddie. 

“You need any help?” 

He shakes his head and gestures to the table. 

“Sit. Eat.” 

You pick a couple of pancakes up and put them on a small plate and unearth an ancient bottle of maple syrup from a cupboard. The pancakes are surprisingly good; you find a hair in one but don't mention it. 

“Eddie, these are delicious! Thank you.” 

“You'rre -elcome.” 

“And you're speaking so well!” 

“Prrractice.” 

He sits opposite you with an enormous plate stacked high with pancakes, offering another to you. Taking one more, you place it neatly on your plate. 

“Thanks but that's it. I know you need practice but we don't need so many-”

He picks up two and puts them in his mouth, barely chewing before swallowing and picking up three more. 

“-Oh. We're gonna need more food.”

Eddie nods, finishing the stack of pancakes in less than a minute. When he's done, his thick tongue lulls out to lick his fingers. It's so long, practically wrapping around each individual digit. 

Mouth hanging open, you snap it shut and close your eyes for a moment trying to will the hedonistic thoughts you're having to stop swirling around your brain. 

When you open them again he's staring at you intensely, a hint of amusement in those soulful eyes. 

Looking down to avoid that stare, you ask something that you've been dying to find out. 

“Eddie, can I ask- are you still, you, in there? Like completely? Or is it, different?” 

He looks away, seemingly thinking. It's a while before he turns back, face contorting with the effort of words. 

“Still -e, I think. Head… fog-gy. Hurrts. Prrractice.” 

You nod and reach for his hand, proud of him for his longest sentence yet. He holds yours gently; the thumb rubbing back and forth over your knuckles showing much better dexterity than yesterday.

A loud knock at the door startles you both, until you hear Steve's voice ring out.

“It's me, it's Steve! You alive?” 

Eddie rolls his eyes and you stifle a giggle. 

“No Steve, I died! I was maimed! Blood and guts everywhere!” 

You smile as you say it, winking at Eddie. Steve barges in, shaking his head. 

“Ha ha, very funny. Excuse me for caring,” he turns to Eddie, voice softer than before, “how you feeling, buddy?” 

Eddie flashes his teeth. 

“Bet-terr.” 

“Good, awesome. Hey, did I miss breakfast?” 

“Sure did. Eddie made it.” 

“Really?” 

Steve looks stunned, glancing back and forth between the two of you. 

“Yup, he did. All on his own. Actually, while you're here, we need to fix those holes in the roof. At least board them up or something.” 

“Yeah sure, I can do that, but I'll need a hand.” 

“I… can hel-p.” 

The boys get to work and you leave them to it. You busy yourself too; dusting and cleaning the cabin, hanging a sheet up in the bedroom as a makeshift curtain, and making a list of everything you need from the store foodwise. Then, you add even more to it, including four rotisserie chickens. 

Whilst food is on your mind, you make a huge pile of sandwiches and call them both in for lunch. Steve looks shocked at the amount of food.

“Woah, don't think we need all-” 

Eddie shakes his head and grabs two sandwiches, putting them both in his mouth at once. 

“Ah. Right.” 

“I think he needs a lot of food because of the injuries. He healed so quickly, I mean, he's got to get the energy from somewhere, right?” 

Steve slowly nods, looking at Eddie as he stuffs another sandwich in his mouth. 

“Yeah, I guess. Plus, look at the size of him.” 

Eddie swallows thickly and stares at the pair of you. 

“Can… hearrr you. Rrrude.” 

“Sorry, you're right, that was rude of us Eddie.” 

You reach a hand out and stroke his arm; his gaze immediately softens. 

“Wow, you're like, the Eddie whisperer or some shit.” 

Eddie growls in his throat. 

“Hey, that wasn't about you it was about her!” 

After lunch, they get back to work, completing the patch job on the roof in a few hours. By the time they're done, the sun is starting to set. Steve leaves the pair of you, taking the shopping list and promising he and Nancy will be back tomorrow with fresh supplies. You offer him some money which he swears blind he doesn't need, but you give it to him anyway. 

Once dinner is demolished, you and Eddie sit on the couch, watching some made for TV movie. Well, he seems to be watching it. You're uncomfortable, thighs clenching in an effort to put out the raging fire between them. Hyper aware of his arm over your shoulders, you try to block all the horny signals to your brain but it's not working. Huffing loudly, you bite your lip, shuddering at each touch of his gnarled finger pads on the smooth skin of your arm. 

“You good?” 

You glance up and see Eddie's eyes boring into you. 

“Yeah, of course, I'm great.” 

“Liarrr.” 

Flashing his teeth, he lets out a rough chuckling sound. You press your lips together firmly, refusing to respond. 

“You want me. You… want… this.” 

He points to his mouth, tongue dipping out past his sharp teeth, far longer than a tongue had any right to be. He twirls it in a little circle and puts the purplish muscle back in his mouth. 

“Oh really?” You reply hotly, “and what makes you think that, huh?” 

“Can scent.” 

“What?” 

Wordlessly, he points between your legs. Clenching your thighs harder, you glow scarlet, face igniting with such heat that it almost hurts. 

“Eddie, you can't just say that's it- it's impolite!!” 

Letting out a little howl of amusement, he strokes up and down your back with his large hand sending shivers through your spine. 

He's not wrong. Your panties are clinging to your wet heat uncomfortably, thighs sodden with false anticipation. Your blood is on fire, pumping fast and hard to your aching clit. It's bewildering; you've never felt so needy in all your life. He must be letting out some pheromones or something, brain grasping wildly at straws for an explanation. 

“-Orry. Just… you help-ed mme. I can… help you.” 

“I don't think- I'm not sure that's a good idea. I mean, your heads all foggy, you said, and, and-” 

“Want to.” 

He looks entirely serious, meeting your gaze with hardly a blink. 

Are you really gonna do this? 

Your body is protesting the lack of a decision, pulse thumping hard in your cunt as if to remind you of your predicament. It takes over, urging your hands under your dress to peel off your sticky underwear and put them to one side. Eddie doesn't move, waiting for you to speak, but you can see his pupils are blown, eyes nearly fully black. His snout is snuffling the air, tasting you through his nose. 

“Could you… please?” 

Tears are stinging your eyes at the discomfort. Eddie blinks once slowly at you, and immediately crouches to his hands and knees on the floor. As he crawls between your thighs, it strikes you that the movement seems more natural than him standing like a person. Gently, he slides your dress up your legs and pushes your legs apart with his giant hands. 

You're waiting for the first touch of his tongue, but it doesn't come. First, he smells you, inhaling your cunt so deeply that embarrassment blooms in your chest. The growling, humming noise that emanates from him vibrates into your very bones; it's laced with such desire that your thighs begin to quiver. 

Then, he tastes you; tongue lapping at your sex suddenly. You were expecting it, but you weren't expecting the sheer relief that flooded your senses at the first touch of his dripping maw. He slathers it all over you, cleaning your slick from the tops of your thighs, tongue slithering through your folds, around your clit, right down to your ass, as if he can't get enough of the taste of you. 

Whining and bucking your hips up already, he growls, holding you open with one brutish hand as the other pushes into the softness of your belly pinning you in place. You can see where his thick blunted claws push at your flesh, leaving dimples on your stomach. 

Then his tongue is writhing inside of you, twirling and dancing, hitting spots no other tongue could ever reach. Moans are ripped from your chest, the kind of sounds you would never dare to make before. Pathetic whines, hoarse shouts, screeching cries of pure pleasure. His snout is pressed firmly up against your clit; it's scrunched with the pressure, and each flick of his head makes him nussle it over and over. 

Despite Eddie's firm hand holding you down, you still manage to thrash about, legs twitching and back bucking uncontrollably. Your walls are convulsing around his muscle, fluttering with each pulse. He tongue fucks you in earnest then, knowing you're reaching that crescendo as your noises get even louder. 

You're beyond words. You couldn't tell him you were about to come if your life depended on it. The only word you can manage is a high pitched squeal of his name as your release floods out of you, slick gushing over his face. 

He laps it up, tongue washing over you as you collapse back into the sofa cushions, throat hoarse from yelling. There's an odd, murmuring grunt sound coming from him, the same sound over and over. As your ears finally stop ringing you release he's mumbling a word into you, almost incomprehensible in between licks. 

“Mine. Mine, mine… mmmmine.” 

Over and over he says it; like a mantra, a prayer to your cunt. Eventually you have to tug him away by his hair to stop him compulsively lapping at you. 

He looks up, dazed eyes starting to refocus as he pants like a dog. You pat the fur on his neck over and over, rubbing your fingers through it, your stare desperately trying to tell him what a good job he did. 

As he sinks down and sits on the floor, you join him, sliding off the couch and crawling into his lap. He holds you close, nose nuzzling your neck. 

“Wan’ kiss you.” 

You know what he means. He wants to kiss you properly, like a man and a woman kiss. Not like a beast. 

You cradle his head, making your hands appear tiny in comparison, and twist your fingers gently in his fur. Pulling his closed maw toward you, you press your lips against it softly, nudging his nose with yours like he did with your neck. It seems to placate his needs. He keeps his arms in a tight embrace around you as you move your heads as one, nudging your faces together, letting actions speak instead of words. 

For the second time in as many days, you wonder what the hell you're getting yourself into. 

********************

“Eddie, come try this!” 

Calling from the kitchen, you mix batter in a huge bowl, trying to work out if you've used enough sugar. Technically speaking, you're not a chef. Far from it. The last cake you made sank in the middle so much it resembled a sad bundt cake. 

“Eddie?” 

All you hear is muffled music playing from the bedroom. You go and investigate, spatula in hand, and gently swing the door open. 

Eddie's shirtless, his sweats hanging low on his hips, with his guitar slung around his neck. His muscles flex with every strum of his fingers, face screwed in concentration as he attempts to follow along with the tape.

“Eddie?” 

Finally he glances up, eyebrows unknitting as he looks at you. 

“Wherre you find… the aprrron?” 

You'd forgotten about the apron. Glancing down, you see flour dusting it. You brush it off absentmindedly and look back at him. 

“Oh, it was in a drawer.” 

“Hot.” 

You giggle, cheeks flushing. 

“What you doing Eddie? Practising?” 

He huffs, taking his guitar and laying it gently against the bed. 

“Trrrying. Not good enough.” 

“Yet.” 

Exposing his teeth in a bestial smile, he walks over to you. 

“Yet. What you calling forrr?” 

He tilts his head, exposing the fuzzy tip of his ear through his hair, rough hand rubbing up your arm.

“Oh, I see. You could hear me, hmm?” You place your hand on your hip dramatically. He nods, crowding over you, making your breath hitch in your throat, as thick furry fingers stroke at your skin. 

“Well, I was asking you to try this.” 

You tap his nose with the end of the spatula, leaving behind a splat of uncooked cake batter. His maw opens in shock as you laugh. 

“Don't… do…” 

“What, don't do this?” 

You get him again, this time on his cheek, smudging the mixture in the soft fur. He raises an eyebrow at you, face stoic as he crosses his arms over the expanse of his chest. He'd look intimidating, if it wasn't for the batter dripping off his snout. 

“What you gonna do about it, huh?” 

He takes a step backward, unfolding his arms, and cracks his neck from side to side. His knuckles are next, popping with the stretch. Then, he starts growling out a low countdown. 

“One… two… thrrree…” 

“Oh, it's like that is it?” 

“...fourrr… five…” 

You run out of the room, flinging the spatula onto the kitchen side, and look for somewhere to go, but there isn't anywhere. This place is tiny. Jogging around the couch, you hear Eddie roar like a lion and your pulse quickens. He shoulders nonchalantly out the bedroom, crouching low. Adrenaline hits you as you try to work out how to get past. 

Attempting to fake him out, you run one way, then immediately double back, dashing around the back of the couch. Eddie's moves are a blur, husky arm scooping you up by the waist and dragging you over his shoulder in an instant. Kicking and giggling, you bash at his back trying to get him to let go, but you may as well pound on a concrete wall. 

There's a sudden rush of air and your back meets the wooden floor, landing with a soft ‘ooft’ noise. He pins you down, powerful legs straddling you, holding both your arms over your head with one brutish hand almost lazily. It easily circles both of your wrists. 

Taking his free hand, he scoops the mixture off of his nose and licks it with his tongue, twirling it around until every last bit is gone. You're breathing heavily. That display, teamed with him wrestling you to the ground so easily, has your heart thumping a tattoo inside your chest. 

He makes a face, scrunching his snout. 

“That bad?” 

“I know… what rrrather eat.” 

Flashing his pointed teeth, he runs his tongue over them, looking at you like you're his favourite meal. He leans in close, hot breath fanning your face. 

“You like this.” 

“No.” You say, even though you're trembling and hot all over. 

“Liarrr.” He says it whilst tapping his nose. 

He pushes his body against yours so you can feel his solid bulge pressing up against your core. Nothing can stop the whimper that gurgles out your throat, no matter how much you bite your lip. 

A warm hand paws at your breast over the apron as his tongue dances across the shell of your ear. Pushing upward with your hips, you make a futile attempt at escaping. Not that you want to, but the game is just getting good. He growls in your ear and the sound shoots straight to your cunt…

Then the front door flies open. 

“So we got- Jesus Eddie, no! Get the hell off her!” 

Steve drops paper bags on the floor as you both turn your heads to face him. Nancy's running in beside him trying to drag him backwards by the elbow. 

“Steve, I don't think-” 

“It's not what it looks like!” You stammer it out as Steve gawps. 

“What- what's going on!” 

Nancy turns him so he has to look at her, talking to him like a child. 

“Steve, when a man and a woman like each other very much-” 

His face immediately starts glowing scarlet. Eddie clambers off you and holds one hand out to lift you off the floor, hunching awkwardly to try and hide his erection as he takes refuge behind the couch. 

“Seriously? Him? He's- he's-” 

He gestures widely at Eddie. You hear a snarling coming from behind you so you hold a hand out to calm him, fingers meeting soft fur. Your eyes harden as you stare sternly at Steve.

“He's Eddie. He's just Eddie. He might look different but he's still here, and you're being… rude.” 

“You're right, I'm sorry,” he looks over to Eddie sheepishly, “sorry Munson, I didn't mean-” 

“Don't worrry, I… underrrstan’. Harrrd to rremem-berrr… even forrr mme.”

Steve looks surprised at how much his speech has come on, but he doesn't mention it. Instead, he holds out a hand, taking Eddie's giant one in his own and shaking it. 

“Listen, I got what you asked for, it should be all here. If you're both alright, we'll get out of your fur- shit- hair! Out of your hair!” 

Eddie snickers low in his throat as Steve tries to hide his face from his own faux pas. 

After packing the food away, and a couple of hugs and goodbyes, they leave you it. Nancy promises they'll be back in a couple of days to check in, and that they'll knock first. 

Once you're both alone you breathe a sigh of relief, turning to Eddie. 

“I'm sorry about him.” 

Eddie looks down, clutching the back of the couch. 

“I'm s-orry. Should have… ask-ed you out beforrre… this.” 

You round the couch and grasp his bicep in your hands, staring at his side profile. 

“Hey, hey, you didn't know this was gonna happen. How could you ask me out? It's not like you even noticed me really before, right?” 

Eddie refuses to meet your gaze. His eyelashes are dipping down, nearly kissing his cheeks. 

“Eddie?” 

He rumbles a sound out, shaking his head, making his hair ripple about his shoulders. 

“I… lik-ed you. Wan-ted you. Was… scarrred. You werrre.. arrre… too good forrr mme.” 

An ache settles in your chest at his words, face creasing with anguish.

“Oh... Oh, Eddie, don't do that. I'm here now. And I'm not too good, that's just not true.” 

Your fingers wind into his fur, trying to tug him around but it's no use. You can see the tension in his arm underneath. 

So, if that isn't working, you'll try something else. 

“Seems I won.” 

His head turns quickly then, staring at you, muzzle wrinkled in confusion. 

“Our little chase?”

You wipe the remnants of cake batter off of his cheek with two fingers. He watches you intently as you bring them to your mouth, pushing them deep inside and hollowing your cheeks. Eddie grunts, maw extending open slightly as he swallows thickly in his throat. You suck hard, and pull your fingers out, running the flat of your tongue up and around them, leaving a string of spit behind. 

“I think you're right, that doesn't taste good.” 

Eddie's staring at you, eyes nearly black as his tongue lulls from his mouth, panting. 

“So, I won. I got free, didn't I?” 

Eddie's ribs are rising and falling distinctly. He steps toward you, the back of his hand dragging its coarse knuckles over your cheek. 

“Don't count… Caught you.” 

“Yeah? And I got free! So I win, right? Unless you don't think that's fair?” 

Snout nuzzling at your hairline, he breathes in your scent deeply and cups your face, pulling it towards his. You kiss his mouth gently, crushing soft lips against his hard jaw. He pushes his maw against you, opening his mouth and snaking his tongue between your lips. 

It's messy, tongues licking each other as spit pools and drips down your chin. His burly hand rests on the back of your head, covering it completely, forcing you to stay in place, while the other reaches down to grasp at the flesh of your ass. 

When you break away, you're both panting, breathing laboured and ragged. 

“Woah. Fuck,” you huff out between hard exhales, “you can kiss.” 

“Interrrrup-ted.”

“Huh?” 

You're dizzy from the kiss, lips red and swollen, still slightly parted as his fingers trace down your back. 

“We werre… interrrup-ted. Don't count.” 

“Ah, I see. So what do you-” 

“One. Two… thrrree…” 

This time you fly from his grip and race out the room, considering the bathroom for a second before you dive wildly into the main bedroom. Eyes scanning as quickly as you can, you see a trap door at the foot of the bed. 

It swings open when you pull the rusted metal ring and you stick your head inside. It's little more than a crawl space, full of cobwebs and mouldy boxes. You scrabble inside and snap the trap door shut just as you hear a bellowing roar from the other room. 

He won't actually be expecting you to hide, and you're rather pleased with yourself at the spot you'd managed to find, laying on your back wedged in the stuffy space. 

The door swings open and you will your heart to slow down. Surely he can hear it hammering from here? It's thumping loudly in your own ears, blood whooshing through your head. 

The floorboards creak with each step he takes. When he falls to the ground suddenly, crawling on all fours, your thighs clench. 

“Sweet-hearrrt…I know you’rrre herrre… can smell you…” 

His sing-song tone, along with the growling purr of his voice had you biting your lip so hard you could taste tin.

You follow the shadow of his form through the slats, not daring to move, not daring to breathe. Suddenly his massive furred arm swipes under the bed, catching nothing but air. You slap a hand over your mouth to stifle a giggle. 

He goes entirely still, pressing his snout to the floor, and sniffs between the floorboards. You can see his nose twitching just above your head.

“Arrre you… in the crrrawlspace?” 

He sounds impressed, finding the trap door only a second later. Light floods your hiding place as you try to wriggle your body away from him, but there's no room. In an instant he's got your ankles in his clutches as you shriek in protest, pulling you from the gap below. 

In seconds he scoops you up and hurls you on the bed as if you weigh nothing at all, then jumps on top of you, pinning you down as the bed springs squeak dramatically. 

“Cleverrr… but can't hide from mme…” He purrs, and leans closer to your ear, voice a deeper, threatening growl. 

“I can smell yourrr cunt.” 

You take a sharp inhale at his words. As if your pussy could understand him, you feel squelching wetness seep out, aching to be touched.

Eddie sits up, straddling you, and rips your apron and top in half as easily as tissue paper, exposing bare flesh. Greedily, he lathes his tongue from the nape of your neck down to your breasts, swirling it around each nipple leaving a trail of spit in its wake.

Your skin itches, flashing red hot, the throbbing between your legs becoming unbearable. You're whimpering, close to tears with the sheer need for him.  

“Eddie, Eddie please.” 

Wasting no time he climbs off the bed and yanks your jeans off in one go, not bothering to even unzip them, and does the same with his sweats. Standing fully to attention, his monstrous length looks painfully hard, throbbing purple. 

You hook fingers into the waistband of your panties to take them off, but Eddie slaps your hand away, and leans down, hot breath dancing over the skin of your thighs. Sharp teeth graze your abdomen, not enough to cut your skin but enough to leave angry red marks in a pathway to your sex. 

Then he's gripping your underwear in his teeth and ripping the flimsy lace off, leaving it in shreds. The feral gesture has you groaning out loud, thighs immediately opening to him. A thick tongue slivers through your folds, tasting you, until he presses a clawed finger to your opening, thrusting it inside with no warning. 

“Fuck, that- that feels so good!” 

Just like when he went down on you, that familiar rush of relief at his ministrations pours over you, nearly bringing you to tears. He moves up the bed, other arm holding him steady above your head so he can crowd your senses, intently watching your face as he fucks you with his finger. 

He forces another finger in making you cry out, small hand gripping at his forearm to try and slow him down, but his movements are unrelenting. 

“Eddie, too much, please-” 

He growls, the sound making you clench even more around him as he curls his fingers, keeping them painfully deep inside. 

“Have to. You need… to take me… prrrincess.” 

You nod your understanding as you wince at the stretch, but the discomfort melts away as your release slinks up your spine, heat pooling in your belly making you moan and push back into his grip. His rough palm presses harshly into your clit, thick skin slipping against the silken nub.

“See… goood girrrrl.” 

You clutch at his fur as your orgasm expels from your body, throwing your head back into the mattress as your cunt gushes around his grip violently. He purrs his satisfaction in your ear and pulls his fingers from you. Rubbing them over his pulsating shaft, he spreads your slick and holds his girth by the base. 

“Eddie, I-I'm ready, I need you.” 

Grunting at your words, he forces the swollen head into your soaked folds. Your eyes snap tightly shut as you cling desperately to muscle and fur. Seemingly unable to control himself, he thrusts his whole length straight into you, tilting his head back and roaring so loud that dust falls from the ceiling. 

You're expecting blinding pain at the enormity of his length but it doesn't come. Instead, that first thrust pulls a second orgasm from you, one so profound that it fizzes through your every nerve and leaves spots in your vision. The blazing heat of your skin subsides as you throb around him, your prior discomfort melting away entirely. The same sureness that settled in your gut when you arrived is back. This is where you're supposed to be. 

No words come from Eddie, just forceful thrusts and throaty noises as he fucks into you like an animal. He's on his hands and knees, one arm dipping into the small of your back, holding you firmly against him as he forcefully humps into you, using you. The slick sounds of your conjuncture echo through the cabin; all wet sucking noises, gravelly growls and high pitched moans. 

Suddenly he snarls, teeth exposed, and grabs you by the hips, flinging you to the floor on your front. Your breath leaves you in shock, wooden boards rough against your naked skin. Yanking your ass in the air by the flesh of your hips he forces his throbbing member back inside, fucking into you so harshly that it's hard to stay upright. You're slipping forward with each piston of his hips, arms trembling with effort. 

Eddie's panting, pools of drool gathering at the base of your neck, mixing and mingling with your sweat. A sharp pain cuts through all the pleasure, ripping into the meat of your shoulder, causing you to scream and tense up, pussy fluttering pathetically around him. It pushes you over that precipice once again, the hurt and the bliss intertwining into a mass of feeling, tangled and twisted, unable to exist without the other. 

His member swells, growing impossibly, and a bulbous growth locks in you as he releases with a desperate broken howl. You feel the pumping of his cum deep inside, coating your trembling walls, claiming you.

A minute or so later he's collapsing to the side, pulling you close with his bearish arm, still firmly buried inside your cunt. Time seems to stop as you both pant, gasping for air, tangled in his furry embrace. As his breathing finally slows, he manages to purr one word in your ear. 

“Mine.”

Part 2

Taglist (if you want to be added please send me a PM)

@liminalpebble @eddies-puppet @rip-quizilla @micheledawn1975 @vanilla-demon @millercontracting @roanniom @josephquinnsfreckles @leelei1980 @mrsjellymunson @usedtobecooler @eddiesprincess86 @ali-r3n

[supernormalblogname]

i don't write very much at all so please be niceys to me... vore story about a prey with an awful big crush on an awful big pred. no specific characters. second person perspective, half size, safe & soft. most of it under the cut :]

When you first saw them, it was love at first sight. They were possibly the most beautiful person you’d ever seen, and definitely the tallest - towering over you wasn’t much of a feat, you were always on the shorter side, but this person seemed to tower over everyone, and they had a sharp, guarded expression to match their slightly frightening aura. 

You found yourself watching them from across the space.. And then, the two of you made eye contact, and the beautiful, intimidating stranger gave you a smile, flashing rows of unnaturally razor-sharp teeth. Before you could say anything, a friend of yours unceremoniously pulled you away.

Everyone you talked to about that person gave you an earful - “They’re a man-eating monster!” “They corner people on the street and swallow them whole!” “Don’t even think about getting near them, they’ve eaten everyone who tries to get close to them!” Nobody even seemed to know their name, but everyone had a horror story about their eating habits. You took their advice seriously at first - that sounded so scary! You didn’t want to be eaten alive!

But, even after those warnings, you found you couldn’t get your mind off of their face - their smile. Ahh, crushes were always hard to deal with, but of all the people you could’ve fallen in love with, why did it have to be them…

You started seeing them around more and more. At first it was just coincidence, but eventually you did just a little bit start lingering in places you’d seen them before, and maaaybe you had a rough idea of their schedule, and maaaybe you were sometimes following them. You were in love! Sue you! You made sure to keep a low profile, avoiding getting spotted by them - you hadn’t seen them do any… man-eating activities yet. But with how everyone seemed to be afraid of them, it must have some truth to it, and you didn’t want to get spotted and gobbled up!

The more you saw them, the more you wondered if the whole people-eating thing was just a mean rumor some bullies spread around about them… but at the same time, you also wondered… if it was really true, that they really ate people… what would that feel like.

You had the first burning wonder confirmed just a few days later, when you were stopped in your tracks by an incredibly strange sound coming from the little space between two buildings. You peaked your head in to see the back of the person of your admiration… with… the bottom half of another person sticking out of their mouth.

All you could do was stand there, completely transfixed as they swallowed the person down - a thick, audible Gulp-Gulp-Gulp sound as they disappeared more and more into their throat. Even with their back mostly to you, you could see the moving bulge in their throat where the person was being forced down. You found your face flushing red as they slurped the last of their - living, squirming - meal down with a particularly powerful Gulp- sealing the poor unfortunate person away.

Soon, the person had been deposited in the predator’s stomach - and you could tell, as the predator’s middle bulged and moved, the poor prey squirming, firmly trapped behind walls of flesh and muscle. They placed a hand on their stomach as it let out a loud Groaaan, satisfied.

And then, they turned.

And then, they made eye contact with you. 

And then, they smiled, flashing that mouthful of sharp teeth.

You doubt you’ve ever run faster in your life than you did in that moment. Trying to get as much distance as possible between you and the predator. Oh god oh god oh god, they were totally going to eat you-

That night, you could barely sleep. Every time you closed your eyes, visions from that encounter filled your mind… their powerful throat, their stomach, their smile… the more you thought about it, the more you couldn’t keep lying to yourself anymore.

You… really wanted them to eat you.

Luckily for you, your opportunity came possibly a bit sooner than you were ready for. As only a couple of days later, you were walking by that very alley, too caught up in your thoughts to realise where you were or that there was somebody lingering in the shadows… until you were roughly grabbed and pulled in.

There you found yourself, held harshly by your shoulders by the predator of your dreams. Your eyes stopped at their stomach at first - it was smaller again, empty and growling loudly, demanding to be fed. After a minute you finally pried your eyes away from their middle, and looked up to meet their gaze. They were huge, looking even taller up close, and as you looked at them, they gave you that mesmerizing smile, teeth on full display. Oh my god. Was this really happening?

You expected them to waste no time in gobbling you down - from the stories you’ve heard, they never bother talking to the people they eat. But instead…

“I know you’ve been watching me, little prey…” they say, voice low and growly. Your face is burning, and there’s no way the predator wouldn’t be able to tell - you’d be trying to cover it with your hands, but your arms are pinned to your sides in their harsh grasp.

“I bet you’ve been wondering how it must feel, to be eaten…” they lean in closer, you can feel their hot breath wafting across your face. Your heart feels like it's about to beat right out of your chest. You want to snap back at them, tell them to just get on with it, but you can’t get any words to form. Instead, you whimper kind of embarrassingly. The predator laughs, a deep chuckle that echoes through the space, and then…

They open their mouth wide, and practically shove your head into the damp, warm space. You can feel those sharp teeth resting on your neck, juust lightly enough that they don’t hurt at all, but it certainly dissuades you from trying to struggle, not that you could anyway, as you find yourself completely frozen up - oh my god oh my god, it was really happening.

You feel their tongue sliding across your face, and a low hum escapes from the back of their throat, vibrating the space around you - were they tasting you? Were they enjoying tasting you?

You didn’t have too much time to wonder about it, as you found your head moved forward to touch the back of their throat. And then…

Gulp!

It was all happening too fast for you to process, and yet it felt like the world was going in slow motion. Their throat was immensely tight, strong muscles compressing you on all sides, pushing you down, down, down. With every thick Gulp that reverberated around you, you felt more and more of your body being sucked into their powerful throat, until nothing of you was left outside. And at about the same time, you felt your head get squished into a slightly more open space, the rest of your body quickly following.

As you squirmed around, trying to orient yourself in the cramped, squishy, fleshy, moving space, the situation fully sank in. You were in their stomach. They had just eaten you. You had just been eaten, whole and alive… and… you kind of liked it.

You could feel the predator lean against the wall of the alley, and soon after something pressed into the side of the space - ah, that must be them resting their hand on their stomach from the outside, you never expected you’d be able to feel it from the inside like that. The organ groaaaned and growled around you, you could feel each satisfied rumble vibrate your own body. The predator sighed contentedly.

“You were delicious.” they remarked, and their words made you squeak, feeling almost lightheaded. Ah, it definitely wouldn’t be easy to get over this little crush of yours, but at least for now you were enjoying being held in their stomach, and they seemed to enjoy having you.

[nomstellations]

"Urph...oof, maybe that was too many." He looked down at the tiny he had pressed into his stomach, listening to and feeling the squirms and protests of their friends that came before them. He didn't intend on indulging as much as he had- just one treat after a long day of work would've normally sufficed, but he just so happened to come across a morsel with friends, and...

His stomach at least was quite pleased with the arrangement. His fitted suit however, was not. It was tight around his full belly, buttons straining to stay together while his snacks squirmed unhappily inside. It was more of a meal at this point, but they tasted so good...

Stifling another quiet burp, he studied the anxious tiny under his hand. "Maybe one more...it'd be a crime to waste something so delicious. Don't worry! You'll be meeting back up with your friends real soon!" Before they could react he lifted them up and shoved them in their mouth. He didn't spend as much time with tasting them as the others- there was no need to tease the last one left! He tilted his head back, pulling his collar back as he gulped them down and sighed. His stomach gurgled contentedly as it accepted another tiny, and his hands immediately moved to it to massage it. If they kept squirming like that he'd feel sore...but for now, the bliss of feeling full was worth it.

[bonny-kookoo]

suddenly missing the prey!couple🥺any soft hours with about-to-be-dad!koo? has the baby come yet??

It's been a while, hasn't it? :(

"You're slowly approaching the end." Jin says, and Jungkook is instantly on alert, worrying about the worst. "Of her pregnancy, my god! Sorry, I should've worded that differently." He laughs, while Jungkook pouts, mad about the joke.

Jungkook's nerves have been stretched over the past few weeks, with every new change in you and the growing baby. You're past the normal time of a human pregnancy at this point, and now approaching the final stages of a hybrid one- multiple tests by Seokjin making sure everything's going as smooth as possible. "You're doing very well. I'm very surprised you're still up and walking around, quite honestly." The doctor praises.

"She shouldn't be.." Jungkook scowls. "But the second I look away, she's causing trouble." He complains.

"I just can't stay sitting down, Jungkook." You whine. "Neither can I sleep all day, or I'll get a headache." You explain.

"She should actually stay active." Seokjin comments. "Keep her energy up. We don't know yet how tough the delivery will be, and if she will need assistance." He sighs, putting everything back into his bag.

Jungkook knows what assistance means. In that case, you will probably have to be admitted into a more sterile environment, to deliver the child in a different way. Something he wants to avoid, if possible.

"I think she will do fine on her own, however." Jin softly reassures, making Jungkook wrap his arms around you from where he sits behind your body, his head leaning on your shoulder.

"You'll be the greatest mother this planet has ever seen." Jungkook tells you, purring loudly now as his hands feel his unborn daughter move. "And she's already excited to meet you."

"You too." You laugh. "You think she'll be fine?" You worry, and Jungkook nods.

"She's developing exactly as I suspected, considering she's basically a hybrid. Of course, we will only have certainty once she is delivered, but as of now, everything is looking just fine." He nods.

"See?" Jungkook hums. "We'll be okay." He reassures.

Not just you however, but mostly himself- his own biggest fear still brewing with every day you're living like this.