#to the characters the opening and endings the way the story plays out

[say-hwaet]

The Dynamic Between Arthur and the Marstons (long post )

I guess I should say there are spoilers, just in case…

After playing the story through several times, I have to say, that Arthur Morgan is one of the best characters ever written. Aside from his development, there is so much depth to him, and regardless of his honor, there is so much to unravel.

I’ve been thinking about the relationship that he has between the Marstons, meaning John, Abigail, and Jack, and it really makes sense as to how Arthur acts the way he does around them in the beginning and all the way to the end.

A lot of his behavior, I think, stems from the loss of Eliza and Isaac. It is my opinion that he himself was torn between living a full life with them and remaining loyal to his gang, and before or by the time he had made a choice, it was too late, as they were killed in a robbery. This had haunted him since and it made him extremely bitter. Later in the game, he tells Rains Fall that he realized that he didn’t get to live a bad life and have good things happen to him. I also think that he was with Eliza after Mary had broken their engagement. I can get into my support for this later, but that isn’t what this post is about.

I think that Arthur was angry with John out of jealousy. He is the “golden boy” and clearly was Dutch’s favorite at one point. Not only that but after Arthur loses his own son and lover, John and Abigail get pregnant and he takes off for a year. He abandons his family, which Arthur takes personally. Arthur had tried to do right by Eliza and Isaac and still failed. So when John has Jack and is within the circle of the gang to help and support him, he takes off. Arthur gives up a potential life with Eliza and Isaac for Loyalty to the gang and John throws it all away. When John comes back, Dutch welcomes him with open arms, and Arthur believes that he would have been held to a different standard if he had come back after being with Eliza and Isaac for a long time. And it doesn’t help that John treats Jack like crap in the beginning of RDR2.

Arthur, imo, was a good father to Isaac when he was present. We can see this in how he treats Jack. In Arthur’s journal, he writes how he should have married Abigail, but due to his feelings for Mary, he didn’t. I’m not sure why after years of not hearing from Mary he would say this, but meh. Perhaps, the hope of starting over, or that she did pop in again at some point (which is how Abigail might have met her?). Anyways. I think he says he should have married her so that she would have someone to rely on and that he could be the father Jack needed. He cares about Abigail, but I don’t think it is anything beyond that. Arthur seemed to me not to be one to be with a woman without some sort of relationship, based upon how he treats women and the prostitutes in Valentine, so I don’t think he was ever with Abigail. Even so, Abigail relies on Arthur, and while he puts up a front, he gives her money for clothing and spends time with Jack. Heck, he even tells John to step up and be a dad. In some of Arthur’s conversations with John, he tells him that he can’t be two people at once. He’s speaking from experience. I think he’s subtly telling John he needs to make a choice as to what life he’s going to live. Hosea and Arthur both tell Abigail and John to leave at parts of the game.

When Jack is kidnapped, and eventually rescued, I think it is one of the most heart-wrenching missions and scenes. I can see it in Arthur’s body language that he longs for the family that he once had. He’s alone in his pain and when everyone is celebrating, Arthur doesn’t sing with the gang; there isn’t even the option to do it like it does other times. Even in my first playthrough, it seemed so sad to me. Everyone was drinking and singing, but Arthur just looked so sad.

So, it is at this point that John starts to step up, and Arthur starts to show symptoms of his illness. When he learns of his diagnosis, Arthur’s eyes open to the reality of the gang’s downfall, and he acknowledges the doubts/reservations he has about Dutch’s plans and schemes. He isn’t blindly loyal anymore. He tries to get John, Abigail, and Jack out, so that they can have the life that he had lost due to loyalty to the gang. He continually tells John to get out and that it would mean a lot to him. In his journal, after rescuing John from prison, he writes in his journal “…We’ve argued over the years, but I’ve grown to care a little for [John]. He’s less of a fool than he was, and maybe he can have the luck that has eluded me. Jack is an innocent little boy. In him, I see what I missed [meaning Isaac]. We did it.” This speaks volumes to me about how he feels about them in the end. He sacrifices himself to let John live. And though it isn’t forever, Arthur dies believing that he made it, and that matters. And hopefully, he could finally be at peace and see Eliza and Isaac again.

I could keep going, but I think I am too long-winded. I guess that helps when writing fleshed-out fanfiction stories, but not for posts. LOL

Would love to hear other thoughts or opinions, I’m always keen for a discussion.

[kclovesart]

So

I've been listening to Epic the musical again for the millionth time. But please tell me if I'm the only person who thinks this: The Underworld Saga should not be the end of Act 1.

Hear me out.

I read the original Odyssey once (but it's been awhile), and I've liked pretty much all the changes Jorge Rivera Herrans has made, and the story feels more alive than reading ever did.

In traditional theatre, in between Act 1 and 2 is intermission which pretty much acts like a bathroom break, stretch your legs, and unofficially discuss the play with others.

And after listening to the Thunder Saga, all I could think was that this should've been the mid point, the end of Act 1.

At the end of the Underworld Saga it shows Odysseus committing to be a 'monster', so I can understand the temptation to open the next part with the character change (especially with how powerful and emotional Monster is) . But imagine if we saw the consequences of this commitment directly afterwards, seeing him slaughter the sirens and sacrifice his crew. Only to be both betrayed by his crew and in an almost twisted way be punished by Zeus. Plus there are several points in Thunder Bringer that references and quotes other songs from this Act, so it acts almost as a mini summary/conclusion. Plus you'd end the Act on both a powerful song and on a cliffhanger since we don't know what's going to happen to Odysseus yet.

Now during intermission there is even more buzz and excitement about what's going to happen next.

Then Act 2 would open with the Wisdom Saga. Now I know this is technically where the Odyssey begins, but I love this change since it adds more emotional depth for the audience to Odysseus being gone. Especially when we realize it's a time skip of 7 years and Odysseus still hasn't made it home besides his actions.

Now we open to Telemachus situation, learning what's been going on in Odysseus'absence and setting the stage for future conflicts. Athena taking Telemachus under her wing in a similar/improved way to her relationship with Odysseus is also more emotional when we are told of her and Odysseus relationship beforehand.

Then we get a recap of Act 1 through Athena looking for him (Love in Paradise) and see how much she cares for him. Now we are starting the Act wondering how far Athena will go for Odysseus and Telemachus.

Anyways I can't wait to see what Jorge Rivera Herrans has planned next, and I think all his songs are incredible. I just think Act 1 closer should be slightly different. Does anyone else agree?

[physalian]

Narrative Framing Devices

This is a long one…

A story need not be told chronologically, nor does it have to be only one layer deep. There’s a ton of different ways to frame your narrative, I’m just picking a couple today, some I thought worked and some I thought didn’t, and my personal favorite.

Most people think of framing devices in terms of time travel stories or fairytales, where it may start in the present or the future and work backwards, giving up the ending before telling how we all got here. Or by chopping up the chronology and letting the audience try to puzzle out the order.

There are also those that break the fourth wall, with the narrator beginning the story directly addressing the audience but never doing so again, or the narrator opening the story telling their own story to a present audience, so we’re the audience behind the fictional audience.

The other obligatory framing device is the time-skip, a la “6 years later” or “8 months later”. I’ve already talked about those. Or the preface/preamble/prologue that may spoil some important event later in the story, or is simply an important moment or montage of moments to catch the reader up on “how did we get here”. Shoutout to Castlevania for the most efficient pilot episode I have ever seen, with a 1 year timeskip.

Also honorable mention to the “A Life in the Day” montage from Magicians, speedrunning decades of a life together between two characters stuck in a Situation, maybe 60 years? Key moments between the two having a whole romance, with a kid and grandkids, over the course of one beautiful bit of soundtrack. One of the best episodes in the show, for a sequence that only lasted a little over 5 minutes.

—

Story within a Story | Princess Bride, "Ember Island Players"

Best example I can think of, specifically the film, which is based on a book that already incepts itself. The movie opens with a regular kid being read the book The Princess Bride by his grandfather, and occasionally cutting between the kid’s reactions and the fantasy story with the actors.

There’s several moments where the grandfather either loses his place and rereads a scene that replays the same dialogue, or skips a scene in the “kissing book” because his grandson gets squirmy, and moments where the grandfather narrates over a couple montages.

Princess Bride is one of those movies that knows exactly what it is and isn’t trying to be something it’s not. It’s self-aware and loudly and proudly sincere, with one of the best revenge arcs ever put to film.

Recap episodes can either be clipshows or get really creative like ATLA, telling the series recap through the medium of a propagandized play about the Avatar's journey, performed by actors of the Fire Nation. The Gaang sits there in vague states of discomfort, horror, or in Toph and Sokka's case, thrilling enjoyment, watching their hardships and heartbreaks played for laughs. That it's the story we know, but also with the added filter of it being enemy propaganda takes what could have been just a clipshow and still told multiple layers of a story with it.

The Fourth-Wall Break | Riordan-verse, Deadpool

“Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood” defined a generation. It’s one of those fourth wall breaks that opens up the story and never appears again, though occasionally Percy will get slightly self-aware, saying things like “I didn’t know it then, but I’d never come back here”. But for PJO it almost doesn’t count.

Kane Chronicles on the other hand chose a bizarre framing device, having the two leads pretend to host a radio show, or a podcast—something where they were recording themselves and I don’t think it worked very well whenever it popped up and stopped the plot.

Shoutout to Tangled, too, for having a fairytale style fourth-wall break at the end, much like KC, where Flynn reveals that Rapunzel has been listening to him tell their story the entire time. Many fairytale stories open up with the physical book flipping open to the story, like Shrek and Shrek 2, but I don’t think those are translatable to the written medium very well.

The big one, though, is of course Deadpool. Have not seen the second one, and while ‘breaking the fourth wall’ isn’t by itself a framing device, DP & Wolverine absolutely makes it one, fast forwarding and jumbling up the sequence of events to deliver a “how did we get here?” during the opening credits.

Chronology Salad | Memento, Predestination

Have not actually seen Memento but I know the premise, working backwards as the protagonist recovers his memory of “how did we get here?” Predestination is a batshit insane time travel story that I don’t think most people have even heard of and detailing the plot at all is giving spoilers but it is the most “how the fuck did we get here??” movie I have ever seen.

Then you have stories like Twilight that open with “I’ve never given much thought to how I would die” that spoils (kind of) the ending, with the goal of the story not detailing if something bad will happen, but how. Twilight’s prologue reminds me of The Bachelor, where they’ll tease the audience with *shocking* moments completely out of context from later in the season that are way less cool when they actually come to pass (from the one time I watched with relatives out of morbid curiosity).

The point of these chronological mixups is how all the random puzzle pieces fit together, despite essentially spoiling themselves constantly, they’re so random, so out of place, meant to keep you constantly guessing until the big reveal of the picture on the box—and are extremely tricky to do well without completely losing your audience. You’d have to have a very thorough outline to not confuse yourself while trying to write it.

Honorary mention here for Inception, one of my favorite sci-fi movies, because the plot is crazy, but still told chronologically, just across different dream levels. However, the movie does open with the ending scene (though you don’t know that on your first watch). And Tenet, but I don’t know anyone who likes or cares about that movie.

Dual Timelines | Outlander

There are others I just cannot think of them at this moment. Dual timelines tell two stories simultaneously across two different eras, either decades apart or mere hours, with some relation between the two. Sometimes one timeline’s protagonist is the ancestor of the present timeline, for example.

Dual Timelines happen in sequential order, making them distinct from a flashback arc (more below) essentially two chronological plots running in tandem squished into the same book, episode, or film. They carry equal weight and try not to overshadow each other in flair or importance.

In Outlander, Protagonist Claire is already a time traveler, in a time travel story whose rules are “whatever happened, happened, and you end up causing whatever you tried to prevent”. Season 2 opens with her returning to the present, leaving the entire rest of the season with a foreboding sense of dread, wondering what will get her back to that moment.

Season 3 dangles the carrot on the stick, randomly cutting between Claire in the 60s and trying to move on with her life for… I think 20 years, while Jaime, her love interest from the past, just keeps getting kicked while he’s down. It takes forever to get these two back on screen together. And the dual timelines continue taking up screen time when Claire and Jaime’s adult daughter also eventually makes a trip to the past. Points off for being blatantly manipulative storytelling with its cliffhangers, but season 1 is still worth the watch.

Flashbacks, Flash-Forwards, and Flash-Sideways | Lost

This show’s earlier seasons were heavily framed with this device. In The first 3 seasons (up to the last episode) the framing device was exclusively flashbacks, focusing on one of the main 13 heroes for an episode, particularly in season 1.

They didn’t always answer “how did we get here” but told some story relevant to the character in the present, either a challenge they had to face or parallel relationship drama or ghosts come back to haunt them. Usually, these little flashbacks were told in sequential order, but they could hop months or years ahead at a time depending on the episode.

The flash-forwards began in season 4 and closed the gap between the “Oceanic 6” escaping the island and all the missing time while they were gone, before the infamous “We have to go back” line.

The show also had flash-sideways, which featured the main cast, many of whom had been dead for a few seasons, reprising their roles to show what could have been their lives if they never crashed. To… mixed reception.

The show also also had a time-traveling character who in-universe experienced flashes of the future and got mentally temporally displaced between two timelines for a hot minute.

Lost was… a show that demanded a dedicated following. I still love it.

Flashback Arcs | My own personal soapbox

This right here is the whole reason for this post. First you have flashback episodes and I can name a lot of those—ATLA has a couple, “The Storm” & “The Avatar and the Firelord” but both are technically “stories within a story” with characters either around a campfire telling it or reading about it. The alternate timeline takes up a majority of the runtime, only occasionally cutting back to the present characters for a reaction.

In TFP there’s an offbeat flashback episode “Out of the Past”, framed, again, as a character telling this backstory stuff to another character. Many, many vampire stories will have flashbacks to some degree, since their characters live for so long. Vampire Diaries, especially in the earlier seasons, had dozens of them filling in all the blanks back during the Civil War when the two leads, Stefan and Damon, were competing for the affections of the main villain, all leading up to how they were turned, and how she allegedly died. Once the Originals were introduced, the show then had flashbacks to a thousand years ago, when they were human, and various eras in between.

True flashback episodes don’t waste precious minutes setting up a framing device, they just dump the audience in an alternate timeline and let them figure it out on their own that something isn’t right.

But none of that comes close to the full-on Flashback Arc. I. Love. This. Trope.

I actually first saw it when Arrow was good in its earliest seasons, cutting fairly equally between a present-day Oliver back home and starting his hero journey, and him learning combat back in the past, over several episodes like a series within the series.

What you end up with is a happy medium between a full dual timeline and a random grab-bag of flashbacks as they become necessary to the plot. A flashback arc relies entirely on the existence of the A-plot to make sense, as opposed to a dual timeline where it’s essentially two self-sufficient stories rolled into one big narrative. This arc is substantially shorter than the rest of the plot, cutting the story it’s telling down to the absolute need-to-know moments and cutting all transitions between the two. These arcs tend to cover weeks, at minimum, and decades of a long life at most.

I think they're best implimented after the first book, film, or season. Not something you want to throw at your audience who barely knows or cares about these characters, so if you're stuck with ideas for a sequel, consider the Flashback Arc.

My favorite thing that I have ever written (sans ENNS) was for my sci-fi WIP, a C-plot flashback arc in 13 parts. They started out as in-universe nightmares to give credibility to when these flasbacks started occuring, framed around the character's reaction to the scene, but then took off independently to avoid redundancy.

This arc covered his time as a POW, telling the reader how he came to be the living weapon he was, and the first detail it opened with was the reveal that he wasn’t the only one of his kind, he’d lied and shouldered the blame of every atrocity to protect the others, as their numbers dwindled and it all fell into place. A truth he wouldn't tell with a gun to his head.

Because you already knew he lived, because he’s right there in the present A-plot, the arc wasn’t telling you if he’d survive the war, but what he’d do to survive, and how it all fell apart. Because it was framed up with the existing narrative, I had a lot more leeway in omitting details and dropping the reader weeks or months ahead as opposed to this being a completely fresh story with new characters. You knew immediately based on the tone that this POV was the C-plot flashback POV, and you knew the only person who could narrate it was my poor character.

Over 13 POVS, 34k words (of a total whopping 202k), I told a whole love story, established and killed off 10 characters, and gave heaps of worldbuilding lore and exposition to fill in all the blanks in the present and answer questions that this character would never, and revealed just how much he lied about and why.

All of this tied in with the A-plot, staggering the physical placement of POVS within the book to hit at the right moments tonally and as the character’s condition kept deteriorating because he refused to talk about What Happened. His reason was that he’d done all of this and suffered so much to keep their legacies pure. If he gave it up now, he would have done all this for nothing.

And this was some heavy shit. There was murder, suicide, death by giant alien super robots fond of ripping people apart, assault, mercy killing, torture, gaslighting, and psychological horror. One of my magic systems let magicians regrow limbs alchemically, which meant they could endure a shit ton of pain and just get reset to do it all over again.

It was a lot.

But because it was just in flashbacks, I gave you just enough dark shit before cutting back to something marginally lighter, not just one long slog of misery. There was also the unknown of how quickly it would end. The book would end when you hit the last page, but you had no idea which flashback POV would be the last.

And also.

I got to flex my writing skills to the fullest, writing this character’s flashback POV in a completely different tone and style to make it that much more distinct from the rest of the present book.

ENNS’ sequel is very much under construction, but the one thing already polished is a flashback episode packed into one chapter for one of my characters. It’s perfectly knife-twisty and I can't wait for people to read it.

—

There’s dozens of framing devices out there. Most important thing, I think, is not sacrificing audience understanding for the sake of something ‘cool’. Doesn’t matter how amazing the story is if your audience gets completely lost and confused trying to keep up with what’s going on.

If you'd like to check out my book, Eternal Night of the Northern Sky is available now!

[fragmentedblade]

The "Dan Heng is Dan Feng" dogmatics annoy me a lot. It entirely brushes off one of the most interesting and prevalent questions posed by the game, incarnated by several characters and stories that give the question different hues with different potential answers, and a constant also in HI3, like a thread waving the two games together

[heartbeetz]

I NEED to get back into oc f/os. I just remembered my old casino themed anthro shark guy. He never got a solid enough ref sheet (or lore, really) for me to feel comfortable making him one of my f/os but maybe I should remedy that at some point. Big Jack.........

[ruvviks]

made the realization my vampire story would work best as a video game and now i can't stop thinking about it

[dbphantom]

maybe i should have gone into practical effects instead of computer science...

[frankotalk]

im having so much fun writing cadet because hes just like this every day

[ifeelfreewithoutmyshoes]

I think that ending is gonna stick with me for a while…

[maeflower]

i need someone to scream about m**dblind with me ahhh

[foreverppl]

gosh… the two things i love most abt the exile is how many revelations happen (+ how much they matter) and how complicated the people are as individuals and in relation to one another. i don’t think you could play this game passively if you tried. how i initially felt abt characters like marcelle, syfyn, and freedom have changed so drastically over the course of these five chapters it’s actually insane. and this change has been in huge part due to finding out new information. uncovering truths… uncovering lies.

[ozzgin]

Yandere! Circus

I've been wanting to draw some of my dolls for the longest time and this turned out to be my most detailed artwork so far :') And since I really love the circus, I thought I could turn this into an interactive story, too. Let me know what you think! Based on classic stock characters from Italian theatre, Commedia dell'arte. Content: gender neutral reader, horror, dark comedy, human and monster romance

You're finally here! Come on in, don't be afraid. Where is everyone else, you ask? Why, you're our only special guest, Darling (Y/N). This is all for you. Come, do not upset the Ringmaster. We will show you everything.

A night carnival? You've never heard of such a thing. Nonetheless, curiosity got the better of you when you found the trampled poster on your way back home. The actual message almost escaped your attention; you'd been too focused on the thick, ornate border, and the colorful, swirling patterns intricately filling the page.

"Last night in town! 'Wizard of Ozz' Night Circus, a mesmerizing show that will keep you glued to your seat. We're still searching for our Columbina. Perhaps you could become part of our story?"

Might as well check it out. Which is why you're currently here, in the outskirts, trying to find a walkable path among the weeds. It's dark and you can barely see anything in front of you. They're not trying very hard to provide an inviting atmosphere, you think to yourself.

Eventually, you discern a glimmer of light in the distance. You have found the circus tents.

The campsite is quiet and still, causing you to hesitate in your decision. Is it truly open?

There's a faint murmur coming from the main entrance. A small, melancholic Pierrot - when did he show up? - awaits by the heavy curtain, pale hands stretched out.

"Your ticket, Columbina", he announces with decorum. "Me and Arlecchino will show you any tent you want to visit. We are here to entertain you."

He ponders for a moment, before adding:

"I'm sure you'll like him more. He's a very alluring fellow. Me, on the other hand...Oh, forget it", he mumbles through pouting lips, ushering you inside.

"Aha! There's the star of our night! Our Columbina!"

A tall man in a pompous, glittery costume bounces towards you and lowers himself with a theatrical bow, giving your fingers a quick kiss. You pull your hand away, visibly bothered by the odd gesture.

"You keep calling me that. I'm (Y/N)", you argue.

"Yes, yes, of course we know that. Do ya take us for fools?" the Harlequin asks, kicking one foot in the air. The jingle of the bells at the tip of his shoe echoes across the hall. "You have, however - you must understand, yes? - you've entered Ringmaster's Circus. From now on, you are the Columbina to our play."

You raise your eyebrows in disbelief.

"Just like that? Why me, and not someone else?" you scan the surroundings, pursing your lips. "Where are the others?"

"Others?"

Harlequin makes an exaggeratedly shocked face and tilts his head towards Pierrot.

"What are they saying? You're the only one here, Columbina darling. After tonight, we-"

Pierrot's hand lands firmly on his friend's lips.

"You always talk too much. Always, always! And yet, you're the favorite. Of course you are. Oh, what pity, what misfortune", the pale young man laments. "We're wasting precious time."

They both burst into a little dance; a rather silly one, you think with an amused smile. Then, they place themselves besides the entrance, each one standing at one end, back straight and chins raised.

"Go on, go ahead, Columbina darling. This is your carnival. Choose any tent you'd like."

Pulcinella's Tent

The stage is pitch black, save for one spotlight contouring a patch of ground. You can see a large, colorful ball, and two feet clumsily rolling their way atop of it.

You chuckle at the sight. This must be the clown.

"No one can compete with Pulcinella's juggling", Pierrot declares somewhat monotonously. "His acrobatic spectacle has left many guests speechless, acting with such dexterity that one must wonder: is this truly the work of two hands?"

Lights flicker, allowing you to catch glimpses of smaller balls being thrown around. Juggling so many balls while bouncing around is indeed impressive.

"Rest assured, this is the art of one single man. Although four eyes are better than two."

The shadows are abruptly swallowed by spotlights, and you squint your eyes, adjusting to the brightness. A two-headed man continues his performance, throwing you the occasional cheeky smile.

"Ah, that is..." you place a hand over your mouth.

"A bother, truly", the Pierrot remarks, sitting next to you. "They're complete opposites."

He observes as both Pulcinella's heads tilt in your direction, visibly entranced. He sighs deeply:

"You'll love them either way. They're funny and entertaining, unlike me...A pathetic miser. Oh, if only I had half their charm!" he bemoans with a soft sob.

"Hey! Don't sadden my beloved like that", Pulcinella barks, jumping off the ball and running towards your seating with a comically merry jingle to accompany him.

You cannot help but marvel at the man in front of you.

"Enough of this, I've had enough! You don't get to decide yet, Pulcinella", Pierrot exclaims in sudden panic. He claws your wrist tightly and pulls you after him. "It's time to see other tents."

Sandrone's Tent

You peek behind the heavy curtain and freeze. Are your eyes deceiving you? Someone is idly resting at the bottom of a large aquarium, showing no struggle despite being underwater. The mysterious man senses your presence and emerges to the surface.

"Would you look at that! I can't remember the last time I had a visitor."

He gestures for you to come closer.

"Are you the new guest? Our Columbina?"

"I don't know what you're talking about", you speak up with hesitation, eyes glued to the scaly tail that seems eerily genuine. "I think I'll be leaving now."

"Leaving? Didn't the Ringmaster already tell you?" The merman claps his hands, amused. "You're naïve, I like that a lot. Perhaps this time I'll be the one to have you."

He abruptly grabs your wrist, and you jolt at the feeling. His hands are ice-cold and moist.

"Let me have a look at you, won't you? I'll help you hide from the others if you're good and listen to me."

You feel a pair of hands sinking into your shoulders, and you're ripped away from the merman. Harlequin's voice rumbles deeply across the room.

"You're being a fox again, aren't you, Sandrone? Hands off our guest! You don't get to pick yet", he scolds in a low growl. "Ringmaster won't be happy about it."

"Go on then, tell on me! Ringmaster's good boy, eh?" the dark-skinned man smirks mockingly and slams his tail against the glass. "Put a collar on that one, Columbina. See how well he barks", he snarls, then slides back underwater and promptly vanishes.

Harlequin's grip on your shoulders becomes tighter for a brief moment. You can tell he's tense.

"Let's get you out of here. Don't listen to a word he says, Columbina darling. He lies, you see? No one trusts him. You should rely on me."

Pantalone's Tent

You gawk at the impressive height of this tent, head nearly spinning from tilting yourself all the way back. Ah, this must be the trapeze artist. Indeed, one of the two handles is dangling above you, and it occurs to you there's no safety net. A tall, lean man swiftly pounces across, reaching for the trapeze. His movements are slow, yet calculated, and you can't help but wonder if he might actually be flying instead.

Upon closer inspection, it appears he has no arms.

"Madness", you find yourself shouting. "Stop this nonsense!"

He gracefully wraps his legs around the bar, swinging back and forth with a confident smile.

"You doubt me, Pantalone himself?"

With another thrust, he lets himself go, spiraling down against your terrified protests. His heeled shoes clack against the hard tile. Lastly, he stretches out his bandaged stumps, as if signaling his successful landing.

You find yourself bowing to the grand gesture.

"Yes, yes, it's rather impressive, isn't it?" Pierrot follows behind you in his usual dull tone. "Pantalone is our master acrobat."

He lifts his gaze and notices that the man didn't bother waiting for a full introduction; he's already standing before you with a flirty grin.

"...and a charmer, I suppose. What, you're already doing your tricks?"

The sallow clown squeezes himself behind you two protectively.

"Shoo, shoo! Columbina is merely visiting."

He lightly pushes you away, towards the exit. You throw one final glance at the mysterious individual; he waves with his residual limb, and winks.

"You know where to find me, love."

Il Capitano's Tent

You feel a radiant heat coming from this tent. In the middle of the ring stands a grand cage. An animal of sorts? You keep your distance, observing from the benches.

A monstrous giant stumbles within your view with heavy steps. A thick, scaly tail rattles the bars of the cage, swinging itself with the precision of a bullwhip.

"Il Capitano himself!" the Harelquin announces theatrically, bending his arms in the direction of the blue beast. "The strongman, the fire-spitting artist, a most devilish creature captured and chained by our Ringmaster."

"Is this one mine?" the monstrous man pins you down with a predatory gaze.

"Perhaps", Harlequin spits out bitterly. "They decide, not you."

You squirm in your seat, suddenly much smaller under his intense stare. The charismatic guide's smile falters for a brief second, replaced by an envious grimace.

Il Capitano inhales deeply, expanding his torso and contracting his muscles. His fanged mouth then unhinges, releasing a great flame which spreads all the way to you. You're almost tempted to reach towards it, feeling the sting with your very fingers.

"Amazing", you mumble, still mesmerized by the spectacle.

This was no cheap trickery. Capitano is truly a one-of-a-kind artist. No human could replicate such a feat.

The beastly creature holds onto the bars of his cage, shoving his snout outside and grinning. Puffs of smoke escape between his teeth.

"Come down here and I can do even more, little one."

Harlequin gasps and gestures for you to stand up.

"Outrageous! How dare you-!"

He urges you to follow him outside. Enough monstrous sights for now.

"Shall we head towards the other tents, darling?"

Harlequin walks ahead, deep in contemplation. Pierrot scurries after him, whispering the remaining choices. Your shoulders are heavy, and you're quite tired from the eventful night.

You notice a little opening between the lavish curtain folds and decide to sneak away. They needn't know about your departure. You stumble around dark halls, following the cool breeze of the outside, until you're met with the starry sky.

Your path is blocked by two large poles, so you step to the right. Your body freezes in terror when they move with you. Slowly, you raise your head and follow the black shapes, and realize they're legs.

Far, far above ground, towering over the entire circus, you see two glowing eyes.

It's the Ringmaster.

"Bad, bad Columbina", he reproaches.

The voice is off, like an old, broken record reverberating against your eardrums. A cold shiver runs across your spine.

"I'm sorry", you blurt out in fear.

A long, bony hand appears before you, twitching with a loud pop. You wrap your hands around a finger, desperate to not anger this unholy creation.

"Let's take you to your caravan. We're leaving tomorrow."

Oh, God. What have you done?

Now, now, don't fret. There's nothing to be afraid of. Come, put that frown aside. Everyone loves you here. After all, you're their most precious Columbina. What's a Circus without its treasure?

[yuujispinkhair]

Death's Bride

Death visits your village to reap the souls of the dying, and you end up making a deal with him. If he spares your sister's life, you will join him in his dark kingdom and become the woman by his side.

Halloween Masterlist 2023

Pairing: Sukuna x Reader (female) Genre: Dark Romance, fluff, smut Word Count: 14k Warnings: 18+, smut, dark content, mentions of death, gore + blood. Reader has to take her own life so she can join Sukuna in the afterlife. Sukuna is described as a fallen angel who became the God of Death. All characters are of age. This story is 18+. Minors don't interact.

You know this is no mortal man who is walking towards you with his white cloak billowing behind him as he strides through your village, carrying himself like a king, while you lie on the threshold of your small house, breathing weakly, clutching the bag with herbs to your chest. You know this is no man. You know that this is Death coming to your village to collect what's rightfully his: The souls of the dying.

It started two weeks ago. A strange sickness took root in your village and spread like wildfire. By now, almost everyone has been infected. For some, the sickness is easier to bear, and they are on the way to recovery by now. But others are at the end of their strength.

You are the only one out of your little family who is able to get up while your mother and younger sisters are still bedridden, trapped in fever dreams and violent shivers. You went out this morning to get more herbs, taking hours for the task because you were so shaky on your feet, weakened by almost two weeks of fever, your chest hurting from one coughing fit after the other. But you forced yourself to keep moving. You had to. Your family needed you. You had to prepare more tea to fight their fever.

You dragged yourself through the streets back to your small house, feeling dizzy and nauseous but driven by desperation. But you only came as far as the door before your legs finally gave out, and you broke down from exhaustion and ended up where you are now: Lying weakly on the threshold in the open doorway, staring in horror at the scene in front of you.

A tall, broad figure striding with large, strong steps through your village, dressed all in white with a long flowing cloak with a hood that covers the head of the man wearing it.

It sparks a memory inside you. Old tales whispered to you on long, cold winter nights when you huddled together with your little sisters to keep warm, and your grandmother, who was still alive then, told you those gruesome tales about him. The one who could walk freely between the realms of life and death. The Reaper of Souls. The Fallen. The merciless, cold-hearted God who ruled over the afterlife and held judgment over the souls of the dead.

Hysterical laughter bubbles out of your chest. You cannot look away as the huge man leans down over a crumbled body on the ground. The cobbler, who was always so nice as to accept homemade pie in exchange for a new pair of soles. He was one of the first who was infected. And now he broke down in front of his shop.

The white-cloaked figure extends a large hand and brushes over the head of the lifeless man on the ground. His touch has a frightening finality to it. As if you can see the life leaving the cobbler's body.

The figure in white straightens up again, and the wide hood of his cloak slips off and reveals reddish pink hair and a face more beautiful and otherwordly than anything you have ever seen.

You draw in a sharp breath as you stare at him. Now that you get a clear look, it is obvious that your mind wasn't playing tricks on you. This man really isn't human. You are looking at a creature beyond mortal limitations. You are looking at a God.

He turns his head at that moment, and a pair of glowing red eyes trap you in their intense gaze. Your eyes widen, and your breath comes out in short, panicky huffs. You know you wouldn't be able to move even if you tried as if his gaze alone holds enough power to shackle you to the ground.

He is here. The Fallen. The Grim Reaper. The God of Death.

And he starts walking in your direction with slow, sure steps. There is no hurry in his movements. He has all the time in the world because, after all, he is the end of all time for the ones he claims or a neverending cycle of the same suffering over and over again for the poor souls he decides to punish.

Behind him, bright red splotches appear, and you realize that those are flowers, blood-red spider lilies that grow out of the dirt, building a small path to mark where Death walked. It is a horrifyingly beautiful sight.

He carries himself like a King, walking through these dirty streets as if walking down a wide marble hallway in a castle. You suspect that even if you tried, you wouldn't be able to tear your gaze away from him.

His beautiful face is adorned with black lines. Intricate filigree patterns accentuate his angular features. The black symbols mark his otherwise flawless skin with a story of pain and sin. Your mind is suddenly flooded with the tales your grandmother told you on those winter nights long ago.

There once was a beautiful angel, the most powerful of them all. But he was too proud to abide by the rules, and so he was punished. His beautiful white wings got torn out of his flesh, and his skin was etched with the marks of the crimes he committed. He was cast out and cursed to become The Fallen. The one who claimed the throne of the afterlife, of the world beyond mortality. He took the reins, and from then on, his true name was forgotten, and everyone only called him by his new name, which was Death.

And now he is walking towards you. Strangely, you don't feel fear anymore, only fascination as you watch him approach.

He stops next to you, looking down at you with an unreadable expression. This close, you can see his face even more clearly, and your mouth opens in awe. He is devastatingly beautiful.

And so big. He is towering over you, tall and broad. From where you are lying on the floor, he looks like a mountain that is about to crush you.

"Are you here to collect souls?"

Your voice sounds weak and hoarse from coughing so much.

His glowing red eyes watch you intently for a long moment, and you think that he almost looks surprised for whatever reason. But then the moment is gone, and he nods. A slight smirk lifts one corner of his lips,

"Yes, but not yours, little one. It's not your time yet. Your body will heal again."

His voice is low and calm. He sounds soothing. Not at all how you imagined Death to sound. You were always scared of this mysterious figure you heard all those grim tales about. A terrifying, violent creature with blood-red eyes and monster-like fangs, a devil who brings pain and suffering.

But right now, you only feel calm. You feel strangely at peace with him here. His power emanates from him, so powerful that you can feel it on your skin and smell it in your nose. But it doesn't feel evil or threatening.

Instead, it feels comforting, like a warm bed with freshly washed sheets waiting for you to sink into and wrap yourself in its sweet comfort. Like the relief you feel after finally lying down after a hard day of physical labor, like the feeling of sinking into a hot bath that eases the tension in your limbs.

But that momentary feeling of peacefulness slips away again a second later when Death takes a large step past you. His feet stomp heavily on the wooden threshold next to your head, and with it, terror fills your senses.

"No!"

Your voice is a hoarse scream as you lunge forward despite your weakened state, your hand darting out to wrap around his ankle and cling desperately to it.

"Please don't go in there! Please don't!"

Your family is in there. Your younger sisters and your mother.

Your lips tremble, just like your hand, but you refuse to let go of the black leather boot that's slippery with mud. You cling to it, sobbing as you gaze up at Death through the hot tears clouding your vision.

He looks down at you, an elegant eyebrow lifted in a curious expression. He stares at your tiny hand wrapped around his ankle. You cannot tell if he is angry or amused about your pathetic attempt to stop him.

"Let go, little one. I told you, your time hasn't come yet. But I have to collect a soul from in there."

You are drowning in dread. And the words pour out of your lips, desperate and panicky,

"Please don't do it! Please take me instead! I am begging you, my Lord! Please spare them!"

Narrowed red eyes meet yours. He laughs softly and lifts his leg, effortlessly shaking your hand off. His low voice sounds amused as if you made a nice little joke.

"Look at you trying to negotiate with Death. You are a brave one. Foolish but brave."

Now you see how truly terrifying he is. Death knows no mercy. He doesn't just collect the souls of the old people who lived a long, fulfilled life. He claims anyone whose time has run out in the cruel hourglass that is life. He will go in there and take your mother or one of your sisters with him even though they still deserve so much more from life.

He looks at you with a cold, intimidating look in his red eyes. His mouth is set in a thin line, and his shoulders are pulled back, making him look even more massive. You cannot negotiate with Death. He is the God of the afterlife. There are forces at hand which every mortal is completely helpless against. Humans are all just little toy figures on the game board of the Gods. Or not even that. Just tiny, irrelevant grains of dust.

And yet, you cannot stop yourself from pleading with him.

"I don't care what you do to me! Take me with you! I am ready to die any death you see fit! Just please, please let my family live! My sisters are still so young. They deserve to see more of life! And they need my mother, she has to live too! But I am dispensable. Take me instead! Please! I will do anything you say!"

He watches you with amused eyes and a thoughtful expression.

"You're such an interesting one. You aren't dying, though. So I cannot take you to the other realm. But we could make a deal. I have to collect one soul from this house. I don't care whose it is. There is still time. I could still heal your sister. But only in exchange for another soul. You die, she lives. How does that sound to you? Are you still brave enough now?"

His red eyes watch you with an amused glint in them. Cruel excitement seems to fill him. You can't help but think that you are something like a strangely colored bug that he watches for his entertainment before he crushes it under the soles of his boots.

But you don't care. You refuse to avert your gaze, staring stubbornly into his otherwordly red eyes, your hands balled into fists as you nod.

"I agree. Please, my Lord. Please save her."

He chuckles softly, a low, amused sound, and his face lights up in a grin. He looks disgustingly delighted.

"I will, little one. But only if you seal a binding deal with me first. I spare your sister's life, and in exchange, you take your own life and let me take you with me. The moment you breathed your last breath, you belong to me, and I can decide what to do with your soul. I am in a good mood today, so I will be open about my plans for you. It would be a waste to send you back here as a curse that haunts your family. Instead, I want to keep you by my side. I could use someone who looks after my temple and warms my bed. I could use a bride. What do you say, little one?"

You can see that he is amused, that he expects you to decline after hearing his plan for you. But you don't. For a moment, you stare at him, horrified by what his words imply. But you shake yourself out of it, driven by a desperate conviction. You cannot let your little sister die today. You could never live with the guilt of knowing you had a chance to save her and let it pass. You will do what it takes. Even if it means following Death into his dark kingdom and giving your body to him. You swallow hard, lips trembling as you answer him,

"Alright. I will be your bride and look after your temple. I agree to your terms. Now, please hurry up and save her!"

More laughter falls from his lips. His red eyes glitter like two precious rubies. He sounds pleased when he says,

"You're a fearless one. I like that."

His red gaze never leaves yours as he reaches inside his cloak and pulls out a wicked-looking dagger.

"Here. Do it. End your life, and let me collect your soul. The moment your soul belongs to me, your sister will wake up from her fever dream and recover from the sickness that has befallen her."

You gulp hard, fear squeezing your heart tightly, as you stare at his large hand wrapped around the golden hilt of the dagger, his red eyes watching you challengingly, watching if you will really fulfill your part of the contract.

You are scared suddenly, your breath coming out in short huffs. You feel lightheaded, adrenaline pumping through your veins, making stars dance before your eyes.

Maybe this is how things are. No matter how prepared you are for Death, when he comes to really collect you, you feel fear after all. Fear of the finality of it all. There is no way back after you take this step.

But you don't hesitate. You press your lips together tightly and take the offered dagger out of Death's hand.

The moment you hold the heavy weapon in your grasp, Death's large hand wraps around your wrist, and he pulls you to your feet, making you stand before him.

He is so much taller than you, even now when you are standing. You have to tilt your head back to look into his eyes. He looks even more intimidating up close. Powerful, strong, unrelenting. A cunning business partner who is waiting for you to fulfill your side of the contract. A contract you pay for with your life.

You half expect him to taunt you, and it makes you clench your jaw and stare up at him defiantly. But to your surprise, there is no mockery in his low voice when he speaks up again.

"Have no fear. You won't feel any pain. I will make sure of that."

His words bring tears to your eyes, making them spill over with the hot salty liquid as your chest fills with comfort, finding solace in the fact that Death apparently knows mercy after all.

Your hand is trembling violently, but you bring the sharp blade of the dagger to your neck, gazing up at Death as you do so, looking deeply into his glowing red eyes as you slice your own throat.

The sharp metallic taste of blood fills your every sense. You taste it, you smell it, you feel it hot and wet running down your slit throat and your chest, you hear it gurgling in your mouth when you try to speak.

But Death leans down to take the bloodied dagger from your hand. His other hand cups your cheek. It's so large against your face. But his touch is gentle as if he is holding a thin, fragile porcelain cup,

"It's fine, little one. You did well. Brave until the end."

His voice is soothing. Low and calm, almost seductive. Like a lover luring you into his comforting embrace. You lean into his touch, smiling weakly when you feel his thumb caress your cheek soothingly.

Black spots dance before your eyes, and you feel so tired. You see his lips move, but you can't hear anymore. Your legs and hands feel numb. You fall forward, but strong arms catch you.

You feel yourself get swooped up into Death's strong arms and pressed safely against his broad chest. You feel him move as your head lols back weakly. The ghost of a smile tugs at your blood-stained lips. He carries you like a groom carrying his bride to the bedroom on their wedding night.

How fitting. After all, you are truly his bride now.

If you weren't so weak, you would laugh at the commentary your delirious mind provides.

By now, your vision has vanished completely. The only thing you are still aware of are his arms around you. It's peaceful and warm. As painless as he promised. You feel one last weak throb of your heart. And then it's only sweet, comforting darkness and the feeling of those strong arms carrying you safely across the border from mortal life into Death's dark kingdom.

You wake up feeling rested and comfortable. Your eyes are still closed, and you sigh contentedly, snuggling deeper into the soft and warm sensation of a silky pillow and blanket.

In the back of your mind, some strange warning tugs, but you are too wrapped in the luxurious feeling of being well-rested after a good night's sleep to pay it much attention. You can't remember the last time you felt rested like this. It was hard since your father died. You are the oldest daughter and had to help your mother raise your younger sisters. You were the one who had to do most physical labor, working on one of the farms day in and day out. Your body constantly ached somewhere.

But not today.

You sigh happily, stretching your limbs and marveling at how soft the bedsheets and the blanket feel against your naked skin and how large the bed is.

That's when the little voice in your head becomes too loud to ignore. You blink in confusion and open your eyes.

You are in a large room with marble walls decorated opulently with red and gold murals. Red candles are flickering in large lanterns. A fire is crackling in a beautifully decorated hearth. The bed you are lying in is huge and definitely not made for only one person.

You gasp and sit up, looking around hastily.

There are two red pillows and two red blankets, and everything is made of the finest silk. As if you are in a King's bed chambers.

And, suddenly, you remember everything.

The sickness haunting your village. Your dying sister. Death walking towards you. The deal you made with him. The dagger in your hands. The blood. Strong arms carrying you. You remember him. Death himself. Your bridegroom.

Instinctively, you grab the blanket and wrap it tightly around your body, feeling exposed and vulnerable. Your heart is beating wildly, and it makes you feel nauseous. You still remember the feeling of your heartbeat becoming slower and slower before it finally faded away completely. You remember dying.

And yet you are here now, breathing, feeling the silk on your skin, feeling the thrumming of your heart. So very alive, even though you know you can't be.

And so very naked in a man's bed. Or not a man's bed. In a God's bed. In Death's bed.

At that moment, the large door opposite the bed opens, and you wince in fear. You clutch the blanket tightly against your body, staring at the door with wide eyes.

He stands in the doorway, his pink hair almost brushing against the doorframe. Tall and massive. He looks intimidating even without the white cloak he wore when reaping souls. Even the way he is dressed right now, as if he just woke up too, with only a pair of black pants on his muscular body. His feet and chest are bare.

There are more tattoos on his body, matching the ones on his face. Black lines decorate the defined muscles of his chest and stomach, as well as his strong arms.

He could almost be a human man. Almost. But those glowing red eyes tell you otherwise. Those are the eyes of a mythical creature. The eyes of a God.

And you feel like a small animal trapped in that gaze as you sit there on his large bed, naked except for the silk blanket wrapped protectively around yourself, unable to move as you watch him walk into the room.

He moves gracefully like a big cat, even though he is so tall and muscular. A slight smirk lifts his lips as he approaches the bed. His red eyes never leave your small figure huddled in his blanket.

"Ah, I see you are awake."

"What... what did you do to me?"

The words have left your mouth before you can stop yourself. Confusion and fear make you blurt out mindlessly. You are distraught by the memories of slitting your own throat, by the feeling of dying. And you are terrified by the knowledge that you are naked in Death's bed. Terrified by what he might have done to you in your sleep. On the other hand, maybe it would be better for you not to have been awake for what he did.

He falters for a moment, his beautiful face shadowed by a frown as his red gaze bores searchingly into yours.

"We made a deal. Can you not remember? Your life in exchange for your sisters? You agreed to follow me here."

You nod firmly,

"Yes, yes, of course I remember."

"When what..." he starts, but then comprehension seems to dawn on his features, and he laughs, sounding mocking, his eyes glittering amusedly when he continues,

"Don't worry. I didn't touch you while you were unconscious. Where would be the fun in that?"

Oh.

You feel some of the worst tension leave your body, a long breath you had been holding finally finding its way out of your lips.

"But why am I... naked?"

"You were dirty. Do you think I would let you sleep in my bed like that, full of dirt and blood? My servant undressed you and cleaned you and put you in my bed."

So you were right. This is his bed.

"Why am I in your bed?"

He huffs at your question as if you asked something utterly stupid.

"Because you are my bride. Of course, you sleep in my bed. We have a deal. So if I say you sleep in my bed, you will sleep here. Is that clear?"

You lick your lips nervously, feeling fear tingle under your skin at his imperious tone and the intense gaze out of those unnervingly red eyes.

You quickly avert your gaze, bowing your head obediently,

"Yes, my Lord."

"Sukuna."

You blink and lift your head again to look at him questioningly.

"What?"

"That was my name before I became Death. Sukuna. I want you to call me that from now on."

He sighs, and the stern expression on his face becomes softer when he adds,

"It would be uncalled for my bride to address me with my title. I am Sukuna for you. Your betrothed."

He says his own name with a slight tilt in his voice as if he isn't used to saying it. Maybe he isn't. It must have been a very long time since he told someone his name. Maybe eons.

You gulp hard.

How strange it is to be here with him. To talk to him as if he is a regular mortal when he is so much more than that. He has never even been human. He is a being so ancient and so powerful, so crucial to every mortal's existence, that your head spins just from trying to imagine it.

But you force yourself to be brave and look at him.

He is right. You agreed to his terms. And he did his part. He spared your sister. Now, it's your turn to fulfill the rest of your side of the contract.

You are still trembling and hugging the blanket tightly to your naked form, but you look bravely into his eyes and give him a polite nod,

"Of course, Sukuna. Thank you for saving my sister. I will be a good bride for you."

A day ago, you were a mere mortal. One of millions who were caught in the hands of fate. Working day in and out to stay alive, always hoping, begging, praying to have more time and to see your loved ones live a long life too, while all of you were exposed to the threat of Death cutting your lifespan with his sword at any second.

Now, you are beyond that. You died, and you came back again. Brought back by Death himself, the Master over every soul who left the mortal world behind.

From this day on, you reside in the afterlife. From this day onwards, you will be Death's Bride and live your new life, or rather your afterlife, by Sukuna's side.

He tells you that you are free to move around in the temple. When you ask if you are also allowed to go outside, he lifts an elegant eyebrow and seems strangely amused, as if you asked something stupid.

"You can also go outside. But I don't think you will find anything interesting there, little one."

You don't know what he means, but accept it and take the fine clothes his loyal servant Uraume brings you. Everything is made out of the finest silk. A fabric so luxurious and soft that it feels like a caress when Uraume helps you get dressed. You gulp when the servant puts jewelry on your neck and wrists. Heavy gold and pretty jewels, red rubies that glitter in the same color as your groom's eyes.

Sukuna's temple is enormous and luxuriously furnished. Not at all like the tiny, shabby house you grew up in. But you cannot claim that this temple is better than your old home because, contrary to the vivacious atmosphere of your former home, Sukuna's house is eerily silent. A silence that feels haunting.

You don't dare walk too fast so as not to make any loud noise. You catch yourself whispering because your normal voice sounds too loud in these empty halls. It's a ghostly place. The silence feels too heavy, almost tangible. Something that can easily drive a person into madness.

You try to focus on the little noises that are there. The little signs of existence, like the sound of water flowing into the large bath. Or the sound of the doors sliding open and closed.

It takes a while to explore the whole place. To see all the large rooms with their rich tapestries and carpets. Gold and rubies shine and glitter everywhere. But a lot of the rooms look too clean, too perfect. There are no signs of someone actually living in them.

It is lonely here.

Maybe this is why Sukuna was willing to make a contract with you that would bind you to him and make you join him here. Maybe he was looking for a companion, or just a pet, to amuse him in this everlasting silence.

It is not like you are a servant here, as Sukuna made it sound at first. You assumed you would tend to him, clean his temple and clothes, wash and cook for him. But that isn't the case. His servant, Uraume, takes care of those tasks. They mostly remain invisible, like a ghost, taking care of everything for their Master, seemingly manifesting out of the shadows to bring you fresh clothes and oils and wine.

You ask them timidly what you are supposed to do, and they shake their head to inform you that you are just here for Master Sukuna's enjoyment.

A statement that makes a shudder run through you.

You have been here for three days, and so far, he hasn't laid a hand on you, maybe because he was away most of the time, apparently reaping souls on a battlefield.

But he demands your presence at dinner with him, where he sits across from you at a large table, and those gleaming red eyes never leave you. He is polite, asking questions about your day and how you like the jewelry.

And he joins you in the large bed every night, naked, with his tall and broad body full of solid muscles and black lines unashamedly on display for your terrified gaze.

You try to tell yourself it is the shock that makes you unable to look away from him when he undresses next to the bed and then slips in. But a little voice in the back of your mind whispers treacherously to you that maybe it is because Sukuna has an undeniably beautiful body.

"You're getting quite intimate with Death, my dear, aren't you?"

His amused low voice makes you hastily look away and hide your face in the silky pillow, heart racing nervously. His mocking laugh makes goosebumps creep over your skin. But he doesn't seem mad. He is just amused once again.

"Don't be shy, little one. Look all you want. You'll have all the time in the world to explore this body."

You bite your lip at his words, your body tensing up under the blanket when a large hand lands on the nape of your neck and slowly slides down your spine. Your heart is fluttering, and you don't dare breathe. But he pulls his hand away after a moment.

You slip to the edge of the bed, as far away from him as possible, your arms wrapped tightly around yourself, knees pulled up, curling into yourself, instinctively trying to protect yourself as if it would help anything against this God in your bed.

The more time you spend in Sukuna's Kingdom, the more you realize that this is really death. It is the absence of life, the absence of sound, and plant- and animal life. You begin to understand that the once graceful angel Sukuna really got punished. This here is his suffering, his punishment. The loneliness, the absence of life that so suffocatingly surrounds him at all times.

But he was cunning enough to cheat and take his chance when you offered it so beautifully to him. Now, it is the two of you here in this dead place.

It's truly a lonely place. Maybe that's the definition of hell. To be trapped in a beautiful temple that holds all the riches the world could offer but lacks life, lacks the connection to other beings.

You try to befriend Uraume, but they seem to vanish when they aren't busy with some task. Your attempts at chatting with them get declined with a polite but stern bow and a "Please forgive me, my Lady, but I must ask you to refrain from distracting me from serving Master Sukuna."

You meet no other being aside from Uraume and Sukuna.

The worst thing is the eerie silence. It almost drives you crazy. It makes you stomp your feet loudly just so you can reassure yourself you are still able to hear. It makes you slowly push open the large gate that leads outside in a desperate attempt to find anything living.

The rich opulence inside Sukuna's home is a stark contrast to what greets you when you finally step outside the temple.

A seemingly endless wasteland stretches before your eyes. There is no sky above you. It feels like you are in an enormous cave with a ceiling so high your vision cannot reach it. Eternal darkness lives in this place. Cold with icy winds and a rotten stench of iron and decay.

It's gruesome. Hopeless.

You press a hand over your nose and mouth and stand there wide-eyed, staring at the endless darkness in the distance. But as frightening as it is, the complete darkness in the distance is a blessing compared to what you see in the strange, dim, reddish light surrounding Sukuna's temple.

A vast crimson-red sea surrounds the island upon which the temple is built. The color and the stench make you ask yourself a question to which you already know the answer. Yes, this sea must be a sea of blood.

You shudder as you take a tentative step closer to the crimson-red liquid at your feet. You gulp hard as you lift your head to look straight ahead. There is a narrow path leading through the sea of blood, a path that is made of stones and other shapes. Shapes that look too similar to bones to be a coincidence.

But at the end of that path is something even more horrible. A massive pile of bones. It is so high that it seems like a small hill. And on its top is a large throne made out of skulls.

This must be the place from the tales you heard whispered.

Death's throne.

This must be where Sukuna holds court and decides on the fate of the newly deceased. Some will move on to eternal peace. Some will suffer forever in the fires of the afterlife. Some will be forced to return to the mortal world. But not as humans but as empty shells. As curses that were laid upon them by others.

A heavy hand lands on your shoulder, and you scream.

You whirl around wide-eyed, only to stare into the smirking face of your soon-to-be husband.

Sukuna's red eyes wander slowly from your face to his throne in the midst of the sea of blood and back again to your face, looking deeply into your eyes as he says in his low, velvety voice,

"I see, you found my throne. You can sit next to me up there if you wish while I pass judgment on the newly reaped souls."

You shake your head frantically.

"No! No, there will be no need for that!"

He raises an elegant eyebrow and huffs softly.

"Such a pity."

But he leaves it at that. His white coak billows behind him majestically as he strides back into the temple, and his soft laugh carries over to your ears, amused, maybe a bit mocking.

You follow him hastily, not wanting to be out here any second longer.

You plan to never set foot outside again after that. It's easier to pretend when you are inside the temple. It's easier to pretend that you are not in the middle of literal hell.

You aren't sure how many days or weeks have passed since you arrived in Sukuna's Kingdom. Time is nonexistent here. There are no seasons. There is no night and day. You have dinner at appointed times, and you go to bed where you still slide to the far end of the bed. But you have no idea if the days have the same hours as in the mortal world.

It might be a week, maybe since you were brought here when Uraume informs you while dressing you in the morning,

"Tonight, the wedding ceremony will be held. I will bathe you and dress you in your wedding dress later on."

And you feel like you are falling. Falling deeper and deeper into darkness so absolute it feels like velvet brushing over your skin as it swallows you wholly.

You knew this was coming. But it still shakes you to your deepest core. There is something so final about becoming Death's bride. You know you will be here forever. You will be Sukuna's forever. Bound to him by a promise, by a contract, by a union of bodies, maybe by blood too.

The wedding dress is the most beautiful dress you have ever seen. White silk, so delicate it looks like a mere spider's web. Your skin shimmers through it. The dress clings to your curves, showing your body almost as if you are naked. It looks like the dress of a Queen. Or a Goddess.

"Master Sukuna wanted the finest wedding dress ever made for his bride. You should be grateful and wear it with pride."

The disapproval in Uraume's voice is evident as they catch you crossing your arms timidly in front of your breasts, trying to hide your body.

When you walk towards your groom, you hold your head up high, clutching the wedding bouquet of spider lilies tightly in your hands, your gaze glued to Sukuna's glowing red eyes, trying your best to be brave.

You play along and do what Uraume instructed, extending a hand so Sukuna can take it and let him lead you to an altar. You are brave. You don't flinch when Sukuna takes the same dagger that you took your life with and touches it to your wrist, cutting your skin lightly.

No blood is welling up from the wound. Another mystery. What are you now? You feel a heart beating in your chest, but you don't bleed. Is anything you feel even real? Or is the beating of your heart just a phantom sensation you remember from being alive and refuse to let go of?

You feel lightheaded as you stare at the thin wound on your wrist, but only for a moment because then Uraume hands Sukuna a tray with a small pot with a black liquid in it.

You know what is to come. Your husband is marking you as his, filling your wound with the black liquid, giving you the same markings he bears.

He doesn't kiss you but stands in front of you, so close that you feel his warmth. One of his large hands cups your cheek, his thumb brushing slowly over your lower lip before it pushes into your mouth and feeds you some of the black liquid he marked you with.

"Take my sin into you and become mine for all eternity. Be my companion in this eternal darkness, like I will be yours."

There is something in his voice and about his choice of words that makes tears prick at your eyes, but you will them away and repeat his vow.

He takes you that night for the first time, consummating your marriage by pushing you onto the bed, one of his large hands pressing your face down into the silken pillow, as Sukuna settles over you.

You clutch the pillow tightly between your fingers when you feel his heavy weight pressing your body down. You tell yourself to be brave and obedient, but you cannot stop a muffled cry from falling from your lips when his huge cock splits you open and claims you for the first time.

He takes you with deep, thorough thrusts. The initial pain vanishes after the first few thrusts, and after that, your union isn't exactly painful anymore, but it feels frightening how full you feel, how stretched out. You have never lain with a man before, but even if you had, you know no mortal man would have been able to prepare you for your wedding night with a God like Sukuna.

He is so big, so strong, taking you unrelentingly while you tremble in his arms, knowing you could never run from him even if you chose to back out of your contract with him.

His large hands are placed on each side of your head, his lips trail over your neck, sharp teeth grazing over your skin, while he snaps his hips and makes you feel like you are getting crushed anytime his heavy weight presses you down onto the bed.

There is no love in this union of your bodies, but it's not like you were as naive as to ever imagine your wedding night to be filled with love or tenderness.

You always expected to marry out of convenience. A girl like you couldn't afford the luxury of love when picking a husband. You had a family to look after. Maybe it would have been one of the farmer's sons if you were lucky. You would have given birth to his children in exchange for a relatively comfortable life for yourself and your mother and sisters in one of the big farmhouses.

You never were so foolish as to believe you would have a loving marriage. So this wedding night with Sukuna isn't that much different from what you were expecting in your future anyway.

And so you grit your teeth and take his cock obediently, letting him use your body to satisfy his desire until you hear his low groans in your ear when he finds his release and fills you with his warm seed.

You are a good bride.

You know you aren't expected to work, but you find your way into the large kitchen anyway, standing behind Uraume as they prepare a meal.

Sukuna has been gone the whole day, and there is only so much staring at the ceiling while lying in your bed that you can do before you inevitably go insane. So you went in search of the only other living being down here, hoping they wouldn't send you away.

"Do you need help with the cooking? Can I maybe chop some ingredients or something?"

Sukuna's servant sends you a cold gaze over their shoulder, looking at you as if you offended them by the suggestion alone.

"I have spent eons preparing Master Sukuna's meals, my Lady. I don't need any help. And you aren't a servant here. You should do other things."

"But... but that's not what I meant. I am sorry if I offended you. The food you cook is always perfect. I just...I am looking for something to do and for some company maybe. Can I please assist you? There is nothing else to do here."

Uraume sighs, but they nod slightly, and you feel relief wash over you. They wave you over, hand you a knife, and point to a cutting board where a small pile of vegetables is waiting to get sliced into little pieces. You smile at Uraume and murmur a soft thanks, going to work immediately.

"Uraume? Can I ask you something? Does Sukuna even need to eat?"

It's something you have been curious about since the first time you sat across from him at the large dining table. You don't feel any hunger since you woke up here in the afterlife. Why would someone who is already dead need food? But you eat because you feel like it is required of you in your role as Sukuna's bride. It made you wonder, though. Why would a powerful being like Sukuna need to eat? Or does he just do it because he likes the sensation of eating?

Uraume watches you warily for a long moment, probably contemplating whether they should chat with you about Sukuna. In the end, they sigh softly and answer you,

"Master Sukuna doesn't need any food. But he wants to eat."

Uraume hesitates for a moment, their hand with the knife hovering over the meat they are currently chopping, but then they add softly,

"In the heavenly realms, they have big feasts all the time with as much food and wine as one can imagine. Even after The Fall, Master Sukuna didn't want to give up on that. He was supposed to have a life void of all those joys, but he evades that form of punishment by consuming the food I prepare for him with ingredients I collect from the mortal world. Of course, it's not quite the same taste as the foods prepared in the celestial realm, but for the ingredients I can obtain, it is the best food he can get."

It makes sense.

You can't help but chuckle softly as you realize that eating a four-course meal every night is Sukuna's little ongoing rebellion against the ones who turned him into The Fallen.

It somehow makes you see your husband in a different light. It makes him seem a little more human. A little more relatable. You have been there, too, several times, feeling the desire to do something out of spite when someone tries to forbid you something.

That evening, you watch him closely while he eats the meal Uraume and you prepared for him. For the first time, you take in how much he seems to treasure the food served to him. He takes his time eating it, letting it melt slowly on his tongue, taking in all the different flavors, and his eyes close in pleasure when he savors the taste.

It almost makes you feel sorry for him and for what he lost when he got cast out of heaven.

You never wanted to set foot outside the temple again after seeing the endless wasteland and the sea of blood. But your curiosity gets the better of you when Sukuna informs you he will be holding court today, and you watch him slip into his white cloak and walk through the huge doors of the temple towards the path that leads to his throne.

You follow him after a few minutes, unable to resist the lure his words have on you.

A horrifying sight greets you. The sea of blood is filled with a large crowd of shadowy figures. The bloody waters are shallow, only reaching up to the knees of those standing in it. But none of them look down. They all have their heads tilted back to look up at the imposing figure who thrones over them. Atop the gruesome pile of bones, sitting on his throne of skulls, is Death.

He looks bored. His long legs are crossed casually one over the other. His chin is resting on the back of one hand while his eyes trail slowly over the souls standing before him, awaiting his judgment.

Eyes that glow blood-red, vibrant like two lights in the dark, standing out frighteningly in the dim light of the afterlife.

He is beautiful and terrifying.

You can see the immeasurable extent of his power and can even feel it as if it is a physical thing that surrounds you, making the air thick and filling your senses with dread. A dread that comes with the absence of all hope.

Sukuna is the King of the Afterlife. The God of Death. There is no escape from him. Every living soul will one day end up here and stand before your husband.

A shiver runs down your spine at the thought. You instinctively hug yourself even as your gaze stays glued to the scene playing out in front of you.

As expected, Sukuna is unrelenting in his judgment. There is no mercy to be expected when he makes his decisions. He isn't swayed by the cruelty of the fates of the ones standing before him, no matter how tragic they are. His decisions are rational and brutal at times. And yet, after you stood there for several hours and watched him, you have to admit that his judgment is fair. Of course, he won't revive anyone. But he assigns an appropriate ending to their lives. He punishes the ones who did evil. He transforms the ones who got cursed. He leads the ones who are innocent to their eternal sleep.

When the last soul has vanished in a cloud of red smoke, Sukuna gets up from his throne and slowly walks back toward the temple. His movements are graceful, making you watch him with a feeling akin to admiration.

His red eyes land on you, and for a split second, a surprised expression crosses his beautiful features.

When he reaches you, he stops next to you with a content expression on his face and a small smirk lifting the corners of his lips,

"So my bride watched after all, hm? I am pleased."

You nod at him, and to your surprise, you see his smirk turn into a smile.

One of his large hands reaches out and lands on your head. Long fingers brush over your hair, petting you for a brief moment before he pulls away again and continues walking toward the temple.

You feel strangely light-hearted when you fall into step behind your husband.

When he takes you that night, he is gentler in the way he handles you. He doesn't press you face down into the pillow like he usually does, but instead rolls the two of you to the side, entering you from behind while you lay in his strong arms and his large hands trail down your body, cupping your breasts and rubbing circles over your belly.

His lips graze your earlobes while his low groans and murmurs fill the room,

"You're a good little bride."

You don't know whether it's his words or the way he snaps his hips that makes you clench around his thick cock and exhale a surprised moan, as for the first time, you feel thick syrupy pleasure explode inside you and spread through your whole body in warm crashing waves.

Your husband is often away. In the mortal world, reaping souls. You know that anywhere he goes, he brings devastation and fear. But when he comes home to you, he brings a certain comfort with him, as strange as it sounds.

You are almost glad when Sukuna's tall, broad figure walks into the wide double doors. It is very lonely here and scary at times when you become too aware of where you are, and the silence becomes too suffocating. Sukuna's presence brings comfort. His low, calm voice helps you drift away from that brink of madness you sometimes feel yourself drifting towards when you are alone with your thoughts for too long.

Your husband is Death, but to you, he is the only sign of life you meet down here, and that is enough to make you drift towards him when he is at home.

He is terrifying because of his role in this cycle of life and death. He is terrifying because he symbolizes the end. His position is terrifying. But the man Sukuna doesn't seem so bad.

He treats you well. He is polite. And as long as he looks at you and talks to you, you feel real. You still exist. You aren't gone. You aren't a ghost or a curse. You are very real and corporal.

You catch yourself following Sukuna around, watching him while he polishes his sword and the various daggers he carries. Watching him when he sits comfortably on the bed with books spread around him, reading and making notes.

His red eyes find yours and narrow in a frown.

"You've been staring at me for half an hour. Do you have nothing to entertain yourself with? What are you usually doing while I am away?"

The question catches you off guard. Is he mad at you? Is he accusing you of being lazy?

You look nervously at him,

"There isn't a lot to do here... I mostly just... wait? I sleep a lot, I take baths, and I help Uraume in the kitchen. Is there anything you want me to do?"

He blinks at you and shrugs.

"Why don't you find a past time? I showed you my library. Why don't you spend your days there and read?"

You feel shame wash over you. You get treated like a noble woman here by the King's side. But you have always been just a poor peasant from a dirty little village where the only thing that mattered was physical labor.

"I never learned how to read."

Sukuna's red eyes widen, and he stares at you for a long moment before he finally says firmly,

"Follow me."

He gets up and walks toward the door without bothering to check if you follow him. A man who is used to everyone obeying his commands.

You quickly scramble to your feet, bunch up your dress, and do as he says. You have to walk fast to keep up with Sukuna's large steps, probably looking pathetic as you hurry after him. But he doesn't comment on it. There is an amused smirk on his beautiful face, though, when he waits for you at the door that leads to his personal library.

It's a vast room with large shelves filled with so many books that you suspect he must own every book that has ever been written.

"Sit."

Sukuna's low voice is demanding, but you can hear the tint of amusement in it as he points one long finger to one of the large armchairs.

You nod and sit down, watching Death stride through his collection of books and pull several books from the various shelves, which he then places on the small table next to your armchair.

"I will teach you how to read. These are all books that contain very little text. We will start with those."

Your head snaps up, and you stare at him, caught off guard and astonished by his offer. Why does he care whether you have something to do in your time here or not? Why does he take some of his precious time to teach his bride, who he claimed is only here to warm his bed, how to read?

At the same time, you feel a shudder run through your body, feeling flustered suddenly as you realize that this means you will spend a lot of time with him.

Holed up in Death's personal library, where he sits so close to you that his large hand brushes against yours anytime he turns a page. So close that his breath caresses the skin of your neck anytime he tells you something in his low, velvety voice. You find it hard to focus on his words, too distracted by the warmth emanating from his tall, muscular body.

He takes you almost every night, but somehow, those hours spent with him in the library where he teaches you how to read feel much more intimate than the nights spent under his heavy body.

Sometimes, Sukuna returns home as immaculately looking as he left. His white cloak clean, his beautiful face flawless. But at other times, he comes home covered in dirt and blood from walking over a battlefield or through a slaughtered city.

On those days, you help him shrug out of his stained clothes and then lead him to the large bath, where you join him in the hot water to wash the blood and dirt off his muscles.

It is something he demanded from you.

"Why should I wash myself when I have a perfect little bride to do that. Isn't it your duty to serve me? Now take off your clothes and join me in the bath."

At first, it took all your bravery to slip out of your clothes in front of his wolfish gaze and smug grin. But now, it is no cause for shame or discomfort anymore. You are used to being naked in front of Sukuna. Used to getting claimed fully by him.

But it's not just that, you realize as you slip into the hot water and walk towards your husband.

By now, you feel a certain pride in this. Sukuna is Death. He is a God. A being that seems untouchable with all the power he holds. But you are allowed to touch him. You are allowed to invade his personal space.

There is something so intimate about straddling his lap here in the hot water, naked skin on skin, as you cup his beautiful face with one hand and use a washcloth to wipe the blood off his skin and wash his hair. A certain bond blossoms between the two of you when his muscular arms encircle you, and his red eyes watch you intently, glittering like two rubies in the flickering candlelight while he lets you take care of him. There is a certain softness in the way he thanks you for cleaning him despite his former claims that this was your duty to him.

It's during one of those shared baths when Sukuna kisses you for the first time.

He has claimed you almost every night, had you under him or in front of him, or made you be on top and sit on his large, heavy cock while he lifted you up and down and rolled his hips to thrust deeply into you. He made you bury your nose in his pink pubic hair while he used your mouth for his pleasure, made you choke on his copious amounts of seed, or sneered when he pulled out in time to shoot it all over your face and naked breasts.

He claimed you in every way a man can claim a woman. But he never kissed you.

In all the months you have been here by his side, Sukuna never kissed you until this afternoon here in the large bath where you sit on his lap and wash the blood off his face.

Your face is barely inches from his as you scrub at the dried blood on his right cheek when you feel one of his large hands trail up your back slowly. A caress that feels too gentle for a being like him. Your eyes flicker to his, and you see him watching you intently with an unreadable expression in those glowing red eyes.

Before you can go back to scrubbing at the blood on his cheeks, you feel his large hand cup the back of your head and pull you closer.

Your eyes widen when Sukuna's lips touch yours. They are surprisingly soft. His kiss is slow at first, lips barely moving against yours. But it grows more passionate quickly. His large hand tightens its hold on your hair, his mouth opens against yours, and his velvety tongue licks over your lips before pushing between them.

You shudder, not able to tell if it is from fear or pleasure. But your eyes fall shut, and your hand drops the washcloth. Your arms link behind Sukuna's broad neck. You open your mouth willingly for him, letting him in further, licking against his tongue experimentally, surprised at the heat that it makes throb in your core.

A soft growl is heard, and you can't tell if it's coming from you or Sukuna. But you know that his arms tighten around you and that you press your naked breasts against his muscular chest as you push your tongue eagerly against his, caressing it with a hunger that you didn't know you possessed.

You feel an all too familiar hardness growing beneath you, but instead of dreading it, you press against it eagerly, allowing yourself to fall into those hot, red feelings of desire and need. Allowing yourself to dive into those stormy waves of carnal pleasure, embracing the comfort and freedom it offers you.

This time you shudder in pleasure when Sukuna's thick cock pushes into you. This time, you gasp needily when his large hands knead your flesh, and his nails dig into your skin as he lifts you up and down on his throbbing hardness. This time, you meet the snaps of his hips eagerly, taking him deeper, making the act faster and more passionate as you ride him shamelessly until you are both grunting and gasping loudly, and the warm water splashes out of the large tub anytime your bodies connect in those passionate and frenzied moves. Both of you cry out loudly when your pleasure reaches its peak at the same time.

When Sukuna is at home, you can almost believe you are living a normal life in the mortal world. Of course, a life very different from your former one. A life as a princess, maybe, or a queen, who is living in a castle, wrapped in luxuries, with nothing to do except improve your newly acquired reading skills and help your loyal servant prepare decadent meals that you eat with your husband before he leads you to your opulent bed chamber where you both read and share the occasional laugh about an amusing passage in a book until your low moans fill the room while your lips and bodies meet in a passionate union.

You almost succeed in pretending that you are still alive.

Almost.

But then Sukuna leaves the temple to fulfill his duty as Death, and you become too aware again that the windows are only enchanted to show day and night and a blurry landscape instead of the eternal night and the nothingness surrounding Sukuna's temple.

And that's when you feel the unsettling presence of the complete silence choking you again. That's when you feel the absolute absence of life closing in on you again as if the temple walls are moving closer and closer to you.

You can only escape for so long into the fantasy world of the books you are able to read now. And Uraume isn't very helpful with how they seem to avoid you except when dressing you or cooking with you.

You catch yourself humming under your breath to comfort yourself. The humming turns into soft singing. At first, you feel a bit weird about how loud your voice sounds, but soon, you become braver and sing at an average volume, unafraid of how your voice fills the marble rooms of the temple with its clear sound. You are surprised by how many songs you remember. Songs from your childhood, folk songs from your village, popular songs from the big cities you heard performed at the harvest festival every ear.

You get so comfortable with it that you don't think twice about singing, even when Sukuna is at home. You only realize what you are doing when you hear him chuckle softly behind you, and you gasp and stop singing and turn around to see him standing in the open doorway, leaning against the door frame with his muscular arms crossed in front of his broad chest, his white cloak painted with the scarlet pattern of a soul claimed.

He smirks at you,

"Don't let me interrupt you. I am just unfamiliar with such sounds here in my domain. But it sounds lovely. Keep singing for me, my little bird."

You feel intimidated all of a sudden now that his red eyes are watching you, but you swallow down the nervousness and continue singing the song you were in the middle of before Sukuna entered the room. A song as old as your village, kept alive from generation to generation, speaking of the human longing for company, a home, a fire to keep you warm, and a love to comfort you.

Sukuna's gaze is glued to you, a strange emotion flickering over his god-like features. Something akin to longing, you think. Something akin to sadness even. But before you can wonder too much about it, he turns away from you and leaves the room without any further word.

When you wake up the next morning, you can't move. Your eyes fly open in panic, only to realize you are lying draped over your husband's broad, muscular body, your naked skin pressing against his, one thigh thrown over his hip, your head resting on his buff chest. And what made you unable to move are his strong arms that are wrapped tightly around you, holding you in their firm embrace while he is still fast asleep.

Your breathing calms again, and a small smile lifts your lips as you relax against Sukuna's warm body, letting his strong embrace pull you back to sleep.

"Sukuna, look!"

You are walking next to him on the path leading from his throne back to his temple when you spot it. A bright green patch of color in the otherwise dim and monotone landscape of greys and browns.

You hurriedly walk over to it, only to realize that, to your utter astonishment, it seems to be a cherry tree sprout growing bravely out of the seemingly dead ground of this Kingdom of Death.

You lift your head to look at Sukuna, only to find him staring at the tiny sprout bewilderedly.

Before you can ask him what's wrong, he stomps towards the small flower, yanks it out of the earth, and burns it with a swish of his hand, making you take a hurried step back and gasp,

"Why... why did you do this?"

His eyes glow viciously in the dim light when he turns to look at you.

"A flower like that doesn't belong here! This is the land of the dead!"

He stomps away, his white cloak billowing behind him as you can only stare after him with a confused frown.

Why does a little delicate flower bother him so much?

It is later during dinner when you dare ask him again. Sukuna's gaze is stern, his expression filled with a cold rage that makes you gulp fearfully.

"You don't know why I am upset? Then let me tell you, my little bride. Nothing grows here! No life exists here! That is how it always was! But now you are here with your singing and your liveliness, and suddenly, a symbol of renewal and hope grows in the middle of my kingdom! I disturbed the balance! By bringing you here, I disturbed it! You brought life into the realm of Death!"

"B... but that doesn't make sense. I died. I took my own life to follow you here!"

"And yet, you are still so ... so full of life. It's not right!"

You gulp hard, instinctively trying to hide the hurt you feel at his words. You bow to him, muttering,

"Forgive me, my Lord."

"I told you not to call me that."

You don't answer him but just get up from the table and hastily walk deeper inside the temple, fleeing from his words that cut deeper than the dagger that you used to slit your own throat with.

Tears are gathering in your eyes. You cannot bring yourself to care about whether you are allowed to leave the table before Sukuna or not. If he wants, he can punish you later, and you will endure whatever punishment he sees fit.

You wipe angrily at the tears that spill over as you stumble into the library and close the heavy door behind you. Why does it hurt so much? You came here because you agreed to his cruel conditions. You sacrificed yourself to save your sister. It was supposed to be a marriage of convenience. Come here, get wed to Death, and warm his bed. It was something you were supposed to hate. So why does it feel like you are being ripped apart upon feeling like your husband rejects your presence?

You huddle into one of the oversized armchairs, hiding your face behind a random book you grab from the table in a fruitless attempt to distract yourself.

That is where Sukuna finds you later that night.

You lift your head from the open book in your lap when you hear the door opening and see Sukuna's tall, broad figure looming in the open doorway. His red eyes glow devilishly in the dim light of the room.

"Don't run from me, brat."

A sad laugh escapes your lips, and you close the book you couldn't focus on anyway, lifting your head to glare at him.

"I thought you didn't want to have me around. So shouldn't you be glad if I run?"

"I never said that."

"But you think something is wrong with me and that it was a mistake to bring me here."

You hate the way your voice breaks at the end, turning into a teary sob as fresh tears spill over and slowly run down your cheeks. You don't understand yourself anymore. You don't understand why this bothers you so much, why you are so hurt by his words.

You should be glad if he doesn't want to spend time in your presence! You should be glad if he decides to let you go and fall into the nothingness of eternal sleep! You should even be glad if he decides to send you back to the mortal world as a curse that lives in your family's house!

Anything should be better than being forced to live here in his temple and be bound to him! But here you are with an aching heart and tears running down your cheeks because apparently, somehow, during the last months, you grew attached to Sukuna, and somehow, knowing he thinks you don't belong with him makes your heart break in ways you didn't know before.

Sukuna stares at you, a baffled expression on his beautiful face. The silence stretches on, deafening, suffocating, making you ball your hands helplessly into fists.

But then your husband moves. Sukuna marches towards you with large, sure steps, and before you know what is happening, he grabs you and pulls you up from your armchair and against his tall, broad body.

"That's not what I meant. I apologize for my careless words. There is nothing wrong with you. I am just... surprised by what you do to me."

His words make you lift your head to look up at him, blinking against the tears as his large hand cups your cheek.

"I don't understand, Sukuna. What do I do to you?"

His red eyes flicker with an array of emotions. Regret, pain, longing. He looks so strangely human right now. As if he isn't an almighty God who reigns over this Kingdom of Death and has the final say in the fate of every soul who comes here.

His voice is soft like a caress, low and velvety, but filled with a sadness that surprises you.

"Don't you see? You made a flower of life grow in the depths of the afterlife. When you sing and laugh and hug me with that warm, soft body, there is so much life everywhere around me. I am Death. I am used to being alone. I am used to numbness, to silence, to nothingness. It is part of my punishment. But now you are here, and you fill everything with colors and sounds and warmth. You are a source of light in this eternal darkness. And it... it unsettled me when I saw the extent of your power."

You blink at him in utter astonishment.

"But Sukuna... you are Death. How could you be unsettled by anything? What effect can someone like me even have on you? What power could I ever hold?"

He huffs softly, a sound that reverberates in his broad chest.

"I have existed as Death for eons. And it was always an existence in solitude. It's the irony of being me. Death belongs to life. It is inevitable. And yet, everyone who lives chooses to ignore it. They push it away, they demonize it, they make a taboo of it. I was always just a fearful whisper. I am something the mortals try to pretend doesn't exist until their last moments, when all hope is lost. Their delusion is so strong that I can walk through the middle of a crowded city filled with mortals, and no one will notice me. That's how much they banished me from their existence. I am invisible to them. They can see me only in the moments right before they die."

He stops momentarily as if to let his words sink in while his gleaming red eyes gaze deeply into yours. Something about what he said makes no sense. You frown.

"But... But I.."

"But you saw me. Yes, I know. You weren't supposed to be able to see me. But you did. Do you begin to see what I mean? You talked to me, and I was greatly amused by it but, at the same time, utterly fascinated. Do you think I go around randomly making deals with people? So many beg me in their last moments, but I always ignore their pleas. But you were different. You weren't standing on the threshold between life and death, but you still saw me. That's why I offered a deal to you. I was curious. But I wasn't prepared for what you would do to me. I wasn't prepared for what it would do with me when you talk to me and eat with me and bathe with me or when you kiss me and lay with me and find pleasure in it. I wasn't prepared for what it means to be seen by someone."

Sukuna's thumb brushes gently over your cheek, wiping your tears away while his red eyes gaze deeply into yours. He is a God, yet he is so human now. His words make your chest feel tight, and more tears well up in your eyes. But this time they aren't for you. Those tears are for him. 

You realize that you are pressing your body tightly against him, wrapping your arms around him, and holding him. Hugging Death and looking at him with a gaze full of compassion.

"And I will keep seeing you, Sukuna. You aren't just a shadow. You are very real, and you aren't unspeakable or evil."

This makes him raise an eyebrow, his red gaze burning into yours.

"You don't think Death is evil? If you could, wouldn't you bring an end to it? Isn't that the ultimate goal mortals want to achieve? To defeat Death?"

You gulp hard but shake your head, refusing to avert your gaze but instead looking deeply into Sukuna's gleaming red eyes.

"No. You have a right to exist. Death belongs to this world just like life does. Why would anyone value their life if they knew it was everlasting? Many things are so much more special because of their fleeting nature. Your position brings a certain beauty to the world, a certain urgency, that wouldn't be there otherwise. Death can be cruel and unfair. But it belongs to this world. There could be no real value of life without you."

Surprise flickers over his face before it gives way to a pleased expression.

"I knew from the start that you are brave. And maybe fate sent you here to conquer Death after all. You definitely have conquered me."

A smile lifts his lips, so beautiful and flawless that it's not hard to believe that he once was an angel. Red eyes as beautiful as jewels glitter in the soft glow of the candlelight, making your heart flutter.

You look up at Sukuna, reaching out to touch his cheek too. He is so much bigger than you. Tall and broad. Death is standing in front of you, powerful and merciless, and yet you feel no fear anymore. His red eyes are soft when they look at you. His large hand is gentle when it cups your cheek. His voice is full of tenderness when he asks,

"Will you sing for me again?"

You smile at him and nod gently.

He picks you up and carries you to the bedroom, his lips finding yours several times on the way while your small hands cup his beautiful face, and you kiss him back eagerly.

You sing for him again when you are in bed, and he lies beside you, his hand playing with your hair. You sing even while he undresses you, parting your robe and exposing your naked breasts to him. Your chest heaves, and your voice flutters, but you keep singing even while Sukuna cups one of your breasts with his large hand and squeezes it gently, his thumb brushing over your sensitive nipple.

You keep singing, only interrupted by short, breathy gasps when his hand travels down further and slips between your naked legs. He is so loving tonight. His touch is tender, his large hands surprisingly gentle. Long, strong fingers caress you in a way that makes your whole body fill with heat. He isn't taking from you tonight. He is giving to you.

And you fall apart under his tender touch, spreading your legs for him shamelessly, lifting your hips to press your naked cunt against his hand, letting him feel how wet you are for him and how much you long for his touch.

You only stop singing when you can't form coherent words anymore, and your song turns into needy sobs and loud moans. Your hips buck, and you whine when Sukuna's fingers spread your creamy wetness over your folds and over your pulsing nub that he caresses slowly.

He keeps touching you, keeps caressing that little bundle of nerves that sends shocks of desire through your body, almost overwhelming in its intensity. 

Loud gasps of Sukuna's name fall from your lips. The heat and pressure become so intense that you think you can't take it anymore. Your tiny hand's claw at his large one between your legs.

But Sukuna is unrelenting,

"No, let me. Let your husband take care of his beautiful bride."

A loud, raw scream falls from your lips as the pleasure crashes over you in hot, unrelenting waves, and your body arches up, thighs twitching as your swollen nub pulses hotly against Sukuna's large, firm fingers. He keeps rubbing it, slow but firm, and you feel hot wetness gush out of you and over his hand while you scream his name and twitch helplessly in his arms.

He is breathing heavily, his red eyes gleaming as he watches you intently. 

"So beautiful for me, my sweet bride."

He pulls his hand away, but only to push your thighs wide apart, exposing your naked, wet heat to his hungry gaze. And his face gets pressed against your soppy cunt, mouth licking up your wet mess. Your hands tangle in his pink hair, tugging on it, crying out as your head falls back on the pillow when your husband pushes his tongue into you and licks and kisses you.

You fall apart for Sukuna that night on his fingers and on his tongue. And when he finally takes you with his cock, it is slow and intense. He faces you this time, kneeling between your spread legs and capturing your lips in a kiss when he sinks down on you and claims you with his thick cock.

He is everything you see and feel, tall and big, a mountain of muscles, and a cock that fills you so completely. He takes you with slow, strong thrusts that make you clutch his muscular back and moan his name while you chase peak after peak of blinding pleasure until you are so exhausted that you fall asleep right there in Sukuna's strong arms while his low voice whispers to you,

"You sing the most beautiful songs for me, my little bird."

"Mortals always say they will love each other until death do them part. What do you think that means for us?"

Sukuna's lips are lifted in an amused grin as he asks you the question.

He is lying next to you, his beautiful naked body laid out for your admiring gaze on top of the dark red silk sheets. His chin is probed up lazily on one large hand as he watches you, letting his gleaming red gaze trail slowly over your equally naked body.

You smile at him, reaching out to run a hand down his muscular arm, tracing his biceps and the black bands around them with your fingertips before they wander to his broad chest. You let your small hand rest there, fingers sprawling over his firm muscles, right where his heart would beat if he were a living being.

"I would say this means nothing and no one can do us part. It means our love will last until the end of time, just like Death will."

Sukuna's large hand lands on top of yours, covering your hand completely under his. He sounds pleased when he murmurs in his low voice,

"My bride is not only brave but also smart."

You laugh softly at his words before you lift your head to look deeply into his eyes.

"Sukuna?"

"Yes, my love?"

"You told me I could sit on a throne next to yours if I like."

His red eyes glitter in the firelight as he cocks his head curiously, a small smug grin lifting the corners of his mouth.

"Yes, I did."

"Is that what you want?"

"It is your choice, but yes, I would like it if you sat next to me."

"Then I will do so."

There is respect in Sukuna's gaze when he gives you a nod to signal that he will set things in motion.

You know this is where you belong. By Sukuna's side.

One day, you will see your mother and your sisters standing in front of your husband's throne of skulls, but you don't fear for their souls. You will sit next to Sukuna when it happens and guide them to eternal peace, where they can finally rest free of all pain and worries.

You are Death's Bride.

You kiss him gently farewell before he leaves for the mortal world to reap the souls of the dying. You greet him with a smile when he returns, hugging him tightly and helping him out of his coat. You wash the blood off him, you kiss him, you talk to him. You fill his dark kingdom with light, just like he said.

And he lets you.

He even laughs softly when another little green sprout fights its way through the rotten soil next to the sea of blood.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!!! I didn't think this story would get so long, but once I started working on it, I got dragged into Sukuna's world and didn't want to leave again. The power he has over me!!

I hope you enjoyed this story!! Please let me know what you think. Comments and reblogs would be very sweet!!

This is the last story for my Halloween Event 2023! I am so happy that I could write all the stories I wanted! Thank you so much to everyone who read a story (or maybe several) of this event!!

[strang3lov3]

The Real Deal

Frankie uses his tongue to demonstrate why he’s less than impressed with your rose toy. (3.7k)

Tags - 18+ smut, oral sex (f receiving) , sex toys, kissing, nipple stimulation, me popping my Frankie cherry so forgive me for being a little shaky on this. I wrote him to be a little smug and cocky pussy eating expert, but i think he's quite nice also. Fic help - @noxturnalpascal and @endlessthxxghts thank you for your editing, your Frankie guidance, and your endless encouragement, and also @beefrobeefcal I wasn’t supposed to ask you for help on the fic I wrote for you but I did anyway and you were gracious as always. I love you. A/N - as mentioned above, this is my first time writing Frankie so please give me some grace. And it's also rather indulgent despite it being a late birthday gift for @beefrobeefcal, I love you forever and I hope I do Frankie justice for you my beautiful, sweet, generous, thoughtful, caring, intelligent, and wonderful friend. I'm lucky to have you 🩷

The smell of your bedroom comforts you as you take your bra off and hang it on the doorknob. There’s nothing more satisfying than that at the end of a long day. You also remove your pants and panties, swapping them out for a comfortable pair of pajama shorts. You’ve just gotten off of work, it’s Friday night, and you have a date with your phone. 

You lay in your unmade bed in a spot that’s already warmed for you, probably by your cat, Dr. Waffles. You must have spooked him when you entered your apartment. The first app you open is UberEats, and you know exactly what you want: a tuna poke bowl from Cactus Club. You’re about to pay when the app alerts you that your wait time will be about an hour and a half. Fuck. You buy it anyway and open Tumblr, because you know exactly how you’ll kill time. 

You got an alert earlier that one of your favorite writers updated her series Devotion, a story about Joel from The Last of Us where Joel acts as a cult leader. It’s such a hot and thrilling story. You also saw that the writer of the series put in her author’s note that this chapter gets smutty, that Joel will go down on the main character. It’s addled your brain all day, the thought of getting it on with Cult Leader Joel.

You read through the story and as things between the characters begin to get heated, so do you. The writer describes the way Joel eats pussy with such detail that you can almost feel it, can almost hear the noises he makes and the way he dirty talks. You’ve been absentmindedly playing with your clit, feeling your arousal grow as you read on, but you decide to switch masturbation methods as you have just the tool for the occasion - your trusty rose toy. One of your best friends, Kiki, gifted it to you last year after she caught you reading smut on your phone. She said the sex toy shop was having a buy one, get one free deal and she knew just the friend to share the sweet deal with. 

The toy seemed gimmicky when you went home and opened it, what with that almost cartoonish-looking tongue right in the center of the petals. And it smelled strongly of isopropyl alcohol. But for shits and giggles, you washed it and charged it anyway and that night with the silicone rose between your thighs, your life was changed. That little tongue worked magic on your clit and had you coming more times than you could count, endless orgasms that had you seeing stars. 

With your phone in your left hand, you can’t peel your eyes away from the screen as you reach for the drawer of your nightstand. With your hand on the knob, you pull the drawer  but it doesn’t open. Odd. You tug the drawer again, and then again, and then you’re turning on your side to really yank that goddamn drawer. Each time you pull, you rock the nightstand against the wall, no doubt denting it but you don’t give a shit. Waffles made sure you’re not getting your security deposit back anyway, that much is evident in the shredded carpets and scratched up door frames.

A pounding at your door has you stopping what you’re doing. “I know, I’m coming,” you say, more to yourself than whoever’s slamming on your door at the ungodly hour of 7pm. You open the door to one annoyed Frankie Morales glaring at you with his arms crossed. 

Frankie’s your criminally handsome next door neighbor who lives in the apartment to the left of you. All it took from him was one look at his sparkly, chocolatey brown eyes, his aquiline nose, and those curls peeking out from under his baseball cap and you knew you were in trouble. 

 You moved into the complex shortly after he did a couple of years ago, and Frankie took pity on you when he saw your brother leave halfway through the job. Frankie, already sore from moving all of his furniture just two days prior, decided to help you move in the rest of your stuff. The next day after grocery shopping, you made him a lasagna and a pan of brownies to thank him for his generosity, and thus began a system of sorts. Frankie enjoyed your food thoroughly, and you enjoyed having someone to share meals with, especially since you never could get the hang of cooking for just one. So you’d make dinner and share it with him a couple of nights every week, and in turn Frankie would take care of the maintenance in your apartment so your landlord wouldn’t find out about Waffles, the cat you’re not supposed to have. Frankie quickly became one of your best friends.

“Hi, Frankie,” you said. “Can I help you?”

“Hi, sweetheart. Yes, you can help by telling me what your reason is for beating the shit out of that wall we share,” he says. “What are you even doing?”

“Sorry, the drawer to my nightstand was stuck and I was trying to open it,” you stated. 

“Did you get it?”

“Did I get what?”

“Did you get the door open,” he clarifies. 

“No,” you answer. 

“So if I leave, are you gonna keep banging on the wall?” Frankie asks. You shrug. “That’s a yes,” he says. “Would you like me to help you open it?”

“Oh, you don’t have to—”

“I insist. Need to sleep, I got an early morning.” 

You open the door wider to let Frankie inside. Waffles makes his appearance at that moment and meows at Frankie. “Yeah, yeah,” he says to the cat. “Hello to you too, pancake.”

“Waffles,” you correct. “That’s such a dumb joke.”

Frankie snickers, “Funny to me,” he smirks. 

You lead him to your bedroom and point at the nightstand. “That one,” you tell him. It’s an old nightstand, and it might’ve been nice at one point, but it was handed down to you by your brother who no doubt absolutely wrecked the poor piece of furniture. It’s a little crooked now, and the drawer’s tracks are bent so it never opens and closes nicely. 

Frankie tries opening the drawer but struggles just as you did. You don’t mind though, because from where you’re standing, you’ve got a perfect view of his ass that’s definitely filled out some since you began feeding the man. “You weren’t lying. Damn thing really is fucking stuck, huh?” Frankie grunts as he tries wriggling it open again, “What’s even in here that you need so urgently anyway?”

Oh, fuck. You didn’t even think about that, that he’d be seeing your rose toy and only your rose toy in that drawer. “Umm,” you think, “My phone charger.” Which is a dumb lie, because right next to Frankie is the outlet your charger is plugged into. Quietly, you pull it out and toss it under your bed so he doesn’t see. 

“It’s really jammed,” Frankie says. “Fuck.”

“I know, just be careful, please,” you tell him. “You don’t need to open it all the way. Actually, you don’t even have to open it at all, if it’s too much.”

That was the wrong thing to say to deter Frankie from opening your drawer. He’s got quite the competitive streak in him, so your comment only fuels him to pull the drawer harder. He pulls the nightstand away from the wall and gives it one good and strong tug and the drawer flies open, and with it your rose toy, right into Frankie. He catches it with ease, and you could die right then and there. 

“I know what this is,” Frankie murmurs quietly, turning around to face you. “So that’s your treasure chest, huh?”

With your face and your neck on fire, you try to swipe the toy out of Frankie’s hand but he pulls it out of reach. “Frankie, give it,” you snap. 

“No, no,” he smiles. “I gotta see this thing.”

Frankie swats you away as you try to take the toy back from him. He uses one hand and fumbles with it until it whizzes to life, the tongue flicking up and down in his hand. “Oh, wow,” he says. “Quite the motor in this baby.” Frankie holds the toy away from you as you try and try to grab it from him, but his grip is too strong. Finally, you give up and let him entertain himself with the thing. It’ll be an uncomfortable five minutes, but it’ll be over eventually. He’ll lose interest, just like a toddler.

You sit on the bed and Frankie sits next to you as he messes with the toy. He hums as he holds the flicking tongue against the palm of his hand. “This can’t be fun,” he comments. “But if it works for you, who am I to judge?”

“It is fun,” you defend. “It…yeah. It’s fun.” 

“But it’s so cold. And stiff,” Frankie argues. “No finesse, either.”

His comment has you intrigued, “Frankie, what do you mean, ‘no finesse’?”

“Well, look here,” Frankie shows you the toy, “Look at the tongue. It just goes up and down. It’s mechanical, you know? There’s no fluidity,” he explains. “And it sounds like those tools they use on you at the dentist’s office.” 

“Oh.”

“But, you know. If you’re happy with it, then more power to ya, I guess.” You nod as you take in the words Frankie speaks, staring at that whirring toy in his big hands your mind starts to wander. “Are you happy with it?” he asks.

“Yeah, I guess,” you reply. “It’s fine.”

“Fine, huh? How’s it compare?” 

“Compare to what?”

“You know,” Frankie says. “The real deal.” 

“Well, I don’t really receive ‘the real deal’,” you admit quietly. “So…”

“Ohhh. I get it. No frame of reference, then,” Frankie replies. A beat passes as he shuts off the toy. “Would you like the real deal?”

“Yeah, of course. I mean, who wouldn’t. But–”

Frankie interrupts, “No, I’m askin’ you. Right now, would you like the real deal? Feel what it’s supposed to feel like from a real man?” 

You understand what Frankie’s asking now. Your mouth drops open and you feel that exciting sort of lurch in your stomach.

“Feel a real man, with real lips, a real tongue. Real hands. We’ll broaden your horizons. What do you say?”

It almost doesn’t feel real. You laugh, uncomfortably, but Frankie looks at you with all seriousness. You can’t believe you’re gonna say yes. Of course you’re gonna say yes. Looking at Frankie, you nod quickly.  

“Words, baby,” he says. “How about a yes?”

It’s the way he calls you baby, with no hesitation. “Yes. Yes, definitely. I need that.”

“Need, huh? Poor thing,” Frankie places the toy on your nightstand and moves up your bed, inviting you to join him. He notices your shaky legs as you crawl to meet him, your movements unsure. “Relax,” he whispers, smiling at you. “Relax.” You nod and your nerves ignite as Frankie touches you, his big hand holding your face. “I’m just gonna kiss you. That’s all for now.”

“Okay.”

And then he does. He kisses you gently at first, taking mental notes of how you react. You’re rigid at first, but he just kisses you. Nothing more, nothing less. When he feels your muscles relax and you let go a little bit, let yourself fall back and relax into your bed, Frankie takes initiative and kisses you deeper. He smiles when you moan quietly into his mouth, then kisses down your jaw and your neck. “Your toy can’t kiss you like I can, huh?”

“No, Frankie,” you sigh. 

“So that’s another point Frankie, then,” he mumbles against your skin. You’d roll your eyes if you weren’t enjoying yourself so much. “May I lift your shirt?”

“Mhm,” you nod, loving the way he asks permission. Frankie pushes the fabric up your chest and he wears a smirk on his face, and he’s got a certain sparkle to his dark eyes as he takes in your body, all of your soft, creamy flesh, your pebbled nipples. “And actually,” he says, reaching for your rose toy and turning it back on. “Since we’re comparing - experimenting, really, we should test both variables. Scientific method and all that.” 

“This doesn’t feel very scientific,” you tell him, giggling as you speak. 

“Sure it is, I’m a professional at this. Been studying for years. Watch - Do you prefer…” Frankie begins, he brings the toy to one of your nipples and lets the tongue flick back and forth over it. “One…” he whispers, though you can hardly hear him over your own gasps and moans. “Or two?” he licks the nipple not being teased by your toy, first swirling his tongue in circles around your areola and then gently sucks the sensitive skin. Your noises are music to his ears as your moans become louder. 

“Two,” you answer, “Two.” 

“You know why that is?” he asks, moving to lick and tease your other nipple. “Because your toy can’t go in circles, can’t suck. Can’t really tease you , either. Can’t do most of the things you’re supposed to do to a pair of tits as pretty as yours, sweetheart.” Frankie watches your reaction to his words, smirking as your cheeks heat up and you turn your face from him. “It’s true. You’re beautiful.” 

After a few more moments of Frankie kissing and licking your nipples, he presses sloppy, open-mouthed kisses down your torso, over your tummy. “Would you lift those hips for me, sweetheart?”

You lift your hips like he asks and Frankie hooks his fingers under the waistband of your shorts and pulls them down your legs. His hand brushes over a damp spot of the fabric, and he rubs his thumb over it, admiring. “Good god, you made a mess. This all for me? Just from a little kissing?”

You nod bashfully, unsure of what to say to him. Frankie doesn’t mind, he knows that this is the part where a woman is likely to feel a little shy, vulnerable. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s working with here with you, whether you’ve received head before or not. Maybe you have, but it’s been a long time. Or maybe it was bad. He thinks about your answer to one of his questions, how you told him you’re not really receiving ‘the real deal’ and he doesn’t need to know why, he just needs to change that and eat you like his life depends on it.

Eating pussy is Frankie’s passion. Nothing compares to it, being buried in that soft, warm, wet space between a woman’s thighs. Simultaneously, it makes him feel both submissive and powerful. He loves the way some become shy when he eats them, he loves the way others shove his face between their legs. He loves the feeling of having his hair pulled as he licks, when thighs squeeze his head and he has to ease them back open. He loves the way her whole body quivers when she comes, he loves the taste, the smell, the feel and the intimacy of it all. 

Frankie places both hands on your knees and spreads your legs wide so he has space for himself between them. He begins by kissing your inner thighs, the wiry hairs of his patchy, graying beard and his mustache tickle you. “We’re gonna compare again. Are you ready, beautiful?”

“Yes,” you answer. “I’m ready.” 

Frankie brings the rose to your core and allows it to do its thing. He chuckles as you reach for his hand and adjust the way he holds the toy against your pussy to your needs. “Gotta hold it like that, huh?”

“Yeah, like that.” 

“Duly noted.” 

Frankie rests the side of his head against one of your thighs and watches you as the toy works its magic. You’re moaning nicely, but he’ll make you moan louder. He loves the way your brows knit together, he loves the steady rise and fall of your chest with your panting breaths. 

It feels so foreign, having Frankie hold the toy instead of your own hands. It still feels good, though. You rock your hips into it, chasing your quickly building orgasm. 

And then Frankie shuts it off. “Frankie,” you whine. “You–”

“I know, I know. You were having so much fun. But I’ve got a fucking bone to pick.” 

“What?” 

“Your toy’s blocking the view. I don’t wanna see that, I wanna see you.” 

Frankie tosses the toy to the side of the bed and once more spreads your legs wide. He admires your pussy, the glistening wetness dripping from your hole, the ribbons of creamy arousal on your folds. And your bush, he loves the dampened curls framing your beautiful cunt. “Such a pretty pussy,” he praises. “You gonna let me show you what you’ve been missing?”      

“Please, Frankie,” you beg. “I want that.”  

“You’re so sweet t’me,” he whispers. Frankie situates himself, adjusts your hips into position. He licks one long stripe up your seam, slowly and with a flat tongue, from the bottom all the way to the top. 

“Frankie,” you moan. “Oh, fuck.”           

“Oh, I know,” Frankie coos. “That felt good, didn’t it? That piece of plastic can’t lick you like that, can it?” 

“No,” you agree. “Again, Frankie, please.”

“It’d be my pleasure, sweetheart.” 

He licks another long stripe up you, then down. He focuses on just tasting you, getting you used to the feeling of his tongue in your folds. “Your toy doesn’t go in circles down here either, that's what the tongue is supposed to do.” Frankie demonstrates this by drawing circles around your clit with the tip of his tongue, first clockwise, then counter clockwise. Interestingly, your loudening moans indicate you prefer counter clockwise. Frankie takes note of this, files it away in his head. 

“And it doesn’t suck your clit,” he adds, “Like this –” he wraps his lips around your clit and sucks it between them, causing your legs to clamp around his head, just like he loves. And though he loves it, that uncontrollable, mindless reflex, he whispers to you, “Nuh-uh, sweetheart. You spread those legs nice and wide. That’s it, good girl.” 

It’s such an intense feeling, your clit between his lips and the pressure of his mouth sucking. He switches back to gentle but consistent licks on the sensitive part of you. “And you can correct me if I’m wrong, but you can’t really finger yourself while usin’ your toy, can you?” 

“Haven’t - haven’t tried, I don’t think - fuck, Frankie - I don’t –”

“Mm. I understand.”

Frankie pulls away from you and dips two fingers into your cunt, pumping them in and out for a moment before he curls them rhythmically inside you. He finds that special, sensitive spot that intensifies all of it and moves his mouth to your clit yet again. 

He eats you ravenously, losing himself in your pussy yet manages to maintain focus on you. He feels you coming close, that slow build of your orgasm quickening in time, and he wants to drag it out. “The other thing –” he begins, “About your little toy. It takes all the hard work away, makes it less satisfying for us both, don’t you think?” he says in between pleasuring you with his tongue and his fingers. “Takes all the fun away.”

Frankie reaches for your clit with his free hand and pulls your hood back. He flicks his tongue over you and you respond to the intensified feeling by reaching for his head, tugging his soft curls between your fingers. “Frankie, oh my god. Frankie,” you cry. 

“Listen to yourself,” he says. “You moan so pretty when I’m tasting you, don’t you think?”

It’s unclear whether Frankie expects you to answer his question or not, but you do in your own way, with his name falling from your lips in broken syllables. Your orgasm builds slowly, more intensely, in a more gratifying way than you’ve ever felt. You don’t just feel it in your core, between your thighs, but you feel it in your tummy and the bottom of your spine, the backs of your thighs and all down your legs. You come with a melody of curses and praises as pleasure washes over you in seemingly never ending waves, Frankie using his tongue to fuck you through it until the very end, when you’re shuddering and your body is twitching.

You’ve never seen such a cocky, satisfied smile before. When you open your eyes, Frankie’s smirking between your thighs, absolutely pleased with himself as he sucks his fingers clean. “So what’s the verdict?”

You smile and roll your eyes. “You know what the verdict is.”

“Mhm. I do, but I gotta hear you say it anyway.”

“It’s you,” you mumble, a grin on your lips. “You win.”

Frankie beams proudly, and the moment passes quickly. It ends with a knock on your door as your UberEats is delivered. “Who’s that?” Frankie asks. 

“Dinner,” you answer. You sit up in bed and find your pajama shorts, put them on and leave your bedroom to get your food. Frankie follows you as you open your front door and bend over to get your order. You put the bag in your fridge. 

“You’re not gonna eat?”

“I need to return the favor,” you tell him. “It’s your turn.”

“I’m flattered, but what you need to do is eat, my darling. Enjoy your meal. I enjoyed mine.” You roll your eyes at the way Frankie winks at you. “We can worry about returning the favor later,” he presses a chaste kiss to your lips, your taste and smell lingers on his skin and in his mustache. You hum in surprise. “You taste that? Tastes good, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you murmur.

“Tastes good to me too. Nice reminder of what we were just doing, hm? You looked so pretty underneath me.” Frankie kisses you again, “Goodnight, sweetheart,” he says, and with that, he leaves. 

If you enjoyed, please tell me so 🩷 reblogs, comments, and asks are so appreciated and keep me motivated to write

THIS IS WAFFLES! @beefrobeefcal’s cat!! One of them at least. I love this guy. Mr President. He’s the mayor

[tiredsmashbros]

LIP BITE COMIC PART ONE {CLICK HERE}

GOOD GOD IT'S FINALLY DONE... maybe. even though i still plan on making a part 3 i'm going to take a fatass break first + plan it out more better in the future. for now enjoy this meal silly goobers

aight now for some quick behind the scenes lore: this took way longer than i was expecting with 17 PAGES in total while taking the opportunity to experiment this type of sketch + comic style. i have a BAD habit of starting a story with just a minor draft idea, and with the more i progress the more i start changing the plot. like- this was supposed to end with smg4 in the bathroom embarrassed but i didn't like it anymore + the scene of smg3 opening the pickle jar was rewritten to fit a better narrative. i have a difficulty elaborating a short story so i might do mini comics for now as practice. furthermore, i tend to get wAY into making sure the character's are accurate as possible to the original material. been doing my best to get out of that strict mindset and just enjoy it being fun and remind myself it's okay to break some cracks. doesn't need to be perfect after all ;^)

other than that, i want to sincerely thank everyone for supporting and enjoying the first part of this silly comic. never have i ever received such a positive response that not only has scared the shit out of me, but motivated me to make more for me as a person, artist, and for everyone in the smg4 community. genuinely has made me so happy this past month and i can't explain how much i am so excited to just start drawing these guys and everyone else in the cast + other fun stuff!! 💛

now i'm going to play wuwa and hide for a day bye bye :3c

[homunculus-argument]

This is one of those ideas that someone's probably already done, but I came up with another concept for a game:

A game where most of the cutscenes are flashbacks of memories the protagonist has, and the "skip cutscene" button says "repress this memory". You can play through the whole game while skipping all of the cutscenes, you don't need to watch any of them to complete the main storyline and get the main intended ending.

But watching through them doesn't just give you a more thorough - and occasionally, even completely different - understanding of the whole game, and information that makes you see certain characters in a different light, but it unocks new options in the game. You watch through the cutscene flashback of the protagonist's mother doing something fucked up, and suddenly all your conversations with her now have the dialogue option to go "hey mom remember when [the fucked up thing] happened?"

This particular conversation branch doesn't seem to lead anywhere, she'll flat-out deny that the thing ever happened, and she calls you crazy for having ever imagined that, but later on you can stumble upon something else that you clearly saw in the flashback, that you couldn't have found out any other way. It's one thing to wonder why you would remember something that never happened, but how would you have known that this passageway was here, and opens exactly the same way you remembered it?

There are passages in the game that aren't required for the completion of the main storyline, that aren't blocked off by anything visible and obvious, but have text like "you cannot go through this way, this hallway is too noisy", and it takes a completely unrelated flashback for you to recognise what that specific sound reminds you of, which opens up a whole sidequest of you figuring out why you can't stand hearing that noise. Once you've made the connections and finally remember, you can go through the hallway. There's nothing on the other side that you need for the main quest, but things that may help unlock some other mysteries.

The main game is simple and straightforward, you can just play through that one and be done with it. But that's not the whole picture, the full story. There are answers peppered thorough the whole game, answers to questions you might not even think of to ask. Explanations of why the protagonist is the way they are, and things that make you see characters you interact with - and your interactions with them - in a completely different light. Most of the relevations are grim. The only question to ask yourself is

Do you want to remember?