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theredofoctober · 8 months

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MANNA- CHAPTER TEN: RABBIT

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, Daddy kink, implied child abuse, self harm, fatphobia, body dysmorphia

This is chronologically the tenth chapter in the series.

Read beneath the cut...

Napalm is the slow fire of waking from a terrible dream, blind, gasping, burnt. The pain, though delusive, is made actual by the action of nerves.

Only a hand at your shoulder, vigorous in its attentions, hauls you up from the putrescence of slumber into the light-dark of four in the morning. You find Hannibal's shape through lashes gummed with sleep's adhesive.

His face is as impassive as a star, but his hair, ever coiffed, is displaced from the friction of his pillow.

“You were screaming,” he says, as you sit, stunned, in his arms. “What were you dreaming about? Do you remember?”

“No,” you say, although the scenes remain briefly in your vision, doubling like silk screen prints upon the walls.

Hannibal fills up a glass with fresh water and bids you to drink, his eyes pensive, unconvinced.

Only the notion that he may suggest you share his bed or else intrude upon yours impels you to honesty.

“I dreamt that I was trapped in one of the Silicone Lover’s dolls. That he was trying to squeeze me inside, and I wouldn’t fit. He said, ‘You’ve gotten so big since I last saw you. I’d better do something about that.’

“Then he started cutting me up with kitchen scissors, and I couldn’t stop him.”

You pause, choking on a breath, a verbal stagger.

Dr Lecter offers you the water again, which you take in both hands and drain to its end.

“Take your time,” says Hannibal. “When you’re ready, go on.”

Lying will fail you before the all-seeing eye, so it is with a flat honesty that you say, “It wasn’t what the Lover did in my dream that scared me. It was what he said to me. Because he was right.”

You reach down to pull the quilt up across your stomach, which Hannibal, with a subtle gesture, prevents.

“To agree with such a statement there must be some basis of comparison for you,” he says. “You knew the person standing in as the Lover in your dream. Can you name him?”

Hannibal could guess it, from the little you’ve told him of your unclean past, but if memory conjures the name from the gully of silence he does not say so.

Instead, he comments, “I think it’s unwise for you to sleep again until your mind is settled. Perhaps we may take advantage of the hour to continue your therapy, in an informal fashion.”

He sits in a chair by your bed, producing a notepad and pen from a pocket of his dressing gown.

You see that he will not move.

"What if I don’t talk?” you ask, softly. “What if I say I'd rather take the punishment?"

Hannibal's slender lips upturn.

"I wouldn't be inclined to take such a claim seriously.”

In sullen defeat you flounce back against the pillows.

Dr Lecter takes his cue.

“I’m curious about the friendships you’ve formed throughout your life. Have there been any notable examples?”

“Not many,” you answer, looking at the raw edges of your fingernails. “I was kind of the weird kid. It was like looking through a dusty museum window at everybody passing by, not really knowing how to get out there and talk to people. Like I was too old and too young at the same time.

“I got bullied, kind of. Nothing worth talking about. Just dumb kid stuff.”

“Even persecution of a childish nature bears painful resonance in later life,” Hannibal comments. “Moreover, isolation from one's peers may disrupt development in those vital years.”

You think of dolorous hours patrolling a fallow playground alone, three hundred children staring through you with adult hostility.

“I did make one friend,” you say. “First year of high school. Amy Glass. She was a weird kid, too.”

Hannibal scratches deftly on his notepad.

"Describe how you met."

Closing your eyes, you find your way back through the forests of the past to a corridor whose tiled floor squeaks under your shoes. You smell textbook paper and saccharine body spray. The sweat of young bodies, and the stale cafeteria fare you’d never tasted throughout your time there.

“Between classes Amy would sit in a window listening to music, or reading,” you say. “Stephen King, usually. Sometimes Anne Rice. She seemed to be up there all the time. I don’t think she was getting shit from the other kids or anything; she just preferred hanging out on her own.

“I wished I was like that, not caring. I wished I was her, period.”

“In what way?” asks Dr Lecter, and in the hallway of your mind a slender figure appears, brown of skin and eyes, blue hair cut roughly to the chin, its roots seeping in atop it like a stain.

Amy.

“A lot of ways,” you say. “Before I really knew her, it was about how she looked. She had piercings— ears, lip, nose, eyebrow. Teachers would tell her to take them out, then the second she was out of their eye-line she’d put them right back in. And even back then she had these awful stick and poke tattoos of bats and crosses she covered up with band aids for classes.

“She did all of them herself with a safety pin. God knows how she didn’t get an infection or anything.

“Then there was the fact I knew we liked some of the same music because of the patches on her bag, and her t-shirts and stuff. Nothing you’d approve of,” you add, as interest touches the face of your listener. “Jesus, I can’t even imagine playing stuff like that in this house. Anyway, I didn’t want to just be like, ‘hey, you like that band, too’. It would have been too weird. Stalkery, maybe?”

“Music isn’t such a terrible way to form a connection,” says Hannibal, amused. “I was once approached in friendship through a shared taste in cheese.”

Picturing his restrained derision you cannot help but laugh.

“Oh, god,” you say. “What were they thinking?”

“It was a naive assumption of commonalities. Besides, my commitment to professionalism would never have allowed us to be as close as he would have hoped.”

You give a little start of affront.

“You’ve made friends with other clients.”

Dr Lecter’s smile remains.

“Only with those whom I feel my presence benefits.”

“Benefits you, you mean,” you say, pettishly. “Whoever it was, you just didn’t like him that much. That’s why you turned him down. Or maybe he was too like you.”

Without appearing offended, Hannibal turns a page in his notebook.

“I'm unconcerned with debating my personal relationships, little one. Let’s return to Amy. Who initiated the friendship between you?”

“Amy,” you say. “It was after this councillor was trying to get something out of me, and I didn’t want to talk. I walked out that room feeling so... heavy, and grimy, and embarrassed. Then there was Amy, heading to the same office I just walked out of. She looked at me, scrunched her face up, and said, ‘Wish me luck.’ Next time I saw her I made the same face back and asked, ‘how was it?’

“‘The worst, just like always,’ she said. ‘Where’d she get her certificate, anyway? Clown school?’

“I burst out laughing. ‘She’s so bad, right?’

“And that was it. Friends. We went everywhere together. Amy really liked me. I don’t know why. I think maybe she thought I was sort of mysterious and interesting rather than just depressed, probably because I didn’t want to talk about what was going on with me.

“She told me everything about her. How her dad didn’t believe in mental health issues even though he was just like she was, and how her mom just ignored everything, hoping it’d just... go away. But I didn’t tell Amy even one little thing about me, really. Not one.”

Guilt you’ve never truly confronted falls like a petal from a late summer bloom, cloying the dark with its flavour.

“Did Amy ever indicate that she’d recognised your particular illness?” prompts Hannibal, and you shrug glumly.

“A couple of times. I ignored every hint. Changed the subject. Acted like it wasn’t a thing when it obviously was. I knew that she knew. That was the dynamic. She was softer, around me. She got it. She got me.”

Suddenly your breath feels very high in your chest, catching on a rib.

“I can’t help but notice your use of the past tense,” says Dr Lecter. “Might I assume that you are no longer friends?”

“We grew apart after school,” you mutter. “I think she would have liked it if I stayed in touch, but then sometimes I wonder if that’s just wishful thinking, and maybe she didn’t care all that much when we drifted apart and stopping talking.

“I have her on Facebook. That’s all, really. She was never a social media person anyway, but still. I could have tried harder. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

Hannibal allows the silence between you to ferment before he speaks again.

“Looking back, what do you think prevented you from maintaining contact?”

“I felt like after school was over she’d find other friends, and I’d just end up being left behind. So I got out of there before I had to see it happen.”

"You abandoned a friendship on the basis of a prophecy that might never have come to fruition."

"It would have,” you insist. “All my life I've had senses about things. Like, if I get a feeling something will or won't happen, I'm always right. Like I was right about you."

Swanlike, Dr Lecter’s hands move across his notebook, tactfully punctuating a note.

"It's common for sufferers of complex post-traumatic stress disorder to misinterpret their hypervigilance as psychic premonition. A heightened awareness of your surroundings and the behaviours of people in your vicinity develops in order to predict danger before it occurs. Pattern recognition is more mathematical than clairvoyant."

"What about my dreams?" you ask, sharply. “Are they math, too?”

"You've had other nightmares?” asks Hannibal, and leans forward, poised to digest you answer.

Canny, you hoard the matter like a serpent its glittering lair.

Hannibal accepts his defeat with grace.

Gathering up his notebook and the empty glass, he says, "That's enough therapy for now, particularly so early in the morning. I'll make you some tea, and you may return to sleep. Peacefully, this time, I hope."

Later, there is a meal that sits, sinking in a bath of bronze on Dr Lecter’s dining table, so much of it that you’re gorged merely from the arithmetic of its makeup.

“Arroz de Cabidela,” says Hannibal, as he pulls out his own chair. “A Portuguese dish made with rice, chicken, or rabbit cooked in its own blood. Today I’ve chosen rabbit. Have you ever eaten it before?”

It occurs to you that he expects you to be disturbed by the notion, but you are not. Meat is meat, all of it equally cruel. That life must end for the furthering of your existence has driven you to veganism many a time.

Little chance of sustaining such a diet now that you sleep in the devil’s slaughterhouse.

“No,” you say. “I’ve never tried rabbit. I heard it’s really... gamey.”

Your palate is scarcely educated enough to comprehend the statement. Still, it is apparently accurate, for Hannibal makes a low hum of agreement.

“It has similarities to poultry, in flavour, though it’s rather lean and dry. The blood stew adds a richness you’ll find complimentary, however.”

The scent is certainly inviting, but you are so committed to rejecting whatever is served to you that you feel lightheaded, succumbing to the altitude of starving heights.

“Couldn’t you have given me a smaller portion?” you ask, piteously. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s so... much.”

Hannibal glances from your plate to his own, his visage neutral.

“I’ve served you a great deal less than I’ve given myself,” he says. “That said, I’m sure we can settle our differences. I’m not unyielding, if I can see some effort is being made.”

You look him in the eye, hoping you appear more bold than frightened.

“Dr Lecter, you make me all these courses, and they’re crazy even for a normal person. I feel like you do it on purpose. And afterwards my stomach hurts.”

“That’s normal, after a period of fasting. Your body will adjust. Now, please eat.”

You don’t. The cut on your plate makes you think of the Lover’s dolls, how even at your slightest you wouldn’t have fit into such a shell. How, changed as you must be through Hannibal’s cooking, you would ooze over every edge.

“I could use the feeding tube, if you’re unwilling,” says Dr Lecter, rising from his chair to stand at your back. “It would be relatively easy for me to administer. But I’d hate to sour an otherwise pleasant meal with brute force.”

He cups your throat in his smooth hand, and you envision how lovingly he’d coil about you in restraint, guiding the pipe down through you as you choked and flinched in his grasp.

“I’ll eat a quarter,” you say. “That’s it. Then... then nothing else until tomorrow. I won’t sneak out of bed, and I won’t do anything that breaks the rules. Please, Dr Lecter. Uh... Daddy?”

Your confusion between roles endears you to him, as does your breathless, eager willingness to beg.

“Should I allow you to barter?” Hannibal muses, still caressing the wand of your stiff neck. “It’s a symptom of your illness, after all.”

“Just let me choose how much and I’ll try anything you offer me.”

Dr Lecter releases a small breath of laughter.

“I wouldn’t like you to eat your words, little one.”

Gnashing your teeth, you say, “I won’t. I can do it. Please let me. You’re supposed to dote on me, aren’t you?”

You feel Hannibal’s lips against your hair in a kiss of paternal indulgence.

“Always so spirited,” he says. “Very well. I cannot deny my little beauty her request.”

What beauty does he refer to? You’ve only recognised it in the mine shafts of furthest hunger, mistaking a shadow for some precious stone.

Yet clearly you are not so low quality as you believe if both men have fucked you so freely over other women, whom they could conceivably draw into the net of the house.

Then again, there is no accounting for the tastes of madmen, and mad they both are, even Hannibal in his gelid divinity.

From the topiary of his language and flippant games you are beginning to see that you interest him in your very opposition to his being. Were you to succumb completely you would not be so worthy: all men bow to Hannibal, after all, seduced and deceived until they’d lick his fingers like lambs for the milk of his approval.

You, like Will, resist and evade enough of his passes to set yourself apart from the flock.

You may yet throw a halter over the head of the horned man, if only in as much as he allows himself to be reigned.

Quartering your meal as neatly as you're able, you glance up at Dr Lecter, afraid that, by some caprice, he’ll break his code and force you to eat down to the bare plate. But he merely stands by, retaining his honour, and as you look at him you picture his mild hands breaking the neck of the rabbit to drain as though for a ritual of blood.

Frequently through your days with Hannibal he immerses himself in hobbies and work about the house, cultivating a necessary solitude after the long hours of ingesting others’ anxious thoughts.

He reads, or writes music, sketches, telephones his friends and past lovers—of whom there are many—or else sets his pen to journals, having seen you safe to your locked room, where he need not prepare for misdemeanour.

In this way your residence in Hannibal’s home does not impede upon his individual pursuits, but rather compliments them, an accent of his sempiturnal glamour.

You are, after all, but one of his many pastimes. It is indulgence, then, when he insists on attending your evening bath.

As he kneels beside the tub to dampen a washcloth his intentions surface, another infringement upon the flesh.

“I don’t need you to help me,” you mumble, arms taut across your chest. “I’m not your baby.”

“Your inner child wails for the tenderness your illness has long obstructed,” says Hannibal, calmly. “Your independence would have you die like an infant abandoned to the forest. Let me carry you, at least in this small act of service.”

You look at him with eyes as dull as old blades and picture the futility of your struggle, his lithe arms holding you, kicking and airless, beneath the foam.

“Don’t you have your own daughter you can do all this with?” you ask; you’ve not yet needled him on his familial relations, and feel yourself more than entitled to know.

Hannibal begins to work the flannel over your naked form, paying no heed to your twitching affront.

“Abigail would have served the role admirably,” he says. “But it wasn’t to be. As for my own children, I have none.”

The revelation passes you without surprise. It’s only possible to imagine him having elegant, adult offspring, absent of the soiling indignities of rearing an infant.

“So you took me away for you and Will to raise,” you say. “Guessing he doesn’t have kids, either.”

The washcloth folds beneath the water, and you gaze studiously at the opposite wall so as not to think about the hand behind the fabric, how it has touched you in other ways, pleasantly, horridly.

“Will is also childless,” says Dr Lecter. “He has never known family, as you have. His mother left him when he was only an infant, and his father was a distant figure, though present. Now it seems that they’re estranged from one another. One can only imagine the loneliness Will has known in his life. Perhaps, with your assistance, this will change.”

Cloth, skin, hands, touch. Gentle and beguiling their trap, to distract from the permanence of this suggested triptych as fingers play against you underwater.

Unsteadily, you ask, “Is Will your boyfriend?”

Hannibal turns you an indecipherable look.

“Do you perceive our relationship to be romantic?”

A strange question, considering the violation with which you were inducted to their company. But not once did either man kiss or grasp the other— a technicality, certainly, yet one, it seems, that holds weight.

“Yes,” you say. “For you, anyway. I don’t know about Will. I know he thinks highly of you. He just sees me as something that’s in the way.”

You kick a foot testily, splashing water over the rim of the bath.

“What are you in the way of?” asks Hannibal, as he begins to lather your hair.

“Not sure. Your friendship, I guess.”

“Do you believe him when he implies that you're only an obstacle to him?”

Water pours over your head, and you close your eyes, enduring the sensation.

“He told me I’m unwanted,” you say.

“When you attempted to kill him?”

Fear bowls over you with a black suddenness.

“He told you?”

“I came to my own conclusions. You weren't quiet, either of you, that night."

You look at Hannibal, at the stag man of your dreams, and taste something like dirt, something like blood, at the back of your mouth.

“Had you seriously injured him or succeeded in your bid to end his life I would have been forced to conclude our treatment,” he says. “But you did not. I’m thankful to have been provided with a truth I hadn’t yet drawn from you: I know that you are not a killer, at least not at this present moment.”

In a strengthless whisper, you ask, “What do you mean?”

Hannibal draws a comb through your hair, unmoved by the conversation.

“As time changes the continents, people come apart through circumstance into new being. That shift may one day lead to the birth of murder’s country.”

A thought stings you like the cold: Will and Hannibal want you to be capable of killing, if not of them, then someone of lesser consequence, the hereditary illness emerging in the child.

That is the secret under this house, the whisper in the walls, its present haunting.

“I hope that never happens,” you mumble. “Never. No matter what you do.

“And yet the whetting of your blood thirst didn’t begin with Will and I,” says Dr Lecter, mildly. “Until you admit your liking of its flavour you will remain unsatisfied, little one.”

You do not ask how he knows you’ve thought of killing, once before, which you yourself had forgotten; having been in your home, the chill sanctum of your childhood bedroom, he may have learned, of you, a myriad, his interrogation merely a practice in contextualising his findings.

“I’d rather starve,” you say, at last, and sink your chin beneath the water.

Dr Lecter takes a razor from a nearby cabinet and begins to shave you with slow precision. He does not ask if you wish for it, only glides the razor across your underarms, groin, and each leg until you run silken beneath his hands.

That done, Hannibal rises, brushing unseen dust from his knees.

“I’ll bring you some fresh clothes,” he says, and leaves the room, a ghost departing the stage.

You look at the razor, entrapped in its plastic guard on the rim of the bath.

Had you a pair of scissors you might have cut the metal free to make a weapon, or else an escape into realms unknown to the living. Though its edge is still wickedness manifest, it would take a great deal of pressure to pursue death by this angle, though it would not be impossible.

It is not death you want to meet, however, but another, nameless coward.

You take the blade to your arm, and the pain is like eating, a sin that sates the freak of misery.

The bathwater turns like a devil’s baptism, and though they are but shallow cuts you feel suddenly faint. Lying back, you lay your arm against the porcelain, thinking murky thoughts of your mistake.

Hannibal returns carrying a muted lilac dress and pale stockings, stilling at the sight of you, of the water, red as autumn mud.

He sets down the clothing and kneels beside you again.

“Let me see.”

You let him take your arm and touch the crude little gashes softly.

“Shower, quickly. Then I’ll treat your wounds. Fortunately, they aren’t so deep.”

How gentle he is with you, this beast dressed as a man in his pressed shirt and waistcoat, guiding your numb form about with a soothing authority. You’d once yearned to be handled like this, to be absolved and set free of any and all expectation. That it comes from him is like being spit in the eye by the Fates, one after the other.

Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos: what have you done to so offend them?

It’s only after having bandaged your forearm and settled you, dummy-like, upon his bed, that Hannibal speaks again.

“What motivated you to do this?”

“You know.”

“Elaborate.”

You lie, face down, in the pillows. The cotton smells like him.

“To feel better,” you say. “Amy said it helped her, sometimes. Cleared her head.”

The mattress tilts slightly as Dr Lecter sits down beside you.

“You mirror her pain to feel closer to love lost. Has it helped you?”

“No. I feel stupid. I feel—”

Restless, you turn onto your side and feel a tear, compelled by gravity, mark your jaw.

“I feel like a kid,” you say. “It’s humiliating. I hate that I always feel this way. Don’t make me live like this.”

Dr Lecter presses a tissue into your hand, as much to save his bedclothes as to comfort you.

“Fighting the expression of necessary emotions will only stunt them further, little one. Will and I would dearly like to see you flourish. Amy would surely wish that for you, too.”

Cradling your wounded arm to your chest, you flick the used tissue to the floor with the other.

“Screw you,” you say. “Both of you. That’s what Amy would tell me to say to you, Dad.”

Hannibal stares at the tissue, and you sense the inward twitch of his irritation as he bends to pick it up from the ground.

“Your parents called again, this afternoon,” he says, offhandedly. “I informed them that you were struggling with your treatment. I advised that we continue your residence here a month longer than previously agreed.”

He casts you a pitying look, and you’re reminded of the futility of going to war with Hannibal Lecter.

“It seems that I made the prudent choice,” he says. “Don’t you agree?”

#hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal fic #yandere hannibal lecter #manna fic #tw eating disorders #tw fatphobia #tw self harm #dead dove do not eat #darkfic #hannibal darkfic

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yoon-oh-what-i-deserve · 1 year

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💙[request on jaehyun who's an undercover spy looking for his old lover]— DO YOUR MAGIC 💖

I'm back... ish? I've been gone for idek how long and got quite a few asks hanging in my DM, but...

Anyway, this is something I have been holding back for a few years now, and I think it fits perfectly. There might be other parts, but... You tell me what you think of it, if it should be posted. Just out of curiosity, I had named it "Starting Fires".

And thank you, anon, for asking for this prompt! Hope you enjoy it.

Jeong came to a halt, his chest rising and falling in quick motions, his breath labored, his sight not yet adjusted to the darkness of the tunnel. Behind him, he could hear the shouts and steps resonating through the gallery, water splashing around and echoing throughout the chamber, making it hard to pinpoint the location where it all came from.

A drop of sweat rolled from his forehead to his eye, the salty liquid stinging the deep cut over his eyebrow before finding its way to his dark chocolaty iris. The man blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his mind and keep his cool in order to find a way out of this situation.

The putrescent smell from the tunnel gave him the indication he needed. It was a sewer and there had to be a way out of it. That is, if he could find which path to follow before the men behind him had the chance of finding him and giving Jeong the same fate his partner had.

Stumbling forwards, the assassin advanced in the darkness. His left hand against the humid wall while his right hand held onto the gash wound on his lower abdomen, stacking some of the blood that insisted on pouring out of his body due to the constant movement he made.

Jaehyun couldn’t give himself a moment to stop and understand where this mission had gone wrong. He couldn’t believe they had been outsmarted. A whole team with the best of the best, and yet they had fallen prey to some terrorist cell in the middle of nowhere, with no one to turn to and nowhere to go.

The past few months had been like walking through hell, with Jeong and Davis being moved from one camp to another, a blind always covering their eyes, their minds clouded due to the amount of sedatives they had been given daily. It was like a never-ending nightmare, and Jaehyun couldn’t believe he was right in the center of it all. The one being held hostage instead of finding a way to free someone else.

The words Hurley had always told him ringed in his brain every day, the constant nag that no one would come after him. Remember, the voice said. If anything goes wrong, no one is coming for you. You’re ghost.

And that’s what he was trying to be now, a complete translucid, inaudible being walking with water covering his ankles, his steps vacillating, his breath ragged and his eyes blurry.

A sense of determination was what kept him going, though. There was no one else coming for him, there was no future staying. He had to leave and survive. He had to find a way out of this hell he had been living and get back to his life, to the people he had left behind, to the secret he kept from the CIA.

Without thinking of anything else, Jaehyun followed ahead, the path splitting into two directions. A groan escaped his mouth when he realized one wrong move would lead him into his death.

The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the face of a woman invaded his thoughts. The smile she had on her plump lips, the way the dimples on her cheeks caved into her features, her fingers intertwining with one another, her eyes glistening in the sunlight.

He wondered what she had been going through, what she thought had happened to him. Hurley had no idea about her, he had no idea about anything Jaehyun had decided to keep excluded from his professional life.

And if that was the case, she had no idea he had been captured, she had no idea he was still alive, and she had no idea he was going back to her. For all he knew, she assumed he had fallen victim to the horrible job he had, the one she had insisted he gave up, to no avail.

With a final grunt, Jeong threw himself to the left, the noises getting closer behind him, his eyes losing focus before a blinding light came in contact with him, his steps leading him to the opening without realizing the most important thing: it was a big fall.

And it was amidst his body free-falling into the ground that Jeong Jaehyun scolded himself. So much for trying to live and see the face of Y/N one more time. What the terrorist hadn’t done, he had managed to. He had killed himself.

#jaehyun #jaehyun fanfic #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun fluff #jaehyun smut #spy!jaehyun #jeong jaehyun #nct127 fanfics #nct127 scenarios

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sasorikigai · 2 years

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❝ i’m happier when you’re here - you’ve become my joy. any time spent with you is time i treasure. every second…❞ ( modern Ryou appreciating the reassure from his fire hubby like )

AFFECTIONATE AND AFFIRMING PROMPTS || @sonxflight || accepting

💥 || Until Hanzo heals the wounds of his past, he will continue to bleed; he may be able to bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with onslaught of guilt and remorse plunging him into deep melancholia and depression, with work, with cigarettes and sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and permanently stain his life. Seasons have come and wrapped Commander Hasashi up in that proverbial merciless wind. Already he is used to molting the familiar warmth, those days spent idly on sizzling concrete under the orange slice sun, which floated away, downy, from his memory as he failed to find the strength to open the wounds, stick his hands inside, pull out the putrescent core of the pain that had been holding him in his past.

How could he ever make peace with the memories when the deepest guilt and fear still courses through him? Sometimes electric, forcing his broad muscles to twitch and his mouth to go dry. His senses overly amplified, hypervigilance extraordinary, as if he was born to respond to the crisis by giving him insomnia and restlessness.

Every day, he would conjure a brand new tragedy, every night, a woesome rhapsody. Hanzo Hasashi may live the equilibrium of privileged life and pained existence of a trauma survivor, but how his love with Ryou Sakai transmuted them into beauty. Even in his worst nadir, he would simply find incomparable solace in his beloved’s presence. In a time that has been turbulent and unstable, he would find meaning during uncertainty, and somehow find direction, to drown out the agony and despair. He knows he won’t ever have to type “I’m fine,” with shaky fingertips and bloodshot eyes, nor lose himself beneath the traumatic melody’s echo chamber, haunting him, rendering him retain a qualification of a ghost; a hollowed shell version of himself, as he had forgotten himself.

No longer occupied with a storm within him so great that it makes a hurricane seem simple and nonchalant, Ryou Sakai’s embraced form adhered to Hanzo’s front calms that storm and mellows the tornados inside of him. How his beloved replaces them with tender breeze, night sky, stars, and the warmth of the eternal sun even with its absence. How his heart surrenders everything to this specific moment; not only in literal physical nakedness, but the vulnerable psyche speaking the most candor honesty, without judging and holding back.

“The love you have in you, and the love you have continued to pour into me have vigorously shaken my ruined world; it healed my wounds and saved my body and soul,” and I am, tremendously, still in need of it. The mellowed warmth of his chestnut eyes seem to speak fluidly in silence, as Hanzo raptures himself in this coalescence. “The comfort of knowing that I always have someone in my corner; not only to see me, but truly penetrate and linger beneath my skin and speak to the world around me, even when I can’t drives me sane and secure. Even when I drown in my darkness, as you in your lightness. Sometimes, just knowing someone is there and listening is enough.”

The resonant timbre of Hanzo’s voice seem to translate desperation, this kind of longing, this kind of wanton desire; painful, sinful, desperate. Every time Ryou brushes against him, every time he touches Hanzo’s skin, his chest starts to tighten, like it might explode at any second. Then all he can do is to stare at Ryou’s face and try to keep breathing all the while feeling as if he may slowly, yet steadily drown as he wields his beloved as if Ryou Sakai is the beauty, held in the eye of the beholder. His heart surrendering everything to the moment, as the sacred revelation reciprocates, as a resplendent, affectionate smile etches his lips. 💥 ||

#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ ugly syllables of conjured vindictive crimson (modern au)#✗ epitome of sunlight (ryou sakai || sonxflight)#(hanryou)#sonxflight

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dustedmagazine · 2 years

Text

Neolithic — Shattering Vessels (The Other)

Shattering Vessels by Neolithic

It’s been a few years since we last heard from Neolithic. The Baltimore band’s 2019 self-titled EP was a crusty, stanky blast, a logical and strong development of their contribution to the excellent split 7” with Martyrdöd from the year before. In the interim, Neolithic’s songwriting has corroded and cankered, sinking deeper into the death metal elements of their muscular, overdriven variety of stenchcore. Not that the decay and putrescence has softened their sound. If anything, Shattering Vessels is a tougher, meaner set of songs than any the band has previously issued. It’s music for the contemporary mosh pit, in which the headbangers and grotty punks share a reeking, riotous space.

The atavistic truculence and speed of most of the songs on Shattering Vessels suggest some commonality with the bludgeoning wave of caveman death metal now flooding through underground channels of the music’s circulation. Neolithic’s band name seems to seal the affinity, but while they share the absolute worship of the riff as a thing-in-itself, songs like “Terminal Lucidity” and “Arrow of Entropy” are a bit more evolved. The sonic resonances of some Swedish influence render the songs’ textures grainier and more varied. Certainly shifts in time signature create dynamic interest, with engaging suggestions of dramatic narrative.

Given the guttural delivery from singer Evan Harting, listeners are largely left guessing about what might be narrated in the tunes. The exception is “Impious Devotion,” which features some clean vocals; it’s unclear if it’s Harting’s voice, but someone is clearly pissed at the institutions and creeds of organized religion. After a long, anti-clerical screed, drawn from Schopenhauer, the singer snarls, “Failing structures of mankind / Pale pyre, built from shit / Piling waste upon itself.” The emphasis on “shit” and “waste” are in strong accord with death metal’s longstanding interest in abdominal yuck and organic rot — but Schopenhauer? That’s higher-brow stuff, a bit more obscure and philosophically more certain than the usual, half-baked pilferings from Nietzsche.

Another quotation from Schopenhauer, from the closing passage of his book-length essay The World as Will and Representation (1844), prefaces the next track, “Futility and Lamentation.” There’s a lot to lament and to be pessimistic about, but it’s unclear that Schopenhauer’s strong investment in individual will provides any sort of coherent redress or effective resistance. If you just want to sit around and feel bummed but superior about it, sure, read the German, and rock on with it. But Neolithic’s music isn’t mopey. It’s full of raging negative affect. Maybe next time around, the band can quote some Bakunin, or Bolo’Bolo. Until then, the explosive sounds of “Arrow of Entropy” will do just fine.

Jonathan Shaw

#neolithic #shattering vessels #the other #jonathan shaw #albumreview #dusted magazine #metal #death metal

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definegodliness · 4 years

Text

Goo in the cocoon

Today, I remain untouched. Stuck within this realm of silence; inner emptiness; the torture of nothingness. No wishes, no desires, no wants. Death --- postponed within my arteries, yet resonating its nihilistic reality like claws over chalkboard; inaudibly (!) yet still, my skin feels uneasy. The flesh churns. Goo in the cocoon; pulp in the cup. Every chemical process in this body oozes and fumes the putrescence of rot and within this toxicity of decay, experienced consciously, I c a n n o t shape a purer thought; blocked from the well of youth that springs from somewhere well within (though I would not claim from my heart). Perhaps it is all to keep it from being tainted. Whatever it is. It merely cowers within, hiding and waiting for better days Whilst writhing and contorting, Leaving me nauseated. Why? Fuck. Did you know that butterflies maintain the memories made as caterpillars? I reckon that’s what’s going on. I am, again, in a pupal state, with a brain and body turned snot; goo in the cocoon; pulp in the cup.

Drape me in velvet blankets or something till the world shuts the hell up.

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imagineclaireandjamie · 6 years

Note

I know you might be uncomfortable about this but I’m going thro something. Could you write a fanfic about how Jamie would react if Claire were anorexic

The Meeting - Part 2

The moon was bright in the sky as they walked,their hands swaying against one another, Jamie slightly ahead of Claire as heled them forwards. Ice glistened on the path, the sparkle of the frozen waterilluminating the path as the crunch of it echoed beneath their feet. There wasa sort of delicate beauty floating around them, the winter mist encasing thepassers by, causing them to disappear before her eyes as she glanced downwards.

Her flesh was almost blue in the evening light-as was his- the glow of it giving them an also translucent quality that caughther eye and held her hostage for a while.

“Can I say something wi’out freaking ye out,Claire?” Jamie asked after a while when all other passers by had seeminglyvanished, the urban clearing and making way for the rural.

“Yes, sure.” She replied, not really knowingwhether she was being honest or not.

“When my da met my mam he kent her in aninstant. She was engaged to someone else and within the month had broken it offand eloped with my father. They were marrit not long after, had bought a houseand had my eldest brother on the way. It was madness, really, but he alwaystold me Fraser’s had strong bonds when it came to love. I didna believe him,especially no’ wi’ what happened and then dealing with the aftermath. But whenye walked into that hall tonight, Claire, it was as if the sun came out -- andI understood it then.”

He took a breath, a long cathartic gasp of airthat filled his lungs with fresh oxygen and gave Claire a moment to digest whathe’d said.

“Do ye think I’m mad?” He sighed, the gust ofair catching on the breeze, the cold air swirling it around his head as heturned to look over at her in the blackness.

“No.” She returned, her voice barely a whisper.“No, I don’t. I believe you. I don’t...understand it right now, but I felt ittoo. Maybe we’re both mad?” Laughing she let her little finger graze his andbasked in the tingle that emanated across her flesh at the contact.

“I lost control of my life the moment Frank leftme. I had a plan, everything was as it should be and then he took that andsquashed it. I didn’t even realise what I was doing with food until Joe foundme unconscious in the break room at work. It was all just a blur. But it wascontrol. I needed to feel as if everything was on course again so I amended mydiet to such an extreme that I felt powerful. Stupid, really, when I say it outloud.”

“Nay, not at all…” Jamie interjected, goosebumpsrising along the expanse of his neck, “I get ye. For me it was exercise. ForJohn too, that’s how we met. He saw in me what he’d finally been made to see inhimself and he helped me break the cycle.”

“PTSD then, the same as him - from your tour?”The words were barely audible on the night air but he heard her loud and clear.

“Ach, no.”

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going toelaborate. The tightness was there again - his shoulders just rigid enough thatshe thought he might just gloss over it as he had done in the bar and changethe course of their conversation. Not that she minded, when and if he decidedto tell her, it would be in his own time and not just because she’d asked him.But then he swallowed and she knew he was trying to form the words in order toanswer her unspoken question.

“Even my sister doesn’t know.” He said finally,his nose pinked from the frigid air. “And she kens everything about me.”

“Does she know--”

“About my anorexia?” Interrupting her, hechuckled humorlessly beneath his breath before he continued. “Oh aye, everyonekens about that but they all think what ye thought --because at the time Ididna have the strength to tell them the real reason. Only the doctors whotreated me and John know the full extent of the trauma.” He spoke, barelypausing for breath, as he shook his head to clear the myriad of dark imagesthat were suddenly snaking around him.

“Whatever it is, Jamie, you do have strength. Ican see it. I can sense the force of it flowing beneath your skin. The secondyou sat opposite me in that bar I felt it and it calmed me.”

“Do ye ever feel like yer about to blurt somethingout? Something that perhaps needs to be said when two people have kent oneanother for longer than a few minutes?”

Letting the wind settle around them, Jamieshowed Claire to a bench. They’d walked the length of the city and ended up ona hill with Kelvingrove in front of them and the university behind. The citywas awash with colour, glittering lights flickering in the distance as the citybegan to sleep around them.

“It wasn’t just Frank leaving me.” Claire began,allowing the call of midnight to wash away the filth of the previous day. “Wefought a lot in later days. He wanted kids and it wasn’t happening for us. Oneday it got heated. I thought something was amiss but when I accused him ofcheating on me with work something changed in him. I watched as something cameover him, a veil of sorts, his eyes just glazed over...and then he hit me. Butit wasn’t one of those ‘in the heat of passion’ slaps you see in the tele - notthat it’s alright to hit at all.”

Pausing for breath, she wiped the tears from hereyes, her belly aching with the memory of the moment his fist had come intocontact with her. “He sucker punched me in the stomach. Hard. I replay thatmoment over and over in my nightmares, I watch myself as I crumple to theground gasping for breath and failing miserably.”

Sensing she wasn’t finished, Jamie sat quietly,his arm resting gently against hers.

“It’s a cataclysmic event, isn’t it? Thetrigger. It isn’t the event or moment itself, but thefestering...thing...that’s been boiling and bubbling, waiting for something topush you over the edge and when it finds the right trauma to sink its teethinto - that’s it. You’re done for.”

Shrugging her shoulders, she inhaled through hernose and exhaled through her mouth, watching the condensation evaporate infront of her. “I’ve never told anyone that.”

“That he hit ye?”

“Yes. I was ashamed. I’m a surgeon, a good one.Him leaving me was enough of a social stigma without adding that into the mixso I said nothing and buried myself in work.”

In an instant Claire had removed the pressurefrom the situation. With her confession, she’d made herself vulnerable - shehad given him something of herself that she’d not given to anyone else.Stripping herself bare, she’d relieved the strain and suddenly Jamie didn’tfeel so exposed.

“I was raped, Claire.” He said plainly.

It felt cathartic. The words leaving his mouthwithout further provocation, washing away some of the residual feelings ofpowerlessness and disgust. In an instant he felt a little less contaminated,his muscles less sore from the continued pressure of carrying around the weightof his ordeal

“Like ye I felt ashamed. Weak. I was numb forthe longest time. I’m good at hiding, Claire, so I managed. I worked. I spentall of my free hours in the gym, lifting weights and running until I couldnastand wi’out assistance. I’d moved to Glasgow before the attack so I juststayed here. I didna dare go home for fear my parents would see the truthwritten all over my face. My mam just kens me too well.”

Claire let him talk, letting him offload-anything he needed- her knee knocking softly against his as their fingersunconsciously linked. Her heart was beating double its normal speed and herstomach twisted, it’s usual knot becoming tighter as Jamie began to jiggle hisleg, the heel of his shoe tapping against the concrete.

Licking her dry lips, she waited for him torelax a little before slowly untangling her hand from his and wrapping her armaround his waist.

“Have you ever read the poem ‘Courage’ byAnne Sexton?” She whispered.

Jamie shook his head, having no capacity to formthe words any longer he simply leaned his head to the right until he restedneatly against Claire.

“You should. One day, when you’re alone, and youfeel so utterly lost that you feel you might finally be consumed by thedarkness - just read it. I promise you it’ll resonate.”

“Can ye remember any of it?”

“Yes,” she replied, “some. Why?”

“Tell me, recite to me what you remember.”

“Erm,” she began, shifting so that he couldmimic her actions and place his own arm around her waist, “let me see…you didnot fondle the weakness inside of you, although -or just though, I don’t quiterecall- it was there. Your courage was a small coal that you kept swallowing.”

“There’s more?” He asked, lulled by her softvoice. There was something magical about her, somehow she seemed to steal thefestering putrescence that ran through his veins.

“Yes, the bit directly after that I don’t reallyremember, but I think it continues like this; later, if you have endured greatdespair, then you did it alone, getting transfusion from the fire, picking thescabs off our heart, then wringing it out like a sock... I think.” Though sheknew it did, she’d read it over and over, sometimes aloud, so the words mightstick to her skin and mend the cracks that’d begun to appear over every inch ofher frail flesh.

“I feel as if I’ve kent ye for longer than thisevening, Claire.” Jamie whispered, turning his head so that he could bury hisnose in her tames curls. “Like we’ve lived a hundred lives together and this isjust another manifestation of us. Beaten, broken and scarred - but stillsomehow alive.”

“And yet we haven’t even had a first date.” Shejested, though she felt the truth of his words, her heart reaching out to his.

#Anonymous #;mod mbd #the meeting au #anorexia au

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alterstadt · 6 years

Photo

GEL’RAKHK WAS A NAME. a proper name, once, rather than a collective: what is the gel’rakhk was once GEL’RAKHK, INNUMERABLE ONE, GLUTTON GOD, ROT BEYOND THE STARS. a shifting, shambling mass of viscera and assorted parts; enemy of krang the dead one, a plane-shifter which collects decay. before there were sparks of life, there were always anticipations for its end: the rot of the stars has always followed entropy. it is loved by neither the great old ones among which it makes its rank nor the outer gods — and when the putrefaction, trapped and decaying between universes, too massive to enter merely one, began to decompose itself, it became fragmented and lucid, all that once it was now a hivemind, a race: a species which walks upon the flesh of all that once it was, rising as grotesque larvae in the shuddering masses of putrescence. all that is gel’rakhkii was once of gel’rakhk: that which it was, and that which it had assimilated into its rot. rise: gel’rakhkii — each fragments of the entity which once they all, collectively, were.

the gel’rakhk are chitinous quasi-humanoids, hybridizations of primarily primate, mollusk, crustacean, and insectoid qualities. extremely powerful telepaths, eldritch by nature, their society is composed entirely of an organization known as the cult of the god-corpse: a caste structure which keeps the gel’rakhkii people in their places to function properly as a unified system and celebrates the departure from physical form as further unifying the hivemind. the ge’lrakhk are, on average, around 1.3x the size of humans, their emaciated and elongated frames a mockery of human anatomy particularly in the torso. the silhouette contains all human similarity, and anything humanoid is obliterated from the shoulder up or the waist down. where the waist tapers on humans, it widens into what appears to be a second set of shoulders on a gel’rakhk, chitin protrusions arching back upwards at the joint and the leg running opposite below. at the shin, the leg splits: from two hip joints, the gel’rakhkii have four limbs on the ground, ended in chitinous talons that do not soften until far past the knee. continuing the column of the torso ends in a bundle of tentacles, floor-reaching and prehensile, 8-12 in number, which can be alternated to be used as primary limbs. which limbs are used as primary is highly individual; many gel’rakhk prefer tentacles, having been cursed with the fewer of their variable 4-12 fingers per hand, or perhaps the higher end of the variable 2-5 joints in each one. it is the neck that stands out: serpentine and up to four feet in length, highly flexible despite housing ‘rib’ bones and containing two spines: an internal, and an external. the external spine extends from the elaborate woven patterns that make gel’rakhkii hairstyles to the lower back, ending in no more than five sets of prehensile bones; rib-like spikes that hug the torso until they are willed to move. between the external and internal spines is the flesh-layer: though clinging too-tight to every divet in the chest, gel’rakhkii skin is loose and leatherlike in the neck and face, only attached between the spines. beneath, it is not uncommon to hear the clicking and wheezing of their many-valved cardiovascular system, the process that counts as their entire digestion done in the throat. gel’rakhkii faces are nearly-human, though their skin, unattached, nearly sloughs off the muscle at every movement. this is used to make facial expressions: a tilt of the head may betray the needle-like teeth of their primary mouths or a glint of large, deep-set and backlit eyes. with neither the use of lips nor noses, speech and resonance is done entirely in the mouth: a second mouth with speech capabilities lies tongue-like inside the primary. on the face, the vein system is far more noticeable: veins which serve the flesh all stem from the spine, and they are nearly all external. born between universes in extra-dimensional space, cosmic power is all that the gel’rakhk have ever known. for power, they tame galactic storms, harvest from the births and deaths of universes. from their own people, those gifted with fragments of the glutton god’s unfathomable hunger, they harvest what is left of the cosmic energies these conduits weep. nothing is ever wasted. nothing is ever created from nothing. the gel’rakhkii people are, for the most part, unaware of their origins, unaware of their existence as fragmented pieces of a god. it is not known how far the depth of knowledge in the highest members of the clergy goes. more info on the gel’rakhk here.

#🝪 — ‘ O UNHOLY DIMENSION ’ ( species. )#( i AM the beast i worship )

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sending-the-message · 7 years

Text

My Gifts by KahrnNuvex

The darkness is all that I’ve grown to know. It follows me everywhere, no matter the path or distance. The inky black tar runs through my veins but it does not consume me. Instead, I have embraced it, listened to it, and ultimately, learned from it.

I have also found myself enjoying the trappings of what they would call ‘city life.’ More so than the quiet comforts of the woods, filled with the melodic chirping of a multitude of insects and the shrill callings of the other indigenous animals. No, instead the cacophony of hectic streets, the roaring of traffic, and the amalgamated throngs of accompanying resonance cumulate in a sort of perfect hum.

I understand that may sound strange to some but to others, I assure you, it does not.

I found a strange appreciation of the design and mapping of the city. It is all designed by the minds of those with vision. Vision to see patterns in what others would not. Infinitely drawn and ever expanding, molding to new incarnations. Simply, a city evolves.

Everything must evolve to survive. It is the rule of the world. Not one that the children are truly taught in their scholastic pursuits but one they are forced to learn on their own in the unforgiving wilderness away from their homes. At birth, we are all given our gifts. Some we readily identify with. Others are curses until we can forge them. And like all things, gifts can evolve. Ah, yes, my gifts.

The living smelled differently than the dead. I was not aware of the difference the first time I experienced it. It was a man, a boy still really. He was younger than me but not by much. His body was crumbled at the bottom of a small cliff not far from my childhood home. His head had been crushed in among the rocks. The putrescence of death stung my nose and tears filled my eyes. This was not the smell of rotting carrion but something altogether different. The sensation was terrifying and completely overwhelming. It sent me reeling. My head spun out of control and soon I passed out from overstimulation. That was my initial gift, I think.

That was the first time. Over time I learned to accept it and better utilize it. The sensation became no different to me than any other but one that I could readily identify. I soon discovered that it was not limited to people either. Animals, particularly mammals, I could also smell in such a fashion. I soon moved away from my childhood home and into the nearest city. It seemed so far away at the time. I would soon learn you can smell when someone is about to die.

One night I was walking the alleyways of the great city. I was young then and don’t rightfully recall its name. Time, it seems, has taken that for me at this moment. At any rate, I otherwise perfectly recall the night. The stars were barely visible thanks to the illumination of lights strewn across the streets. But I could see them still. Their piercing brilliance reminded me of my parents. Even at such a late hour, the city was bustling with activity. The uproars of merriment drowned out nearly everything else. It was a new year’s celebration and the whole city was in attendance.

I joined in the celebrations, dancing through the streets without pause or concern. I moved in and out of crowds like a carefree breeze on a still lake. It was among one of these crowds that I first smelled the shadow of death on someone. I stopped suddenly from my dancing and observed this strange man. He was a dusty brown-haired man in his 24th year. On either side of him were women, drunk on his rugged looks and generously overflowing pockets. He bought them every whimsical thing in order to extend their company for the night. I did not mean to stare as long as I had; the sensation was new to me and I was still trying to figure it out. He grimaced at me, berating me with insults before he left with the two women down an alley. Though fascinated, I ignored him and continued my exploration of the city for the night was young.

Several hours passed and unconscious revelers littered the streets. While traipsing through the debris-laden streets, I smelled the familiar pong of death from earlier. But it was maturing, belonging to the dying. I had smelled the dying before. But I was intrigued for I have never smelled the shadow of death on someone prior to their death in this fashion before. I think I searched for an hour before I found him – the brown-haired man from earlier that night. Tossed into a dark corner among broken vessels, he had been stabbed, robbed, and left for dead. Humans, despite all their gifts, could be so cruel and petty. He looked up at me, his penetrating blue eyes nearly vacant from the loss of precious vitae. Despite our earlier encounter, he did not have the strength to even acknowledge he knew me. I asked him his name. He faintly said “Jeremiah.”

I leaned in and inspected his wounds more closely. He had been slashed in the stomach and the neck. The blood and intestines spilled out everywhere. I knew I should show him the mercy of the grave.

Before I drank the last of him, I stopped and pondered my existence. Could I teach another what all I learned? To learn from the darkness as I have. The possibility filled me with frenzied excitement. I disgorged the bloodied contents of my stomach into his mouth and waited. I did not know if this would work. My own beginnings were shrouded in a veil I could not pierce. His heartbeat slowly vanished, his gaze nightmarishly transfixed on me. I thought an eternity had passed while I waited.

Then he blinked. Awake at last.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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