#unutterable name…

[patolemus]

when people tell me sterek isn't real i'll just show them this

Erika Meitner, from “Staking a Claim”, Copia

[lazarusweptt]

@ofchaoticminds & @ofuntamedhearts

[daosies]

a moment in a bottle

Neuvillette wishes he could preserve this moment forever: the aquarium; the blue light; you.

(Everyone knows that Neuvillette adores you. Except for you, of course.)

(additional, more helpful description: u & neuvillette go on an aquarium date and he pines after you like a fool)

modern, college!au

NEUVILLETTE ♡ GN!READER

@2024gisecretsanta gift for @aquatik !! ♡ i hope you enjoy this piece, and happy holidays!!!

it was so fun to participate in this event ^^ thank u to the hosts and everyone involved for making this so special!!

Neuvillette has always noticed you. 

But he notices a lot of things; like the musk of the earth after it rains, like the light that dapples the campus sidewalk, seeping in between the gaps of the leaves. Neuvillette notices a lot of things, some more than others—he muses, nearly tripping over an uneven slab of the concrete floor, periwinkle eyes fixated on nothing but—

You, similarly to him, are stumbling through the crowd. You, unlike him, are entranced in your own world, eyes darting to and fro, searching amongst the sea of people while he has only ever searched for you. There are too many people in this world, Neuvillette thinks, for him to notice every one. So he notices only one. He notices—

You return his gaze (and Neuvillette feels something shiver in his chest), your lips tugging into a smile (and Neuvillette thinks the sun has shifted, that the sun has reworked itself, tunnelling all its light towards you), your figure suddenly coming closer (and Neuvillette thinks that there is nothing left; he is complete; he is yours absolutely and that is enough). 

You return his gaze. You look at him! Oh, you see him! Neuvillette thinks, This is it, this must be it. This—this… 

(What is it? Neuvillette is no longer capable of thought. He is no longer sentient. He looks at you, and something slams against his ribs: this-is this-is this-is…)

“Neuvillette! I was looking for you!” you exclaim, your voice occupying his mind for much longer than it does the air. Your voice—its unfathomable timbre, its incomparable and fantastical sound! It’s enough, it’s enough!

Neuvillette opens his mouth to respond. There’s a word. He feels himself about to vomit. He feels it: the rush, the suffocation, the gag and the swallow and before he can utter it into existence he clamps his lips shut. There’s a word—or maybe three, or maybe there is no word, nothing in verbal language that is enough to liken your unutterable radiance. 

(What is it? The three words? The rush, the suffocation, the gag and the breathlessness? Neuvillette feels it sinking down his throat, ebbing, reduced from a violent blare to nothing more than a whisper, it goes…)

“[Name],” Neuvillette acknowledges. Maybe, that is enough. “May I ask why?”

Why are you looking for him? Why are you searching for him? Neuvillette wants to hear you say it for himself, to hear the words—which are, after all, nothing more than words—in your fantastical and wonderful timbre. He wants to hear you speak his name—which is just a word, which is just his surname—to feel the revelation, the awakening, the surge! 

“Just because,”—you say, and maybe that’s enough—”I was wondering if you had any plans over the weekend?”

Neuvillette blinks, astonished. Your smile is unwavering, your eyes—your eyes! Neuvillette briefly looks away. The image remains with him still; the color, the glint, the fraction of the sun that is vested within your soul. Neuvillette looks at you, your image devoured by periwinkle. 

“I don’t,” he replies. (He had promised Furina that he’d help her with her case study.) Momentarily, his gaze averts from yours. (He had told one of his professors that he’d volunteer during office hours—who was it, again?) The lie is bitter on his tongue; but Neuvillette isn’t lying. (He’s going to send an email to the professor later, once he remembers who he promised.) Your expression glows. (Maybe this is enough.) Your gentle smile evolves into an excited grin. (He’s going to have to draft a text to Furina, too.) This is enough.

“That’s great!” You reach for your bag, sifting through the various pockets, your hand emerging with two humble, paper tickets. “I won a raffle for aquarium tickets! Do you want to come with?”

He’s whole. He’s complete. This—this is it! This is the surge, the rush, the incomparable and unutterable word! Neuvillette feels it now; the spasm of his heart, the stutter of his throat, the shrink of his figure when you do so much as perceive him! 

Your gaze sinks into his skin. Neuvillette lets it. Your smile sears his brain. Neuvillette replays it. You blink. Neuvillette’s heart follows. 

(Do you ever realize the way he lives? The way he finds meaning only ever because it dances within you?)

This-is-this-is-this-is…

“I would love to,” he replies, unable to contain the smile that tugs at his lips, the smolder in his chest, the primal constriction of his lungs, heaving, desperate to breathe the air you exist in. A breath! A tinge! A fraction of your incomparable existence! This-is-this-is-this-is…

(Neuvillette wonders if you caught it: the word. The word, although pale in comparison, assigns meaning to the enormity that swells within him, the colossal creature, the colossal completion, the vitality; you! Oh, you! When he cannot say your name, he must say this word; this—this fraction, this tiny, insignificant thing: love, love, love! You, you, you!)

“Really?” you say, eyes growing wide. Your lips hang slightly agape, your expression wild and fantastical and bright (Neuvillette thinks this is it); but the shock dissipates into that of utter joy (Neuvillette thinks this is it), and you grin that grin of yours. That grin, (Neuvillette wipes his sweaty palms against the fabric of his dress pants), a simple little something that amounts into an enormous everything. 

“Of course.” Neuvillette knows that this is it. What else, if not this? 

You look at him. His heart surges, his veins beginning to flare, his arteries spasming, flowing without an ebb, overwhelmed and incomparable (Neuvillette doesn’t need to return your gaze; he was already looking at you), insignificant and worldly. 

All you have to do is look at him! All you have to do is perceive him!

“Does noon work for you?” 

Any time works, Neuvillette thinks, any time at all. You could ask for him at four in the morning and Neuvillette would respond; you could stir him from his sleep, from his stupor, from his life. (Take him! Take him from his life! Take him, already!)

“Yes,” Neuvillette says, unable to contain the waver of his voice, the way his fingers instinctively reach to fiddle with his sleeves, “that’s perfect.” 

You look away. His heart surges, his veins beginning to flare, his arteries spasming, ebbing without flow, overwhelmed and incomparable (Neuvillette wishes you would look at him; he wishes you would perceive him, for just a moment will do), insignificant and worldly.

“Alright,” you say, grinning. “Noon it is.”

This-is-this-is-this-is…

It is, Neuvillette thinks. This is it.

Neuvillette has an unspoken routine.

Every day, he wakes up at six, even if he has no morning classes. Every day, he takes a morning walk around the city, admiring the most mundane of sights, like the glow of the lamplights, reflecting off puddles that congregate along sidewalks, like the airplane that soars by, smoke trailing in its wake.

Every day, he returns to his apartment and drinks a warm cup of water. Every day, he opens his laptop, and he sifts through his inbox, responding to different emails and updating his calendar accordingly.

Every day, he saves a slot for you. Today, he fills it in officially; the weekend; the aquarium; noon.

Every day, Neuvillette shuts his laptop, and he takes a sip of his warm water, and he thinks. Sometimes, he thinks about legal cases. Sometimes, he thinks about assignments that are due. Sometimes, he doesn’t have any thoughts at all. 

But every time, he thinks of you. You weave yourself into his daily routine, the legal cases and the assignments. You appear! Even when you’re not there; even when he hasn’t seen you in a couple days, you’re terribly real and terribly vivid. 

And somehow, despite everything, you’re unfathomable. (But Neuvillette fathoms you so often, so poignantly, it’s as if you’re tangible. As if you’re worldly when all you have ever been, to him, was esoteric. Unable to be comprehended. Unable to be conjured within thought, in any comparable magnitude to the colossal vitality that is, so undoubtedly, real. So, undoubtedly, you.)

Today, Neuvillette dons his finest coat. He fits the warmest scarf around his neck. He pats his pockets, and he adjusts his wristwatch—what time is it, again? He looks down—ten o’clock, he should start leaving now. 

The door to his apartment swings open. Neuvillette glances up.

“Neuvillette?” Wriothesley remarks, shrugging off his work uniform haphazardly, strands of his obsidian hair sticking to his skin. “You’re still here?”

“Wriothesley,” Neuvillette acknowledges, “indeed, I am.”

“That’s a surprise,” Wriothesley says, pale blue eyes drifting over Neuvillette’s outfit. “What’s the occasion?” 

Neuvillette coughs into his fisted hand.

“I’m meeting with [Name] later.”

“Ah,” Wriothesley replies, smirking, “that adds up.”

Neuvillette has never considered himself to be transparent, but at the same time, he has never made it an effort to be enigmatic. But the knowing look that Wriothesley gives him is enough to make Neuvillette wonder: has he always been so plainly obvious?

Then, he thinks of you. Have you noticed how plainly obvious Neuvillette is? Have you known all along, yet never brought it up in an effort to spare his feelings?

(Have you ever wanted—for just a fraction, for just a moment—him to be so obvious? Have you ever looked at him—and held his image within your irises—when he hasn’t been looking at you (Which Neuvillette thinks, frankly, that’s impossible; he’s always looking at you)? Have you—have…)

Wriothesley chuckles. “Don’t think too hard about it. Who knows,”—he shrugs, his expression unreadable—“maybe you’ll be in for a surprise.”

Wriothesley has always known more than what he lets on; it’s just in his nature, as a part-time security guard and a student of criminal justice. 

He has never been wrong, Neuvillette thinks—his mind shifts. His mind forms an image, vivid and bright and fantastical; it’s you.

This time, however, he might be. Neuvillette thinks Wriothesley’s implications are outlandish. How could he expect a surprise from you, when you already do so much as exist?

Still, Neuvillette replies, “Maybe.”

There’s a magic that follows after your existence. It’s like the petrichor that swarms the earth after it rains; like the inevitable belief that night follows after day; like the certainty that vests within time; the fact that tomorrow will come, the fact that you are, despite everything, real. It’s unfathomable, really. Your existence. 

And Neuvillette has wondered when everything began, when the world started to shift, when the sun became more than the sun: when it became you. Maybe, it started when he was your partner in a group project back in physics class (which he barely managed to pass with your late-night tutoring and guidance). Maybe, it started when he realized that you were there throughout everything—through the years of his worst, when he loathed everyone, when he had no love in his heart, when the most mundane of things remained as they were: mundane.

Maybe, it doesn’t matter when things begin. All that matters is that they exist now.

“I should get going,” Neuvillette says, taking another peek at his watch.

Wriothesley nods. “Have fun. Let me know if there are any breakthroughs.”

Neuvillette blinks, echoing, “Breakthroughs?”

Wriothesley flashes another one of those knowing expressions. This time, all he offers is a hum. And this time, Neuvillette doesn’t pry; he gives in. Neuvillette does a lot of that—he thinks of you—giving in, and pressing onwards, and living in the unknown despite the answer being right—he thinks of you—in front of him.

He arrives at the subway station an hour and a half before noon. Neuvillette sneaks another glance at his wristwatch, thinking, I’m right on time. After taking a seat on a nearby bench, Neuvillette begins to observe, periwinkle gaze drifting across the sea of people, anchorless and free, his senses reborn as the world reincarnates anew. The air is crisp, the cold stinging the tip of his nose, puffs of condensation escaping his parted lips—Neuvillette feels everything. The fabric against his skin; the surge of life; the rush of the passerby; the frantic and erratic breath that life exhales with each gust of wind.

“Neuvillette!” a voice pierces the crowd, passing through the canal of his ear and stabbing cleanly through his heart. Although it’s just a sound, Neuvillette hears it wholly: the timbre, the tone, the familiarity of his name (which is, after all, not even his first name), the way the syllables sound sacred (and Neuvillette must attribute the fragility to the owner of the voice, not the name) despite it being uttered many times before. 

This-is-this-is-this-is… You. You! 

At your call, Neuvillette stands. His hands, unsure of what to do, reach for the sleeves of his coat, fiddling with the hem while his gaze fixates on you. Once more, periwinkle drowns in your figure. Once more, the world is right. 

“[Name],” Neuvillette replies, unable to contain the gentle smile that possesses his lips. “You’re early.”

You laugh. “You’re earlier!” 

“Yes,” he admits—this-is-this-is-this-is—“you’re right.”

The subway ride to the aquarium is peaceful. Neuvillette couldn’t have asked for anything else, because there you were, and there was the world, and there was the sun, and there you were, and—oh, did he mention that already? 

Neuvillette thinks you were the most wonderful of them all. You; your eyes, focused on the scenery outside. You; your voice, dipped into a whisper as you speak of precious little nothings which, to Neuvillette, seem to be worth everything. 

You’re radiant. Fantastically so. Neuvillette has this realization time and time again. Every time periwinkle swallows your image, and every time his heart shivers at the proximity of your presence, Neuvillette is made aware of how colossally significant you are. You’re like the world. Sublime. Wondrous.

“Neuvillette,” you suddenly say, and Neuvillette feels his ribs shudder. “Thank you for coming with me today.”

He swallows thickly—the way you say his name; oh, the way you, the way you—somehow, he finds his voice, breathing out, “It is my pleasure.”

“Neuvillette!”—and there you go again, calling his name, unaware of the spasm of his heart, the binding of his lungs—“come over here! Look, these are whale sharks!”

Oh, that’s right, Neuvillette thinks, this is your domain. Before he can open his mouth to respond, you usher him in the direction of the spotted creature, its wide mouth stretched agape while it drifts throughout the blue waters, followed by a squad of smaller fish. 

“Those are remoras,” you explain, “they attach themselves to sharks and feed off of parasites that grow on the shark’s skin.”

Oh, Neuvillette thinks, noticing the glimmer of your eyes under the aquatic light, noticing the way your words begin to slur together out of sheer excitement, unable to keep up with the tempo of your thoughts. 

You’re beautiful. 

“What are those?” Neuvillette asks, pointing towards the manta rays.

“Those are manta rays!” you exclaim. “Like the whale shark, they’re filter feeders!” 

“What does that mean?” Neuvillette queries. “To be a filter feeder?”

“It means both whale sharks and manta rays filter out the free-floating plankton drift in the water!” you say, and oh, Neuvillette thinks you look ethereal. This is your domain; the great ocean; the blue light; the knowledge; the passion. You own the sea. The world. Oh, the world! 

“Did you know manta rays don’t have skeletons? They’re made of cartilage.” 

“No, I didn’t,” Neuvillette replies, despite knowing that fact from the plethora of articles he read about marine life a couple days back. Neuvillette didn’t want to seem ignorant in front of you, a marine biology major, but at the same time, he thinks this is a much better alternative. 

This-is-this-is-this-is… 

You smile at him. “It’s all good! I go to this aquarium pretty often, so I know a thing or two.”

You’re lying, Neuvillette thinks. You know more than just a “thing or two.” You know—you know everything, it seems!

(Still, Neuvillette doesn’t pry. He does a lot of that, he supposes—he thinks of you—in your presence, and with the realization—he thinks of you—that you are, unbelievably, here. Tangible. With him. With him!)

Neuvillette wishes he could bottle this moment and keep it forever. 

He observes this aquarium through your gaze, measuring all the creatures with the same joy that you hold them to, learning all there is about different fin types and different species groups. Orcas are not fish, they are marine mammals—Neuvillette knew that too, from an article titled “What Are Orcas Truly?”—sharks breathe by swimming and passing oxygenated water through their gills—Neuvillette learned that fact last night from a video titled “Sharks Sleep While Moving!”

If he weren’t a law major, Neuvillette thinks he would’ve gone into marine biology, too. (And he wonders what it’d be like, to have the same classes as you, to be able to share this knowledge with you, to be able to discuss marine life on a higher level than the rudimentary facts you’re forced to share with him, who is unfamiliar with this world.) 

Neuvillette wishes that he knew more than what he knew. He wishes he could crawl into your brain and adore the ocean with the same passion that you have. He wishes he could share your struggles with strict lab professors, and discuss answers after difficult quizzes—but the boundary between your major and his is too large. He knows nothing. He can say nothing. He is nothing. So he opts to remain silent and stare. 

Can he ever return to this moment again? You; the blue light; the whale sharks; the manta rays; the world! Can he ever revisit this aquarium? Will you ever want to go with him again? Will you speak to him in the same, lovely voice? Will you call his name with the same, lovely timbre?

Oh, Neuvillette wants! He wants! He wants this moment! This aquarium! You!

His heart shudders.

This-is-this-is-this-is…

And the moment is ending. Everything returns to where it started. Neuvillette finds himself on the subway once more, sitting by your side, watching you watch the window, the sun setting in the horizon, the day slipping away.

He wants to bottle this: the pink hues, the orange glimmer, the blue memory, the aquarium, you. He wants to grasp this scene and slip it into his wallet, like a charm, like a reminder of the world and all that has meaning. He looks at you. He wants—and he stops there, because he’s overstepping his boundaries and that’s too much to ask for. 

A yawn escapes your lips, you apologize, muttering, “Sorry, I’m a little tired right now.” 

Neuvillette notices the lull of your head, the flutter of your lashes as you struggle to stay awake. 

“It’s alright.” His leg begins to bounce, his fingers reaching to fiddle with the hems of his sleeves once more. “If I may offer my shoulder, if you would, um… In case you would like to rest.”

Although you don’t seem to mind, or notice, the filler word that slips into his speech, Neuvillette is already questioning himself, berating his sudden inability to speak, reduced to nothing in your colossal presence. For how could he ever amount to anything if you are already everything?

“Thank you, Neuvillette.”

His heart lurches. His lungs heave. His brain falters, unable to form any coherent thought that isn’t composed, in its entirety, you.

Your eyes flutter shut, and your head comes to rest against his shoulder, and Neuvillette thinks—while his leg bounces up and down, mad—that, if he could, he would bottle this moment, and—while his breath shutters, coming to a stop—and, and he would preserve it. And he would love it. This light; this subway; this world; you. Forever. 

Neuvillette has always noticed you. From the moment his periwinkle eyes first beheld your existence, from the moment the world incarnated anew, from the moment—which he wishes he could bottle—your gaze dawned upon him, when dusk dawned upon the two of you, when everything dissipated into darkness, he noticed you then. Even without sight. Even without speech. Even without his senses.

He notices you now, too. He notices the way your brow furrows when the sun’s light slips across your face, the world illuminating and perceiving your irrevocable beauty. He notices the way you turn away slightly, burying your face into the fabric of his coat, trying to escape the radiance which pales in comparison to your own.

His hand comes up to block the sun. Your expression eases. Your breathing evens out and the world is right again. 

This-is-this-is-this-is… 

Neuvillette rests his head against yours, his touch featherlight—the bounce of his leg comes to a stop—his lungs pausing, capturing the breath which holds the essence of your existence—and the moment is preserved—and the final incarnation is complete. 

This is… 

The sun’s final light disappears. The moment is over. 

Neuvillette feels your head against his. A new moment starts. 

And he supposes—without much deliberation—and he thinks—and he has thought this, for the longest of times—that this is love. 

(This is enough.)

[lazarusweptt]

@hoaxwings @ofuntamedhearts @ofchaoticminds @heartunderneath

[lovebillyhargrove]

a Harringrove fic idea

***

They weren't friends. Weren't anything. Didn't talk much. Weren't enemies or rivals or .. literally anybody to each other. Since that memorable fight at the Byers they didn't even notice one another, minding their own business.

So if they weren't and didn't, then why did Billy's death wreck Steve the way it wasn't supposed to?

They weren't friends. Didn't have one single decent conversation.

Eventually all the commotion died down. The Earth went back on its axis, and every day started to be normal. Quiet.

Steve resumed his meek attempts at winning Nancy's heart back, when Jonathan was out of the picture. Gave her the six nuggets in California speech. She wasn't impressed.

Steve himself wasn't impressed much.

It's just that after everything has gone silent, he has the feeling that somehow

Everything is wrong. The recipe lacks one vital ingredient, cause everything tastes bland.

Everything is forced, including his weary wish to bring back what he and Nancy had.

It's gone. He doesn't want it, yet he's asking.

..

One day he can't do this anymore. He packs his bag, puts it in the Beamer's trunk and drives to California alone. Ends up in a town close to the beach, rents a small apartment, finds a job.

Starts living a new life, feeling better,

More true.

However, still looking for something that seems to have been lost without him even realising what

What was it? What is it?

His life's great, yet every day is pierced with unutterable sadness and unrest, and longing.

He goes to the ocean, it's calling him, there's a secret, a mystery it wants to share,

Steve peers into the distance, into the misty emptiness, it is not empty, there's something hidden out there for him, and his heart hurts and yearns, inexplicably.

..

Then years down the line, when he's in his late twenties, there comes a day when Steve meets a guy. On the beach. They are both surfing, well, Steve's just having fun, the guy is much more professional about it.

And the guy looks exactly like the long-dead Billy Hargrove. Only his hair is short, and yeah, he looks .. grown-up, Harrington does too.

Steve even calls out to him, in confusion,

Billy ..?

What? .. Nah, I'm Jason.

Jason Scott.

They start talking, hanging out, and Steve likes him, like .. fuck, he likes him. It's weird, cause the guy looks like Hargrove but he's not, and has a whole different background story, and

He's just not.

Billy Hargrove died a horrible death which Steve witnessed, with his own wide-open eyes.

It's super weird.

They hang out more, and talk and laugh together. One night, they kiss, and they .. oh god, Steve could never imagine

That it can actually feel how it does.

The guy looks like Billy Hargrove. Sometimes Steve can swear, there are little glimpses of Billy in him, but hey

That's crazy, and there can be people in this world looking alike, and Steve didn't really know Hargrove that well, and it's been years, he can't remember him, with much clarity, also he's not gonna get all cuckoo and scare away his

Happiness ..?

Sure feels like it. Feels even truer. What they have, the heat they share, the passion,

It goes deep. It's grown roots.

They don't say the L word but they are living it every day, and it's strange, and blinding, Steve's floating on clouds all the time, intoxicated

Like a teenager.

It feels great, it feels right, no

It is right.

They've found happiness in each other, and the longing ..? Steve goes to the ocean, peers into the distance and sees beautiful sunsets, holding Jason's hand. There might be a little secret still lurking in the glow, but Harrington is too dazzled to notice.

..

Until one evening when Steve accidentally discovers an old worn-out driver's license in the name of William Hargrove among Jason's stuff.

His heart drops, hands shake, throat dries up.

What felt so true burns like a lie.

***

What's going to happen? Is Jason Billy? What the fuck is going on?

***

Jason Scott is from Power Rangers. Can't think of any other name for Billy. Jason Montgomery 🤔

[cybersunnie]

✶ : PRIZED POSSESSION

CORIOLANUS SNOW x F!READER nsfw (18+ / MDNI), smut, piv, cannibalism metaphors

Coriolanus sunk his teeth into everything that was his. 

And you were his prized possession, but you were difficult to tame.

You considered yourself independent; Coriolanus considered you stubborn. He had to stop himself from scoffing when you insisted you didn't need him at every waking moment. You hated how he didn't give you any space. You hated how he breathed down your neck.

What a bunch of nonsense.

He deserved to know where you were at every waking moment. Who you spoke to, hung out with. You were his, were you not? That was his right. Why would you ever need to be alone? Unless you were hiding something from him. Another man—or woman—perhaps?

But Coriolanus learned to ignore his paranoid thoughts. It would get him nowhere. He knew he couldn't force it upon you. You would retaliate, stray further from his clutches. He needed to be patient. He needed to help you understand. He needed to spoon-feed you little by little until it finally stuck.

And slowly but surely, you understood. Coriolanus knew you would eventually, his sweet girl. 

His stupid, sweet girl.

It made it all the easier for him to lull you under his control. You offered your heart to him on a silver platter, asking him to lock it away in the pit of his belly where it would be safe. And he consumed that heart of yours gladly, greedily. That independence you so desperately craved no longer fulfilled you like he did. He was the only one you could trust. The only person you could confide in. You refused to leave his side like an obedient little pet. You were a part of him. You were born to be his. 

And who were you to question the intentions of your loving, doting Coryo?

Now you had nowhere to run—nowhere to hide. 

But you didn’t seem to mind that sentiment. No, especially not when Coriolanus had his cock buried deep inside of you. 

For someone so sweet, you were filthy. But he liked it. In moments like these, you were truly his. You were vulnerable. Docile. He loved how easy you were when lust coursed through your veins. He loved it when your mind was lost in a hazy blizzard, barely able to think straight. And there you were, naked and pinned to his mattress, taking him like the good girl he taught you to be. His touch was rough, fingers digging into your flesh. He held you tightly, roughly, hard enough to leave bruises because he loved you. 

Coriolanus loved you, didn’t he?

"Your pussy's so fucking wet," Coriolanus taunted, breath hot against your ear. He felt you shiver, heard you whine, and he laughed, mean and dirty. "My sweet girl—fuck, she's crying for me." 

You called out his name. A meek whimper. An unutterable prayer. He grinned at the sound of it. “Oh, poor thing,” he cooed, pecking your lips. “Can’t handle too much teasing, huh? S’okay, you’re doing so good.”

He believed he did—love you, that was. Coriolanus felt like a starved man around you. He wanted to split you open, pry his fingers through your flesh and bones, and devour you whole. The feeling was unexplainable, all-consuming. That had to be love.

It must be.

He stared into your eyes, those helpless, glassy eyes as you clung to him. What a sweet little thing you were. Your nails dug into his back, adorning his scarred skin with red lines and crescent indents, but he didn’t mind. Or, more accurately, he didn’t notice. Coriolanus was too busy admiring how your face crumbled with ecstasy every time his hips snapped forward to meet yours. The way your brows knitted together and your mouth hung open when he hit the right spot. 

You were so beautiful like this.

Mine. 

And every thrust made you hold him closer, not wanting him far.

Mine. 

You were completely his like this. 

Mine. 

“You’re mine, yeah?” Coriolanus whispered, his pupils blown wide. You nodded, but that wasn't enough for him. “Tell me you’re mine. C’mon, wanna hear you say it. Wanna hear your pretty voice.” 

He hated how needy he sounded, but how could he not when your walls fluttered around his cock so deliciously.

“I’m yours,” you gasped wetly, voice weak and trembling. He tutted and gripped your chin, a signal you knew very well meant he wasn’t pleased. “I’m yours, Coryo,” you said with more conviction. “Only need you, no one else.”

He groaned, his hands moving to the back of your head. “You mean that?”

“Always.”

And, like the starved man he was, Coriolanus dipped his head down and sunk his teeth in you.

author's note: "alexa how do you write smut?" use cannibalism metaphors!

anyway, happy new year everybody!! decided to start off 2024 with... whatever this is! coryo is a sick man. HE'S DISGUSTING! i need him, actually.

[shadowhaert]

it seems a certain fear underlies everything. i choose someone else over me every time. we are cardboard boxes, you and i, stacked nowhere near each other and humming different tunes. it is too late to be writing this. i am writing this to tell you something less than neutral, which is to say i'm sorry. it was never you. it was always you: your unutterable name, this growl in my throat. — erika meitner, "staking a claim"

happy birthday @lottiemxtthews !!

[lazarusweptt]

@ofchaoticminds @ofuntamedhearts

i don't care.

[invisible-crowns]

“And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!’”

-Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Brontë

“For weeks I wander through the trees, circle the lake, examine the soil under the apple trees, looking for any sign of her. Entreating the mockingjays for a clue to her whereabouts. Calling her name into the wind. The leaves turn scarlet and gold, crunching beneath my feet. ‘Lenore Dove! Lenore Dove!’ I cry, but she doesn’t reveal herself.”

“I lie on her grave and remain there as night falls, dawn breaks, and blackness descends again. I tell her everything and beg her to return to me, to wait for me, to forgive me for all the ways in which I have failed.”

-Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

[talonabraxas]

TO SEEK GOD IS TO DARE THE MYSTERIES

"God is the infinite mirror in which the universe beholds itself, the eternal thought that thinks all things into being. He is not a person, but the Personification of all that is, was, and ever shall be—the supreme intelligence that weaves the tapestry of time and space. The magician knows God not through prayer, but through the sacred act of creation, for to align the will with the divine is to become a co-creator of the cosmos. In the pentagram, in the wand, in the cup, in the sword, His presence is invoked, for every symbol is a syllable of His unutterable name.

To seek God is to dare the mysteries, to pierce the veil of Isis, and to stand in the radiant presence of the eternal light that consumes all shadows." — Eliphas Lévi – Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual (1854)

Image: The Magician Talon Abraxas

[apenitentialprayer]

In the (Non-)Name of God

This God sends Moses back to Egypt with the task of leading the people of Israel out of the country into the Promised Land. Moses is charged with demanding in the name of God that Pharaoh let Israel go. But in the world of Moses' time there were many gods. Moses therefore asks the name of this God that will prove his special authority vis-à-vis the gods. In this respect, the idea of the divine name belongs first of all to the polytheistic world, in which this God, too, has to give himself a name. But the God who calls Moses is truly God, and God in the strict and true sense is not plural. God is by essence one. For this reason he cannot enter into the world of the gods as one among many; he cannot have one name among others God's answer to Moses is thus at once a refusal and a pledge. He says of himself simply, "I am who I am" — he is without any qualification. This pledge is a name and a non-name at one and the same time. The Israelites were therefore perfectly right in refusing to utter this self-designation of God, expressed in the word YHWH, so as to avoid degrading it to the level of names of pagan deities. By the same token, recent Bible translations were wrong to write out this name —which Israel always regarded as mysterious and unutterable— as if it were just any old name. By doing so, they have dragged the mystery of God, which cannot be captured in images or in names lips can utter, down to the level of some familiar item within the common history of religions.

- Pope Benedict XVI (Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, pages 142-143), trans. Adrian Walker

Moses and the Burning Bush, a 1770 painting by Johan Burman. Located on the ceiling of Skepplanda Church, Sweden.

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Gorgeous

(inspired by t. swift's song)

Harry knew the moment that Draco walked into the bar. He always knew, there was something about the way he carried himself; his magic hot and bright, burning its way up Harry's spine before he'd even actually seen him. He turned his head, craning his neck to get a glimpse of the other man.

"Malfoy must be here," Ron grumbled.

He glanced back at Ron, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that every time he shows up here, you tune out most of what anyone has to say," Seamus piped up.

Harry glared at him, "Shut it. I do not."

"You do," Lavender replied as she slid in next to Parvati across from Hermione. "And it's just so sad because he talks to everyone but you."

He frowned, he had tried to convince himself that it was just his imagination that Draco talked to everyone else and intentionally ignored him. But before he could say anything more, Draco was at their table, he said, "this is Clement," gesturing to the attractive man on his arm before sitting down next to Hermione and immediately striking up a conversation with her.

"It's because he likes you," Blaise said, leaning in closer so Harry could hear him over the noise.

Harry rolled his eyes, "Yeah, right." Draco came with a different date every week, he wasn't interested in Harry.

Blaise shrugged, "Suit yourself but I'm telling you, Potter, that boy's been obsessed with you for years."

Shoving Blaise's shoulder Harry tried to put it from his mind. But as the night wore on, Harry watched Draco talking to everyone in their friend group but him (just like he always did) and when Draco got up to go to the loo, Harry couldn't help but follow. Not wanting to be a perv, he waited outside.

When Draco emerged, he immediately jumped, hand over his heart, "Circe's tits, Potter! What are you doing?"

Instead of answering his question, Harry's inebriated brain supplied one of it's own, "Why won't you talk to me?"

"Excuse me?" Draco asked, looking around as though he thought someone was playing a trick on him.

"I mean, we were friends, right?" he asked, knowing that he sounded more than a little desperate and pathetic. "Like 8th year, we sorted out all of our shit, forgave each other, right?"

"Potter, what are you on about?"

"It's just," he sighed and stared at Draco, wondering if he looked at him hard enough if he'd be able to understand him, "you never talk to me. And you talk to everyone else."

"You should be flattered," Draco said before turning away.

Without thinking Harry reached out and grabbed his hand, giving him a gentle tug, "Wait," he said.

"Adam is waiting," Draco said, not looking up to meet Harry's eyes.

"I thought you said his name was Clement?" Harry murmured.

And before he could do anything else, Draco was pressing him back against the wall and kissing him.

Harry's arms instinctively wrapped around him, drawing him in closer as he kissed him back just as desperately.

"That's what you get for touching my hand in a dark hallway," Draco muttered, nipping at Harry's lips.

"I ought to grab your hand more often, then," Harry replied, tugging Draco's body flush against his own so he could kiss him again.

Draco kissed him back for a long, tension filled moment, body surging and pressing against Harry's before he pulled back, "I fucking hate you."

Harry blinked at him, feeling like he was experiencing whiplash, his brain moving too slow, unutterably confused by the mixed signals he was receiving from Draco's body and his words. "What-" he started, but then Draco was kissing him again.

"I hate your stupid face, and your stupid green eyes," he continued as his hands slid under his tshirt and Harry groaned. "I hate the way you grew into your stupid body; all muscled and handsome. You're so fucking gorgeous, of course I can't talk to you."

"Fuck," he hissed as Draco's nails scraped over his back and Harry flipped their positions, pinning Draco to the wall.

Draco groaned, body shuddering against Harry's as he tried to drag him impossibly closer. "And I hate the way you talk, all honest and earnest, and-" he broke off as Harry sucked hard at his neck. "And I hate that you aren't mine."

Harry pulled back far enough to look him in the eyes, "Draco, you can have me," he said.

"Stop," he whined, giving Harry a shove but immediately tugging him back in. "Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not," Harry assured him. "I want you too, in case that wasn't abundantly clear," he said, pressing forward against Draco's body to emphasize his point.

Draco shook his head, "But I want more than just sex with you. Just sex would never be enough."

"Great," Harry replied, kissing down his neck again and pausing to suck at the bruise he'd left forming on his pale skin.

"I'm serious, Potter," Draco growled, fisting a handful of his hair and pulling until Harry looked him in the eyes again.

"Call me Harry," he said.

Draco rolled his eyes, "I'm serious, Harry. I'm a possessive bastard and I will want to keep you forever."

"Is that a threat or a promise?" Harry asked, feeling a little weak in the knees at the thought of being treasured and kept.

Narrowing his eyes he asked, "Are you being serious?"

"Yes," he said in exasperation, "Draco. I want you, too. I've been head over tits for you for ages."

"Really?" he asked, looking back and forth between Harry's eyes.

"Ask literally any of our friends," he said. "Yes. Really." He leaned in and gave him another soft, tentative kiss.

Draco shuddered and wrapped his arms around Harry's neck, "Take me home," he whispered.

"From here?"

Draco nodded, eyes closed.

He rubbed his nose over Draco's cheek, "What about-" he broke off trying to remember the bloke's name, "what's-his-name?"

"Who?" Draco asked, hands slipping under Harry's waistband and distracting him even further.

"Your date?" he prompted even as his fingers tangled in Draco's hair, turning his to the side to give himself better access to Draco's neck.

Draco whimpered, body arching against Harry's. He waved a hand, "I don't give a fuck. Take me home. Right now." Then softly, in Harry's ear, "Please," he all but moaned and Harry's self control snapped.

He apparated them right from there, straight into his bed, and suddenly Draco had absolutely no problem talking to him.

-------------------

Read more of my fics inspired by songs, if you'd like

tagging the lovely @phoebe-delia since it's taylor swift and that is her jam <3

[musicallisto]

🌊 as cliche as it may be (and if i may cheat) could you do adele skyfall + lestappen + rivals trope? kissing your feet in supplication

« this is the end / hold your breath and count to ten / feel the earth move and then / hear my heart burst again »

the news catches him off guard like a thunderbolt piercing the italian sky. all charles can do is stare at the video on his phone with furrowed brows, as if all the words max verstappen is saying were foreign, incomprehensible.

"personal decision... time has come... immense honor... still got races to win..."

nobody in ferrari mentions the elephant in the room—not before the charity event in monaco, where the jewels of motorsport parade in too-tight tuxes before walls paneled in crimson and ivory.

once he is certain no cameras are rolling, charles runs up to max.

"you're retiring?"

the dutchman blinks, but isn't surprised by charles' bluntness. is there anything left in charles that could possibly surprise him?

"yes, i am."

and though charles says nothing, max knows he wants to ask "why?", because he has always known the monégasque's next move before he could even think of it himself.

"i've accomplished what i had to and i'm happy with what i've done. this sport doesn't need me anymore. my family does."

there is a lump in charles' throat that he cannot explain nor justify. max's family needs him, not the sport—but what name do you give the boy you grew up beside, ever lingering in the shadows you cast—now a man, tall and mighty, wreathed in triumph—the man whose tear-tracks you'd know even beneath the visor—what do you call that man, if not family?

"so this is the end?"

"well, i suppose i'll still be around, and we've still got a season to finish. but pretty much, yeah."

seb, mentor though he was, had not left as unutterable a void upon his departure, because it had been expected. now charles is standing at the edge of a precipice like the very soil has collapsed from under this feet.

he should be glad. after all, max verstappen was always the raincloud that darkened his maranello sun. with his rival out of the way, charles has never had a clearer shot at a world championship.

but is victory truly victory, if it is not wrestled from his very grasp?

max lays a kind hand on charles' shoulder, shutting down his furious thoughts.

"come on, mate. we've had a great run. and that doesn't mean i'm gonna go easy on you in the next races."

leclerc recalls those words the week after, as he's about to throw himself headlong into his first qualifying lap at zandvoort. the orange tide—thousands of tulips bowing their heads before their soon-to-be-fallen king—blurs in his peripheral vision.

they never did know how to go easy on each other.

[sassenach77yle]

||COUNTDOWN ||SEASON 3 EPISODE 04 || OF LOST THINGS ||

#83daysofoutlander☆

She bent her head and shuffled through the papers before her, turning the pages over slowly, one by one. They were lists of names, these sheets, lists of prisoners, copied from the ledger books of British prisons. The task was complicated by the fact that not all prisons had been well-run. Some governors kept no official lists of their inmates, or listed them haphazardly in their journals, in among the notations of daily expenditure and maintenance, making no great distinction between the death of a prisoner and the slaughter of two bullocks, salted for meat. Roger thought Claire had abandoned the conversation, but a moment later she looked up again. “You’re quite right, though,” she said. “I’m honest—from default, more than anything. It isn’t easy for me not to say what I’m thinking. I imagine you see it because you’re the same way.” “Am I?” Roger felt absurdly pleased, as though someone had given him an unexpected present. Claire nodded, a small smile on her lips as she watched him. “Oh, yes. It’s unmistakable, you know. There aren’t many people like that—who will tell you the truth about themselves and anything else right out. I’ve only met three people like that, I think—four now,” she said, her smile widening to warm him. “There was Jamie, of course.” Her long fingers rested lightly on the stack of papers, almost caressing in their touch. “Master Raymond, the apothecary I knew in Paris. And a friend I met in medical school—Joe Abernathy. Now you. I think.”

She tilted her cup and swallowed the last of the rich brown liquid. She set it down and looked directly at Roger. “Frank was right, in a way, though. It isn’t necessarily easier if you know what it is you’re meant to do—but at least you don’t waste time in questioning or doubting. If you’re honest—well, that isn’t necessarily easier, either. Though I suppose if you’re honest with yourself and know what you are, at least you’re less likely to feel that you’ve wasted your life, doing the wrong thing.” She set aside the stack of papers and drew up another—a set of folders with the characteristic logo of the British Museum on the covers. “Jamie had that,” she said softly, as though to herself. “He wasn’t a man to turn away from anything he thought his job. Dangerous or not. And I think he won’t have felt himself wasted—no matter what happened to him.” She lapsed into silence, then, absorbed in the spidery tracings of some long-dead writer, looking for the entry that might tell her what Jamie Fraser had done and been, and whether his life had been wasted in a prison cell, or ended in a lonely dungeon. The clock on the desk struck midnight, its chimes surprisingly deep and melodious for such a small instrument. The quarter-hour struck, and then the half, punctuating the monotonous rustle of pages. Roger put down the sheaf of flimsy papers he had been thumbing through, and yawned deeply, not troubling to cover his mouth. “I’m so tired I’m seeing double,” he said. “Shall we go on with it in the morning?” Claire didn’t answer for a moment; she was looking into the glowing bars of the electric fire, a look of unutterable distance on her face. Roger repeated his question, and slowly she came back from wherever she was. “No,” she said. She reached for another folder, and smiled at Roger, the look of distance lingering in her eyes. “You go on, Roger,” she said. “I’ll—just look a little longer.”

When I finally found it, I nearly flipped right past it. I had not been reading the names carefully, but only skimming the pages for the letter “J.” “John, Joseph, Jacques, James.” There were James Edward, James Alan, James Walter, ad infinitum. Then it was there, the writing small and precise across the page:

“Jms. MacKenzie Fraser, of Brock Turac.”

I put the page down carefully on the table, shut my eyes for a moment to clear them, then looked again. It was still there.

“Jamie,” I said aloud. My heart was beating heavily in my chest. “Jamie,” I said again, more quietly.

It was nearly three o’clock in the morning. Everyone was asleep, but the house, in the manner of old houses, was still awake around me,creaking and sighing, keeping me company. Strangely enough, I had no desire to leap up and wake Brianna or Roger, to tell them the news.

I wanted to keep it to myself for a bit, as though I were alone here in the lamp-lit room with Jamie himself.

My finger traced the line of ink.

The person who had written that line had seen Jamie—perhaps had written this with Jamie standing in front of him. The date at the top of the page was May 16, 1753. It had been close to this time of year, then. I could imagine how the air had been, chilly and fresh, with the rare spring sun across his shoulders, lighting sparks in his hair. How had he worn his hair then—short, or long? He had preferred to wear it long, plaited or tailed behind. I remembered the casual gesture with which he would lift the weight of it off his neck to cool himself in the heat of exercise. He would not have worn his kilt—the wearing of all tartans had been outlawed after Culloden. Breeks, then, likely, and a linen shirt. I had made such sarks for him; I could feel the softness of the fabric in memory, the billowing length of the three full yards it took to make one, the long tails and full sleeves that let the Highland men drop their plaids and sleep or fight with a sark their only garment. I could imagine his shoulders broad beneath the rough-woven cloth, his skin warm through it, hands touched with the chill of the Scottish spring. He had been imprisoned before. How would he have looked, facing an English prison clerk, knowing all too well what waited for him? Grim as hell, I thought, staring down that long, straight nose with his eyes a cold, dark blue—dark and forbidding as the waters of Loch Ness. I opened my own eyes, realizing only then that I was sitting on the edge of my chair, the folder of photocopied pages clasped tight to my chest, so caught up in my conjuration that I had not even paid attention to which prison these registers had come from. There were several large prisons that the English had used regularly in the eighteenth century, and a number of minor ones. I turned the folder over, slowly. Would it be Berwick, near the border? The notorious Tolbooth of Edinburgh? Or one of the southern prisons, Leeds Castle or even the Tower of London?

“Ardsmuir,” said the notecard neatly stapled to the front of the folder. “Ardsmuir?” I said blankly. “Where the hell is that?”

7 A FAITH IN DOCUMENTS ~voyager

[pretend-wizard]

i have been cursed, not only with a name and gender unutterable by fools, but a foolish nature to match

[ninadove]

My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have tortured—have destroyed me.

[Pluto] was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise.

[…] I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when, by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?

One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;—hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart;—hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence;—hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin—a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it—if such a thing were possible—even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.

My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. […] By slow degrees—degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my reason struggled to reject as fanciful—it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name—and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared—it was now, I say, the image of a hideous—of a ghastly thing—of the GALLOWS!—oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime—of Agony and of Death ! And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. […] And a brute beast—whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed—a brute beast to work out for me—for me, a man fashioned in the image of the High God—so much of insufferable woe!

Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal, which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife.

No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!—by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl—a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation. […] The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman.

I had walled the monster up within the tomb.

— Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat