#whether its his human or devil form

[macks-ugly-cackle]

[moondirti]

𝐂𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 [18+]

familiar! ghost × witch! reader

you are a witch trapped at home by a devastating blizzard. ghost is the demon that answers your call. ( PART 1 of 2 )

DEAD DOVE. RATED R. HORROR/SMUT. 6k. – AO3

please please please read the warnings under the cut before reading. this is leagues darker than my usual work. it is a dark fic, and you know your limits better than i do.

warnings: discussed cannibalism. graphic depictions of gore. vomiting. killing/butchering animals. violent thoughts. malnutrition. alienation/isolation. manipulation. corruption. mentions of somnophilia. dark!ghost – i.e. simon does not conform to human morality. afab reader using she/her pronouns.

inclusivity note: the reader is described as smaller than simon, but he stands at 250 cm in his true form (8"2), so i assumed everyone – if not, most – would fit that category. she's also malnourished/sick at the start and so there are some references to unhealthy weight loss

Situated between a dense network of ancient oaks, a lesser demon would have mistaken the cottage for a boulder had they spawned further than ten metres away. Save for the warm orange glow illuminating its arched windows, the home married perfectly to its surroundings – disfigured and hideous, walls warped by unevenly stacked stone and a roof bowed under a thick blanket of snow. Overgrown bushes stick out from under its gnarled fence, dead branches desperately reaching, and the ivy he assumes was once adhered to its front has since been ripped out by the storm, whipping in the howling wind. 

But Ghost is no lesser demon; in fact, he’s far above this whole affair. Something of his rank answering the summons of a novice who could offer no more than sheep’s liver buried in their front yard was an occurrence practically unheard of. For good reason, too. He’s dangerous in the right hands, willing to resort to lengths that even the devil wouldn’t dream of so long as he receives proper payment. Most power-hungry neophytes would slaughter, have slaughtered, to have him as their familiar. Even then, he is above their grovelling. 

So, to be lured out of respite by sheep’s liver, of all things… 

He supposes he has no excuse for it, not that he has to explain himself to anyone. Perhaps he’s here only to satisfy his curiosity. The call hadn’t come from the lips of someone who’d been practising – sharp and sure, roused by a brand of audacity special to cocksure practitioners – but from someone softer. More sceptical. It’s unusual that an occultist would have both knowledge and skill to summon a familiar, yet still be suspicious as to whether they even exist at all. He’s not so much offended, then, as he is morbidly interested in what reaction his appearance would incur.

Disgust. Terror. Reverence. 

Warmth pools in his belly, blood oozing in fat globs to fuel the flame that compels him to head into the small home. It’s hard to make out what’s inside merely by looking through the windows; the glass has glazed over from the contesting temperatures on either side of it, painting a bleary picture of a fire silhouetting vague shapes. The doorstep creaks under his heavy foot, but nothing – from what he can see – moves in response to the disturbance. It’s late, he knows. If it weren’t for the thick clouds shrouding the sky, he would see the moon sinking towards the west horizon. Anyone with any sense in this world knows to be asleep during witching hour.

The doorknob is round. Brass. Worn by a hand that’s gotten very good at grasping it in the same manner every time. Ghost takes a moment to digest what that tells him about his new client before turning it and ducking inside. He was right to assume it’d be unlocked. While he’d have been able to find a way in otherwise, the silly little oversight manages to elicit more excitement in him than necessary. Their mistake is added to his quickly growing character evaluation. A routineer. Garden-variety mortal, too naive for their own good. Someone isolated. Someone– 

Small. 

Size has always been relative for something of his stature. At two and a half metres, he’s able to tower over even his own. But it truly hits him, right there, how long it’s been since he last encountered a human. He tries to tally the decades in his head, only to fail and fail again by fault of distraction. It shouldn’t hit him as hard as it does. She fulfils every bit of what he expected, after all; plain, though younger than the typical practitioner of familiar-summoning ability. Fast asleep on a threadbare couch. Drowned in clothing, skin dewy with sweat. A book abandoned, open on her chest, stuffed with spare pieces of parchment and illegible annotations. Ink-stained fingertips.

But his hand could crush her head if he was truly compelled to do so. He could scoop the bare ankles currently peeking out of her quilt and throw her over his shoulder like wild game, skinned and simple to carry back to hell. He remembers the fallow deer he’d feasted on just last week, belly soft as he sunk his teeth into it, and considers letting his appetite get the best of him with the one that’s unwittingly made herself available tonight. Crack open her ribcage to gorge on the gooey insides that no doubt taste like honey to a monster with his appetite. Bury his snout into her sweet-scented neck and get a sense for prey that can fight back, if just barely. 

But the moment passes. In her slumber, she shifts to lay on her side, spooning the grimoire closer. The minor hint of life reawakens another, more primaeval urge in him, last felt aeons ago when he was a younger fiend and the world had been a much more vulnerable place.

(The urge to take, to bend and break to fit his fancy. Chewing on cartilage until it smacks like gum between his maw, flossing the foul curl of his canines. To sink his claws into tender calves and carve an irreversible Ghost-shaped hole in her home, a haunting so stubborn she’ll turn to a fake God to try and expel him.)

And it’s violent. A rather restive longing. But placed next to the patience he’s learnt in the centuries since, he makes his choice. A natural conclusion to a creature who’s always gotten what he’s wanted.

Yes, he’ll stay. Be here when she wakes and revel when those eyes widen at the sight of him, darkening the corner of her room. He’ll stay; trail around and observe as she tries to make sense of her routine in light of the beast looming over her shoulder. He’ll stay, maybe ravage what's between her legs, devastate her sense of preservation and instead make her beg for the damage. Fall short on his duties as a familiar. Stay until he gets bored, when he’s had his fill of the crying and the quaint box she calls home. When playing with his food any more will lay the morsel to waste. Only then will he finally tear into the temptingly delicious meal in front of him.

For now, though, his neck aches from having to stoop under such a low roof. He resorts to a bygone human form instead, one he consumed ages ago – bones snapping, flesh dimpling, folding, morphing into a much smaller thing, a man – and waits.

Morning finds you doubling over the side of your couch to retch up what little food you had scavenged the previous evening. 

The loss is sore. Your stomach protests as the stale bread and water emulsion punches up your throat, emptying out onto the hardwood floor. Acrid. Bitter on the back of your tongue, sharp like the cramps that erupt in your abdomen once you lay back down. Sweat plasters baby hairs to your forehead, crawling down your back and pooling underneath your bandaged breasts. You wipe it off with trembling hands, kicking the suffocating quilt until it slouches off the armrest on which your feet lay. 

Last night’s fire is little more than smouldering ash. Still, the cottage maintains a pervasive heat, the air buzzing with an unnamed vigour. It’s unlikely that the blizzard has ceased long enough for the snow blanketing your home to melt – and given the walls’ remarkable ability to release warmth faster than they absorb it, the current temperature is enough to confound you. 

Likely a fever, you think, pressing knuckles to your temple. The timing is unfortunate enough, though something about your conclusion falls apart when tested against the churning of your gut. You’re clearly unwell, that much is apparent by the bile spoiling your floor, but you’d be a fool to miss the supernatural root of it. Like a perpetual tremor, never waning despite the way your muscles flare. A delirium that unfurls from your nape to slowly embrace your ears. You blink, trying to make sense of the queasiness that continues to wrack you. 

You’d run out of herbs two days after the blizzard snowed you in, the remaining potions lining your pantry ones best left untouched. It couldn’t have been anything you took, then. Nor was it a spell; the last one you’d cast was an ignition charm you’ve performed so often you know its effects like the planes of your cheeks. You cycle through yesterday's happenings with febrile imprecision, sipping long gulps of oxygen to tame the queasiness lapping up your chest. Like bailing water out of a quickly sinking raft. Cupping it in your palms and throwing what you can overboard. You get nowhere, and your nausea only worsens.

You’d gone to sleep with your grimoire in hand. Had you cast something while in a hypnagogic state? Possible, though rather uncharacteristic. Your fingers dig into the cushion gutters, poking for any sign of the thick book. As a migraine begins to tear at your skull, your search borders on unhinged. Pillows fly across the room, cushions following suit. The quilt billows as you air it several times over, providing some fleeting – yet much needed – airflow. 

You’re so focused on finding it that you almost miss the fact that the charred voice behind you is not your panic made material. Not the voice inside your head.

“Under the couch.”

This one is hoarse. Deep. It almost instantaneously shatters the heavy atmosphere cloaked over your shoulders, breaking your pyrexia with a sharp shiver down your spine. Pure ozone injected into the bubble you’ve made for yourself, the one you thought was so secure. Where the knife you taped to the underside of your table has remained untouched in the years since you moved in, unneeded. Hunched the way you are now, you can see it. Glinting as a mocking smile does; all teeth. Too far for you to retrieve without alerting your intruder. Too far for it to be an option. Your instincts rear.

Slowly, you crouch lower, hand skimming under the couch. Your pinkie grazes the well-loved leather of your grimoire’s cover. It manages to ground you to the situation at hand, though the reality is far more horrifying than what you could’ve conjured on your own. Distorted still, rippling with the impact of your fear. Paralysis battles adrenaline – your mind freezes with the shock of drowning, your body championing for survival. It doesn’t give you time to catch up.

Wood splinters under your heel as you twist, springing in the general direction of the voice. Heavy book in both hands. Your shoulders square, steadying as hinges to your attack. The figure is just visible; you barely make out the silhouette of its head before you aim for it.

But it grabs your wrist and flings your grimoire across the room in a fraction of the time, the spine splaying open onto an adjacent wall. Your stomach capsizes. The raft tips, flips, sends you crashing into frothing waves. Migraine blinding you for a brief, horrifying moment; one where you can’t see the thing shackling your wrist, or anticipate the hard kick it gives to your ankles. You buckle with the pain, held up by one heavy paw. A low whine syphons from your chest.

“Enough of tha’, now.”

Your vision comes into focus several seconds later. Still watery, brine spooling over your eyes, readying them for pruning, but clear enough to make out the depth of this ravine you’ve shipwrecked over. And it’s–

Uncanny. Teetering the thread between jarring and inhumane. Nothing about it – you’ve a hard time believing the moniker of ‘man’ – strikes you as superficial. Nothing skin-deep. Like a mountain seen breaking the horizon line from continents away, its rocks humming a song too closely resembling a banshee’s shriek for it to be alluring. Something concealed within its caves; underground, bubbling, molten. An impetus for myths, undiluted by tired parents using it to scare their children into bed. Still crowned by its original savagery, conceptualised centuries ago by a peasant who made the mistake of getting too close.

But it isn’t a concept, you quiver. It’s here – fleshly, corporeal. And it's even made an attempt to look human. As if you wouldn’t feel it itching to burst out of this skin, suffocated by too small constraints. Over six feet and then some, shoulders doubling yours and fingers that stretch a bit too long, a bit too thick. No face: everything but its eyes covered in knitted headwear, framing the pair of pale pupils, shadowed by a heavy brow.

 Some suicidal, hare-brained part of you wonders what would happen if you were to lift the bottom of its mask. (What you would see. How it would react.) But the compulsion is quickly stifled by another wave of gagging, empty stomach looking for anything to regurgitate. The thing masquerading as a man catches on fast, flipping you so your back tucks against its chest. You end up projecting water over the carpet, coughing until your head pounds like a ripe bruise. It’s then that you realise your condition has everything to do with its presence, souring now that you’re practically nestled against its abdomen.

“What…” You question between dry heaves. “What are– What do y-you want with me?”

“Better question ‘s, wha’ do you want?” It murmurs back, rumbling too close to your ear. Rot thickens its breath, potent enough that it draws the tears already dotting your lash line. No doubt a corpse remains stuck somewhere down its gullet, stored away for later. No doubt you’ll join it soon, gnawed on until your flesh falls off the bone. The perfect victim; all alone, the town pariah. A witch by the common man’s standards. Cast out to a dismal forest to die.

“I don- I don’t–”

“Summoned me, didn’ you? Dug a nice little hole and all. Well,” His hand shifts, clasping tighter around your struggling arms. “I’m ‘ere now. ‘Bout wha’ you expected?”

You use your retching as an excuse to play a game of catch up, squeezing the last of your tears out. Your memories bleed into one another, ink on wet parchment. Summoned. Dug a… hole, to call on this thing of supernatural proportions currently occupying your home. Why would you want that? What have you done? The past year has been marked by loneliness of a drastic degree, certainly, yet–

And then it comes flooding back to you.

(Washing the salt off of preserved sheep’s liver. Fastening it to a bouquet garni with twine. Folding the modest sacrifice under layers of earth. Pouring milk onto the upturned dirt.)

“Aren’t you supposed to be an– an animal… Or something.” You choke.

(You never thought it’d work: this magic amateurishly scribbled onto the back of your book by a hand long necrotized. The runes had been difficult to fathom on their own. And the way the spell had sounded on your clumsy tongue made you sure you’d done it wrong. It was purely a pursuit of curiosity. Something to keep you occupied, for lack of anything else to do.)

“Or something.” It answers.

A familiar. Yours, to be precise. In service to you since it took the offering you fashioned. Or, of greater import, one that can’t do anything to you lest you ask for it.

(Foolish to think you can clamp a collar on a feral beast and expect it to heel.)

The girl has a harder time adjusting than his original estimate.

Of course, there’s the illness. The affliction that plagues all mortals who come in contact with a demon for the first time. She’s violently sick for days, verging on the full first week of his arrival. Constantly bent over herself, holding a metal pail close for the inevitable purge of bile, that which her liver overproduces to compensate for a lack of food. Her under eyes blacken five shades darker. Her cheekbones grow more pronounced. Ghost watches it all with a macabre sort of interest, unable to take much satisfaction in the affair as his meal withers away before his very eyes. Wrists thinning into willow branches. Lips flaking like dead bark.

He's almost tempted to do something before she begins to recover herself. Gets more used to his unnatural presence, it seems. Gradually. Slow.

It starts when she wakes up one morning, having slept in later than he’s known her to, hiccupping but otherwise solid. After laying on the couch for an hour, she limps off with dwindling energy to fry a batch of velvet shank for breakfast. The meal is hardly enough for one, yet she plates two-thirds of it for Ghost and places the dish on the table he’s commandeered for his own. It’s a kind gesture; he doesn’t have it in him to be kind about it, though. Yet before he can criticise her efforts, she waddles off to pry a window open. Frigid winds encroach on her sheltered home at once, snow flurrying in, but she braves the cold until a crow lands on the windowsill. 

“Hello.” She croons, smoothing a knuckle across its crown. “Sorry I’ve been away. Here,” Digging into her breast pocket, she pulls out a handful of chokecherries and feeds them to the bird. “make them last. Supply is low.” 

The crow merely picks them off her palm, coos lost in the roaring storm that batters at the door. For the first time since his arrival, Ghost is tempted to bleed into the shadows. The affair he’s made voyeur to is delicate, an understated glimpse into a life entirely foreign to him. It aches when he can’t piece together why she would give up her food for nothing in return, or why she treats him the same way she does a feral bird. He thinks it must be ego, this snarling anger in his chest. 

So when the crow flies off with a final farewell pet down its back, he hardens into a nastier version of himself. Ghost still hasn’t touched the paltry breakfast when she turns her attention back to him, a fact she meets with a gingerly raised eyebrow. 

“’Fraid I won’t eat tha’, pet.”

She takes a moment to process his epithet of choice, eyes narrowing in an almost comical turnaround of her previous gentle expression.

“Wouldn’t it be the other way around?” She scoffs.

The indignation alone should be enough to incense him further, never mind the apathy she adopts when she shucks the contents of his plate onto her own and marches back to the couch. It doesn’t. If anything, he calms a little at her willingness to take away what she so graciously offered. The cat does have claws, then. Albeit petty, piddling little claws – like the runt of a litter who’s learnt to bite back at anything that gets too close – but a fire, nonetheless. He appreciates that, perhaps more than he assumed he would. 

Her sickness, he finds, is not the only issue.

Ghost lacks context for her situation – why she lives alone when the closest towns are just bordering the forest, or why no one ever seeks her out – but it does not escape him that the girl isn’t properly socialised.

In the centuries since they first emerged, he’s absorbed a keen sense for mortal behaviour. Credit to their alarming predictability, pattern recognition has halved the effort needed for his hunts. Not that he pretends to be at one with their psychology, but it’s easy to pin just where exactly she deviates from the norm when his strategy for ravaging her depends on it. More than once, he finds himself inexplicably engrossed in her habits.

Given her home is limited to the living room, kitchen, and washroom, she struggles to find a space where she can escape his oppressive presence. Ghost does not make it easy for her, either. He could choose to blend into the darker corners of her cottage, embodying the moniker he’d been given all those years ago and disappear almost completely – or enough to give her a mental break. But the mood strikes him more often than not, and he’ll loom over her like a spectral shadow, looking to provoke the grave mood swings that seize her like Satan does his miscreants. By far the most entertaining outcome had been when overstimulation trounced her usual level of tolerance and she pulled a knife on him, zeroed in on his jugular. He’d managed to scruff her by the nape until she wore herself out – which isn’t to say she didn’t put up quite a fuss. 

Since then, she has yet to lash out to such an extreme, instead locking herself in the washroom when her temper skyrockets. Ghost is almost disappointed. 

That’s his pet at her worst. At her best, she opts for quiet coexistence, either whispering to the crow who visits daily and appears to be her only friend, or cradling that ugly book in both hands. The back of the couch where she lounges most often obscures his view of her, but he’ll get the occasional vision when she pokes her eyes above the top to check on him. He maintains eye-contact – the heavy, uncomfortable kind that engenders pure humiliation and pummels her back into place, eyebrows furrowed and contentment spoiled – until the boredom gets to him.

The next time she sneaks a peek, then, he effects a gruff “Still ‘ere.”

She keeps to herself after that, nose buried in her grimoire like a chastened fawn. 

It takes three weeks for her to settle into normalcy. By that time, Ghost’s patience has already started to wear thin.  

The girl operates under the impression that he can’t do anything unless she orders it of him. He doesn’t blame her, credulous thing that she is. The notion is generally accepted by most of her grade, propagated by some text meant for beginners, written by a man who lacked the subtlety to discern between rules and good form. It’s true that familiar’s tend to only perform feats their counterparts ask for, but only because to do otherwise is bad practice. What else motivates a symbiotic relationship if not trust? Dependency? 

Of course, that’s if a demon has anything to gain that a human can provide. He’s always found it to be a little more than pathetic. Reared to hunt, formidable in his thaumaturgic ability – Ghost has lasted centuries by remaining self-sufficient, unwilling to lean on the inferior class of rational beings. Unwilling to do their dirty work in exchange for blood he could obtain very well on his own. At least, that had been the conviction when he’d answered her graceless summons, bent on killing both his curiosity and hunger with one stone. 

But something about her had made him glad to abide by the niceties. Had soothed the spring of his haunches as he prepared to pounce, or otherwise convinced him to play passive until golden opportunity struck. He’d wanted her to have as much a hand in her own unravelling, like a frog brought to a boil, entirely oblivious of its impending death until much too late. Her erroneous understanding of their dynamic, then, had paired nicely with his purposes. So he led her on to believe it, wasted most of his days amenable at the dining table as if waiting for instruction. As if she was the one in control, buzzing to shatter the perception when she inevitably asks something of him. 

What he’s found, unsurprisingly, is that she’s blossomed under the reassurance. The initial fear that gripped her once she realised he wouldn’t be going away has since watered down to a weak, background agitation. He tastes it in the air; the mild unease as she flits about her cottage, the first thing to go when something else captures her attention. The way she hardly takes note of him anymore, waking up or retiring to sleep with nothing but covert glances to where he monopolises space. 

So that feeling of frothing irritation returns at her docility, only more powerful than it had been when she’d offered her last chokecherries to the crow. No witch or wizard of her acumen has ever been so lacking in spite – and from what little she’s allowed him to see of her outbursts, he knows she isn’t short of it either. Yet she’d given up so quickly. Forfeited her home and comfort to a monster she hasn’t attempted to make any use of. And fuck– if that isn’t what he’d wanted. He needed her secure in him, pretty and soft enough that she’d be tempted to trade him for favours, for little feats of magic or the completion of chores she no longer has to worry about now that she doesn’t live alone. 

Nevermind the detail that she refuses to ask anything of him; it still claws at him the wrong way, razor-sharp and deadly as it tears up his throat. This anger on her behalf. A compensation for the response she should be having. It stirs him when he realises that, for all intents and purposes, what he feels is pity. Perilous, committed sympathy. 

There’s a reason he steers clear of it, too. Quick to snowball. He already feels it growing, avalanching into the hollow recess where he’d suppressed the soul of his first meal. Something shifts, then. He can’t place it. Just knows that the outcome he’d envisioned – where her bones serve to pick his teeth of the soft flesh from her thigh – is no longer a viable option. Just knows that his intentions with her mutate into something perhaps more dangerous, a little more unhinged. To weed out the wickedness he’s only seen in flashes. To see her corrupted into a far worse version of herself. 

It’s late into his twentieth night when Ghost decides to do something about it. 

He wedges back into her cottage when dawn splinters over the virgin snow. If he were a passionate man – not this hellhound trailing blood behind him like breadcrumbs – he’d remark on the way the tepid sunlight stains the forest in shades of peach and lurid blue. But the crow between his teeth hangs limp, and he’s hurried for the best way to present his gift, too absorbed in the task at hand to pay much mind to scenery. 

The house is as tranquil as it always is at this time. Suspended in amber, a fossilised quaintness he’s grown used to. Golden, almost sticky slow. She’s still fast asleep on the couch, soft snores whistling from underneath a patchwork quilt (which smells so much like her that, to his mutt senses, they’re one-in-the-same form.) Despite the precarity of the moment, he makes no effort to keep quiet. His natural disposition isn’t prone to making any unintentional noise though, and so the only thing he disturbs are the dust motes bobbing in suspended animation. 

Ghost places the dead bird on the table. It won’t be long before the blood drains from the punctures in its neck, and he prefers his meat iron-rich and wet, so he makes quick work of morphing back into his human form and washing his muzzle clean. There’s a sick thrill that curls in his gut; something like adrenaline, ozone-rich. Ruthless. He holds a crystalline picture of her reaction to the slaughtered friend he dragged into her home; angry, doe eyes glazed with tears as she yells at him for acting against her best wishes. Bad dog. Perhaps she’ll pull the dagger she keeps taped to the bottom of the table to indulge a sense of security. Perhaps she’ll drive it into his chest. That’s for hoping. 

Standing over her now, he imagines the way her serene face morphs into something foul when she’s pushed to her limits. His cock twitches at the mental picture, aching behind the confines of his pants. A heavy hand moves to adjust it, stilling once it cups his balls to consider whether it’d be overkill to tug it over her face while she remains nice and still like this. It would be – not anything he’s above, granted, but excessive nonetheless. Besides, she’ll have plenty of time to accept the attention. Learn to love it, even.

When she wakes, Ghost has already plucked the crow. The feathers pile in the centre of her round dining table – distinctive even when detached from a body, meant for her to draw parallels to the game he currently masticates. Yet she hardly notes his presence at all. Instead, the unsuspecting thing merely clears the sleep from her bleary eyes, weighed down by a heavy cloak of sloth, more focused on wiping the drool off her chin than him. If she had been, perhaps the pieces would fall that much faster; at least, that’s what the quick-tick rap of his pulse insists upon. 

But he’s no over-eager brute. He can wait. 

Yet he is tense when she shuffles to and from the bathroom, bare feet padding along hardwood. Like a flood, his body grapples against the tidal urge to grab her jaw and force her gaze upon his bloody teeth, sharpened and marred behind the mouth of his true form.  Look at me. Have you no survival instinct? There is a threat in your home and you parade in front of it, blind as a mole. You’ll get eaten like this. You’ll be condemned to hell between the jowls of horrible men.

(More monster than ever, really. Even like this, bound by his approximation of what a mortal man looks like, his face remains stuck to its original construction. The knitted mask he wears is more for her sake than his; he’s never been able to replicate the particulars of humanity. The delicate planes of their lips or the angles their noses protrude at. Better not to try, then. Better to hide it all away.)

It’s as she scrounges for breakfast that she finally heeds the pinpricks of blood dotting the floor. Fat, dark splotches draw a clear line from the doorway to a very calm Ghost, sat with his thighs spread over her too-tiny chair. He’s yet to finish his meagre meal – each bite seasoned with a satisfaction that bloats heavy in his stomach – hence the evidence of his crime still paints the corner red. A violent picture. Distressing, if he were to interpret the way her brows knit tight. 

Crimson meat marbled ivory. Wings pried off a picked apart ribcage, shanks sucked clean of slightly tougher muscle. Still intact are the heart, tongue, liver – their membranes dissolving to soak into the table. The smell of death will be hard to rid of, he’s sure, much like the inedible parts of the bird that scatter carefully in front of him. Its glossy black talons. That tell-tale beak. Feathers on which her eyes linger, like she recognises the sheen but is too upset to connect it to the crow she fed daily. Her only friend. 

She steps closer. Ghost devours every minute expression that flits upon her face. For the expressiveness of her pupils – contracted, small like organic pearls – she doesn’t portray much externally. Her fingers wring her skirt, twisting and twisting until it wrinkles in the impression of her thumb. Her lips purse into a thin line. But as far as his sharp observation goes; no tears. No ugly rage rippling her cheeks. 

“What is this?” She asks in a small voice. 

“Breakfast.” He says. It isn’t the response she’s looking for, and a frown tugs at her mouth. Not necessarily sad. Her hands release to clench at her sides. He smiles behind the mask. He can’t help himself. 

“I didn’t tell you to do this.” 

The smile breaks into a low chuckle. “No?” 

“No.” Shaking her head, emotion surges up her throat. It bubbles thick and forces her to adopt a higher pitch to overpower it. “You brute. I-If you could’ve done whatever… whatever you wanted t-the whole time–”

“C’mere.” His hand snakes around her wrist, using it to wrench her closer. He consciously keeps his grip light – too much force and he could easily shatter bone – but the girl does not share his concern. She pulls and fights and stubbornly protests his direction.

“No! Get the fuck off! Get out!” She heaves. Seethes. Spittle launches from her tirade, her nails digging into his palm. She looks for blood but he won’t give it to her. She’s doing well, but not well enough. Eventually, he is able to pull her onto his lap, locking thick arms around her squirming form. “You bastard. You monster! I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll murder you in your sleep and feed your rotten insides to the maggots. Let me go!” 

He’s blood-filled in his trousers. The hefty bulge knocks the small of her back and of all things, that’s what gets her to suddenly slacken. Though her chin tips to rest between her collarbones, lashes deliberately cast down. Refusing to meet his eye for all she’s worth. Good, he thinks, a warmth blossoming in his chest. 

“You ough’ to know your friend didn’ put up a fight.” He starts, nosing the part in her hair. Despite his knitted mask serving as a direct barrier between them, he can smell the pine and juniper berry soap she uses to wash up. Sharp. Sweet. Particularly potent behind her ear, where he considers her lobes like low-hanging fruit. 

“Shut up.” 

“Need to hear this, pet.” She doesn’t listen, naturally, hips bucking wildly the instant he loosens his hold. His fingers bruise when he readjusts her on his thighs. “Need to know it was your fault as much as i’ was mine. Yeah? Y’let it grow too comfortable. Fed it daily and robbed i’ of its ingrained fear of strangers. In the end, it got much too friendly. Didn’ have the sense to fly away when I approached it.” Her breath pinches into a piercing whine. Ghost likens it to the kettle she keeps over her stove, waiting for steam to burst out of her ears. 

It does not come. Instead, she cries. Beads of brine break her waterline, streaking miserable paths down her cheeks. He’ll grant her this: she does not sob unreasonably. Her hiccups are limited to if and when the air hardens in her lungs. He lets her have a moment before continuing. 

“S’what happens, see. You get complacent, ‘n’ next thing you know, you’re meeting your God. Tell me, pet: do you think the afterlife would be pleasant to a witch?” 

When she doesn’t respond, he bounces a knee to knock some sense back into her. Her weeping starts anew, only this time accompanied by a stuttered acknowledgement. 

“Hm?” 

“N-No.” 

“No. ‘Course I could ‘ave told you that much, but it’s importan’ you come to the moral of the story yourself. Fight, or die.” Ghost strokes the goosepocked flesh of her upper arm, voice softening to deliver the final part of speech. It’s treacherously low, ultimatum like powdered ash cushioning the roughness in his throat. “And believe me when I say, dying ain’ the better option. There are far worse fates than me in Hell.” 

He does not know whether it lands like he wants it to. If it accomplishes anything at all. But she doesn’t attempt to peel herself off him in the aftermath. Instead, she mourns herself dry for the next hour, snivelling wretchedly on his lap. 

When her crying stops, the air is still laden with something. Hesitation rolls off her in waves, dense with the renewal of fear. He supposes it must be hypocritical of him, to both strike her with terror and expect her to overcome it, but he hums anyway, nudging her temple off his shoulder in an appeal to state what’s on her mind.  

What comes instead is a deceptively simple question. 

“What’s your name?” She asks. Doesn’t demand of him to tell her. Doesn’t set up grounds for him to ask for something in return. He can either answer, or not. She leaves the choice up to him. Clever girl. 

He grapples with it a moment too long. A long dead man beats at his ribcage and demands to be heard. A meal he never managed to digest. Hissing. Snarling. S-Si-Si–

“Ghost.”

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[some-bunniii]

Even the Devil Mourns

・❥ You awake one night to find your husband, Lucifer Morningstar, missing from your side. You go out to search, only to see him distraught in a pool of tears.

x: reader is g/n, no use of y/n. more luci angst popped into my head yall, sorry not sorry

~ 3.2k words

Warnings: Angst!! Hellish themes! Descriptions of death & Satanic rituals ft. human sacrifices!

You awoke suddenly, sweat beading on your forehead and heart pounding in your chest. The silken, satin sheets slid across your naked back as you stirred. The cool breeze across your exposed skin sent goosebumps up your spine.

What time was it? What was that sound that had pulled you from your beauty sleep?

Your face was still buried into the cool pillow beneath you. Its plush, velvety touch beckoning you back into slumber. You snuggled deeper into the pillow’s embrace, your pulse slowing as you began to drift off. 

And then, you heard it again. Echoing from the cracked doorway across the bedroom, emanating from somewhere down the hallway. A stifled sound, like someone holding in a large intake of breath. You shifted your face off of the pillow slightly, straining your ears. 

Sleep was slowly ebbing from your mind, as you stirred underneath the sheets once more. The strange noise piqued your interest as you pulled the covers away from your face, the room beginning to feel unusually cold.

It was night, you guessed, since your eyelids were still bathed in darkness. Usually, the morning light would peak from the drapes that covered the large glass panes that bordered your bedroom. The rays of light would bask your bed sheets in a red glow, and you would have nestled your face closer against the soft, supple skin of your beloved. His arm lifting to snake around your waist, pulling you closer. Hot breath tickling against your lashes as he placed a drowsy kiss on your temple.

Your beloved.

Lucifer.

Where was he? You couldn’t feel the warmth that seemed to seep from his very being, enveloping you like a gentle embrace without even touching the man. You couldn't feel Lucifer beside you at all, not even the weight of his figure on the mattress. 

The fallen angel always had some part of his body against yours. Whether that was his head snuggled against your chest, or his legs wrapped around yours. There was always some sort of contact with Lucifer, no matter the time of day. 

His fingers always seemed to graze against yours as he handed you another one of his candy apple creations. The feeling of his hand resting on the small of your back protectively, as you took a drunken, wobbly step backward as the two of you enjoyed another romantic evening filled with laughter and soft whispers.

But, now. There was none of that. For the first time since you began sharing a bed, Lucifer wasn’t here to greed your tired form. Which made you uneasy, and you lifted yourself slowly from the mattress, renewed energy feeding your tired muscles as you rose to a sitting position.

Twisting your legs, you pivoted until your feet floated over the edge of the bed, before lowering them to the ground. Your skin met the cold, firm wooden floor beneath as you inhaled a deep breath. Sitting there for a few moments, you allowed yourself a little more time to wake, before shifting your weight to your legs and rising.

Your hands reached for the hanger beside your bedside table, a dark red that called out to you with warmth. The thick, plush garment enveloped your fingers as you pulled it from the hook. Wrapping the robe around your semi-nude figure, you quickly shuffled your feet into the fuzzy yellow duck slippers neatly tucked beneath the hanger.

Your eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness of the room, the only source of light teasing you from the doorway. The door was opened only an inch or two, but the familiar orange glow that flickered from the hallway still reached your bedroom even from the lounge. 

Reaching an arm down, you let your fingers gently graze against the marble surface of your bedside table, until your pink landed on the small item of value. Its smooth, metal surface slid against your finger as it nestled around your digit.

Your wedding ring, something you never parted without. Even in a nightly search like this one, where you weren’t sure what exactly you were going to find outside of the safe confines of your chamber. Lucifer had a ring just like yours, but in the darkness, you couldn’t see whether he had taken it with him when he departed.

Snaking your arms together, you held them closely to your chest as you crossed the distance, using your foot to quietly peel the door farther open. It creaked quietly, and you grimaced at the noise. Turning slightly, you shimmied through the gap, the soles of your slippers meeting the carpet in the hallway. 

You turned your head towards the orange glow, that flickered around the corner. The pitiful noises beckoned you as you tiptoed across the corridor, past the large paintings hung across the walls. Scenes of rushing, deep blue waters cascading over glittering rocks as it fell into a pool of sunlit waves. 

On the edge of the large waterfall, was a mother grizzly bear and her cubs, their small frames hanging from their mother’s legs in playful banter. The large bear’s caramel-brown coat stuck out from the sharp, gray edges of the rocks standing tall behind her. 

Her snout was lifted towards the cascading water, her mouth parted to show sharp, white teeth as the shadows of long, pink fish leaped from the edge of the falls, their bodies barely grazing her jaws as she snapped at their forms. 

You weren’t particularly aware of where that painting had come from, but it was a very beautiful scene of life on Earth, a very rare type of piece to find down in Hell.

There was one, that you favored over them all, of you and Lucifer. It depicted a midnight-red sky, the large pentagram glowing above the two figures on a large balcony. Vines snaked around the pillars on each side of the terrace, blue and purple flowers blooming across their green, prickly skin. The familiar face on the left, a pearlescent glow against the red backdrop, wore a playful look on his features. One hand holding a wine glass, the other snug against the figure on the right, you. 

You stood beside Lucifer, a large smile plastered across your face as the two of you leaned comfortably against the tall marble balcony railing. It seemed like the two of you were at some kind of party, perhaps one of those annual meetups all the Sins and friends have away from the prying eyes of Hell. Lucifer’s attire was a more casual fit for a king, his favorite red-and-white striped waistcoat, over that clean, white dress shirt. You were also adorned in an eye-catching outfit that displayed your power and statue of royalty, without making you the center of attention.

The two of you looked so happy, as you leaned into each other with lips curved into goofy grins. For being the highest-ranking figures in Hell, the two of you looked so natural and carefree in this moment. A moment you cherished every time you glanced at the portrait hanging comfortably along the wall during your walks between rooms.

Unfortunately, the light illuminating from the end of the hall wasn’t strong enough for you to get a good glimpse at it, as you neared the corner. You planted your back against the wall, peeking your head slightly out of the edge. You couldn’t see the fireplace from here, but the sound of wood crackling as it split from the flames echoed through the room.

You could hear the strange noises much clearer now, a shaky breath followed by quiet, soothing murmurs. Sniffling, before another one of those stifled sobs. 

Your breath quickened, muscles tensing as you listened for another moment. The voice intermixed with the sounds was awfully familiar, and you couldn’t understand what would make the owner so distraught.

You calmed your beating heart, before pivoting to stand in the entryway of the lounge, your gaze landing on the figure curled on a piece of furniture. Their side faced you, and you partially see their features, illuminated by the orange glow of the flames.

Across the room, was Lucifer. He sat on top of a dark red ottoman, only a few feet from the fireplace as he stared into it, lost in thought. He wore his white dress shirt loosely against his figure, the buttons partially undone in the front, exposing his collarbone. Lucifer’s arms were wrapped around his legs, and his knees were hugged to his chest. His head limply lay against one of his kneecaps, his head out-turned towards you. 

It wasn’t until you approached him, and your footsteps creaked against the floor, did the sullen man perk up from his ball of comfort. Tears glistened against his pale features, and his quivering lip curved into a shocked frown. The man’s disheveled hair bounced softly as he lifted his head, those platinum-blonde curls practically glowing like candlelight.

“Oh, Honey!” Lucifer gasped, his head whipping to face the opposite direction of you. His hand rubbed across his face hastily as he straightened himself atop the sofa. He fixed his loose collar, clearing his throat as he fixed his posture. “I’m sorry, did I wake you? You should just go back to sleep, I don’t want to bother you.”

“It’s hard to sleep when you see your husband like this at one in the morning,” you responded, taking a few steps closer. Your tone was firm, prompting him to speak more on the subject. 

Lucifer stayed silently, the only noise between the two of you were soft pops and crackles from the burning wood. Fear gnawed at you watching him ignore your words. Your husband always tried to hide his emotions at first, masking them behind a smile while he let his mind drift off to such dark thoughts. Except, with you, he always came undone and spilled the beans like a teenage girl at a sleepover.

But, your presence was not breaking him just yet, as he averted his gaze. In the faint light, you swore his fingers were shaking just a tad against the fabric of his shirt. Should you prod him further? There was no way you were going to leave him to drown in whatever sorrows he was battling right now.

“It happened again,” Lucifer finally breathed out after a moment. His fingers harshly squeezed the sleeves of his dress shirt, his chest shuddering as he inhaled another shaky breath. His eyes were still trained on the flames licking against the metal barrier, as he refused to meet your gaze.

You stood there, your arms crossed against your chest as you shivered. The heat of the fireplace felt so welcoming to your tired bones, but the sight of Lucifer sullen upon the ottoman kept your feet frozen in place.

“What happened again?” You whispered, taking a step forward, careful not to cross any boundary that could set your husband off further. This was a side of him you rarely saw. Yes, he was an emotional being, but the distress Lucifer was exuding was making you more nervous after every second he remained silent.

“I was summoned, to one of those… rituals.” Lucifer spat out that last word with disgust, a growl underlying his tone.

You tensed. Oh, one of those.

Since Lucifer fell, and became the King of Hell, his soul was chained to the realm. Unable to cross to Heaven or Earth, even with another’s magic. The fallen angel was stuck, cursed to watch the cruelty and hate that sprung from his past actions.

Except, through the slaughter of a newly-born lamb, could he enter into the mortal plane. Only to answer the call of whoever had landed the killing blow. Something about being punished to only view your creation through ‘the blood of the innocent’ or some stupid Heavenly shit like that. You never asked him what transpired during those summonings, and he never spoke of it.

There was one kind of summoning, that you knew of, that was different from the rest. Cults that worshipped demons and monsters, perpetuated suffering in exchange for a supposed blessing from the fiery pits below. Lucifer always seemed… off, after those times.

“I always feel it, before it happens,” your husband started, his hand raking across his scalp as he pulled the tangled blonde mess behind his forehead. “Like a tugging at my shirt, but from deep inside, like my soul. I didn’t want to disturb you, so I ran to the bathroom. Just as I was pulled through the portal to Earth.”

Those images flashed through Lucifer’s mind as he spoke. Large, crumbling pillars dot the perimeter. Torches circled a thick, wooden stake planted into the ground. Satanic symbols were woven into posts and burned into the ground around the grassy, hidden clearing.

A bloodied figure lay limp against its surface, rope wrapping around their thin frame as it kept them in place. Flames licked at their feet, the stake beginning to catch fire as they writhed in pain from the intense heat.

Hooded. figures stood in the shadows, chanting some awful, ancient tune. Asking for blessings and powers Lucifer couldn’t even grant them.

“It was a girl, I don’t know how old. But, she was young, not even full grown,” Lucifer started, his voice shaky as the words slipped painfully from his tongue, “When I got there, she was already burning. Screaming in agony, pleading for mercy.”

You grimaced, trying not to picture the scene. The metallic tang of blood that no doubt had permeated the air. The stench of burning flesh, as it sizzled off its owner. 

Bile rose in your throat, threatening to spill from your mouth before you held it in. Leaving you to wonder how many times Lucifer had witnessed such a thing to have better composure to the scene than you.

“Do you know who she cried out to during her last moments?” Lucifer turned to you, his features glowing as his eyes glistened with tears. A bitter smile bloomed on his lips, a dark chuckle escaping his throat. “God! She begged Him to save her! To strike those hooded men down and end her suffering.” 

You said nothing, instead taking a few steps closer to your husband's quivering form, only a few feet from him now as Lucifer spoke with a pained tone.

“Do you know what ended her suffering? The flames that ate away her skin.” He snarled, his eyes turning blood-red as he pivoted towards you. You reeled back, your heartbeat quickening at his bared teeth.

“There was nothing I could—nothing I can do,” He cried to you, his tone wobbly, desperate. As if he was trying to convince you that was the truth, that he didn’t let such terrible actions go unpunished purposely. “I’m always too late when they call for me. Too much damage already.”

Tears pricked at your eyes as you listened to him. You would have never had that kind of idea in your head, you knew Lucifer wasn’t that twisted of a man. 

“And imagine, when those bastards finally kick the bucket, they’ll come here,” Lucifer spat hoarsely, venom dripping from his words, “another citizen that I’m expected to protect and rule over. I’m expected to care about, as King. What a cruel joke Heaven has played on me.”

Lucifer sat there for a moment, breathing heavily. His horns jutted out of his head as he fumed silently at himself. Those tears threatened to spill from his pretty eyes once more as he lifted a hand with an anguished growl, and Lucifer raked his claws down his face. 

You gasped, watching blood spill from the small gashes across his cheek, glowing sickly against the blazing light from the fireplace.

“Don’t do that!” You begged, lacing your fingers with his, pulling his hand to your chest as you kneeled before him. The golden liquid spread across your fingertips from his damp claws, and your face screwed into anguish, “Don’t hurt yourself, none of this is your fault. Absolutely none..”

Your finger rubbed against a small, smooth surface on Lucifer’s hand. Glancing down, your eyes followed the glint of his wedding ring as it shined in the basking light. Your heart fluttered, and you sighed.

Slowly, you lifted your other hand to his face. Lucifer leaned back slightly, hesitant at your touch. He broke a moment later, squeezing his eyes shut as he brushed his cheek against your open hand. Your nails grazed lightly against his skin, the damp feeling only driving your own tears.

“Do you know what it feels like, to watch innocent people be burned alive to please some sick, twisted version of me?” Lucifer whispered into your palm, tears pooling against your skin as he blinked them away.

You pursued your lips, the agony on his face clenching your heart tightly.

“Those defenseless men and women, sentenced to death simply for theatrics.” Lucifer whimpered, and you slid your hand from his fingers to rest against his other cheek. 

“All those children—”

Lucifer choked on the last word, a sob escaping his throat as he struggled to contain the shakes racking across his body. 

In a swift motion, you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling the fallen angel flush against you. This time, there was no fuss from him as he collapsed into your hold. 

You held him, as he sobbed. Painful, heartbreaking cries of grief. As Lucifer mourned the lives that were destroyed in his name, for an image that didn’t exist. 

You shook against him, ceasing the noises that threatened to escape your aching throat. You only bit your lip harshly, tasting blood drip flood your tastebuds. You ignored the pain blooming in your mouth, staying silent as Lucifer began to calm in your grasp.

All because he wanted mankind to be able to express themselves outside of Heaven’s strict rules and suffocating influence.

“I gave them a chance to do so much more,” he whispered against your skin. His head lay limply against your shoulder as he sobbed quietly. “And, they fucked it up.”

“Please don’t cry,” you whispered hoarsely into his hair, inhaling the deep scent of apples and cinnamon as you hugged him tightly. “I’m here for you, as always. You don’t need to hide your grief from me.”

“I know, I'm sorry.” He replied quietly, his fingers rubbing soothing circles against your upper back. The weight against you grew heavier, as he fell completely limp against your hold, his hand coming down to rest against your waist. 

“I’m just so tired.” He muttered into the crook of your neck, and you pulled him closer.

“Sleep, I’m right here. Just rest your eyes, for me.” You begged your lover.

Lucifer nodded into your skin, before you felt him curl farther into you. You nestled closer into his hair, your back against the ottoman now, as you let the heat of the fire dry your soaked cheeks.

Oh, how cruel Heaven truly is, to give such a fate to such a loving soul. 

And now, you’d make sure he would never feel so alone in his pain again. A silent promise to your husband, as you drifted into bliss-less sleep.

YOU GUYS. this idea had me by the chokehold suddenly after work, and i wrote it in one sitting, my ass hurts yall 😂

also, don’t worry, that alastor fic is still coming! i’m about halfway done, so stay tuned for that next :)

what do you think? let me know your thoughts! <3

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[unadulteratedsoulsweets]

A DC X DP #18

You want a taste of my brain? Okay, it's yours anyway.

Imagine dis…

This time I get inspiration from an A03 fic, and some of its parts just stuck with me and now I’m writing about it, if some of you want to read it go for it. If you are asking for the name don’t ask, I am not going to sell my soul to the devil to find it in my ever-growing history. If you do manage to find it, kudos to them.

TELL ME I AM GETTING DESPERATE OVER HERE

Credits to them as well. Also, as you’ve noticed I decided to post less, now it is due to a good old lack of inspiration. So, don’t go getting your hopes up on this one.

…

Ever since Danny Phantom had become the Ghost King he repeatedly entered the reincarnation cycle willingly to retain his morals when he was human. He still retained his ability to stay in the middle of life and death. But when he as the High King of the Infinite Realms gained immortality he found himself losing his ideals and values, he began forgetting. With Clockwork’s insistence, every few hundred years he would become human to experience a lifetime. Sometimes he would go another round in the same dimension, but only when he needed to finish an unfinished business.

Sometimes he is lucky sometimes he is not.

Sometimes he would be born into a loving family with either as the only child or him having siblings. He has experienced the life of royalty as the heir prince. He experienced the life of a knight who was known for his skills with the sword. He was born into a normal family which made him second guesses his every choice due to his lack of normality in his life. He was also born into some wild dimensions that of which could look like it came from a book. From wizards and sci-fi worlds, he never had the time to sit and be an extra.

But there were also times he was born far too unlucky. 

He was born in a salve ridden society, a parent who were core members of a rebellion so when his current parents died, he was expected to be like his parents. Born in a society where the rich trample the poor and he was forced into early child labor as expected in society to work at a very young age. Born where he and the people around him had never seen peace in a war-consumed country, a war that separated his family from each other not knowing whether one is alive or not, leaving only him and his siblings to stay alive. Being abandoned by a pair of druggies for his parents left alone inside a dumpster and died in the middle of the night, looking through the dimension he saw that some homeless people found his body and reported it to the authorities leaving his parents in jail while some prisoners seem to leave them at the near bottom of the hierarchy in prison.

…

It seems this time he was born in an assassin cult this time he wasn’t alone. A twin, an older sibling that was with him in the womb and both came into the world together. The moment he laid his eyes on his grandfather he can already tell that he is a major fruit loop from the way he both look at both of them. 

His name is too formal for his liking, Dylan Al Ghul, he already convinced Damian to call him Danny when it was just the two of them. Danny tries to downplay his abilities both ghost and human seeing that his grandfather is too power-hungry to the point of misusing ectoplasm that is corrupted but still ectoplasm to achieve some sort of immortality, he tried to give Damian a childhood in the form of showing him the stars whenever he could sneak him outside. He saw the absolute worship and awe Damian would give to their mother and their grandfather whenever they visit or supervised their training, Danny didn’t care for their approval nor their presence but seeing his brother seem to at awe and do anything to please the two made his heart shatter, his older brother never needed to prove anyone something.

Danny has repeatedly shown his disdain for the two most powerful people in the organization yet it is a miracle he still lives. It is because he is a spare, a spare yes not the heir but a useful spare one, twins one who specialized in stealth and espionage a twin who is a perfect copy of Damian aside from his eyes mirroring their supposed father. Both Talia and Ra seem to make it their life mission to drill his only purpose in his head, it may have never worked due to his adult mind but he pretended it would be as to not raise any suspicion.

…

The day Deathstroke attacked not only he dared to kill the demon head but also choose to kill the chosen heir, by removing an eye and some of his organs as a form of slow torture but also killing him as he made the organs unable to go back to their owner’s body.

Danny couldn’t look away from his bloodied brother, Talia slowly approached him from behind and put her hands on his shoulder, and whispered some honeyed words on how his role as the spare will be fulfilled at a much earlier date and promptly injected with a sleeping drug.

…

Danny was already awake when he noticed the cold metal bed behind him the lack of clothes as well the number of doctors seemingly in a rush to prepare for a last-minute surgery. He saw the unconscious form of Damian on the other side and suddenly heard the loud ticking noise of a grandfather’s clock. 

It seems that it was meant to be, Danny thought as an image of Clockwork flashed in his mind. 

He fell back asleep knowing that Damian lost an eye, kidney, a lung, some ribs as well an ungodly amount of blood, possibly more. Danny knew that this vessel of his wouldn’t survive at the sheer need and he already felt that he would not leave the room alive. So, he took one last peek at the sleeping Damian and promptly closed his eyes, the moment he opened his eyes once again he was back in his chambers in the Infinite Realms clutching his left eye in his face whilst looking at the mirror as he felt his eye be the first one to be removed.

It seems this time he died months before he and his brother celebrated their 10th birthday.

…

Damian woke up with a pounding headache being the assassin he is he immediately looked around seeing that his last memory is being tortured by Deathstroke.

He immediately took notice of his loose clothing and tried to walk towards the door but his knees immediately gave out. As he tries to gain his bearings, he noticed a scar right in the middle of his chest, it couldn’t be from the time when he was captured by Deathstroke as he noticed that this scar is too clean, too sterilized as if someone had just come out of a surgery type of scar. As he tries to loosen his shirt to take a better look at his scar when he noticed a mirror facing his way and noticed his eyes, instead of his usual pair of emerald eyes he was greeted with an emerald eye of his own and his brother’s icy blue eye in his left eye.

Damian remembered that Deathstroke took out his eye, as according to him it reminded him of the Demon head, and decided to promptly pull it out with his bare hands. 

Dread began to fill his very being and tried to go and look for his brother but deep down he already knew what happened to him after all, he is the heir while his brother his beloved younger brother is just a spare.

…

When Damian had met his father’s wards most of them commented on his heterochromia eyes and promptly greeted back with his sword in their faces.

The rest grumbled that Damian couldn’t take a tease or two, but immediately chased the demon brat as he chases each and one of them with the intent to kill.

Damian couldn’t tell them; another son was hidden from Bruce. Another son he had failed, another son who died before they could even meet him.

From the first few interactions he had with his father when he first met him, he knew where his brother’s bleeding heart came from.

Sometimes he could still see him, Dyl- no Danny, every time he looks in the mirror. The constant reminder that his brother was seen by the league as nothing but a spare. Whatever love he had for his mother disappeared the moment he laid his sight at his brother’s eye embedded in his supposed empty eye socket. 

The constant reminder that shows every time he looks at the mirror and the scar in the middle of his chest, Danny’s organs that were used on him to ensure his survival while Danny was left behind.

…

He was 14 years old when he went wide-eyed at the stranger across him and his brothers in a heavily populated area.

A teen looks exactly like him with a medical eyepatch on his left eye as he sits in a wheelchair chatting idly with an older man.

Damian heavily thought of a clone, did Talia, not mother never mother, make another clone after him after weeks of silence?

Damian still remembered the first time he encountered a clone with blue eyes, his running theory is that due to his new organs have bonded with him thus creating a batch of clones with blue eyes. Timothy had spoken up that since babies have a 50/50 chance of inheriting the colored eyes of either parent made a new branch of clones. 

Damian was already planning on disposing of the supposed clone when the said clone suddenly laughed exposing his neck that have a feign white line across indicating a scar. But that scar made Damian double guess, all clones he encountered are scarred free thus leaving him to have no trouble disposing of each and one of them but the existence of the scar he barely caught is something both brothers swore secrecy to it.

The laugh oh god, his laugh, only his brother laughs like that, Damian thought mournfully.

As he tries to look the other way, he suddenly faced the same doctor who was the assistant doctor that foresees his surgery years ago. He may have distanced himself from the League after he had fulfilled his debt but it was no mistaking that it was the same doctor that operated him that time.

A chemist they said, an insufficient man who is more cowardly than any other man yet his talent in poisons made him quite a gem in the League.

A clone who had broke out of their collective mind control? Possible, but why this clone? What made this look alike so special that this man dared to leave the League?

…

Robin began to follow the two, the other bats thought that he had a new case on his lap that requires recon. They didn’t question Robin’s new behavior as they have seen him do the same actions when he landed himself a case or when he was following a lead. Yet they couldn’t shake the feeling that something is not right, whether it is the fact that Robin refused any assistance or just the fact they have no idea what kind of case Robin is working on.

They should have listened to their guts then maybe they wouldn’t be surprised at the bat screen, showing a maternal and paternal match to a picture of a blue-eyed black-haired kid with a medical eyepatch on his left eye looking like Damian in a good day.

…

Danny was doing some paperwork when a flying thought passed by him about his last reincarnation. All memories from his adventures when he got reincarnated are usually put behind the back of his hand yet worries about the well-being of his brother made him distracted, and kept close a special one-way mirror to monitor his baby brother.

Danny felt nostalgic at the family drama and chaos that he can’t help but cackle at each interaction Damian has with their father’s adopted children and wards. He found himself majorly of his time watching for hours and hours, he can’t help but wish he was there. As if he was summoned Clockwork appeared in front of him and told him to go back, which confuses Danny since it was Clockwork who implemented that he cannot go back to the same dimension/ world if his body is too far gone to be revived by him, yet Clockwork told him to give someone named Alfred his regards and vanished. Looking bewildered at his mentor/ grandfather he tried to sense his vessel with little to no hope seeing that the League has his body, but surprises himself when he felt his own body submerged in a portion of the Lazarus pit. 

…

Going back, he was greeted by an assistant doctor that used to be in the League due to his ancestor’s debt. He explained that he cannot in good conscience do what he was instructed to after the operation, stole his body, and submerged it in an undiscovered pit due to its small size, enough to dump a child not enough for a grown adult. 

After an initial check-up, both he and the doctor discovered that the mini Lazarus pit regenerated all of his organs except his eye seeing that it was his entire body submerged excluding his head. The assistant doc theorized that those organs of his may be weaker since they were generated from nothing, Danny in all his eldritch glory as well as being the most powerful being across the Infinite Realms played his part perfectly of a now disabled child.

After all who would accuse this disabled child putting the daughter of the Demon Head in an endless nightmare by his command to Fright Knight? Who would accuse that innocent blue eye of his that he had killed any assassin in their tail ever since he and his now temporary guardian began exploring the world? Who would accuse an adorable child that he was the one who had put the Joker in a definite MIA? Who would accuse this child who smiles like the sun despite his setbacks be the one who tortured Deathstroke to the brink of insanity? Danny is pretty sure his temporary guardian knew of his secret endeavors but remained quiet due to his habit when he was in the League or just to prevent any grayer hairs from growing in. 

…

Now if only his brother stopped moping around the building across their apartment complex and just come inside, he made his infamous fudge to share with his brother. His brother didn’t have to drag the rest of the bat brigade in watching him across the building, he even made extra fudge, if only they could just go through the front door instead of rescuing him first in every rogue attack and pretend, they don’t him. Well, if they are playing a game then count him in to win. But for some reason all of them made a face of being constipated whenever they talk to him, Danny is so sure he used clean ingredients to make his fudge…

God dammit just enter the front door like a normal person, better yet tell Batman to stop looking at him as if he died! Those windows are not paying to fix themselves each time one of them decided to stop dropping and roll every other night!

…

PS: If someone out there wanted to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so, don’t forget to tag me though.

[privitivium]

angel devil w/ devil crush rambles/hcs, nsfw

only physical devil attribute mentioned is a forked tongue (not used for scenting ), no particular devil, no mentions of makima.

cw;; noncon touching, lingerie, overstimulation, subbot angel :p

he didn't appreciate how outward and expressive you were. being part of the same division and all, of course you had to make conversation like a good guy, right??? but you werent the good guys. why are you treating everything like its so unexplainably awesome? to put it simply, he didn't like you. that much. however, there was still a small amount of like, trust. he's just ,,, shy in an awkward, apathetic way,,, he does commend you for not being so ignorant most of the time. more insolent, rather.. he thought your time spent on earth would be used well to be a more refined being, but clearly not...

"don't touch me." he would hiss, having grown used to not interacting with other devilsㅡespecially not used to one touching him.. you both took on a relatively human form, so it gets a little startling everytime you touch him.. you seemed to take it a little seriously, however;; seeing as his powers had no effect on you... your touch began lingering a bit longer than usual. you were a bit of a nuisance as he saw it. constantly poking at him, taunting and teasing... a bit annoying is all. "but i'm lonely." you'd complain, huffing. pulling away just to moodily cross your arms over your chest - he would roll his eyes, trying to ignore you as he tries to let himself relax.. not doing anything in particular, merely standing in existence..

and, to put it simply, you liked him. loved? or.. had a crush on him as someone, a kind human, had explained to you the feelings that you felt while meandering around him... you were one to explore your body, as it were natural. finding whatever captured your fancy - or rather, which thoughts made you flustered enough that blood started rushing toward your groin. incredible! first boner, as a human, in a human body, ( eons ago? )... it began to ache after awhile of merely staring at it after it risen,, body uncomfortably warm.. and then; exploring your body until you were trembling and seeing stars... you wanted to share this with angel, wanting him to feel the wondrous pleasure that you felt as it was notorious for couples. but could there be more?? you ask around, none of the other devils comprehending what you were trying to get at, until you asked a few humans at the library who directed you to books on human anatomy and pleasure... amazing! admiring him for the time being..

ㅡ"who is she?" angel points with his eyes, shamelessly toward the young human woman behind the counter of the small store, who seemed a bit too giddy for his liking. his grip on your hand tightens, just a smidge.. you smile widely and flick your forked tongue outward, cheekily - "she's a fan! can you believe it? she likes me..." you would say, hand squeezing angel's right back and beginning to swing your conjoined hands back and forth, a woman who was interested in you.. "she's my friend, lets me come around after everyones gone!" a human friend? are you kidding? keeping his distance by your side, staying away from the smiling woman,,, a disgusting feeling in his gut, feeling a bile in his throat and wondering why you were so interested in human culture such as this, as he lets himself admire the clothes hanging up on the wall in the dim lighting, hand still entwined with yours.

ㅡ"don't worry, we don't need supervision, angel.." you hummed gleefully, dragging him by the hand down the relatively empty street;; no one to gawk at you, that is for certain. having a particular interest in humans fashion, you decided to share this with angel.. whether he liked it or not. as he begrudgingly followed you, unable to pull his hand from yours,,, "where are we going?" he would question, a bit apathetic yet ever so curious as he stealthily admires the downtown area.. really, no one is around.. even at the time of three in the morning? it's a little unbelieveable, knowing how wreckless humans can get during these hours.. but he isn't one to immensely question everything..

"woah, look at this..!" you flaunt a piece of fabric that practically looked like white string on a hanger, excited as you look over at angel. excited to share your interest, is all. totally not to see him in .. whatever it is you're holding.. "don't you wanna try it on? it's so you!!" and then, promptly showing off your body after you dragged him into the dressing room, happily;; the woman busy at the front desk, going over her employee's schedules, definitely not going to bother you..

ㅡbody naked, stripped down to your flesh and dick promptly dangling inbetween your legs as you stood in front of angel, partially facing the mirror while you try and work out the damn mess of fabric. angel, shamelessly letting his eyes rake over your figure. the thought of we shouldn't be here echoing throughout his mind as something warm settles underneath his belly, his cheeks.. set aflame. you began posing in front of the mirror, a bit silly.. in a black, sheer mess of lingerie, before you were helping angel undress to get into something you picked out - all for fun, you tell him, lingering touch along his shoulders and arms.. hrmm.. something like that.

ㅡexploring angel's body in the comfort of your room of your tiny apartment provided by the higher ups. he was a little weirded out by your affinity of magazines with naked humans and tapes stacked by the TV and.. toys strewn about - catching his gaze, and immediately explaining to him what they were for,,, "pleasure," you simplified, giddily as angel takes the time to admire what each little gadget does... only having a few tapes and magazines only for practice, not for material for masturbating as one would think.. often using the image of angel sitting proudly on your girth, taking it with ease,,

a little nonchalant as you explain to his sobbing, writhing form, abdomen coated in his cum and the tip of his cock darkened red in comparison due to the apparent overstimulation you accidentally put him through after jerking him til he came twice in a row.. a little uncaring and utterly happy as you smile over him; fingers dipping inward just underneath his sack,, trying to follow what you saw on those tapes between those two guys... "yeah, you gotta make sure you're all nice and stretched so it's easier for me to slip in... it might be a second." since he was..,, tight. having a bit of a hard time of piercing him with your well-lubed up finger after merely circling his rim, giving him time to react before you began scissoring him - he cries outㅡfidgeting, trying to relaxㅡa high-pitched noise that was melodious. fingers pumping in and out, dutifully. quick, fast, eager to be inside him and feel the way his walls feel around your girth rather than your digits.,, he commends you for your interests, as you graze against his prostate with your digits.,,

ㅡ"aren't these bodies great, angel?" you'd marvel, grinning as you feel yourself pulse inside him; breathless and marveling at his bare frame, so tiny in comparison to yours.. trying to make out what he was saying through his choked up voice and tears that you lean over and kiss away - his lips following yours before he grabs your face with his dainty hands, cupping your cheeks gently while shoving his tongue in your mouth messily, obviously having no idea what he was doing and simply doing what he felt was right... so pretty, you'd marvel, weirdly keeping your eyes open as you makeout, keeping him stuffed with your cock while you tangle your fingers in his light, dusty red hair.. he seemed to like it; the way he began tensing around you and trying to grind downward with a soft whimper,,

ㅡthe next time when you're out and about, he isn't too hesitant to hold your hand. it feels good, he realizes this like a magical epiphanyㅡin human bodies, so it's technically the same as touching... othersㅡand is sure to take advantage of it by constantly touching on you somehow! "isn't it.. great?"

[icycoldninja]

May I please request headcanons for the Sparda boys + V finding out that their girlfriend has a very high sex drive but she tries to hide it due to being shamed in the past?

Sure, sure! Here ya go and enjoy!

Sparda boys + V x Fem!Reader with high sex drive headcannons

¤ Dante ¤

-When Dante learned you had a high drive, he was thrilled.

-He didn't give two shits whether or not people had bullied or shamed you for it in the past--you were here with him now, and he was gonna treat you right.

-Now, any normal person would be tired out after a single round with Dante, but not you!

-You're a real baddie, able to last for hours on end. And if his human form ain't enough to satisfy you, then there's always his Devil Trigger, or maybe even his Sin Devil Trigger, if that doesn't do the trick.

-When demon mating season comes along, he'll be glad you're around for...umm...purposes.

■ Vergil ■

-Vergil has never been bothered by mortal things such as "sex drive", so upon learning you have a high one, he remains indifferent.

-HOWEVER, demon mating season is a different story, as during this time, all demons and half demons will want to...well...breed. Naturally, these lustful creatures will want someone who can keep up with them.

-Vergil's glad you have such a high drive because it means he doesn't have to hold back. He can go as hard and fast as he wants, without worry of hurting you.

-He can even Trigger, something he rarely does during sex, and literally go all out.

-Watch out, girl, Vergil might actually wear you out for once.

□ Nero □

-Nero was really excited when he heard of how high your sex drive was.

-He couldn't believe people had actually shamed you for it--wasn't being good in bed a good thing?!

-Nero then decided to take it upon himself to push your body past its limits, with the help of his prosthetic arm, of course.

-He'll utilize it like a vibrator; the double stimulation will drive you crazy in a matter of minutes, leading to complete exhaustion after a just few hours.

-Nero might not undergo mating season, but there is a seasonal period where he'll be extra horny and needs you for satisfaction. (thank 1/4 demon genetics for that)

● V ●

-V isn't really familiar with what sex drive is, or why you have a high one, but after some research, deems it to be "interesting".

-He showers you with praise to alleviate any lingering negativity brought on by your past, and if he wasn't so physically weak, he swears he would ravage you for hours.

-Instead, however, he will torture you for hours using his dexterous fingers and tongue, bringing you continuous, shuddering orgasms for hours and hours.

-Since V is not a demon, he doesn't undergo any mating periods or gets seasonal lust, but is ready to please when you get horny.

-Just...don't be too rough with him--he has his limits.

[sugar-grigri]

Like Prometheus, the heart will be bruised

When Fujimoto makes a revelation, it's important to remember that this revelation never comes out of nowhere; there are always clues to it in the previous chapters. These clues don't serve to make you want to know what happens next (which is difficult with CSM), they serve above all to make your experience as a reader more gratifying, especially on rereading.

Well then, let's get started! In chapter 146 Fujimoto introduces an exceptional new demon, the Fire Devil.

What I find particularly interesting is the extent to which his power and this chapter are based on the same way a fire works

Barem's statement to his contractors alone makes sense, because to take the form you desire is to escape your condition in the same way that humans in prehistoric times began to use fire, moving away from their ape-like status.

In the same way, the fact that the fire demon gains in power as the number of its followers increases makes perfect sense. It works like a kind of fire that goes up in flames.

Now let's take a step back. It was while I was rereading the last few chapters that I realised a number of things...

Let's start with the fact that the fire demon was right under our noses, as shown by the presence of fire every time Fujimoto placed this false demon of justice, whether with the class president literally pulverised by Yoru or Yuko burning her neighbour's body.

But above all it's clear how the fire demon fulfilled the expectations of these two contractors

The President wanted to be seen by Mr Tanaka, hence the plurality of heads.

As for Yuko, she was an intrusive person (although I like this character) who wanted to know Asa's secrets, their exchange of secrets being for her the proof that they had become best friends.

Yuko seemed like an isolated person who was desperate to get into people's heads, hence her mind-reading powers.

This also works with the old man from the church who also contracted the false demon of justice, his thesis was that he could fight demons by becoming a demon... which he did.

The other point I want to make is that Fami's plan is bound to have flaws, not only because it would be more interesting from a narrative point of view, but also because we sense that she's trying to find the right tactics.

Her first tactic was to starve Yoru to get complete control of the war demon, but that didn't work.

Every time she tried to starve Yoru, Chainsaw Man or Denji were around, which gave Fami the idea of a possible partnership between the two, rather than fighting each other.

Hence the fact that she explains to Yoru that cooperating with Chainsaw Man wouldn't prevent him (or at least the black Chainsaw Man) from being killed, as this cooperation is more than necessary.

I'm also intrigued by this line because, in the light of the last revelation, it only implies even more that Chainsaw Man must become this super-powerful champion.

The church is really trying to help him, in other words the church is really trying to restore his power and even increase it.

But what I find even more incredible is the fact that Asa and Denji are in the same position

They're both at the heart of Fami's plan, but they're also both host to one of those demons that can kill the Death Demon.

But their situations were different; Asa fell into the trap by tying up with the church, while the passivity that could be taken from Denji was in reality a form of resistance.

This is particularly striking in several chapters

Denji had not succumbed to the temptation of becoming a divine being with the church, whereas Miri Sugo could despise him for only wanting to remain a chair, to act like a chair - this act of depreciation goes completely against the veneration of the church.

The fact that Denji belittles Chainsaw Man by acting in a humiliating way is in itself an act of protest against the fact that he is becoming a hero incarnate in whom the church will project itself.

I'm well aware that Denji wasn't aware of all this, but it's precisely his personality and deep-seated nature that allow him to go against this plan.

The fact that Denji wants people to find out he's Chainsaw Man defeats the whole purpose, because giving this mechanical monster an identity, a human head, makes it impossible to identify with him.

Yes, the impostor is pretending to be Chainsaw Man, but this generic character with his abstract and broad speech means that everyone can admire him and continue to project themselves as Chainsaw Man.

What Fujimoto has done from the start is underline Denji's flaws, his deep humanity and his own self-deprecation, he's too strong a character and so far removed from the imaginary Chainsaw Man that it would make any admiration and identification collapse.

Above all, Denji and Asa are cannon fodder for their own demons, Pochita is subject to Denji's dreams and wills, which are always in pursuit of integration among humans and literal contact, and when the heart isn't split in two, the brain is, Asa with her moral dilemmas, her intellectual capacities that escape the law of retaliation how advocated by the war demon

That's why the rest of the plan is as follows: Fami knew that the public hunters would fight back, so she deliberately let them.

The public demons immediately set about neutralising Chainsaw Man, so she wanted to kill two birds with one stone, Asa, i.e. bring back as many followers as possible with a new figure. But above all to draw the attention of the public hunters to Asa. Wouldn't Fami take advantage of the fact that Asa could be massacred by Yoshida to force Yoru to change host...... to Yoshida?

Just like the fact that Barem is quite close to Denji.

Remember when Fumiko said she was a fan of Denji, Barem intervened and said he preferred Chainsaw Man?

Time to separate

Barem propagated the fact of becoming Chainsaw Man like a fire that would spread, this time the punishment was not for Zeus to make humans mortal but rather immortal and monstrous demons.

But the fact remains that the rule will continue to apply and, like Prometheus, a heart will be sacrificed and bitten by the birds

A heart bitten by a bird

[torukmaktoskxawng]

utter betrayal

Pairing: Lyle Wainfleet/Fem!reader

Summary: As part of the jungle escort for the Avatar Program, Corporal Lyle Wainfleet is exposed to Na'vi customs and Dr. Augustine's distaste for him. He can't blame her. After all, he is sleeping with her sister.

Warning: no smut, it's just implied. Death and angst, swear words, name calling, blood, canon-typical violence, claustrophobia.

A/N: Request? No, but I feel like no one talks about the times Lyle used to run with the avatar scientists in the first movie, and I felt like that could make a potent mix of angst 😈 Just an added warning that the majority of this was written on my phone so its not nearly as long or as detailed as I wanted it to be, but I had this idea and I wanted to quickly write it out. I don't like Lyle but I consider this a character study that I challenged myself with. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~

"Stay with the ship. One idiot with a gun is enough."

"You're the man, doc."

Y/n only spared Lyle a look before she went to catch up with the avatar crew. Squeezing past Norm and Sully, she reached her sister at the head of the group, "You could cut him some slack. He's trying."

Grace rolled her bright yellow eyes, busying herself with watching the trees carefully, trying to narrow down any familiar signs of the Na'vi watching their little science crew of avatars, "The dimwit is too trigger happy. Parker shouldn't have assigned him to us for how sensitive this mission is."

"Mm. That's not the only reason why you hate him," Y/n smirks, and it only grows the more irritated Grace appeared. Jake was watching the Augustine sisters interact from the back of the group, curiously watching the way Y/n bravely overstepped boundaries with Grace that he knew he'd be clipped for if he tried.

Sully doesn't have time to think about it after he got chased off by a thanator, forcing Grace to pull back the rest of her team and retreat back to the gunship.

Lyle had spotted them coming from his scope on his AR, peering up as Y/n approached him, "Hey, mama, what's going on?"

"We got a problem," Y/n muttered.

"Everyone get in!" Grace rushed out, determined to get in the air as soon as possible in order to search for Jake. Lyle gets into the cockpit with Trudy while the avatars pile in the back.

No one said anything, but they all thought Jake was already dead. Barely anyone could survive a night alone in the forest, let alone the new guy who was the current target of a thanator. After Trudy calls it, they all hesitantly leave Jake behind without learning of his fate. The moment they landed back at Hell's Gate, Grace rushed her team back to the biolab, and they all immediately broke their links to return to their human forms and try to wake up Jake's.

Crisis was averted when Jake struggled but managed to wake up, exclaiming the avatar was safe within the Omatikaya camp. After the initial relief and Jake's report, everyone had gone their separate ways for the night, excited to get Jake back in the grind in the morning so they could hear more from the Na'vi for the first time in years.

Y/n decided not to turn in yet. Instead, she found herself in the rec room at the same late hour she always does, every night, without delay. And, as usual, her date is always late.

"Hey, little mama."

She rolls her eyes at the pet name and rises to greet Lyle, now standing significantly shorter than him as she presses into his space. Wainfleet hums into her hair then leans down to playfully nip her ear when she held onto him for too long. She scoffs and weakly whacks his arm before moving back to her table and sitting down.

Lyle smirks and doesn't accept this seating arrangement, sitting down and pulling Y/n to sit on his knee as they talked, "So I heard they managed to revive Wheelie."

"You mean Jake? Yeah, he's awake now. He's fine, and so is his avatar." She shrugs while throwing an arm loosely over his shoulders.

"That's gotta be one helluva story how he managed to outrun that devil cat."

"Whether it's real or imbelished, I'm sure he'll be entertaining us for the next week or so."

"Mmhm," was all he responded with as he began to kiss her neck, not working his way up and just going straight to gently sucking her skin between his teeth with intention of marking her.

She happily leans away to give him more access, her breaths softly rising in pitch at the sensation of his tongue and teeth working together while her eyes glance around, "Not here..."

"See, you say that every time," he grins into her neck, his hands inching down her stomach, "And yet we meet up here every time. It's like you want us to get caught, babydoll."

She moaned quietly to herself, not exactly denying it.

~~~~~~~~~

Jake ended up doing more than entertaining the scientists with stories. Before Y/n could blink, months go by, and now she's found herself on the run from the RDA, taking the role as Trudy's copilot while they quickly try to escape with the help of Norm, Jake, and Grace. With Hometree destroyed, Jake and the other labcoats were considered traitors to the cause and held prisoner. Y/n notably didn't ask for Corporal Wainfleet, and neither did he visit her in the brig. She stubbornly didn't say a word about it, more worried about the Omatikaya than her current relationship status. Trudy had told Y/n how Lyle reacted poorly to disengaging before he could even drill lead into the Na'vi and their home, and she didn't want to think about it any longer, the image of Lyle doing that disturbed her.

Determined to warn the Na'vi of Quaritch and his plan to lay out the entire forest, Max and Trudy let the others out of their holding cell and made a break for it, running nonstop to the shipyard. Trudy, Norm, and Y/n fired up the engine and proceeded to help Grace get Jake and his wheelchair into the gunship before hell broke loose. Gunshots followed Trudy's gunship until they were out of range, and then they were suddenly home free, cheering and whooping in celebration.

It was short-lived. Y/n remembered her whole world flipping upside down when she heard Jake announce with barely restrained fear in his voice, "Grace is hit!"

"What?"

~~~~~~~~~

Y/n, in her avatar, was beside herself after Grace died in her arms at the base of the Tree of Souls. The younger Augustine grew to accept comfort from Eywa, knowing that her sister died in a place she had always wanted to go. However, Y/n couldn't find the energy to help Jake and the Omatikaya spread out and recruit other Na'vi clans for their war. She remained with Mo'at at the Tree of Souls, mostly quiet and at war within her own mind.

She fought alongside the Na'vi and stubbornly didn't think about where among the battle Lyle was likely fighting against her. She didn't want to think about him and if he was already gone. She didn't want to think about whether or not he was thinking about her either with hate or betrayal. Either way, she knew she couldn't have faced him in the battlefield even if they did end up running into each other, but they never did. And when the battle was over, she stubbornly focused on her wounded friends and other Na'vi, refusing to find out what Lyle's fate had been until things died down.

Y/n kept busy by trying to help Norm keep his avatar alive after being gunned down in the fight. It took nearly a full day and night, but they had managed to stop the bleeding and stabalize the body, patching the wounds up and leaving it in one of the amino tanks... right beside Grace's avatar. Y/n pointedly wouldn't look in her direction.

It was only when Jake and the others began taking the Sky People's headcount and inventory before sending them on the shuttle back to Earth did Y/n finally allow herself to find out a mystery of her own. She held the list in her hands, a touchscreen displaying names of all the soldiers and other employees of the RDA who were announced missing or otherwise. She blinked back tears at her sister's name, highlighted red, and announced MIA. The RDA didn't know Grace had been wounded let alone killed, and so Y/n decided that they didn't need to have that satisfaction, leaving the status of her sister unknown before scrolling further down. Alphabetically, she had to scroll to nearly the very end of the list before she got the answer she was searching for.

Corporal Lyle Wainfleet - KIA

It felt as though she wasn't allowed to grieve, knowing that she would be grieving a man who did nothing but harm the Na'vi. She only managed to mourn him in private but otherwise wouldn't let anyone ask her about it. She would determinedly deny anything that involved her and Lyle in the future. Instead, she would go on for years just telling everyone that they were more of a fling than anything else. She couldn't afford to think otherwise.

Besides, she had better things to think about, like how she was going to raise her sister's daughter, whose conception still remained a total mystery. After the baby girl was born, Y/n thought about Grace's Na'vi name, Kìreysì, and decided to name the Na'vi infant Kiri.

~~~~~~~~~

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER...

Y/n didn't believe Jake and Neytiri when they spoke of avatars with the names of dead soldiers from a war so long ago. After the Sullys returned from a dangerous interaction with these new avatars and Spider was captured, Y/n held Kiri tightly that night, the teenager beside herself after her best friend's kidnapping. Her aunt, however, was quiet other than the physical comfort she provided. Y/n's own mind was clouded, thinking back to Jake's description of these new RDA avatars. He had confirmed Quaritch to be one of them, but otherwise couldn't be certain about the others, not to mention the handful he, Neytiri, and even Neteyam killed.

For the safety of the People, the Sullys decided to leave and so Y/n and Kiri followed them. They fly to Awa'atlu to live among the Metkayina, and for those few months, life was peaceful again, aside for the strife Y/n felt when Kiri had a seizure.

After the tulkun were attacked, however, war was ever apparent again. Jake and the entire Metkayina clan swim to the kids' rescue after Lo'ak called in the siting of the demon ship. With Payakan's help, the Na'vi had the upper hand. While Jake and the Reef People attacked from below in the water, Neytiri and Y/n attacked from above, flying down from their ikrans. They weren't expecting the Sky People to have ikran of their own, and for the first time, Y/n laid eyes on these new avatars as she helped gun them down.

She got separated from Neytiri during the initial battle, then the sky began to darken and Y/n was frantically searching for Kiri among the chaos. She finds her, eventually, screaming for help while also demanding her captor to let her go. Y/n spotted an ikran carrying the teenager to the demon ship and so she dives down, quietly jumping down onto the ship as well before ordering her ikran to fly away. Y/n sneaks through the ship before finding Kiri and her captor.

It was another avatar, completely armed to the teeth in weapons and standard military gear. He was bald apart from the queue braid and had sunglasses resting on his forehead. Something about him struck Y/n with a sense of familiarity, and then her blood ran cold when she caught sight of the avatar's name patch on his vest.

L . WAINFLEET

She can't afford to deny her eyes or even accept what she was seeing. Before she could blink, the avatar had grabbed Kiri by her hair and roughly pulled the girl up to her feet, causing her to cry out. Before she could think straight, Y/n rushed forward with her arm out to her niece, "Lyle, wait!"

Lyle looked up at his name and quickly grabbed his knife, pressing it to the Na'vi girl's neck and forcing the woman who was about to ambush him to stop in her tracks, several feet away. It took a minute, but Lyle managed to recognize the avatar woman in front of them, despite the fact she wore her hair differently and now wore proper Na'vi attire.

Kiri had confirmed the woman's identity to Lyle when she whimpered out in fear, "Aunt Y/n--"

Lyle pulled the kuru braid in his hand sharply, causing Kiri to yelp as he snarled, "Shut up!"

"Lyle--"

He turns his glare to the woman in front of them, "Don't come any closer, traitor!"

"I'm the traitor?" Y/n's eyes narrowed, "Look who hasn't seen a mirror lately."

He seethed, the pent up rage he felt at the very thought of her finally coming to light ever since he woke up in a different body, "You turned your back on us-- on me! And for what? For them? For this half-breed?"

"The Na'vi were here first!" She screamed back, "We don't deserve this place to be our home if we're just going to burn down every tree and shoot up every animal we don't like!"

"These freaks of nature are just animals! Quaritch says they're bloodthirsty animals--"

"Dammit, Lyle, they're not! Quaritch purposely threatened them! He pushed and egged them on until they had no choice but to fight back!" The words made him pause, but she continued to scream in defiance, "Human blood is not on their hands, it's on Quaritch's hands because he doesn't actually give a damn about 'good men and women'. He just cares about bloodshed! He's a bloodthirsty monster. If anything, I should feel betrayed by you! After all, you're the one helping the man who killed my sister!"

His expression was still timid, despite the hate and anger slowly dissipating. His grip still tight on Kiri, Lyle snarled with disdain, "So what, you made a family with these savages after we ganked your sister?"

Y/n sucks in a breath and her eyes dart to Kiri, "That girl is not a savage, Lyle. Look at her."

He does so, looking down at his captive. Upon closer inspection, the girl did spark a feeling of recognition in the back of his head, but he wasn't sure from what until Y/n spoke again, "She's Grace's daughter. She's all I have left of her."

Lyle's expression hardened as he peered back up at the woman in front of him. Her ears drooped, and her eyes were pleading behind the unshed tears, her breath shaking as she begged pathetically, "So, please... please don't hurt my niece. Take me if you have to, but please don't hurt my baby."

He's strangely quiet, eyes unwavering as they glared into her soul. Y/n wasn't sure what was going on in his head. The man always had a clever poker face, but he stared at her like he was trying to figure out a motive. He never got the chance to answer, however, as the screech of an approaching ikran broke the silent stand-off. All heads look up and catch sight of another banshee, decked out in military gear, landing on the platform above them. The rider, another avatar, breaks away from the ikran and jumps down between Y/n and Wainfleet. When he stood straight up, Y/n sucked in a sharp breath as she came face-to-face with Quaritch, her sister's killer.

The colonel stared Y/n with a firm, victorious grin, addressing the man standing behind him while still sizing up the female avatar, "Well done, Lyle."

Y/n's ears were still pinned to her skull, but her tail thrashed wildly behind her as she bared her teeth, hissing in defense, "You."

"If it ain't the Other Dr. Augustine. You don't look like you've aged a day," Quaritch steps off to the side to point back at Kiri, "She yours?"

Y/n was wise enough not to speak, but her heart squeezes painfully when Lyle presses the knife closer to Kiri's neck, causing the teenager to whimper in fear, "Auntie-!"

"Dammit, Lyle, let her go!" Y/n's voice cracked as she screeched desperately, and even Lyle could admit he flinched, her plea breaking the air and driving his cropped ears to wildly turn at the source.

Quaritch appeared satisfied as if he solved a mystery, "Ah. So she's your sister's. Where is that old bitch, huh?" He pointedly looked around, "That woman had a bite even before having a child, I doubt she'd be any nicer. So why isn't she here?"

Lyle seemed fit to answer for her, his voice still accusatory, "The traitor mentioned that she died, Colonel."

Quaritch hummed, "So. Old Dr. Augustine actually did kick the bucket, eh? If memory serves, I could've sworn I clipped her, but I was never sure. It's good to know that not all traitors walked away unscathed."

"You son of a bitch," Y/n's voice trembled even through her defensive stance, her ears occasionally moving in the direction of Kiri whenever the girl squirmed under Lyle's hold, otherwise, Y/n's eyes kept firmly staring at Quaritch, wary.

"Now that's no way to talk to the man who got your niece under a knife."

"You call yourself a man?" Y/n hissed, "What kind of man blindly follows orders and slaughters innocent women and children? I don't know if you remember the planet we come from, but on Earth, they would've locked you away so deep you would've never seen the light of day again, you fucking psychopath."

Before another word was spoken, a familiar, smaller figure appeared between Y/n and Quaritch. A teenage boy, dressed in a breathing mask and a loincloth, covered in blue paint meant to resemble stripes, his eyes only on Kiri while pleading up at the man who claimed to be his father, "No, wait! Don't hurt her!"

"Spider?" Kiri cried.

"Spider, get outta here!" Y/n ordered, "Get help!"

"Don't hurt her, please!" Spider continued to beg, his eyes now focused up at the colonel standing above him, "Don't do this!"

Y/n decided that desperate times called for desperate measures, and so with only deciding at the last possible second, she reached forward and snatched Spider, pulling him back into her arms and keeping her hands tightly on both of his shoulders so he couldn't get away. Quaritch reacted by quickly stepping forward, but stopped when Y/n hissed ferociously as if she was protecting her meal. Once she knew he wouldn't pursue them further, Y/n relaxed only slightly before proclaiming, "I'm not gonna hurt your son, Quaritch. He's safe with me because I'm not like you. I don't hurt kids. The question is whether or not you hurt my kid."

"Please," Spider continued to beg Quaritch, despite now acting as a hostage. He was still only thinking about Kiri's safety, "Please don't hurt her."

Conflicted, the colonel doesn't move, his eyes flicking between Spider and Y/n. Lyle's feet shuffle behind him, but doesn't otherwise move, his knife still pressed into Kiri's neck, the tension only rising when no one moved. Spider still hung onto hope, waiting with bated breath for his father to see reason.

But the only thing Quaritch saw reason to was to raise his gun and pull the trigger, shooting Y/n point blank in the chest. The woman staggered back at the impact, toward the edge of the ship, and instead of letting go of Spider like Quaritch intended her to do, she only held on tighter in her shock, pulling Spider with her.

Lyle stiffens in shock, loosening the knife around Kiri to the point where the blade itself was barely in his grasp. His eyes widen as he watched Y/n collapse to her knees, Spider spinning around, his back to Quaritch, as he tried to steady the Na'vi woman and shield her from the man still holding the gun.

"No! Mom!" Kiri screamed horrifically, managing to break away from her captor when she realized that his grip on her had loosened.

"Y/n!" Spider yelled in fear, reaching to grab hold of her as Kiri suddenly appeared out of nowhere, both of them crowding the woman who practically raised them together.

Weak and shaking, Y/n tried to take deep breaths and apply pressure to her own wound. Quaritch shot her with the intention of letting his son go, so while the bullet hole currently drilled into her collar, shattering said collar bone wasn't going to kill her right away, it was still lethal.

She doesn't have time to think about it, her thoughts and instinct still shouting at her to get the kids out of harm's way. Shaking from head to toe, in pain, she gripped Kiri and Spider's shoulder in both of her hands as she wheezed quietly at them, smiling as softly as possible, "Get out of here."

And with that, Y/n blocked the kids from Quaritch' sight and his gun, pushing them with all her might until Kiri and Spider were sent over the edge of the ship, screaming her name and crying on the way down, too shocked to stop their own fall until they hit the water.

Y/n heard an angry snarl behind her and just as she turned around, her cheek met someone's fist and she was sent crumbling to the floor, barely managing to catch herself with her hands now covered in her own blood. She spits blood on the ground after the punch made her bite the inside of her cheek before staggering to sit up on her knees, glaring up at Quaritch and now Lyle through her eyelashes.

"Unlike you, I have one life left, you son of a bitch," she grinned almost maniacally, "One more body. So just wait. Because next time we meet, I'm going to kill you."

Her gaze slyly turns to only Lyle, her disdain and betrayal still evident in her eyes as she spat out, "And next time, I'm gonna make sure you stay dead."

Lyle has never been a coward, but the one time he was, it was when he looked away as Quaritch raised his pistol again, making sure to point it right between Y/n's eyes. With his back turned to the corporal, Quaritch didn't see Lyle flinch when he pulled the trigger, the gunshot ringing in the air as the body collapsed to the floor.

~~~~~~~~~

Y/n gasped loudly, about to sit up with all her strength until she realized she was strapped down in the link bay gurney, the soft glow of the lights inside the gurney blinking down at her. She continued to breathe heavily and sporadically, trying to get her lungs to expand fully but it was almost as if they couldn't. She screamed at the top of her lungs, desperate for someone to hear her, until finally the gurney moves and the lid was thrown open. Several of her human friends and family surround her and pull her out, all of them talking at once, asking questions and concerned as to what happened. Y/n isn't able to realize she was back in the biolab stationed in the Hallelujah Mountains as she continues to gasp and choke, her hands pawing at her chest as if looking for something that wasn't there.

Norm's eyes widen, recognizing the signs of a human who was forced out of their link after their avatar's death. He ushers everyone out until it was just him and Max in front of Y/n, the taller scientist holding her shoulders gently in both of his hands, concern in his gaze, "Y/n. What happened?"

It takes a long time, but Y/n managed to find her lungs again and began to breathe more steadily than before, still occasionally shaking as she takes in her surroundings. Her thoughts and memories catch up to her until her heart picks up in speed again, the panic returning as she thought of Kiri, Spider, the Sullys, Quaritch... and Lyle.

"We need to get back to Awa'atlu... Now!"

~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I managed to get this done and posted at work, so yeah, I hope it was okay even thought it was done via phone.

Request page is here, but please read the rules before leaving a request in the ask box, thank you!

[kryptid-writes]

Chapter 2 - A Gift From the Devil

Y/n stirs to find herself in the grips of her captor, an unwanted gift forced upon her.

(1.8k)

TW:  Emetophobia & Trypanophobia

I slowly regain consciousness, confusion and grogginess clouding my mind. My body feels like a pound of lead, heavy and exhausted. It’s a fight to open my eyes, a battle of wills. When I finally blink them open, I'm confronted by his devilishly handsome face, just inches away from mine. All the memories of the night before flood back like a tidal wave making me feel sick to my stomach.

“Good morning sunshine,” He coo’s, his voice sickly sweet. “I was wondering when you’d wake up, you've been out for far too long.”

I sit up at lightning speed, pushing myself back flush against the headboard of the unfamiliar bed I sit upon. I frantically glance around the room to gather my bearings. It’s all surprisingly nice, seemingly just a normal bedroom, if not a bit extravagant.

Shelves of musty old books with odd titles line the walls. Luscious red curtains hang from the large stained glass windows in which rays of light shine through, leaving glints of color across the dark wooden floor. A crystal chandelier gently sways above my head, reflecting the morning light in all different directions.

My hand grips the crimson silky sheets as I remember what’s happening. This isn’t some sick dream I'm going to wake up from. This is reality.

We sit in silence for a moment, the uneasy tension thick in the air.

He stares at my trembling form, not unlike a predator might look upon its prey. Just standing there with his arms crossed, watching.

“Who are you? Where am I!” I practically yell, unsure whether I should be angry or scared, perhaps a bit of both?

“Shhh. It’s okay, you’re safe here with me.” He gives a soft smile, trying to soothe my panic, only making the situation worse.

“This is my home. Well, for the time being that is. It’s your home now too.”

“You’re fucking sick! I’ve seen what you do, what you're capable of, you're the furthest thing from safety! And if you think I'm staying here, you’re out of your goddamn mind!” I glare at him with a stare that could turn him to stone.

His expression doesn’t change, clearly unphased by my outburst.

“Wow you’ve got quite the attitude missy. I like that in a woman.” He teases.

He furrows his brows. “You’re in shock, you'll come around,” He assures.

I’m not entirely sure if he’s talking to me or himself.

“You humans always were so sensitive” he scowls, his demeaning tone returns once again.

He kneels in front of me and places his hand over mine, my grip tightening on the silky sheets. His calloused fingers softly run over my soft hands in an attempt to diffuse my tension.

I pull my hand back with force, almost as if he had burned me, but in reality his skin was cold to the touch. “You didn't answer my question! Who are you?”

He chews on his cheek for a moment, clearly reluctant to share the information, preparing himself for how I will react.

“My name is Lucifer,” his voice is soft and he gives me a look that you might see on a lost puppy begging for scraps.

The air is knocked out of my lungs, like a punch to the gut. The devil. It can't be. My stomach twists, the feeling of nausea taking over. I push him aside and dash into the room attached to the bedroom that I currently reside in, practically kicking down the door. To my luck, it happened to be an empty master bathroom. Kneeling over the porcelain toilet, I empty my stomach with haste. The waves of nausea come and go, rocking through my body. I hang my head over the toilet bowl in defeat, my body going numb.

I jump at the feel of a hand touching my back, rubbing small circles between my shoulder blades. The skin where he touches me feels like soft electricity coursing through his body into mine, a feeling I've never experienced before. I should be scared, I should be shoving him away, but to my surprise I find his touch oddly comforting.

“It’s okay, my beloved. Let it out.” He sounds genuinely sincere.

It’s sickening. My stomach heaves one final time, emptying until there's nothing left to give. “Why are you doing this?” My voice shakes and lip quivers. A thousand emotions course through my body at once, it's utterly and completely exhausting. I slump on my side, sinking into the cool tile below me. The moment seems to last forever.

He kneels over me, a disappointed frown on his face. He loops his hands under my knees and neck, scooping me up in his arms as if I weigh nothing.

I hang limp in his grasp, giving in, tired of fighting my body. A lone tear runs down my cheek, leaving a cold wet sensation in its wake.

He gently places me on the bed. It feels soft and inviting. The silky blanket is pulled up over me, wrapping my body like a cocoon. I feel as if I'm floating, like TV static is playing in my head on loop.

“You’re exhausted, I can feel it. Sleep.” He says, more of a demand than a request.

I don’t think much of his words, too tired to process them and I reluctantly close my eyes.

The bed shifts and dips under me as he climbs in. He pulls me into his chest, snuggling in by my side and I don't fight. His warm body smells of herbs and ash.

That pleasant electric feeling returns, surging through my body, almost like it's drawing me in, it confuses and comforts me at the same time. I listen to his heart beating and his breathing becoming deeper, feeling the soft puffs of air in my hair. I close my eyes and drift off into a deep slumber.

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

The dreams come tonight, but they're not scary and gruesome as they usually are. They feel warm and fuzzy, the kind of dream you wish you would never wake up from. There’s an overwhelming sense of compassion and affection surrounding me like a blanket.

I find myself standing in a beautiful garden, surrounded by blooming cherry blossoms whose sweet aroma fills the air. It’s dark out, the stars twinkling and the moon shining bright above it all. Fireflies surround the garden, their blinking lights bringing back pleasant memories from childhood of chasing them in the field and capturing them in jars to admire their beauty. \

And there he is, Lucifer, the man who lives in my dreams.

He’s dressed in a nice suit and tie, much different then the beat up clothes and scuffed jeans he usually wears. His hair is groomed nicely and his beautiful wings stand tall behind him. He presents me a bouquet of lucious roses, painted black and red, which happens to be my favorite colors.

For once he is not a gruesome murderer, having the time of his life slaughtering everything in front of him. There is no crazy stare and twisted smile, he is just a handsome man with beautiful white and golden wings showing me an unexpected kindness.

I sniff the flowers, the floral scent filling my senses, bringing a smile to my face.

He smiles warmly, inviting me into his arms and I accept. For the first time in a long time, my dream is pleasant and I'm in no rush to wake from it.

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

I stir to a sharp poke in my lower back. Coming out of my sleepy haze, I feel the pressure of a needle enter the space between the lumbar vertebrae in my lower spine.

“Wha-” I was quickly interrupted by the excruciating pain of a burning hot substance entering my nervous system. I scream at the top of my lungs, it feels like every nerve in my body is on fire, the pain unbearable. “STOP! PLEASE!” I beg over and over again, sobs racking my body. I try my best to squirm away, willing myself to jump out of bed and run as far away from this nightmare as I possibly can, but I find myself being held down by some invisible force.

“Shhh, it’ll be over quickly, my love” Lucifer purrs in my ear, petting my hair and tucking a strand out of my face. He places the large syringe with remnants of a glowing white substance on the bedside table and takes my fisted hand in his. “The pain is only temporary, then you’ll feel so much better.”

My eyes go white and my body shakes violently. I’m dying. This is it. Meeting my end at the hands of the devil himself. I cry and sob until my puffy red eyes sting and are too dry to produce any more tears. The pain slowly starts to fade. I sink back to reality, a wave of anger and confusion washing over me. I sit up, forcing myself on top of him, raising my fist high above the both of us, shaking with anger and aftershocks of the pain.

He stares at me with wide eyes, a hint of hurt painted across his face.

I hesitate for a second before using all my force to strike him right on the nose, the grotesque crunch of bones breaking under my knuckles. Pain radiates through my hand from the impact, specks of blood painting my skin and the sheets below. It was nothing compared to what I had just experienced, so I simply couldn't bring myself to care.

He grabs my bloody fist and twists it behind my back. “I suppose I deserved that,” his voice is nonchalant as ever and it infuriates me. He taps his nose and it is instantly healed. His bones click back into their previous shape, early signs of bruising disappear. All that remains is a trickle of drying blood.

“WHY?” I scream in his face. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?” My chest heaves, breath coming in uneven and heavy. I shake with anger, feeling completely violated.

“All in due time my love.” His smile is sweet, as if he didn’t just put me through unforgivable pain.

I suppose this is what the devil does. Why would he care? Surely he takes pleasure in torturing me.

I raise my other fist, ready to strike down another blow with all my might. He grabs my hands, pinning both my wrists uncomfortably behind my back with one hand. “Don’t do that again.” He growls, this time much less forgiving.

I twist in his grasp, trying desperately to free myself.

“Sleep.” He touches two fingers to my forehead and I'm out like a light, folding into his chest. He wraps his arms around me, breathing in my scent and counting the rise and fall of my chest the whole night.

Series Masterlist

Full Masterlist

[galactiquest]

Hi call me blueberry anon or just blue!

I was hopin to ask with Vash and Knives with an Angel!reader g/n.

Like you know when Vash and Knives show their true selves and reader dont give a shit because they literally have giant ass wings and multiple eyes yknow like one of those biblical accurate angel but more human.

If its too specific just ignore this JDJKDKDKDK (ps when i said show their true selves i immediately thought of those wolf alpha vids on tiktok)

Hello Blueberry Anon~ I'm sorry that this took longer than usual to get to, I promise I wasn't ignoring or forgetting this request! College woes... (´Д｀)

I think this is a super cute idea and I'm always a sucker for a chaotic angel or devil or any sort of creature really. (Probably why I enjoy writing about Vash and Knives being little beasts so much LOL)

Vash and Knives x Angel!Reader: Heaven

Content warnings: None, but the descriptions of multiple eyes/wings might be offputting to some. Otherwise just fluff!

Vash

I take Vash as someone who's really accepting of everyone else's differences--even to the point where he'll feel a sort of disdain towards his own differences because of it.

But when he learns about your otherworldly nature? He's immediately curious. He really can't help himself.

He wants to ask a lot of questions. How do you hide your wings? Are humans afraid of you? Do you have any sorts of powers? Does this mean you're immortal--wait, are you here on a mission?!

Whether you indulge him or not in answers is up to you. He won't pry (but he might whine a little if you tell him it's a secret).

Now that he knows you're different, he wants to embrace it as much as possible. He's always trying to compliment how soft your wings are, how radiant and sparkling your eyes are, etc.

I think this especially goes for the '98 iteration of Vash--the "did it hurt when you fell from Heaven" pickup line. Feel free to respond with "yeah, actually, a lot" to get him sputtering and scrambling to apologize.

Knives

When you explain it to him, he's very quiet at first, running all possible responses through his head. What he doesn't say (but is thinking) is that he's thankful you're not human (because admitting he loves a human is an utterly impossible feat!).

He also hopes, deep down, that since you're inhuman, you might better understand his intentions for a world without humans. (Of course, if you're the kind of angel who's sent to help humans, this goes against your direct orders... cue troubles!)

He has a deep respect for your otherworldly self, being not of the planet himself, so he takes a lot of time to study and understand you to the fullest.

He's especially intrigued if you have repeating features--multiple eyes, pairs of wings, floating motes of flame, spinning golden rings, that kind of stuff. He really enjoys symmetry and repetition. (Vash does, too, but he'll appreciate from afar.)

He encourages you to take your "natural" form more often, rather than sculpting yourself into a more humanoid form. If this more "natural" form is imperceptible/cosmically incomprehensible to him, he won't mind. (Okay, he might be a little sad if he can't see you in all your blazing glory, but he won't make it obvious.)

I think there's definitely a case here for a "fallen angel" type deal--you've fallen from the sins of humanity, and now you've joined up with Knives in order to restore what should have been. Or maybe you find more worth in each other...

End notes: I finished this up on mobile so the formatting might be off. I promise I'll fix it tomorrow!

[moremousewrites]

Little Mouse pt 2

Chapter 2: Honesty

Chapter 1

Summary: Raphael makes good on his word. He is going to draw an honest word out of you whether you like it or not. Though his methods are a bit... unorthodox for his usual attempts at persuasion, he will have you. It's up to you now how much you're willing to give away

Pairing: Raphael/ Tav (femme drow)

Tags: smut, rape, dubcon/noncon, oral sex (male recieving), size difference, devil kink, blood, canon-typical violence, crying during sex, manipulation, PIV sex

Note: This is tagged as rape for a reason. Its implied the tav has mixed feelings about if they are a victim but they are. They're being manipulated. If that makes you uncomfortable please do not read further as this gets dark and there is psychological manipulation. If you continue i hope you enjoy this as much as i did writing it!

Raphael's hands hardened around your thighs and pulled you closer to him. Anxiety gripped your thoughts but heat pooled between your legs. His predatory glare alone could kill you. His grip could shatter you.

“So, little mouse, are you going to behave? Or are you going to be trouble” he posed with a darkened voice.

You panicked and tried to climb up the chaise to escape his grasp.

“Trouble it is,” he confirmed with an annoyed sigh. He yanked you down from your position, causing you to knock your head on the couch arm, and picked you up.

“Unbelievable. At every opportunity you chose belligerence. This could have been nice, you could have been rewarded” he placed you gently on the large bed, hands holding yours together. His human form was deceptively strong.

“Please let me go, I'll leave at once” you pleaded, reality beginning to set in.

Raphael tsked and shook his head. “And what would you learn from that? No, I don't think you're getting away just yet” he sat up, legs firmly pressing yours into the mattress 

You tried to wriggle out of his grasp but he held you in place, growing annoyed. “Fight if you wish. I can smell your desire” he watched the acceptance settle on your face. You considered using magic on him. Even a disintegrate spell was risky. If it didn't work, you were dead.

And he was right. The more you squirmed under him, the more you felt your legs squeeze together, almost granting you friction. Your breasts were heaving from the exertion but also in need. You needed his touch.

“Okay…” you agreed, cautiously. 

“Okay? You can do better than that, little mouse” he said, a wicked grin crossing his face.

“Please, Raphael-”

“No, no. You will address me as Master” he tightened his grip in your wrists. Your hands were becoming numb. 

Behind your grimace you felt a tug of irritation. Who the hells did he think he was? You were the one holding the cards, you were his chance at getting him the crown of Karsus. He needed you. You nearly mustered enough courage to remind him of this but before you could you felt an incinerating burn on your wrists and the smell of sulfur filling your nose.

Raphael began transforming before you. His cambion form was menacing; breathtakingly so. And as much as you'd like to convince yourself otherwise, it seemed you'd inherited the infernal fetish you'd tried to suppress. Raphael's outstretched wings were inviting you to touch them. They were leathery and lithe as a bat’s. His horns were curved and proud as the crown you suddenly wanted to place upon him. You were in awe of him. You wanted to worship his body.

Raphael mistook your lust-filled trembling with that of fear “I'll give you one last chance to behave. Address me with due diligence” he held your chin lovingly between his clawed fingers. They threatened to draw blood though he didn't apply much pressure. You would have let him flay you.

“Yes, Master” you submitted, entranced.

Satisfied, Raphael gave you a warm smile though you could see a glint of malice behind his eyes. “Very good. There is hope for you, yet” he let go of you and watched you remain still. Ah yes, hope. He was going to destroy you.

“Tell me what you desire. Be honest” he plucked at the fastenings of your robe- one by one. 

You contemplated for a moment. What did you truly want? Clearly you wanted him to fuck you, but somehow that seemed like the wrong answer.

“What I desire…” you began, fixated on his fiendish form.

Raphael refrained from touching you further, awaiting your response.

You thought hard about the nature of devils. He could easily take you now, but he needed your consent. It was an agreement. You could tell him you desired to leave now. 

“Master, I desire your touch”

Raphael sensed your hesitation “Wrong answer” he sneered.

The devil leaned back, releasing your legs and untied his pants. “You mortal nobles are so predictable. You don't stop at fame or power or money” he explained, releasing his erect cock from his pants. Your stomach dropped. He couldn't possibly think you were going to manage that. It was not only huge in length and girth, but ridges lined his cock in an organic pattern that met at the tip.

“When do we stop?” You asked, unsure of yourself. You couldn't look away from his groin. 

Raphael rolled his eyes as if the answer was so painfully obvious. “You do not” he said, running his fingers through your hair and grabbing at the roots, forcing you to meet his eyes. “You spoiled brat. You want everything” he was dangerously close now and you could feel the heat radiating off of him.

Again, he was right. You came to negotiate with a devil. Now you wanted his body. You wouldn't stop until you were dead. Your sick ambition would be your undoing. 

“Well, I offer you everything. I suggest you finally take it all” he shoved your gaping mouth onto his cock without any further warning. 

Immediately, you choked on the size and force, bracing yourself on his thighs. Displeased with the resistance,  Raphael, pinched your nose and held you down further. 

You thought about biting it off. It'd be the last thing you'd do but hells would it be a way to die. Instead, you powered through your initial panic, slackened your jaw, and lowered down his incredible length.

Raphael grew impatient of your clumsy technique and unpinched your nose. You sucked in air, inhaling his musk and nearly recoiling if not for his unforgiving grip on your hair. His hand began roughly forcing your head up and down on his cock. The head of his dick made its way further down, abusing your throat.

Once you miraculously managed to reach the base of his cock, Raphael held your skull in place and placed his fingers on your throat where he could feel his length. 

He angled his hips and tilted your face with them. You were completely unprepared for what he was about to do next.

Keeping a steady hand on your throat and hair to stabilize your head, he snapped his hips and started roughly fucking your skull.

You had to plant your hands on the bed to keep balance.

“Very good little mouse. See how good you take and take?” He grunted out, watching hot tears stream down your face. “You were made to receive. I should have expected you to demand so much” he pulled his cock from your throat finally allowing you a full breath of air. 

You gasped at the air filling your lungs, letting out a choked sob. Raphael wiped the tears from your cheeks and began removing your robes.

It dawned on you he meant to fit that fiendish cock inside of you now that he had thrashed your throat with it.

“No- please” you begged. Your voice was noticeably raspier.

Raphael pet the top of your head, your scalp stinging. He held your face, stroked your arms. 

“My pet. I only wish to reward you for your efforts thus far. You've taken me so well. But you still have not been honest with me. You want me to take you now” he traced your bottom lip with his thumb, testing your limits. He forgot just how frail mortals were. This sort of intimacy was commonplace between himself and his incubus. 

He had to tread lightly to not only accomplish his own goal of dominating you sexually but keep you from abandoning his deal altogether. 

Then again, you were not running. You were still reeking of arousal. Perhaps you were not as frail as he believed. 

“I don't think it will fit. I'm scared” you admitted, ashamed. 

Raphael guided you onto your back. “Finally, honesty” he pulled your pants and shoes off, leaving you completely bare. You felt very vulnerable under his scrutinizing gaze.

“It will fit. Perhaps not entirely” he lined his tip against your soaking hole and shuddered. “But perhaps it might” he placed his hands beneath your knees, lifted your legs to your chest, and slowly pushed himself inside you. 

The stretch was immense. He gave short, slow thrusts to insert himself into you. You felt intoxicated by his pressure. 

To steady yourself, you instinctively reached around him to hold onto his back but your hands were met with the leathery skin of his wings.

His caring facade was shattered immediately.

Raphael slammed his cock into you causing you to scream in pain. He grabbed your arms and ripped them from his wings.

“You do not touch me, whore” he hissed at you. He kept his cock buried deep in you, awaiting an explanation. 

“I'm sorry master” you cried out, already adapting to the pain. “I wasn't thinking I'm sorry” you were grabbing onto the sheets for your life.

Raphael didn't accept this answer.“You are a filthy, corrupted soul.” Raphael began fucking you at a wicked pace “By even my standards, you are foul” you couldn't register what he was saying, the pain and agony made way for the greatest pleasure you'd ever experienced.

“Coercing a devil into coitus and resisting at every opportunity. You wished to be forced” he pressed your knees down further, folding you in half. You looked into his eyes, he was close to climaxing. “What I despise most about you is your utter denial. Holding yourself above the slavers and fetishists you know in your wretched heart you still are. Admit it. You're a monster” his rhythm was erratic, hips stuttering. 

Neither of you were going to last much longer.

Under your breath you whispered something inaudible.

Raphael growled and leaned closer to your face, preparing to hear your admission of guilt. Hearing you break would be enough to send him over the edge.

You leaned close to him, timing his thrusts just right. He was getting sloppy, he didn't notice you were about to cum too.

“I said, you're right. I am a monster” you reflected his grin back at him, grabbed his horns in your hands and forced him into a deep, passionate kiss. 

Raphael tried to pull away but you bit his bottom lip, keeping him in place while you ground your pussy on him, forcing both yourself and Raphael to orgasm. Scorching hot blood filled your mouth. The taste was indescribable. 

“You insufferable ingrate”  he clasped his hands around your throat, choking you. It took you a few seconds to black out. 

When you came to, you didn't recognize where you were. 

“Ah, you've awoken. Seems my little mouse has a bite.” 

You looked at the decor. This was Raphael's House of Hope. 

[grailknightmonty]

it starts and ends in a garden.

i keep coming back to the good omens mianite AU so have a funky little illustration :] I just. I just love them a lot

Ref + what story I've thought about below the cut!

(Spoilers for Good Omens S1 and S2 ahead, be wary if you haven't watched and wanna get into it without prior knowledge)

At its core, this AU is basically good omens but with the cast of Mianite, with a few revisions to tie it a little into the mcytverse (while also not like compromising the integrity of the show version of the story) I got inspired by AdamMonter's AU and decided I wanted to give it a go myself after i watched S2 and reawakened my fixation :D

Jordan is this universes Aziraphale- the angel stationed to guard Eden and look out for humans (intended to instill in them the ways of goodness through righteous balance and justice in the name of the High Goddess) - and Tom is Crowley, or the snake in within the Garden, sent up to cause chaos and tempt humans towards evil shenanigans in the name of Dianite, or the devil in this case. They stand on two opposing sides of whats meant to be an all out war between Heaven (under Ianite) and Hell (by Dianite) on whether Ianites form of order (borrowing this from Aitheaca) or chaos will reign supreme- or basically the big ol apocalypse. I made Mianite the Metatron because idk what else to do with him mianite im sorry i didnt wanna make ianite the metatron if i swapped it even though it would make more sense for mia and dia to be fighting SOBS

Tom n Jordan grow close over their centuries on Earth together that when everythings meant to go down and destroy the world they've made their own, they fight to stop the apocalypse from happening, and by the end of it, are subsequently punished by their respective sides- only to not be affected and left alone when they seem to have absorbed the powers of the other (no one seems to realize they can swap bodies). Series 2 follows what they uncover by the end of it a plot to restart armageddon, in which they want Jordan to take over as the head of it after the former champion/supreme archangel is ousted for disagreeing- and had shown up with a non-existent memory nonexistent at Jordan's.

(im switching to list im done with prose xD)

Jordan runs an antique shop instead of a bookshop, he seems like he'd be more into little trinkets and old school machines, stuff he could tinker with. its still got that certain charm to it though

Capsize is Nina from the coffee shop (give me coffee or give me death seems like a thing Capsize would name something) and Sonja is Maggie who runs a record shop. aka the lesbians from across the street you know what I am

For something hilarious Tubbo is the Antichrist, aka the child meant to start and lead the War (leaving it as is bc its funny but not the literal antichrist) He's meant to join a government family to put him in a place of power, but due to a mix up ends up with an In the meantime, Tom and Jordan act as godfathers to the other child (who they assume is the antichrist, it would be funny to make this Crumb or something) in hopes that influencing them to good/evil respectively would neutralize them out- only to eventually realize its the wrong kid

Wag is Anathema, the descendent of a prophetic wizard who was scrutinized for their foresight and becomes the carrier of those prophecies (for my sanity ive chosen to get rid of the Newt-Anathema romance thing idk it. it just aaaa and turn into wag and his bros aka FyreUK tryin to use what they know to stop the apocalypse from their end)

Angels are Ianitees (save for Capsize), and Demons are Dianitees. Ive gone back n forth with who would be who and I still have no answer so. all I'll say is that Andor is Muriel thats all thats important /j C:

The other option was to make Satan the Darkness/World Historian and Dianite is the Lord of Hell (Beelzebub) with Mot as Gabriel but do i look like I know? idk do we need ineffable bureaucracy i could always alter that a little too... idk

tubbo as the child of the world historian who wouldve thought… edit what if like carrier of the darkness

anyway thats all enjoy this nonsense ;)

and screenshot I referenced for the drawing! I know its low qual dont worry about it i just needed to see where the trees were so i knew how many to paint LMAO

[y-rhywbeth2]

@ladymer Putting this in its own post for space and tidier notes.

Really? I haven't seen him say that before.

I'm pretty sure he still has his soul and that Karlach is being metaphorical when she tells unascended Astarion that he kept it (or she's referring to the fact that it's still his and unbranded by "property of Mephistopheles" as souls are when you make a deal with the infernal.)

Making a deal with a devil at all corrupts your soul because it always involves doing something evil that shifts you towards the Hells, shown mechanically as an alignment change which may be instant or gradual. You are twisted towards the end goal of becoming like a devil yourself, the embodiment of cruelty, ambition, lust and tyranny - destined for the hells and likely to corrupt those around you and take them with you.

As ever, this isn't necessarily what Larian had in mind, but this is how I'm reading/headcanoning it, based on the D&D lore available to me:

I imagine it would cause the Vampire Ascendant to be what vampires say on the box, no nuance left:

"Dark Desires: Whether or not a vampire retains any memories from its former life, its emotional attachments wither as once-pure feelings become twisted by undeath. Love turns to hungry obsession, while friendship becomes bitter jealousy. In place of emotion, vampires pursue physical symbols of what they crave..."

With the traits of a devil layered on top (which is honestly pretty much exactly the same as the drives possessed by vampires):

"The psychology of devils can be summed up in a single word: Ambition. Almost every devil constantly wonders how it can win advancement [...] The cleverer devils invariable perceive themselves as cool, calculating, and abundantly logical. [...however they] act based on emotion, without regard for their true long-term self-interest. Devils enjoy inflicting misery - be it physical or mental - on others. They hate suffering defeat or humiliation..."

They're not necessarily "more" evil than any other vampire, but incapable of being more than their curse the way another vampires are theoretically capable of. They may not be soulless, but they might as well be. The inherent evil/corruption of vampirism is maximised and overrides any existing humanity. Violence is the highest pleasure. Power is all. They only see things (including people) in terms of possession, jealousy and envy. The way they experience love and other emotions is superficial and sometimes, due to their ego, obsessive (this thing/person is theirs, so any challenge to that claim is not allowed because it's an attack on them). etc.

What the Vampire Ascendant mostly reminds me of is Abyssal Ghouls - and more specifically the original 1e FR version from Lords of Darkness, which was Ghasts, another form of sapient undead "improved" by the Lower Planes, courtesy of demons. They're undead and partially fiends. They're more powerful than regular ghouls, naturally dominate them as leaders of the pack, and, in their Lord of Darkness write up, Ghasts cannot be repelled by the usual anti-undead means (you have to repel them using cold iron, as you would a demon), so they have a less weaknesses. They're extraplanar in nature (no longer considered native to the material plane, but to the Abyss) and their souls are likewise bound to the Lower Plane that made them when they die, so they're... kind of minor demons themselves, in a way.

Replace "ghoul" with "vampire" and "demon" with "devil" and it doesn't seem far off from being similar.

Devils are also known for their mortal-like lusts and desires (such as food, despite not needing it) - it'd be interesting if the source of the Ascdendant's newly restored "mortal appetites" was from becoming a devil (or partially one).

Ghasts were described as the "Hounds of the Abyss" used by demons to track quarry, and I imagine the Vampire Ascendant is serving this purpose for Baator (which is also very devil-esque):

"Powerful lawful evil mortals are often more valuable to devilkind as living beings operating on the Material Plane. When alive, they can bring about the damnations of hosts of other souls, or pursue other goals of the hellish hierarchy."

[rachelkaser]

Thoughts On . . . Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened Remake

Frogwares’ remake of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is one of the most unsung game releases of 2023. So let’s take a quick look at the new features of the title and how they compare with the original.

If you’re unaware, Frogwares is a studio based in Ukraine, a country currently repelling a Russian invasion. The devs have repeatedly addressed their struggles and yet they launched it anyway. For that reason, I feel it would be inappropriate to score The Awakened. I make an effort in all my reviews to respect the developers who’ve put in the work to make the game I’m playing, even if I’m not a fan of the game itself. But making a game during an actual and presently-occurring war is another matter entirely.

That being said, I think The Awakened Remake merits examination, even if I don’t want to review it. If nothing else, the game is a fascinating glimpse into the evolving story of point-and-click adventure games and their place in the greater gaming landscape. It’s also instructive to compare the two different Holmeses, to see how the character changes with several years of pop culture reshaping.

Second Awakening

The Awakened Remake feels like the culmination of Frogwares’ attempts to evolve its signature adventure game series from a post-Syberia form to a post-Telltale form. In the Dark Ages (a.k.a. the early aughts), adventure games adhered almost religiously to the Grim Fandango style: Third-person clicking navigation with viewpoints fixed in what I call “security camera” position. The Awakened (the original, that is), began the transition away from that to first-person exploration -- the Myst style, if you will.

The series continued to experiment with different stories and gameplay types. It vacillated between first- and third-person, tested new detection mechanics, and even dipped into true crime with the audacious Jack the Ripper recreation. The series rebooted with The Devil’s Daughter (though it retained at least a few story details unique to the previous game series). I’m not sure whether Chapter One and The Awakened Remake are set in the same continuity, though the retention of the new voice cast would suggest so.

Now here we are in 2023, and what does a Sherlock Holmes adventure game look like? It’s a third-person exploration title with an over-the-shoulder camera and the environments are a series of contained maps. In other words, it looks like several of Telltale’s later titles, or Dontnod’s. That’s not a bad thing . . . it’s just an observation of how the medium has evolved and Frogwares’ Holmes along with it.

The Awakened remake is also a microcosm of Sherlock Holmes’ . . . let us say “changeable” position in pop culture. The Holmes of the original Awakened was more of a Jeremy Brett-style depiction, hewing close to the source material’s dry wit and intense focus. The Holmes of the remake, on the other hand is -- being blunt -- young, hot, and mentally unwell. It’s not really to my taste, I’m not gonna lie. It’s clear the impetus for this comes from BBC Sherlock, which I despise. But the remake Holmes has an earnest gumption I’ve never seen in the character before -- it’s a choice, and not one I dislike.

Lovecraft’s Walking Tour

One of the benefits of remaking Awakened is that Frogwares has a chance to elevate a game that, through a combination of underpowered graphics and muddy art design, never had a chance to serve Lovecraftian horror as it’s meant to be served. And for the most part, they did -- there’s a creeping sense of wrongness on the periphery of most scenes, at least when you play as Holmes, a feeling that something isn’t quite right.

That’s the essence of Lovecraftian horror, in my opinion, this sense that something’s wrong, but there’s no way for your tiny human brain to understand what. One of the reasons I enjoy both iterations of this game is because Sherlock Holmes is the type of person who would absolutely refuse to accept there’s something his brain can’t comprehend. That makes him uniquely vulnerable to being overwhelmed by that sensation. Watson’s POV is more grounded and reliable by comparison.

The locations are mostly similar to what they were in the original, though the asylum section is much shorter and cuts out a subplot foreshadowing the arrival of one Moriarty. New Orleans serves a nice slice of Southern Gothic horror to balance out the traditional European Gothic elsewhere in the game. It’s a bit of a shame that Frogware’s didn’t correct one particular oversight: For a game based on Lovecraft’s work, we never go to New England, Lovecraft Country itself.

As far as gameplay goes, I only have one major complaint: This game desperately needs an auto-run option. Or at the very least, the sprint button needs to be sticky -- meaning, you press it once and the characters run until you press it again. Having to hold down a button to get them to get a jog on feels archaic, especially since the environments are much bigger than in your average adventure game.

Our next case, Watson?

Point-and-click adventure games will never be to everyone’s taste, no matter how much a developer might wish to court a bigger audience. Aiming for the Walking Dead/Life is Strange is a wise choice of direction for the Frogwares’ series if it’s going to capture any mainstream appeal while retaining its identity. That is to say: This is a good remake and I like where Frogwares is going with its new series.

Assuming the new series will follow the old, we’re looking at a remake of Sherlock Holmes vs Arsene Lupin next. Sherlock Holmes, tormented lad that he is in the new series, definitely deserves a lighthearted chase with a gentleman thief, so I’m looking forward to what Frogwares does next. My best wishes to them!

[monstersdownthepath]

Good morning venerable sage, I fell into the ol' infernal dukes that are vampire patrons rabbit hole this morning and came across Zaebos, Lorcan, and Blood Emperor Ruithvein, first off why aren't these 3 used more often since anything that can utilize both devils and vampirism in a campaign seems to be instant win when it comes to plothooks etc? While secondly it mentions that Ruithvein is the 3rd vampire to exist, factoring in Zura then who would be the 1st and 2nd vampire to exist?

Well with Lorcan and Ruithvein, I agree! No idea WHY those two don't get more of a spotlight, though it likely has something to do with the lack of lore on their part. Zaebos, however, has the divine portfolio of "sexual perversion," which paints his particular cult of vampires in a light I doubt Paizo wants to place in an actual adventure that players can encounter for very long. Ironically, though, he's the only one of the three with an actual appearance in an AP: his brief mention in Ashes of Dawn, where the players actually meet (and can ally with) his followers, only briefly alludes to the Inquisitor at the scene "leading" a pair of nobles in "worship of Zaebos" without further exploration into the implications of that.

Despite their ostensible importance to vampire lore, all three of them have scarcely any lore or even any mechanical details, with only Lorcan receiving any spotlight in the Complete Book of the Damned, Ruithvein having nary a sentence devoted to him, describing him as "withered" but one of the two powers in the Revenant Court of Malebolge (the other being Lorcan) who endlessly battle for supremacy over the souls of Lawful Evil vampires who end up in Hell.

Zura, in multiple sources, is stated to be the first of all vampires (it's NOT stated whether or not blood-drinking, sun-hating Undead that aren't vampires existed before her), but Shadows at Sundown--the most recent book to contain concrete information on vampires, including their original forms as the shadowy Strigoi--leaves it ambiguous as to whether or not she actually learned to pass on her affliction to others by claiming that either Urgathoa OR Zura could have created the ritual to bind a Strigoi to a mortal (the process by which vampirism arrived on Golarion). It's also entirely ambiguous as to how and when Zura became the first vampire, whether she did so as a human Azlanti or only transformed after her death and ascension into a demon.

if you want to get granular and dive even deeper into lore implications, it may be that Zura is NOT the first of the vampires, period, but rather the first of the vampires that could reproduce, able to pass on her transformation into those she fed upon. She is visibly a far cry from the twisted and mangled forms of the Nosferatu, the first clumsy attempts by mortals to bond with the Strigoi that ended with sterile, rotting, bestial bodies, and can indeed create vampires through both her own bite and through ritual.

... It's actually kind of refreshing to see that Ruithvein is just flat out, unambiguously and concretely stated to be "third of all vampires" in every single-sentence appearance he's ever had. His description lends itself to him being a Nosferatu (which lends itself well to being the third), though until we see an actual picture of the guy, who knows!

With Zura as the first vampire and Ruithvein as the third, the second isn't stated anywhere, in any source. Perhaps the second vampire was such a loser that it wasn't recorded, or maybe the second vampire is still around but keeps to itself, and as such hasn't been killed. Perhaps the second vampire fled to another world entirely so its name and fate aren't known to Golarion. My kneejerk reaction, however, is that the second vampire is just Lorcan, as he shares the Revenant Courts with Ruithvein and has dominion over the divine portfolios of "blood and rebirth."

[sugar-grigri]

What if Quanxi became Denji's mentor?

A little thought I'd like to share with you.

I've mentioned it before, but Quanxi and Denji are weapons with a lot in common. So far, Quanxi is the only weapon who has also seen her entourage (her girlfriends) killed before her eyes. I think that even after the brainwashing she received from Makima, she remembers because she wears a lace band around her neck.

Once again, Quanxi marks her points of vulnerability in this way: her activation point is hidden by her eye patch, and the band not only expresses the fact that she's been decapitated, but also symbolizes the grief she feels at having seen her girlfriends after being executed.

The public hunters seem to want to annihilate Denji's identity as a weapon, and he is no longer allowed to claim his demonic identity, to claim to be a hybrid being, and is forced to act as a human.

Quanxi fights most of the time only as a "human", she doesn't have the reflex to immediately activate her activation point to transform.

Maybe you can see where I'm going with this, but just as Kishibe was Denji's mentor (temporarily and in his own way), is there any world in which Quanxi wouldn't become Denji's?

Yes, she has no interest in boys, but Denji has the same reflections and reflexes as she does? To give an extremely privileged status to women? Whether it's their loneliness, the dismantling of their loved ones, or their "values", Quanxi and Denji have a lot in common?

In an arc where Fujimoto has merely repeated Denji's question marks, he has created a complex context that prevents his protagonist from acting: could fighting as a human be his way out?

Because Denji wants us to start seeing "Denji" as well as "Chainsaw Man". Who didn't say that the human in this hybrid being couldn't be appreciated as a hero?

The fact that Quanxi marks her vulnerabilities is not meaningless; it's inevitable proof that, as a weapon, she embraces her human condition to a greater extent than the others, who insist on feeling like supermen.

And again, it's more complicated... because for the moment, each weapon has its own response... or rather, a type of response to the identity crisis that can result from not belonging to either camp.

The whip demon considers herself a superman, while the spear devil has no answer.

Reze, the bomb devil, was the one who most embraced her weapon identity, being a veritable offensive object of Russian propaganda, but that didn't stop the girl from being disturbed by her dual identity, expressed by her desire to go to school but also by the fact that she also saw herself as Denji.

Barem for his part, has yet another answer of his own, as he completely avoids the identity crisis caused by the fact that he belongs to neither humans nor demons. For him, spreading death is a common denominator, blurring the boundaries between species.

Then there are the weapons who added a "-Man" as a suffix

Sugo Miri had mentioned it as a joke, but in reality "-Man" is a different kind of response.

Miri locks himself into denial, convinced that his new instrumentalization by the church is by choice, as if this would transform his situation into one governed solely by free will.

In the same way, Katana Man, when confronting Denji, expresses his remorse at killing even one zombie, that he has retained his "human heart", which is also in itself a form of denial, since all weapons have a demon heart, so he doesn't fully embrace his nature.

Denji is another type of response, even though he has the suffix "-Man", which doesn't express denial but rather gives importance to human condition, whether through freedom as a human characteristic with Miri, pseudo-morality with Katana Man or the need for integration with Denji.

Quanxi is yet another type of response: she has learned to identify herself in a way other than through the prism of the human/demon dichotomy that creates an identity crisis in weapons, she has circumvented the problem by proving her worth other than by nature and her natural gifts by being an outstanding fighter without transformation.

But she's attached herself to beings without barriers, to the point of having romantic and sexual relationships (from a sentimental and organic/bodily point of view) with demons, her girlfriends

Denji is imprisoned by the public hunter's dilemma: either Chainsaw Man or Denji.

Quanxi is also in a vulnerable situation, and I think that even though she still has some memories, the institutions have taken advantage of her state of weakness and confusion following Makima's brainwashing. Makima had turned weapons into weapons for the Japanese government, and although the government has lost control of some weapons, it still retains the use of others. Whether it's Katana Man, who no longer works for the Yakuza, or Quanxi, who works for China, the weapons have all changed owners.

Quanxi is just as trapped in a system that doesn't make her happy and that I think she hates as Denji.

Quanxi, as a fellow weapon in the same situation, is the one who hold the answer.

While the other weapons boasted of their immortality, Quanxi provided the answer in the chapter 143 : her lace neckband symbolizes a single idea, death affects everyone, even immortal beings.