#your version of the fall into darkness is understandable

[hiraethwa]

one summer day

16 chasm. where the distance becomes too much to bear

<< 15 wake-up call. | >> 17 (coming soon)

pairing: ushijima wakatoshi x reader word count: 2.6k warnings: ushi mom being a bitch <3, heartbreak, denial, running away

“i don’t know what to say to you except that it tore my heart out of my body saying goodbye to you”

you deal with the gaping hole in your chest the only way you know how to—avoiding the source of your heartbreak. 

wakatoshi finds his bentos packed on the dining table each morning without fail, with you nowhere in sight; his dinner waiting for him under the mesh food cover by the time he comes home, missing his usual dinner companion. the sweet daifukus he bought from your favorite shop for you as some sort of shitty makeup bribe sits untouched on the table. 

two weeks fly by as you both settle into your new unspoken routine. he understands the distance between you, tries his damned hardest to respect the space you needed. it takes all of his willpower not to knock on your door and beg for your forgiveness. 

so when he sees you for the first time since he broke your heart, it takes him by surprise. 

you must have gotten lost in your thoughts as you absentmindedly finish arranging the food in the bento, delicate fingers expertly pulling the ends of the furoshiki into a simple knot.

your name slips out in a shaky whisper, his voice carrying an uncharacteristic hint of nervousness. like a loyal believer seeing his faith for the first time.

you freeze like a deer in headlights. he curses himself.

“you don’t have to say anything to me.” for the first time, he rushes to fill the silence with words, hoping he didn’t scare you away. “i just wasn’t sure—” if you are real

wakatoshi watches as your shoulders start to rise and fall, as if overwhelmed with emotion. he shakes his head at himself, backtracking towards his own room to give you space. 

“i’ll be away next week for a family gathering,” he says softly, hoping you would say something, anything. he wishes you would scream and yell at him instead. anything would be a lot better than the silence that emanates from your end. 

but you don’t say a word as your fingers shakily smooth over the worn furoshiki, so he closes his door gently behind him, sliding to his knees. 

-

the stupid falcon plushie from tanabata used to sit on your bed. then in the open suitcase. now it sits in the corner of your room when you impulsively decided to not bring it to paris.

you spent two whole weeks avoiding him successfully through careful planning. the pain that came in fresh waves threatening to pull you under slowly became bearable day by day until you could breathe without it seizing your lungs. 

so you thought that perhaps, you could pretend that it never happened. unfortunately, that was delusional of you. 

the moment you heard his voice, everything came rushing back. every moment, every word from him that drove the dagger deeper into the organ keeping you alive and twisted it flooded your mind. and helplessly, you were dragged under the waves of pain welcoming you to your own version of hell.

you could only freeze, seized by your overwhelming emotions. feeling like you were thrust into the treacherous sea, yanked downwards and downwards into the unknown darkness.

so sadly that was not an option. 

secretly you were relieved to learn that he is leaving for a week, a whole week where you didn’t have to tiptoe around the apartment, afraid of running into him. 

you were tired of packing your life into a suitcase, which you expected to be a straightforward task, seeing as you only brought a few boxes with you to tokyo. but there were many choices to be made—between one winter coat and another—do you really need so many t-shirts—and they are all sending your frayed nerves into overdrive.

you opt for taking a lap around the nearby park, and surprisingly, you run into someone you recognize the moment you stepped out of the apartment complex. a familiar face from miyagi.

“is wakatoshi home?” she asks after exchanging polite pleasantries. 

“not yet, do you want to wait for him?” 

“that’s alright. care to join me for some coffee or tea?” 

you accept the invitation, curiosity winning over your better judgment. 

the tea room she chooses is surprisingly quiet in the middle of the work week. you would have thought it would be more populated considering the upscale society that it caters to.

you were “how are you doing?”

you look up from the menu, puzzled at her question. 

“men can be so careless, i know that from my own experience.” oh, so that’s where she’s going. you wonder how much she knows—how much ushijima told his mom. 

“i’m fine. thank you for your concern, ushijima-san.” you wince a little at the reminder their shared name brings you.

“good. i’m glad to hear that.” she sets her copy of the menu down on the pristine marbled table surface, gracefully waving over an attendant who takes your orders and repeats them back to you verbatim. 

her full attention returns to you, eyeing you with intensity. you aren’t sure if you made the right decision to not reject an elder’s offer. 

“are you coming to miyagi next week as well? wakatoshi never told me how many of his friends are coming to his yuino.” you blink at the word. 

yuino. the traditional engagement ceremony. 

the yawning pain in your chest stutters in confusion, but she blazes ahead, blissfully unaware—or uncaring, you realize much later—of the devastation that must be showing on your features. “it must be hard for you, knowing that wakatoshi is going to be engaged to someone else in a week.”

she gives you a look of sympathy. “i didn’t mean for you to be caught in the crossfire, y/n. it must be hard for you, i saw the way you looked at my son.” 

you blink again. it takes everything you have left to remember to breathe. 

you don’t recall anything else after that. your mind taken hostage by your memories of the past winter, of him and his mother and her. was that his future fiancee? 

of course she is. she is everything you are not, so much more than you have to offer him. 

you look down at your empty teacup, licking your lips. your tongue feels numb, as if you’ve burnt yourself drinking the tea. like icarus flying too close to the sun. 

looking at her retreating figure stepping into a car, you can’t help but wonder if she was here for you. 

-

you wonder if he ever planned to tell you that he is promised to another. 

it is an answer you will never know since you don’t give him any chances to in the four days leading up to the time he leaves for miyagi. 

the confirmation email from your college sits opened in your inbox, along with your one-way flight ticket to paris when semi comes barging into the apartment with kai, having unlocked the front door with the hidden spare key.

“eita,” you blink up at him, the haze clouding your mind clearing for the first time in days. the ghost living in the shell of your body remembering it is alive. 

“you better have an explanation for ignoring all my calls and texts for the past week.”

you cock your head to the side in confusion. the muddied feeling of hopelessness and yearning like no other in your chest swirling with every movement. the longing, missing, grieving of someone who is very much alive but no longer the same. 

everything has changed. 

oh, why does it feel like the world is ending? it must be the reason your self-preservation instincts have kicked in, blocking everything out.

“did i miss our plans for dinner?”

you try to rack your brain for the source of the suffocating emotions filling the immense void in your chest, only to be met with resistance. a gentle push keeping you away from the answers you seek. 

“that was two days ago. why haven’t you returned any of my calls or texts? did you know how worried i was? even ushijima couldn’t reach you.” semi stands above where you sit on the floor with stacks of clothes and sentimental items tucked away in the suitcases splayed open on either side of you.

ushijima. the familiar name sparks a staggering pain to life in your chest, spreading like wildfire, blazing with a light so bright, it rivals the sun itself. 

your hands tighten around yourself subconsciously at the name. 

he used to be your sun.

“what’s wrong?” semi kneels next to you, gently touching your shoulder. he exchanges a concerned look with kai at the faraway look in your eyes. 

“i don’t know, eita,” you lean into his touch, the first physical touch you felt in weeks. a reminder that you are not alone. you had forgotten. you breathe the truth as you know it—“i’m not quite sure anything is right anymore.”

“can i lean against you? just for a few minutes?” the despair in your eyes sends semi clambering to sit next to you, to provide any comfort he could to his friend. 

you take a few moments to gather your scattered thoughts, but they disperse like clouds when you reach out for them. you answer his earlier question as truthfully as you could, “i don’t know. i don’t know how to carry on, eita. how do i live with this pain that feels like my heart was ripped out of my chest?”

“what did he do?” you know who semi is referring to. after all, there is only space for him in your heart, was only ever space for him. 

“it doesn’t matter, does it? i still have to continue living.”

“right, but—”

“i don’t want to talk about him,” mentioning him feels like poison on your tongue. you scramble to find a handhold at the anger that rises in you in response. the indignation that he actually did lead you on, taking what you offered to him with love, all while knowing that he was promised to someone else. he chose her. 

neither semi nor kai feels any less cautious of your condition, the cloudiness in your eyes clearing to show a reckless sharpness that tries to redirect the pain you are feeling elsewhere. 

semi holds his hands up in surrender. “okay. that’s fine. do you want to grab supper with us? get out of the apartment for a bit?”

“yeah, sure.” you glance at the open suitcases. “i think i’m all packed up and ready to go anyway.” 

“i thought you’re not leaving for another week.” 

you wave him off. “my plans changed. my flight is leaving tomorrow.”

“and you didn’t think to tell me?” semi sounds hurt by your dismissal. 

“i—” you frown at yourself. you hadn’t thought of that. too deep in your own pain, you forgot about the people who actually cared about you. “i’m sorry. i was too wrapped up in my own pain, i forgot—”

“i’m sorry.” you withdraw from him, physically and emotionally. the sorrow in your bones inviting you back to their familiar embrace in the cold darkness, in a world accustomed to the absence of the warm sun. 

“y/n” kai’s voice brings you back to reality, as she tugs you to your feet. she gives semi a look to drop the matter, especially since it only seems to send you back to that space that snuffs the light out of your eyes. “come on, let’s get some food in you, yeah?”

you give her a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes, allowing them to accompany you for food one last time before you go. 

-

“when is your flight tomorrow?” semi asks you as they drop you off from your last supper with the happy couple. 

you toy with the charm on your bag, rubbing the metal absentmindedly. “why? are you going to tell him?” 

“is he not supposed to know?”

you shrug. “i don’t think he would care.”

“you know that’s not true—”

“don’t, semi. don’t tell me that. you don’t know that. i don’t know that. we both thought he felt the same way towards me as i do for him, and it sure doesn’t feel that way right now.” 

you widen your eyes in surprise as the words escape your mind. 

“do you want to talk about it?” kai asks you softly, as semi stares back at you in disbelief, mind running through the possible scenarios of what exactly happened between the two of you in the few weeks since his birthday. his birthday.

he swears under his breath. something must have happened between then and now. 

“no. just don’t tell him, okay? promise me, semi.” 

he really, really wants to strangle someone, but he begrudgingly gives you his word to not say anything to his former captain. you didn’t say anything about a certain red-haired boy, however. 

you relent. “my flight is at 4pm.” you had already told them why you had to move up your plans—a last-minute withdrawal that resulted in an invitation being extended to you for a pre-semester bootcamp that you were waitlisted for.

“was whatever happened between you two so bad that you’re not bothering to tell him that you’re leaving? despite what you had?” kai gives him a warning look to shut the fuck up.

“why don’t you ask him yourself? i mean it, semi. go ahead, ask him, and while you are at it, ask him if he planned on telling you why he is really in miyagi right now.” 

“what do you mean?” you wonder if the promised violence in his voice is meant for you or him. 

“it isn’t my place to say. but believe me when i say this, semi.” you turn to look at him in the eyes solemnly. “i am truly sorry for dropping all this on you on the last second. i was too self-absorbed to remember anything but the pain i was drowning in. you are my best friend, but i won’t make you choose between us.”

“the truth is despite everything that happened, i still love—” gods, his name is stuck in your throat. “him, but i can’t see a world where we can still be friends because of that. you know there isn’t a world where we are just friends.”

“could you let me be selfish just this once, for the sake of my sanity? when i get to paris, you will be the only one i stay in contact with.” i don’t know how to say goodbye to him.

“just so you know, i am not happy with whatever the fuck this situation is, but i will respect your wishes.”

you smile ruefully at your first friend in high school, pulling him in for a goodbye hug. “thank you, semi eita.”

kai goes next, your arms engulfing her shorter figure. “thank you for taking care of him, kai. i’m counting on you to steer him clear of bad decisions while i’m gone.” you wink at her, a poor attempt at lifting the mood. 

“i don’t know when i will be back, but you two should definitely visit me in paris sometime. stay happy for me, will you?” you say your goodbyes again for the last time in a long time. 

when you lay in bed that night, your bags all packed and rolled out to the hallway, you realize you forgot to remove the cheap glow-in-the-dark stars you pasted over the ceiling to remind you that you are no longer in miyagi. 

you had survived miyagi, but at what cost?

a/n: in my head, y/n is in disbelief and feels betrayed, yet it still makes sense why toshi would pick someone else over her </3 peak heartbreak

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[intermundia]

You were saying on your Twitter how reading and analyzing star wars texts have changed you as a person. I forgot to say this until now but I really think star wars does have a weird tendency to bring out obsession/unhinged behavior in everyone LMAO. My own personal version of sw changing me as a person is that I'm a foreign language major and atm I'm endeavoring to learn Aurebesh so I can write notes in it 😭😭 my friends are like "please you've gone too far"

star wars is a really dangerous hyperfixation, because it genuinely is like stepping in a puddle and realizing it is as deep as the ocean. i had no idea the extent of the lore when i began, no idea of its richness and variety, the maddening web of content that it is. it makes people insane. basically it lured me in with revenge of the sith's classical allusions and now on i'm my knees digging through all the star wars boxes at my local comic book stores and bothering the guys in the front about the fact that they are missing issues 50-55 in the 2002 dark horse star wars republic run and personally offended by misrepresentations of the jedi philosophy in popular culture. my life has been irrevocably altered lol

[livvivviss]

Cc: @kieraann.shifts on TikTok

A simplified version of how to reality shift

Clarification: you don't need a method!!

• With this method you don't need a script or a routine before shifting.

Steps:

1. Enter a meditative state (any way you want)

2. When you're about to fall asleep, you're there

3. In this state you will begin to see complete darkness (void state, where your intentions are stronger)

4. You will begin to think/visualize what reality you want to go to, where your body is and in what position and you will begin to incorporate your five senses.

5. That is, you begin to become aware of your DR (but said like that it sounds a bit complicated, although it is NOT)

6. When you feel that you have already shifted DO NOT OPEN YOUR EYES, continue concentrating a bit more on your five senses and -try- not to get so excited so as not to run the risk of ""being sent back""

If you don't understand very well about the five senses and "being aware" of your DR, here I explain it a little better

• I put this with "steps" but it was just to organize it a little more, it's a short method actually

[senlinyu]

I'm excited to announce that I have signed a book deal with Del Rey at Penguin Random House in the US and Michael Joseph in the UK for my debut novel, Alchemised, a standalone dark fantasy set in a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy, in which a healer with amnesia is taken as a prisoner of war and must fight to protect her lost memories and the secrets hidden among them. It will grapple with themes of trauma and survival, legacy, and the way that love can drive one to extreme darkness, and it is, as you may be able to tell, a reimagined version of Manacled.

I know I’ve been rather quiet about my publishing journey, and a lot of that has been because I didn’t want to spark any concerns or worry that I might be abruptly taking away a story that is such a deep part of myself and that I know has meant so much to so many people. This process has unfolded very slowly and quietly because I have tried to be mindful as I could be in every step of the way. 

As most of you know, I have been a reader in fandom long before I ever began to write. Fanfiction is incredibly special to me, and I have tried to do my best not to undermine its legal protection or allow my works to do so either. During the last several years, there has been a growing issue with illegal sales of Manacled, putting both me and the incredible community that shares fanfiction freely in legal jeopardy. 

After consulting with the OTW as well as other lawyers, it has grown clear that as a transformative writer I have limited options in protecting my stories from this kind of exploitation, but I wasn’t sure what to do; I didn’t want to just take the story down, in part because I worried that might only exacerbate the issue, but I didn’t know what other options I had. Then I suddenly had this idea of alchemy, which was peculiarly appropriate; an academic world filled with unique transmutational abilities, and a necromantic war against people who had discovered the secrets of immortality, and I could see a path to reimagining the story while still holding on to as much of the original spirit of Manacled as possible. 

I began redrafting the concept privately around Christmas 2022, and then as if the universe had aligned, just as I was finishing, Caitlin Mahony and Rivka Bergman of WME reached out to me and were delightfully enthusiastic about concepts and ideas for my new alchemical world and the ways I had reimagined the story. 

I'm thrilled to be working with Emily Archbold, my visionary editor at Del Rey, along with Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph in the UK, to polish this novel for publication in Fall 2025. I feel uniquely privileged that both my publishing teams are familiar with Manacled and understand how special it is to so many people, and how important it is that this reimagining captures the same spirit while also having its own wings. 

Manacled is not going anywhere at present. It will remain online throughout 2024, at which point it will, if you’ll pardon the pun, alchemise for 2025 and be removed from AO3. 

I'm so thankful to all of you who've enjoyed my works, and I hope that I can continue to rely on your support as I take my next steps as an author.

[loveemagicpeace]

North node- your path🌊

The sign in which the North Node falls denotes the psychological shift that needs to occur within the personality. The house containing the North Node shows the experiences that allow the person to access this new psychological awareness. In my experience, the house is at least of equal importance to the sign. The house position indicates the arena in which the life lessons of the North Node are learned. For ex:, if your North Node is in Cancer in the 11th House, you are learning to get in touch with and communicate your feelings, through cultivating the energy of friendships and learning to "go with the flow".if your North Node is in Aries in the 4th House, through getting in touch with your gut instincts (4th House) you can discover and communicate who you are (Aries.) . If the sign of your North Node is in the same sign as the house containing your North Node it simply means double the intensity of the same life lesson. If your North Node is in a house opposing the sign of your North Node it will be necessary for you to carefully and continuously check with yourself to find the right blending of behavior.

North Node in 1st house/Aries North Node-in this life you are focused on yourself, how you see yourself, personality. To learn how to be with yourself and love yourself. Accept yourself as you are. Being independent from others and believing in yourself. Being kind to yourself and not looking at others. You have the ability to see the difficult sides of others, but also their loving sides. You don't like to be with people when your dark side shows and you prefer to withdraw because you feel guilty. But then you can see yourself in a different light, and that's actually a good thing. You have to find someone who will accept it and not push you aside. When you make decisions, you can feel that it is the right decision and you must not make a decision impulsively, because that way you can make the wrong decision. You have to be aware of yourself and who you are, and when you are more in touch with your energy, then you will feel the real you. You need a partner with whom you can grow and become a better version of yourself, and thereby also get to know yourself.

North Node in 2nd house/Taurus North Node-your focus is to find value in yourself and not through money. Many people with this position see their worth or power only when they have money and think that makes them worth more. You can learn to find value in the things that make you happy and bring you peace. To enjoy life without including money in it. To find pleasure in food, good drink, movies, good company and being in your own comfort. To find trust in others and in yourself. To take things slowly and be patient. To live knowing that they live for themselves and not for others. You can be too vulnerable to the opinion of other people. You define your self-worth based on them. You could easily get help, and you attracted things to you naturally. The north node in second house suggests that in the past, you used sexuality as a means to get what you want. With this placement, you often possess a lot of sexual power. You are very charismatic, and other people are drawn to you. There were periods in your life when you were on the verge of collapse, where you had to completely recreate yourself, and come back and rise like phoenix.

North Node in 3rd house/ Gemini North Node- your focus is on communication, relatives, interaction, intelligence and learning. It is important that you are not focused on your truth but on the people around you. To listen to other people and understand their sides. That it's okay to ask if you don't understand something and that the question will never sound weird or crazy. You can learn to be okay with silence and connect with people through it. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words. It is also important that you choose one path, because the problem with this north node is that many times you are torn between two things. One path may be quite different from the other, but you can choose the path that suits you best. These people are learning to accept duality. Planet earth runs on the principles of yin and yang, night and day, cold and hot, female and male- seeing opposites that make a whole. U will better understand people when u will see filp side of the coin.

North Node in 4th house/Cancer North Node-in this life you are focused on home, family, comfort, people you know and who give you a sense of recognition. You have to learn to be with others and be connected to your family (which can be difficult) but this is also your purpose - maybe a better connection with your mother and to understand her better and build a better relationship with her. To support others in things and to feel accepted. You can sacrifice a lot for others and to make others feel better around you. You want the person next to you to feel safe. You have to also learn that you don't need to achieve everything right away and that it takes time and that no one is more successful than you. When it comes to relationships, you can learn not to control things but to let them go if your partner doesn't feel good enough in the relationship. They have the need to do everything just to keep their partner because they think that if they fulfill their needs then they will have a nice relationship, but this is not entirely true. First, they can fulfill their own needs.

North Node in 5th house/Leo North Node-in this life your focus is on children, hobbies, fun, inner child, romance.Many problems with taking responsibility have to do with trust. Leo North Node people violate other people's trust without intending to or recognizing when they have done it. This is why other people sometimes react violently against them. If these folks can see the child in other people, they will recognize that everyone operates from a certain level of trust that others are going to keep their word. You can learn to find your own fun and hobby that makes you happy and fulfilling. Above all, you can find your inner child and connect with this part of your life. Spending more time with people who are younger than you or children. You can proudly show your childish side and talents. Share your knowledge with others and don't be afraid to step in front of others and show yourself to the world. You could have had a more difficult childhood that was unusual and because of that you now want to find your childhood joy that you couldn't find before. You have to recognize your power and follow your ego. You are wonderful with children and children are “good karma” for you. It is important in relationships that both things are involved giving and receiving.

North Node in 6th house/Virgo North Node-in this life you have to find balance with your body and your job. You have to work in a job in which you feel that it is healthy for you, because the job can also cause you to get sick. You can find a routine that will suit you and in which you will find yourself. The connection with your body is important here. You must not doubt your abilities and be self-critical. You have to learn to find your perfection, which is in some ways imperfect. You are here to heal others and help them on their journey. You are often more aware of the pain of others than they are themselves. You can heal many people. You can also become a mentor to others. When it comes to love, you can't idealize others too much and you can let other people close and not look for an ideal partner. You have a lot of empathy for others and you listen to others without judging them and you like to help solve their problems. Sometimes you can also put off a lot of things. Like, say, time to pay a phone bill or an obligation. You often avoid this. You can be very messy at the times.

North Node in 7th house/Libra North Node-in this life, your focus is a partnership that will make you and the people around you happy. You can see two sides well and know how to overestimate a problem and solve problems in relationships. Finding a partner who will really suit you is difficult for you, because you may want someone who will match the image you have in your head. You might need a lot of confirmation from others that you are good enough and you want a lot of love from others. But here it is important that you find love within yourself and not from others. That you learn to receive love from your partner and that this is enough for you. To let go of the fear of disappointment and loss. Some of these folks are afraid to love anyone because they aren't accustomed to exchanging love. In this life, their early attempts may fail because they haven't learned how to exchange love. They close themselves off emotionally in response. However, they are learning that some people will love them for their innate individual spirit, and some will not. People are differ-ent, after all. You attract partners that are karmic.

North Node in 8th house/Scorpio North Node-in this life you want stability, depth and trust. You feel a lot of other people's energy and can have a lot of past lives. These people have such good and simple hearts. They must also accept and trust the help of others. You are a very mystical person who can quickly identify the energy of others. You like to build something worthwhile. You also have a special gift when you build things (relationship, business, etc.) you can build things so that they will last consciously. You want power and you want your money. You like things to be yours only, this is true in all things in life. That's why you don't like to build a relationship with someone if that person is not completely yours. It is also necessary to remove things that do not serve you from your life because you can stay in the old circle. When you decide to change - you win and when you decide to do things the old way you lose. It is very important to connect with your spiritual side because that will fulfill you and to look for people who are similar to you in these aspects. Find people who are deeper and more spiritual. Surrender more to the universe and trust that magical things will happen. These people are destined to experience a total bonding with another person. And this is also what they are looking for the most. These people are also destined to meet many soulmates.

North Node in 9th house/Sagittarius North Node-in this life you are looking for your belief and your truth. The more you travel and discover new things, the more you will learn about yourself and your journey here. You can find people with whom you can be exactly as you are and they will accept you as such. You have a gift for understanding others. Many times you can find yourself between two decisions such as "knowing" and "feeling", but your intuition will always be right, so rely on it. You can follow your path and trust that you are where you are, exactly where you can be. You can let go of things that hinder you and rely on others. You can find some peace within yourself and trust that this is just a journey you're on and it's fun and you always learn something new. To live in the moment and forget everything that hinders you and all the thoughts you have. Being more spontaneous and making decisions impulsively.

North Node in 10th house/Capricorn North Node-in this life you have learn to be yourself and find your own light that doesn't involve your family. Family can often be the reason why you don't do what makes you happy or why you don't follow your path. Many times you can feel that they are controlling you and your life. You can have problems with rejection in all aspects and you can learn that in life we ​​don't always win, but even losing can bring a lot. When you get over that fear, good things will come. You learn to be responsible for yourself and find out how to become independent and independent from others. This will also bring you great growth. Adulthood and maturity are also part of it. You can be a very good boss and you can also have good leadership skills. You want to gain the respect of others. You can boldly pursue your goals and believe that they will succeed. Above all, you can let go of your emotional attachment to your parents and you must not let them control you. Connect more with your emotions and needs. You want someone who will make you feel seen. You need a partner who will give you a sense of protection, strength, determination and will support you. When you find your goal and follow it, then you will also attract the right partner.

North Node in 11th house/Aquarius North Node-in this life you have to find your interests, friends, group and what you want in yourself. To belong to oneself and not to society. You have to let go and do things without expecting anything from them. You like to take risks, but when you lose, it brings you great disappointment. You must learn to lose in any area of ​​life, even if it's just a game. You must learn to control your ego and see things from a different perspective. You have to also look at the needs of others, which can sometimes be insufficient. You are meant to shine and take the stage, but with the right intentions. You have to learn that not everyone will love you and that not everyone will see you and give you the feeling that something you do is approved by them. You have the extraordinary gift of being able to build deep and unique friendships. And you can attract many people who will change your life. You tend to attract very unique people and idiosyncrasies. Being a child or teenager will bring you great joy. You must trust the flow of life and trust that it will bring you the best.

North Node in 12th house/Pisces North Node-you have to find your inner self in this life. Connecting to yourself and not looking for perfection. You can live in an imperfect world and do things with your soul and not your head. That way you will best achieve what you want. You have a lot of past life connections and can be very intuitive. You can become more aware of your existence and be okay with it. You like to plan things and you like to be in order. You can be critical of others and yourself, which is one of the things you can give up. It's good to make mistakes and to let yourself make them. You must realize that we are all only human and that this is normal. You can have an obsession with being able to analyze everything and get an answer as to why something is the way it is. You must embrace change and allow yourself to become more like a fish and just go with the flow of life. When things go wrong, you can get nervous and want to control things so that they go in the right direction, but in reality, you have to just let go and let go. In relationships, you have to let go of your emotions and let yourself be vulnerable. Facing the unknown and being okay with it. It is good to meditate and do yoga, this way you will connect better with yourself.

🎸For personal readings u can sign up here: https://snipfeed.co/bekylibra 🎸

-Rebekah🦋🧚🏼‍♀️🌊

[charliemwrites]

Bark bark bark awoooo

No content warnings

You’re gonna fucking combust.

Somehow, someway, this is Johnny’s fault. You’re not sure how yet, so he it isn’t fair for him to be in trouble, but you know it.

“This is your fault,” you tell him, pouting in bed — bare ass naked, but that means nothing to him, he’s a dog. He cocks his head, and you wave your (broken) vibrator at him. “I don’t know how, but it is. Is this because I wanna chop your balls off?”

His mouth closes, eyes big - like he actually understands you. In your horny delirium, you almost believe he really does.

You flop onto your back with a sigh, eyes a little wet with frustration.

It’s been two months since you last successfully got off. Your vibrator (and its replacement… and its replacement’s replacement) keep breaking, or running out of battery. The plug is defective or falls out of the socket.

Once you successfully got right to the edge - just for it to die. You almost did cry that time.

Sure, there’s your hand. But every time you try ol’ reliable a certain four-legged roommate interrupts one way or another. And when you tried to kick him out of the room, and then ignored the howling, scratching, and general drama - there was loud and rapid knocking at your door.

Like fucking clockwork. If you get anywhere at all, you never get to finish.

It wouldn’t be so bad, either. Your libido isn’t anything crazy, you don’t think. At least it wasn’t before. But now there’s Soap.

Soap who you should not be so attracted to. Who has no sense of propriety or boundaries, who murmurs the dirtiest things to you in the most public and otherwise mundane places. And he just keeps. Showing. Up.

Like he’s got a tracker on you or something. (You’ve checked, he doesn’t.)

He’s like every guilty fantasy you had as a good, studious girl back in high school. The kind of guy to grab your thigh under your parents’ dinner table and take your virginity in the back of his car. Maybe corner you by the lockers between classes to kiss you silly and drive up your absence record.

You never actually went for those boys — and perhaps gratefully, they never went for you. In romance novels, it would be a quaint little coming of age story. The stuff to swoon over. But reality was a lot scarier for you, especially with your older sister always keeping an ear out to report back to your parents and… well, yeah.

You’ve always been a firm introvert, anyway. That’s why you live out in the woods with only a dog for regular company.

But Soap. Soap is some unholy amalgamation of those innocent, shy girl fantasies turned R-rated. Like the grown-up version of those cute YA novels.

And you have no defense for it — except distrust, that is.

Soft-hearted as you are, you know you don’t do casual well. And you know that guys like Soap just like to spin you up and up until you finally give in, think the dreaded words “maybe it’ll work out” despite that rational voice in your head saying, “don’t bet on it.”

Doesn’t stop you from secretly wanting him though.

Fear is the only thing keeping you in check now. Some of it for you own feelings; of getting invested in a guy that has done nothing but treat you like a prime cut of meat. The rest of it is a genuine concern that he might be a bit dangerous. He’s so much bigger than you, visibly stronger. Has gone out of his way to make you uncomfortable (doesn’t matter that a very dark and slutty part of you liked it) and ignored your attempts at brushing him off.

Fear, unfortunately, is beginning to add to the temptation.

“I’m not going to do it,” you tell yourself, or maybe Johnny. Soap’s contact is on the screen. You don’t remember putting it into your phone, but you must have at some point. “Nope. No way.”

You slide a sideways look at Johnny, tail wagging at a steady clip.

“He’s probably a former frat boy or something, right?” you muse.

Snort.

“No, you don’t think so?” you question, sitting up. He happily crawls into your lap when you pat your thighs, chin resting on your tummy. “Nah, you’re right. Could almost imagine him beating the hell out of one for pissing him off.”

A little grumbly noise. You smile and start petting absently over his head and ears, phone forgotten now.

“This is dumb anyway,” you sigh, head tilted back to the ceiling. “You don’t like men. I couldn’t bring him back here.”

Johnny’s ears flick. You giggle and start flopping them around, making airplane noises. Eventually he huffs and starts licking at your face until you stop, complaining that you’ll need to wash off now.

—

“Fuck it.”

Johnny picks his head up, staring at you as you run a hand down your face.

“Fuck it all. I’m going to a bar. I’m getting… I dunno. Laid or something.” Thank god it’s only Johnny here. You don’t think you could live with the embarrassment of someone else hearing the way you talk.

You set your hands on your hips, nod to yourself.

“And if it happens to be Soap, then… sign from the universe, right?” You grimace a bit, striding for your bedroom. “Please don’t let him be a murderer or something…”

For once, Johnny is perfectly behaved as you get ready. He doesn’t try to lick at you when you come out of shower (freshly shaved and lotioned and everything). Sits patiently on the bed as you pick through your closet, even noses at a pretty pink dress you rarely wear but were considering for this.

He doesn’t try to bump your arms or hands while you do your makeup, just watches attentively. You choose a pretty, matching bra-panty set, apply a light spritz of perfume. Hesitate over jewelry.

“Is it normal to wear jewelry when you plan on fucking?” you wander allowed.

A little “boof” from the bed. You’ll take that as a yes.

You decide on a set of faux pearls with a gold heart pendant in the center. Not quite a choker, but high enough on your throat to suggest one. A delicate bracelet, a pair of stud earrings, and you’re just about set.

“Christ, I hate doing this alone,” you mutter, fumbling with the zip on the back of the dress.

Lastly, the shoes.

“Fuck it,” you say again. Your mantra for the evening, apparently. Wobble into a pair of heels, a bow on the outside of each ankle where you buckle them.

You pause when you’re done, giving yourself a once over in the full length mirror. Pleased with what you see. Coquettish and pretty, not necessarily bombshell sexy maybe, at least not on first glance. But the necklace, the heels, the cutouts at the waist of your dress… it’s all exactly what you wanted.

“Alright,” you breathe, tummy swooping with excitement. “I can do this… right?”

Johnny’s gotten down off the bed, is keeping a respectful distance. You appreciate it, don’t want to have to lint roll hair off yourself.

“Oh, god. What if he’s bad?” You ask, giving him a horrified look. “What if he’s been, like, compensating?”

To your shock, he stomps his paw and starts damn near howling. Carrying on and on like he’s bitching you out. You blink in shock, almost laugh — then check the time.

“Oh! Don’t worry, baby. I won’t let you starve!”

You toddle off to the kitchen and prep his dinner, scrunching your nose at the raw chicken and beef liver. He grumbles and fusses the whole way, making you laugh as you pretend to have a whole conversation about the economy with him.

“Okay, bonnie Johnny,” you coo, setting his bowl down. “Be good, okay? If I bring someone back here please don’t eat them, okay?”

More grumbles and whines and growls. You roll your eyes, blow him a kiss, and slip out the door.

You tell yourself you just need action with someone. Don’t admit to yourself that there’s really a specific someone you’re hoping to see.

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Masterlist

[kentopedia]

˚₊‧꒰ა cold embrace (provenance) — fyodor dostoevsky

𝓈𝓊𝓂𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓎. you buy a two hundred year old house with a two hundred year old painting hanging above the mantel. it's not the only thing the previous owner left behind.

𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈. ghost!fyodor, f!reader, violence, angst, death, alternate / modern universe, no smut but it is suggestive, fyodor is kind of a pervy ghost so, wc: 6.1k

𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒𝓈. this one has two titles bc it was supposed to be for my kinktober... never finished it. embarrassing ! but here is a semi-revamped version for this series! i can finally check it off my wips page <3 idk how i feel about it but i hope you enjoy

part of my summerween series !

A chime from the grandfather clock brings Fyodor out of his stupor, the sound signaling another day, another meaningless hour that will only continue his eternal misery. He’s grown used to it now—evening after evening of emptiness, of reading nothing but the same books, playing the same pieces of dull sheet music, and the lifeless chess matches against himself. The house is cold with only his presence, dusty without a housekeeper and a life to make it a home.

There are a million things in Fyodor’s life that he must have done to deserve this misery, but he can’t pinpoint which one solidified his reward of a lamentable, endless cycle.

He’s certain hell is better than this. It’s something he wishes for every day, if only to have an eternal companion with the devil, a challenge to overcome.

Though, even with this boredom, Fyodor refuses to let anyone live in his home. They’ll only serve to be another pain, something that would, surely, push him past the brink of sanity.

The centuries old décor will get replaced with gaudy twenty-first century items, ones that will be nothing more than an eyesore. There are a few already scattered around his home from previous tenants, but only things that he believed useful enough for him to keep; a few books from authors he didn’t live to read, a television from the nineties, a computer that he watched one couple scroll on before he murdered them in cold blood.

Perhaps he is two hundred years dead and gone, but he refuses to be an ignorant ghost, one that is unaware of anything beyond these four walls, caught forever in the past.

Although now, it’s been a while since anyone’s tried to move in, and he’s certain the only reason the house hasn’t been torn down is because its preserved nicely, an eighteenth-century home that has withstood the test of time.

Fyodor, in his lowest moments, wishes they would tear it down. Maybe then, and only then, can he be set free. Or maybe, he’s forever trapped in this exhaustive lot, doomed to decay, even when there’s nothing left of the foundations but soil.

He pushes a pawn forward on the board, putting himself in checkmate for the millionth time in a row. It’s been so long that he’s used to his own tricks. Even the computer, which he’d come to understand quickly, is no match for him. It’s far too exhaustive to play against a machine that utilizes an algorithm he can so easily decipher.

Out of nowhere, the front door unlocks, and Fyodor glances over at the sound, dark hair falling over his eyes. Seconds later, he notices an older realtor with a clipboard leading you around, a woman he’s never seen, dressed up nicely with a darker shade of lipstick smeared across your mouth.

He’s been through this before. It’s a miracle the realtor hasn’t given up on this house yet, a mansion she is determined to sell despite the endless horrors that have been committed by his hand.

“Here it is,” she says, nervous, gesturing around the expansive hall, the crystal chandelier and staircase that immediately follows. “It was built in 1731, but one of the owners remolded it in the style of the mid-nineteenth century. The structure has been stabilized; it’s safe… enough.”

The two of you chat, but he doesn’t bother to listen in. It’s all questions of: when can I move in? can we negotiate? — things you will come to regret once he sets his sights on killing you.

Then, the realtor is sighing, wringing her hands together as she watches you spin around the house in awe. It’s clear that you’re impressed by the layout, the rich furniture and colors that have been used.

That, at least, satisfies Fyodor. Everyone else who has moved in was looking to upgrade it to a modern style, rid the place of its aged grace and charm.

“I’m truly sorry,” she says, brushing curly hair away from her cheekbones. “But I am legally obligated to tell you that every person who has lived here before has suffered a terrible, terrible fate. There have been gruesome murders that cannot be explained, done in ways that I don’t even want to tell you about.”

You laugh, eyeing her with skepticism. “Are you telling me it’s haunted?”

The realtor shrugs. “That’s what people say.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” you answer, and Fyodor rolls his eyes, scoffing as he floats to the second floor, unable to listen into the unreasonable conversation anymore. It’s been the same story for decades. No one believes in ghosts, but it is always a ghost that kills them.

He returns to the chess board, irritated, though unable to consider the game any further. Your face is stuck in his mind. For some reason, he can’t remember the last time he’s ever seen anyone with such beauty.

Fyodor stops; your ageless elegance doesn’t matter—it can’t, and it won’t. You’ll be dead by the end of the month, when you gather all your things and invade the bedroom that was once his own. Even if you are beautiful, you are a nuisance, a threat to Fyodor’s eternal torment and quiet existence.

Still, he can’t help but wonder if it would be nice to have something other than his own thoughts to distract him from the endless misery.

You move in on the thirteenth of June, nothing more than a few boxes and a decade old car to keep you company. He guesses you’ve traveled a long distance to get here, and you’ve gotten rid of half of your life in the process.

A good thing for him. That means things can be over relatively quickly, and all your belongings can be disposed of easily after he kills you.

You spend the entire first day unpacking, and Fyodor waits patiently, allows you time to get comfortable in his home. He watches as you bring a stack of thick novels into the waiting room, which once boasted large parties, and place them on a shelf below those that have his name within the covers.

You take a few calls as you hang up your autumn coats, ones that won’t be needed for a few months. The voice on the other line sounds frantic, worried. A local, most likely. You only seem annoyed by his continuous string of anxieties.

When the sun sets, and you grow tired, you rub your eyes and head to bed. The first night you will spend in this place that Fyodor likens to Hell.

It’s the time he’s been waiting for—a moment to catch you off guard. You are so unsuspecting, already so at home in the mansion, that you have no fear of anything hurting you in the middle of the night.

While you get ready for bed, Fyodor slips into your room, observing the pieces of your life that have conquered his bedroom. A soft classical piece plays from your phone, one that he recognizes from his mortal life. Clearly, you are fascinated by the period he once lived in. A shame, really, he won’t be able to tell you more about it.

You leave the bathroom, come back towards him to change into a pair of small shorts, a large shirt hanging over your frame.

He’s forgotten how long it’s been since he’s seen a woman, how long since he’s touched one.

Fyodor finds himself distracted by your body, the smoothness of your skin. His eyes travel over your legs, your hips, the fullness of your breasts and ignores how much he desires to let his thumb graze over your flesh. There is something so soft about you, so gentle and innocent.

Perhaps, that is where his fascination stems from: he has always been the opposite. Even in his human existence, Fyodor was not a kind man, and he doesn’t plan on becoming one now that he is dead.

He shakes away the vision, the thoughts that swirl within his mind. It has been far too long since he has experienced any sort of pleasure, and maybe even a man as cold as himself is not immune to the desires that course within his veins.

Though he tries to be. He ignores his arousal desperately in exchange for a renewed bloodlust.

You climb into bed, put your phone on the white cord, and shut your eyes. Thirty minutes later, you’re sleeping soundly, soft puffs of air leaving your lips as you sleep.

It’s the opportune moment. The silver knife gleams brightly in his hand, streaks of moonlight tracing over the slanted point. It’s the same blade he’s killed every other new tenant with, their screams still echo in the halls like a harmonious melody each time he bring the knife down on another unknowing victim.

He stands before you at the side of the bed, watches as your chest rises and falls, the evidence of your life undeniable. You are a lovely image like this, something to be painted and adored; more beautiful than many of the women he’d met in his time, even those who were of the finest elite in the country.

Fyodor presses the blade to your throat, contemplative. He considers how much lovelier you will look with the scarlet stain of blood seeping down your neck, spraying across the room and ruining the fresh sheets. Will you awaken, gasping as you claw at your throat, or will you drift away without even understanding what has become of you?

He pictures it, and digs the blade close to your throat, nothing more than a pinprick of blood flowering there.

You don’t awaken; but you a little sound leaves you, something between a gasp and a moan, and you shift away from the knife gripped between his pale fingers. It’s a sound that has him pausing, musing, as he regards your vulnerable state, a beautiful figure there with no clue that such a murderous man is also a resident in her home.

You make another one of those pretty noises in your throat, and Fyodor, against two centuries of murderous intent, pulls the knife away. He watches as you roll on your stomach, your shirt scrunching, moving up your body to reveal the undersides of your breasts. Your hand shifts towards him on the bed, reaching in his direction, before you still. Then, your breathing is back to normal, evened out completely.

Your lips part blissfully as you sigh in your sleep.

He can’t stop looking at you, can’t stop wondering what his name would sound like leaving the perfect swell of your mouth, if you’d sound just as pretty when you orgasm as you do when you’re asleep.

Surely, he can find a better use for you—it would be a shame for such a pretty thing to go out so early.

As he draws back, Fyodor notices the chess board on the side table, the pieces arranged nicely, each on the correct square. He can’t tell if you play. You could just have it for decoration, or perhaps it was a gift given to you from a lover that he hasn’t seen pictures of, the one that he’s certain someone as lovely as you must have.

The board is aged; not as old as the one in the drawing room, but a nice set, nonetheless. Fyodor glances back at your sleeping form once more, smiles coolly to himself, and shifts a pawn forward.

The chess piece is the first thing you notice in the morning.

It’s almost ridiculous how easily it catches your eye, a tiny little movement within the chaos that was your brand-new room. A pawn is on a different square, leering at you from the other wall, as if smiling, a flashing sign above its head, calling to you, hoping you’ll pay attention.

You almost think nothing of it; things can move, can’t they? Perhaps there was a shift in the earth overnight… Though, that makes little sense when you think about it rationally.

It’s strange, that much is certain. You remember the realtor telling you about the ghosts, and though you aren’t inclined to believe in haunted houses and scary stories, you find a part of yourself questioning the logic of the chess piece.

You are certain it was on the correct square before you slept.

It’s the only thing on your mind as you get ready, suffer through a tasteless breakfast, and throw on a rain jacket to combat the dreary weather. You’re meeting a friend for lunch—the only friend you have in this town. Sigma is the sole reason you decided to move here, instead of the other arbitrary cities that you’d been desperate to escape to.

Still, the board won’t leave your mind. You take one last glance at it before, on a whim, pushing the opposite color pawn forward as well.

Then you leave, hoping that a conversation with your friend will take your mind off the strangeness of that happenstance, the anxiety you feel about moving to a new place, a new job where no one knows you, a home that stays cold, despite the heat that reigns with long summers.

The walk to the cafe is short, but with the wind and the drizzling rain, you are miserable, your hands wrinkling from the dampness, even within your pockets.

Sigma is waiting for you, his lavender and white hair loose over his shoulders as he peruses the menu, eyes darting across it like he’s never read it before.

You sit, offer him a greeting, and though your conversation is cordial, the two of you catching up on your day, you eventually ask the question you’ve been dying to know.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Sigma stops, puts the utensil back down on his plate, and regards you with a thin frown. “Did something happen?”

You think of the chess piece, wonder if another will be moved when you get home. “No, but—”

“I told you not to move into that house,” he says, eyes narrowing. Sigma refuses to step into that mansion, grows anxious every time you mention it. “Over ten people have died there. Do you want to get murdered?”

“No particularly,” you say, staring at him flatly, your mouth pulling into a line. “But I’ve made it one night already. I’ll be fine.”

A hard laugh leaves him, as he shakes his head, unamused by your cheekiness. “That’s what they all say, isn’t it? Then they all die.”

“Very dramatic.” You take a long sip of your water. Sigma’s features don’t crack in the slightest as he stares at you, waiting for you to continue. “I’m not scared. I just want to know if you believe in ghosts or not… Because I don’t.”

Sigma’s eyes flit across your face, searching for any hint of a lie, for any signs of fear. When he finds none, his hands stretch across the table, lacing them together as he glares. “Whether you believe in ghosts or not doesn’t matter. There’s something evil about that house, and you’re putting yourself in danger by living there.”

The conversation with Sigma weighs on your mind for hours after, when you return home, still thinking about the chess board. It was just as you’d left it, two pawns moved forward, staring each other down menacingly. Nothing out of the ordinary.

You sigh and finally put it out of your mind. It was just a coincidence, that’s all. The piece was probably on the wrong square all along, and you’d been too tired last night to notice it.

Instead, you focus your sights on unpacking, and contemplate what to do with the portrait hanging above the mantel.

It’s a dusty old thing, one that the previous owners had, for some reason, never taken down. It had hung over the mantel for centuries, the corners faded from the sun, but the sinister grin of the subject never losing its effect.

You tilt your head, stare at it from a different angle. Looking at it that way, you could, perhaps, see why the painting appealed to them. It’s old, with a style from a different century, and the man composed of deep shadows and pale colors is undeniably handsome. He seems out of place in the portrait, trapped there, too otherworldly to be captured on such a canvas. His features are sharp, molded out of something tougher than diamonds, something more beautiful than this plane is able to comprehend. His deep eyes seem to know all as they stare at you, trace you across the room.

For minutes, you are hypnotized, before a wave of disgust washes over you, and you turn away, unable to look at it any longer. You’ll sell it, you decide. Maybe it will be worth a pretty penny.

That evening, you decide to look into it, but the search into a local art dealer doesn’t get far. When you sit down at your laptop, beginning to type your question into the browser, the lid shuts on your fingertips.

It takes a moment for you to register what had happened. A faint sting dances along the back of your hands, your knuckles tender as you lift the lid back up. Lines bounce along the screen, as if the imprint of your hand had made its way into the pixels, matching the pulse of your nerves.

You curse lowly, hoping that a reset will fix the issue.

The lid had just fallen, nothing serious. It was a newer model, but those things could happen. Issues with the manufacturing, with the way it was assembled. Technology fails you all the time.

You hold the power button, irritated, and upset, when a horrible, screeching noise echoes from the computer. Nothing but a shrill scream, the speakers begging you for help. You slam it shut once more, and the noise stops, but your heartbeat doesn’t slow down.

Shit.

Tomorrow, you’ll have to take it in, and see if anyone can discern the issues. It’s not ideal, but there’s so many things to still need to do, and a broken laptop makes those things very difficult.

You sigh, pushing the chair back into the table. The portrait looms above you as you retreat back to your room, hands shaking. It’s irrational, you know it is, but you swear his eyes follow you all the way up the stairs.

It doesn’t take long for you to start believing in the ghost that is haunting your manor, the one who has let you live for a week and who plays a new game of chess every time your back is turned. Whoever it is, they are much better than you; so far, you’ve lost twice—haven’t even gotten close to winning.

He hides things from you, items that you are needing for the next day, papers that you can’t submit to work on time because the important files have been stashed away.

You find your books opened to paragraphs the ghost seemingly finds interesting, your sheet music scattered in a mess when you return. The candles get blown out unexpectedly, and doors slam when you’re not suspecting it.

If he’s trying to scare you—it isn’t working. You remain in the house, sometimes talking to him like he’s a friend, whispering amongst the walls that know all of the secrets in your home.

You stop at the library on your free weekend, flipping through a dusty copy of the local legends, only stopping when you find your home. There’s a copy of the painting there—your painting, the one that still hangs above your mantel, despite your better judgment.

Beside it, there’s a painting of your home, done when the house was first built. The outside of it is a differently color entirely, the garden in front blooming with pink and yellow flowers. It looks cheerful; the home of a warm and loving family, inviting and kind to each of the neighborhood children. Nothing like the dark manor it is today, with a dead garden in the front and shutters that keep even an ounce of light out.

You read the pages proceeding the painting. The first owner had been a kind man, but the next were not such. After the original owner lost his wealth, he sold the house, passed it to a line of greedy men, ones that were focused only on their money. For a century, it went on this way—until a man named Fyodor Dostoevsky purchased the home for twice as much as it once was.

He was the one who changed it, renovated it, upgraded it to his own personal style, ensuring that it fit in with the times and his own opinions of luxury. Fyodor was charming, but ruthless, deadly with his own intelligence, owning half the town as they lost their money to his schemes.

Fyodor’s rein came to an end when he was poisoned by his closest friend, perhaps the one man he had trusted. It was the first murder in a string of ones to follow within the house.

You close the book, unsure if you regret the knowledge you’d gained or not.

The house feels colder now that you know the history of it. As if you can see the cruelty etched into every wall. Colors of the home bleed into each other, a pastel yellow of warmth and light, and the next room empty, almost uninhabitable, with its royal purples.

You stare at the portrait as you make dinner, feeling like you can never escape the gaze of those oil painted eyes. He has a name now—Fyodor. It feels even more disarming now that you know more about him than he’ll ever know about you.

And though Fyodor watches you, every night, from every angle, you convince yourself it’s just the way that the painting is situated. It would be foolish to think that he’s really watching every move you make, irises pinned on your form, unblinking.

The oven heats up behind you as you cut up your food, humming a soft tune to yourself. It’s getting hotter outside – you’d almost forgotten how miserable the summers could be. You forget every year, even though you’ve lived many.

Just as you’re getting lost in your thoughts, going through a list of things that need to get done in your fixer-upper home, you hear a scratch behind you.

It’s a quick sound, so quick that you almost think it was only your imagination. It’s enough to give you pause, your humming fading out into the night as your eyes dart around your house. Although you’ve tried not to let urban legends get the best of you, you’re paranoid in this aged mansion now.

A few seconds pass. You listen to the sound of your own heartrate, feel it pounding in your chest as you will it to calm down. It’s just enough time for you to convince yourself that it was nothing, that you’re far too nervous about silly ghosts to think rationally.

Though as you turn, a knife flies from the counter, just grazing your cheek, but enough to cause a scratch to open up against the skin. Your finger draws away scarlet as you press it to the wound, staring at the painted crevices of your fingertip.

You can’t move. Despite every cell in your body begging, screaming at you to move, you’re frozen, trapped in the four walls of that kitchen as you stare at your bloodied hand.

It’s all a dream, you repeat to yourself. A dream.

One that you don’t wake up from.

Time passes strangely, when every muscle in your body is on edge, your head pounding from the anxiety that spikes throughout your nervous system. A bead of sweat drips from your temple, and though you aren’t sure how long you stand there, nothing else happens. The knife remains lodged in the wall behind you, and the ghost makes no other attempt to lodge one into your stomach.

It’s quiet. There’s no noise, save for the music that plays softly from your phone.

After you regain control of your racing heartrate, you realize that the song playing isn’t what you’d put on originally. It had switched to a gentle, classical piece. Tchaikovsky, you think… or something similar. Something that a man from a different era would be familiar with.

“Who’s there?” You find yourself saying, perhaps stupidly. “What do you want?”

There’s no response – of course there isn’t. You’re talking to the air. To a ghost. No one had gotten inside the house. You’d checked more than enough times, just as you always did.

“I live here now,” you offer, thinking that, perhaps anger is not the best course of action. Neither is fear, though, if the scary movies you’d watched as a teenager had been any indication. “But I’ll leave, if you want me to.”

There’s no answer to that either.

You sigh, and deflate once more, trying to make yourself believe that there was a logical explanation to knives flying and playlists changing. Just as you’d made yourself believe that everything the “ghost” had done before was just a game, innocently played.

Perhaps, there was never a ghost at all. It could be that stress is driving you to insanity.

With a glass of wine in your hand, you finish up dinner, feeling like you are at your wit’s end. How is it that only a few weeks in this house has already singed your mind, turned you into a believer of things that you are not?

The portrait feels like an omen, staring at you with violet eyes, as you wonder where Fyodor is now. Does he watch you when your home, cooking, as you shower, a vicious gaze tracing over each curve of your body, with a sickening thought of all the things he wishes to do to you?

You shiver. It’ s been a while since anyone’s looked at you with a hint of desire. The feeling has become foreign, now, but you can still recall the gratification that comes with being wanted, how it makes you feel, if only for a moment, comfortable in your own skin.

That thought alone quickly snaps you out of your irrational behavior. Thinking of a ghost wanting you? A man that had been buried in the earth for so long that his body would be nothing more than bones?

This house was making you sick, you concluded, wrapping your leftovers up in plastic and tinfoil, placing them in the fridge. Your nervous friend was right – you never should’ve moved into this house, and you never should have stayed this long.

Your hands shook along the banister, heart racing around every corner. You expected that, maybe, you would see a dark-haired spirit there, his body translucent, but still corporeal. Though, there was no spirit hiding within the depths of the shadows, lurking in the places where he still belonged. No sounds startled you, caused you to jump as you brushed your teeth, completed the one last routine of your day.

The bed was colder than usual as you climbed into it, like a flush of a cold spot had settled within the sheets. You remembered what they said about temperatures and ghosts—how they changed, nothing able to survive in the places that they haunted, as they were not of this world, but something in between, something unnatural.

Your lamp flickers as you turn it on, and it’s just one more red flag you choose to ignore. In houses as old as this one, there are issues like that. The wiring is faulty, the electric needs to be monitored, a laundry list of items you will probably never resolve.

There are a thousand rational conclusions, though, and only one irrational one, which puts your mind at ease. Things like flickering lamps and cold spots can be explained simply, even if knives flying at your face cannot.

Still, you settle into bed, deciding that you will talk to the realtor again soon. You’ll move in with Sigma if he’ll have you. Anything to put your mind at ease for good.

That night, you dream of Fyodor, as if he is there right in the room with you, looming above you with those deep, violent eyes. His fingers, long and pale, trace across your cheekbones, as your eyes flutter open, consciousness coming back to you.

He says your name – it’s no surprise he knows it, after living with you for so long. It’s spoken softly, with a hint of possession behind it, like you belong to him. And yet, you’ve never said a word to him, even if all this time, he’s gotten to know you better than anyone else ever has.

You expect a scream to leave your throat, some hint of surprise, of fear, even, to see a stranger in your bedroom. To see him watching you with those familiar eyes, hair falling over his pale forehead as he gazes down at you from the edge of the bed.

No sound emerges.

Your mind feels a little fuzzy, hazy at the edges as you blink at him, closer to a state of intoxication, than you are alertness. Despite that awareness, you can’t seem to snap out of it; maybe you don’t want to. Instead, you sink deeper into the warmth, the honeyed feeling that comes with turning off your rationality. Everything feels as if it’s coming through in blurred, rosy glasses.

“Fyodor,” you mouth, instead of the scream that you’d anticipated, his name coming out in two wistful syllables.

You should hate him – there’s something in your instincts pushing back at you. A flash of a knife, the days of chaos and uncertainty, where you were sure you were losing your mind, come back at you.

But none of that seems to matter now, as you trace your finger across his cheek, feeling the sharp indent below the high bone. His eyelashes are a shade lighter than his hair, soft as they flutter over his forehead. The portrait of him didn’t do him justice… or perhaps, it is in death that he has found his purest form.

“I’m too tired.”

You’re not sure where those words even come from. Calm, like this is nothing but routine, and waking up with Fyodor beside you is the closest thing to normalcy.

He smiles at you, leaning over you again on the bed, lips pulled tightly together in a morbid grin. It does little to sour your mood, to scare you into action, even if you can’t quite understand why.

“I know,” he replies.

It’s the first time you’ve heard him speak, a deep, accented sound smoothing against your ears as he traces his gaze against each of your features; musical, almost. His voice calms you, lulls you back into a meditative state.

You reach for him, in a trance, and twirl a strand of his hair between your finger, just to see if he’d let you. After the hell you’d been through the past week, well – was it really that miserable? He seems content to watch over you, observe the gentle movements of his dark hair coiled up around your pointer finger.

“Why are you here?” you ask, your voice softer than a whisper, carried away by the wind until it never existed at all.

Fyodor never disappears from your line of sight, even when you try to blink, to close your eyes. He’s there, gazing at you with a lustful fondness, one that’s dangerous, perhaps even malicious. If it’s a dream, it sure feels like a vivid one.

“You wanted to leave,” he says, taking your finger away from his face, before bringing it to his lips. The kiss is barely there, and his mouth is cold, chapped, from the brutality of the afterlife. “I couldn’t let you do that.”

“Hm?” You try to sit up. It takes more effort than it should’ve – you’re so relaxed, so weak, that you fall back down, letting yourself sink into the plushness of the pillow. “Why?”

Fyodor releases your hand, before touching his own finger to your mouth. It’s slender, like a piece of ice, gently parting your lips before grazing your chin, hovering over your neck. Then, he drops his touch to your collarbone. He stakes a claim on every inch of your skin, pausing as he reaches your chest, still covered by the blankets.

Your clothing is thin – it wouldn’t take much effort to get his cool hands on your bare skin. But he refrains, still smiling before answering your question, tucking his hands together onto his lap. “It’s been so long.”

It doesn’t make sense, but you can’t muster up the effort to question him, not when he’s contemplating every word, like he’s hesitant to scare you away. You let him think, watch him ponder, as you stare, too exhausted to move a muscle.

“I thought you’d be like all the rest,” he says, taking a seat next to you on the bed, nearly touching your hip. “They were nothing but filth, stains in these halls. It’s a crime for them to ever think that they belonged here. In my home.”

You blink. “It’s my home, too,” you say, suddenly filled with an immense amount of dread. It crawls up your neck, chokes you, and nothing leaves you but garbled sounds, as you panic.

Fyodor doesn’t move – there is no twitch in his features, as he watches you with disguised adoration, a kind you didn’t think a ghost capable of revealing. “Of course it is, darling,” he says, so softly, it could’ve been mistaken for kindness. Fyodor leans down, presses his cold, dead lips to your cheek, a kiss of death. “That’s why I couldn’t let you leave. It’s your home. You belong here.”

“Right,” you breath, steadying yourself, before nodding. “My home.” Once more, you gaze around the room, your eyes flicking over every surface. Things are exactly as you’d left them, nothing out of place. “With you?”

The ghost smiles, and reaches out to you, finally helping you into a seated position. Your neck is so stiff, in pain, and you roll it around, feeling nothing there when you expect shifting bones. “With me,” Fyodor confirms, running his icy fingertips across your throat, tangling them with your hair.

He leans into you, pressing a lingering kiss to your mouth, one that catches you off balance, before you accept it with an eagerness that surprises you further. It doesn’t feel unfamiliar, instead, it’s as if you’re coming home, like the man you’ve never seen until now was always meant to find you.

A thought that should’ve scared you, even though it doesn’t.

Fyodor pulls away, right as you begin to shift forward, maneuver yourself onto his lap. “You should rest,” he replies, keeping you at a distance. “It might take some time to adjust.”

“Hm? What do you mean?” you blink, holding onto his wrist as your gaze shifts from his impossibly dark eyes to the mirror across the room.

There, in the darkness of the evening, shrouded in moonlight, you can see your reflection staring back at you, eyes vacant, lifeless. You expect to see yourself as nothing but exhausted, but when you draw your gaze across the image of yourself, there is blood seeping from your neck, a stream of scarlet. There is thick gash across your throat, slashed so deep that it would’ve killed you instantly.

The expression on your face shifts from one of calm to horror, as you scrape at your neck, trying to clear off the blood that isn’t really there, the permanent wound that will follow you even into your death.

“What did you do?” you scream, tears rolling down your cheeks, even though you can’t feel them, can only see them in the mirror. “What did you do to me?”

Fyodor smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners. Though you fight against him, he takes you into his arms, and you are too weak to fight him off. “I told you,” Fyodor says, shushing you, running his palm over your head as you scream. “I couldn’t let you leave.”

thank you for reading !

[tritoch]

i know a lot of people (very understandably) dislike the paladin job quests in ffxiv, particularly HW, but i do think it's fun that, now that the pre-ShB MSQ revamp is complete, paladins now have a very cool and thematic in-game storyline that happens without a word being spoken: the development of passage of arms.

none of the below is directly stated in the script, but imo it's a fairly obvious gloss on what the game presents, if you assume a paladin warrior of light. spoilers for all expansions through the end of 6.X.

in the new version of steps of faith, as vishap breaks through each ward protecting ishgard from attack, lucia mounts a final desperate effort to hold him back, with a very familiar looking animation:

but even lucia can't hold back vishap's flame alone, so the temple knights surge forward to assist her. their efforts make the shield visually more powerful and larger. the temple knights here band together in defense of ishgard, and their knightly resolve to protect their home is the difference between victory and defeat.

lucia and the knights do ultimately succeed in defending the last ward, as you have to defeat vishap before their shield falls or you lose.

later in heavensward, obviously, we will get ffxiv's most famous (failed) attempt at blocking something with a shield.

this moment can be read as fairly impactful on the warrior of light's development; as i've noted elsewhere, after the trauma of watching haurchefant bleed out in their arms at level 57, at level 58 paladins learn to channel their magic into healing (and it's called "clemency," or mercy. mercy for whom? who was guilty?), and as someone pointed out on that post, at level 58 dark knights used to get "sole survivor", letting them heal in response to a marked target's death.

for a time, you literally carry haurchefant's shield with you, and 3.3 very much literalizes in genre fashion the idea that even when you are standing alone, your fallen friends stand with you. you don't need to call any allies to stand at your side and raise their shields with you because they are already there, in spirit.

stormblood marks a pretty important turning point in the warrior of light as a combatant, in my opinion, and the text makes this clear in several ways. first, in pretty much all your jobs, you've now far exceeded your trainers and are pioneering new techniques. this is no less true of paladin, which for 60-70 abandons any trainers at all for you to show off your peerless skills in a tournament.

second, stormblood is straight up a story about you getting stronger. at level 61, zenos kicks your ass. at level 70, you kick his ass. why? because you fought and got stronger and developed incredible new techniques and became a one-man army.

for a lot of classes, this story lines up nicely with the big rotation changes or flashy new finishers on the way from 60 to 70. SMN is now busting out bahamut and casting akh morn; RDM gets verflare and verholy; DRG starts harnessing nidhogg's power directly through dragon sight and nastrond.

the tanks are divided in two: warriors and gunbreakers get huge damaging upgrades at 70 in the form of inner release and continuation, each of which lets them hit the same button many times for lots of damage and satisfying animations. paladin and dark knight get more protective abilities; dark knight gets the blackest night, and there's been plenty said about that already by pretty much everyone.

paladins get passage of arms. instead of a relentless new attack (and you get requiescat at 68, which is a way bigger deal for your dps rotation), your big reveal at 70 for zenos in your fight in ala mhigo is a superior way to protect your party, a shield that lets you stand for your allies so they never have to fall for you again. it's lucia's same shield, except you need no allies' shields to reinforce you, proof of your martial prowess and your ability to transcend limits, and perhaps in truth a reminder that you never really stand alone.

in many respects passage of arms should really feel like a paladin signature move to you now if you are playing it at this point, because you should be popping it in pretty much every fight (you are using your mits, right...?). basically every FFXIV fight has at least one big AOE with downtime that warrants passage of arms usage, usually after the mid-fight add phase with slowly filling bar. since that AOE usually drops during downtime, there's no reason not to pop passage of arms (which otherwise restricts your movement and actions), and even on normal, sometimes every little bit counts on a damage check even if it means dropping DPS (thinking here of harrowing hell P10N on release, which was...less consistent for a lot of roulette parties than you might hope).

so from 70 onward, passage of arms is in a sense a paladin warrior of light's signature move, and certainly the one a player gets to most actually enjoy (since if you're using it, you're by necessity not doing anything besides moving your camera and admiring your sick animation). it doesn't have any competition in terms of spectacle until confiteor, and those you're usually throwing out in the middle of movement.

it's such a signature, in fact, that the only other person shown using your one-person version of passage of arms is your greatest admirer, who studied your legend for over a century.

and it's when he fails (should've popped arm's length, bud) that the warrior of light decides they can't let their friends fall for them, and sends them away with the transporter beacon. this is all wrong: you were meant to die for them, not the other way around. yours is the shield that stands between your allies and defeat. it is you who will win this passage of arms and break your opponents lance. and you do.

and then later, when they need to quickly establish zero's domain as a place of fallen grandeur, the home of someone who once believed in heroes but is now a cool and cynical vampire hunter d, what do they use? a decayed statue of someone in the paladin endwalker gear doing the passage of arms animation, of course.

from a visible instantiation of knighthood as a joint effort to defend what is sacred, to a tribute to the fallen friends whose memories stand by you and animate you, to a symbol of the wol's power as emulated by their allies or darkly mirrored in other shards.

not bad for a mit button you hit once per fight and otherwise never think about!

[temis-de-leon]

Demon Brothers realizing their feelings for reader

Characters: Mammon, Levi, Satan, Asmo and Beel (x reader, separately)

Main Masterlist

Part 2 , Part 3 , Dateables version

Requested by Romance Anon

A/N: just like in the dateables version, this feels like an extra to the other parts, so definitely check them out. Hope you enjoy this! Even if they're a little ooc...

.

Mammon

Saying that Mammon gets no respect in his own house is a given. He’s a joke amongst his brothers, a fool who only seeks metallic sheen; guilty until proven innocent.

Bluffing and throwing empty threats around is his way of maintaining at least some of his remaining dignity, even if no one buys it.

So when you, a weak dumb human, are put under his responsibility, his priority is making clear who’s in charge.

He shows his fangs and talks harshly, wasting no time in letting you know how unimportant you are to him and how many things he could and will do to you if you disobey his orders or ignore his requests.

Of course he’ll rummage through your room and see if he can sell something of yours, but soon his visits become too frequent and soon he lacks his treasure-hunting mindset.

Mammon doesn’t know what to think about the disappointment he feels when he opens the door and you’re not there, when he hears your voice in the living room talking to someone else or when you’re partnered with some faceless demon in class projects.

He keeps the insults to try and compensate for the weakness that falling in love with you carries. You have to see it, how could you not? And even if you don’t, his brothers’ little jests would give you enough hints.

It’s maddening, having you so close and so out of reach at the same time; but maybe, surely, that is his fault.

.

Leviathan

It’s so unfair.

Why does he have to be the Avatar of Envy when he is clearly the least everything among his brothers?

Well, perhaps he’s better than Mammon at some things, but still.

He knows he isn’t as imposing as Lucifer or as pretty as Asmo and he doesn’t even want to compare himself to Beel; he still remembers them all criticizing his hermit habits and his consequential soft tummy.

Staying inside his room is, undeniably, the best way to protect himself from his sin. It’s a sanctuary made for him, Henry and all of his prized possessions; he doesn’t need anything else.

And then he meets you.

You don’t force him out of his room, which makes it easier for him to come out on his own, and you don’t mock his interests either. You are empathetic, eager to explore, fun to be around… All in all, being close to you makes him feel lighthearted.

Levi cherishes you so much it doesn’t take him too long to want you as close to him as possible.

Where are you? With who? Why? Were you having a good time? Better than the moments you’ve shared with him? Do you miss him? He has something to show you, so hurry up!

He notices the change in his heart the moment you make him blush for the first time, heartbeat so fast it makes his chest tremble.

It is somewhat hopeless; he knows you wouldn’t be interested in him in that way. Why would you?

No, he’d rather not go through that pain; he’s happy being just your friend.

At least, that’s what he tells himself.

.

Satan

You fascinate him.

Not like a book or a painting would, much less a cat, but like a mystery. He doesn’t understand you and that angers and fascinates him in equal amounts; it makes him want to investigate you further than he would with any other person.

He observes, taking you in as neutrally as possible, and marvels at the way you prove wrong everything he thinks he knows about humans and what he assumes about you based on that knowledge.

When he lashed his tail and bared his teeth, back then, in the darkness of his room when he still thought so lowly of you, you stood up to him and didn’t move an inch. Clearly afraid, but not backing up, facing him with determination.

You’d later tell him it was adrenaline, which picks his interest further.

His privacy is his own and he still enjoys spending time alone in his room or out in the city doing his own thing, but the desire to keep your company for himself every hour of the day grows stronger by the second.

Smiling at the mere sight of you, hearing the pounding of his heart in his ears and impatiently waiting for his phone to light up and show your name on the screen are just some of the many new changes your presence in his life has brought.

The more he feels, the more he sees himself in his novels. Whether the narrative is in his favour or not, he doesn’t know, but he’s enjoying every bit of it.

.

Asmodeus

Being called beautiful is for him as usual and natural as breathing air and drinking water, but that doesn’t mean it goes under the radar. While he lives in abundant loving words and adoring phrases, there’s never enough to satisfy him and he works hard to keep the flattery coming his way.

His body is a temple he vows to maintain and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to carry that promise.

A sleep schedule that helps his hair grow, clears his skin and makes his mind feel lighter and happier; makeup and clothes carefully selected to enhance his attractiveness; and nails perfectly filed and painted multi-coloured to express his versatility. 

Of course, not all of him is based on looks. You can’t feed a fan club just solely on a picture!

He has a Deviltube channel where he engages with his beloved followers, parties to interact with them as well and other, more intimate, reunions that bring them all impossibly closer.

He thinks, rightfully so, that no one could ever come close to what he has achieved over time.

Then again, you always manage to surprise him.

While not as beautiful as him, there’s something about you that makes it impossible for him to stop admiring you and drinking in your entire presence.

It’s not just your face or your body, or the clothes you wear or how you do your makeup if you even decide to put it on. It’s your heart and your soul and the way you make him feel more loved than anyone could’ve ever done before.

There’s not a single ounce of jealousy in his eyes whenever he looks at you. You��re not competition, but part of him.

Finally, someone to share the spotlight with.

.

Beelzebub

A common misconception people tend to believe about him is his lack of emotional capacity, although he can understand his mostly speechless and stern demeanour and his food-driven actions don’t help at all.

His mind is usually focused on one thing and one thing only and that is filling his everlasting empty stomach. How can he concentrate on anything else when its growls are easily compared to Cerberus’s roars? When he salivates until he drools or when the aching need to consume something makes his vision turn red.

While it’s sometimes difficult for him to think straight or “read the room”, as Levi says, he’s well aware of what he feels at every moment of the day. Hunger is the usual answer, but there’s also love and protection for his family and, lately, for you as well.

It’s a different type of love, one he doesn’t feel often, but he recognizes it nonetheless and accepts it as quietly as he would with any other emotion, although his reddened cheeks and darkened glance speak volumes.

He loves you and wants you deeply, there’s no doubt about that, but he won’t act on it on impulse. As delicious as he thinks you’d be, you’re not some sort of candy ready to be chewed on in mere seconds.

Beel is impatient when it comes to his needs, yes, but he’s willing to wait for you.

Sometimes, the best meals are the ones being left to rest.

.

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Taglist: @ilovecandys2010 @ollieoven @kingofspadesdelusion @whimsybloom

[nyctoaerah]

⋆♱⋆DOLL SMITTEN

SYPNOSIS:: In which, Suguru Geto can’t bear to let you go and was unable to accept your death, so he made a doll version of you instead.

CONTENT WARNINGS: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat. Dark themes, Disturbing things, Unhealthy Obsession, Gore, Suguru is a total creep. Suggestive Themes. Angst.

PAIRINGS: Yandere! Suguru Geto x Fem! Reader

SERIES MASTERLIST

━━━━𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎: 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐈𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃

━━━━𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐊𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐎𝐍 assaulting suguru’s mind.

The memories of your body, laying before him like a macabre painting—your skin an eerie shade of pallid, with rivers of crimson flowing freely, pooling and congealing in the crevices of the floor, your left arm was severed and lying at an unnatural angle, the bones protruding like twisted branches.

“Suguru”

“Suguru.”

“Suguru!”

Suguru was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard satoru’s voice calling him.

“You’ve been spacing out again...” Satoru sighed, watching as the black haired male clutched the doll that you had given him tightly to his heaving chest.

“M’ alright... don’t worry ‘bout me...” Suguru muttered, staring at the doll.

He missed you so much.

So, so much.

He misses you so much to the point that he even started wearing the cringeworthy clothes that you had gifted him during your anniversary — a shirt that has your face on it.

It was so embarrassing but..

No matter the humiliation, he couldn’t bring himself to remove it.

The fabric was already damp with his tears, but he couldn’t find it within himself to care.

It just hurt so goddamn much. 

He didn’t even flinch as satoru gently placed a hand on his trembling shoulder. Satoru too looked down though , his face drawn in shared sorrow.

“Seriously... I’m worried about you, man.”

“You look like you’re about to have another breakdown...” Satoru mumbled hesitantly, fumbling for the right words.

“She wouldn’t want to see you broken...” Satoru said softly.

“She would’ve wanted you to live on.” Satoru added, hating the weak consolation but unable to think of anything better.

“and move on.”

 Suguru just scoffed bitterly, before forcing a smile.

“No.. She wouldn’t want that...” he said through clenched teeth, tracing the outline of the small doll, his finger lingering on the embroidered smile that you sewn so long ago.

“What do you mean?” Satoru asked gently, already dreading the answer. 

“I mean...” suguru trailed off shakily, shoulders sinking further as he smiled a smile that didn’t reach his  eyes.

 “She wouldn’t want me to move on...”

Suguru stared at Satoru intently.

“Satoru.”

Those bottomless onyx eyes bored into his own, searching, probing.

“Tell me something,” Suguru muttered, so low Satoru had to strain to hear it.

“Where did they take her body?”

The question caught Satoru off guard. His mind raced as he tried to understand Suguru’s motives. Was he paranoid they’d desecrate your urcorpse? Or was there something more sinister at play? He hesitated to answer.

“They took her to Shoko,” he said stiffly and hwsitantly.

“With Shoko, huh?” Suguru finally replied, his tone as sharp and bitter as a winter wind.

They sat in loaded silence, the air thick with tension.

Satoru searched Suguru’s face for any clue to his churning thoughts, but found only an impenetrable void. 

After what felt like an eternity, Suguru spoke again, his soft whisper slicing through the tension like a blade.

“Satoru..”

His silky black hair had grown shaggy and untamed during his days of isolation, falling over his pale face like a veil as his head sagged downwards.

Through the parted strands, Satoru could see the gaunt hollows of Suguru’s cheeks and the dark circles under his reddened eyes — evidence of sleepless nights spent weeping and longing for the woman he had lost. 

“Do something for me,” Suguru’s quiet voice cracked as he spoke, barely above a hoarse whisper.

With apprehension clawing at his insides, Satoru nodded slowly. “Yes...?”

Satoru braced himself, unsure of what request could suguru probably ask.

“Can you... Help me.. sew a lifelike doll in her image.. One with her face, her hair, her body...” Suguru continued, his hands trembling as they tightened around the doll.

“And get her body too... get to hug it before shoko.. do her thing.”

“I just want to hold her corpse, to feel like she’s still here with me.” 

“...Suguru, what the fuck?”

Suguru’s dark eyes burned into Satoru’s soul as he contemplated the request to retrieve your corpse. Satoru’s chest rose and fell rapidly with each panicked breath.

“Get her body? Turn her into a doll?” satoru rasped, disbelief thick in his tone.  

Satoru saw the desperation swimming in Suguru’s gaze and felt ashamed for entertaining such a twisted idea, even for a moment.

He swallowed hard.

He couldn’t just let that happen..

“Please, Satoru...”

Satoru winced upon hearing the small crack in suguru’s voice.

He really just can’t let that happen!!

But... He also wants suguru to be happy.

He drew a steadying breath, loathing the decision he felt compelled to make yet powerless to refuse his friend in such a state of despairing need. Slowly, hesitantly, he spoke.

“You do know that...she wasn’t killed with cursed energy, right?”

“[Name] can become a cursed spirit if we don’t get rid of her body. You know that she died with hatred.. for them.. right?”

The words struck Suguru like knives in his heart. Blood pounded in his ears, vision swimming, as realization dawned with dreadful, delicious clarity

It’s true.. you could become a cursed spirit... And.. and that’s a good thing.

That’s a good thing, right?

He doesn’t even need to worry because he has cursed spirit manipulation... And could tame you if that ever happens...

And then the two of you would live together again... You can be in his arms again.

“I’m sure...”

━━━━𝐖𝐄’𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄 𝐀 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘

Nanako and Mimiko sat like statues, feeling awkward.

The moment that they saw the human flesh on the doll, they ended up zipping it back up and scramming away from suguru’s room — they made sure to lock it first, ofcourse, as they don’t want suguru to find out about their snooping around.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

Suguru questioned softly as he lifted his teacup to his lips and took a slow, measured sip, savoring the bitter warmth as it flowed down his throat. He then set the porcelain down back to its saucer with a faint clink and leaned back with a casual grace that bordered on obnoxious, his knees spread wide, elbows resting on his thighs, and head supported by his intertwined fingers.

“You two look like you’ve seen a ghost, is somethin’ wrong?”

Suguru noted, his tone gentle but probing. Propping his elbows upon his thighs, he cradled his face in long-fingered hands and tilted his head inquisitively.

Nanako shifted uncomfortably under his penetrating gaze, fingers twisting together anxiously in her lap, looking at Mimiko but the brown haired girl couldn’t bring herself to meet suguru’s gaze either — instead, she was staring fixedly at the pattern on the carpet.

“Master Geto... Uh.. well..” Nanako trailed off awkwardly before she decided that it’s better to keep silent than tell Suguru about the snooping that they’ve done.

“Well?”

Nanako grasped for her phone as a means to avoid further questions. She scrolled methodically through meaningless updates and messages, clinging to the false sense of occupation as an uncomfortable hush fell over the room. 

“Well? spill it. What’s got you both so spooked?” Suguru prodded, leaning in slightly.

“Oh, it’s nothing, really...” she said, attempting to sound nonchalant as she busied herself with her phone, avoiding his piercing gaze.

Suguru, sensing her unease, narrowed his eyes.

“Come now, don’t clam up on me now. I can tell something’s off,” he prodded gently, concern softening his features.

“It’s nothing, really. Just boy problems,” Nanako said, her words rushing out almost faster than she could catch them.

Suguru raised an eyebrow at her response before settling back in his chair, his mind already conjuring up overprotective scenarios.

By boy problem...

Did they mean—

“Don’t tell me that you two are sleeping around with some boys?” 

“NO!” Nanako replied and suguru sighed in relief.

“Just... Girl things..” Nanako muttered, as she looked away.

“Oh. I see…” he murmured, though the thought of his girls having boyfriends made him uncomfortable. Despite his protective instincts, he knew he couldn’t stand in the way of their happiness. It’s not like he can deprave them of that, he wants them to be happy after all.

Turning to Mimiko, Suguru inquired,

“And Mimiko?”

The brown-haired girl shifted nervously, her fingers anxiously twirling her doll's hair as she avoided his gaze.

“How was the meeting?” Mimiko asked, trying to change the topic.

“Good. How are you?” Suguru replied with a warm smile, trying to coax her out of her shell. Mimiko bit her tongue, not knowing what to say.

“Good too,” she finally managed to murmur.

Sensing their discomfort, Suguru could tell something was amiss.

“Why the long faces, girls? Don’t tell me you’re hiding something from me now now, hm?”

Nanako and Mimiko exchanged guilty glances, both trying to find the right words to explain their unease.

“It’s just that...we realized we missed you while you were out. That’s why...why we seem a bit...down,” Nanako stammered lamely, not knowing what to say.

“Y-yeah, what she said,” Mimiko chimed in, finishing her sister’s sentence with a sheepish grin.

“I doubt it,” Suguru chuckled, taking a slow sip of his tea as he observed the two girls sitting across from him.

Their uneasy glances and sudden topic changes couldn’t go unnoticed after all, and suguru knew whenever they were lying.

It was as if they were tiptoeing around some hidden truth, and Suguru found their behavior quite amusing, and suspicious.

Just as he was about to press further, Nanako’s voice broke the silence.

She locked eyes with Suguru, her demeanor shifting between nervousness and curiosity.

“Master Geto... Be honest,” Nanako started cautiously.

Suguru raised an eyebrow in response.

“Yes?” he prompted, his curiosity piqued by Nanako’s hesitant tone.

Nanako hesitated, trying to find the right balance between subtle inquiry and blatant prying. Finally, she decided on a more indirect approach, leaning in slightly as she carefully framed her question.

“Did you... uhh... used to have a girlfriend?” Nanako finally blurted out, her eyes searching Suguru’s face for any reaction.

Suguru’s smile didn't falter as he responded, his tone light yet firm.

“Why are you bringing this up again? I’ve told you before — no girlfriend now, no girlfriend before.”

Nanako couldn’t shake off the unsettling feeling. If Suguru was telling the truth, then who was that girl in all those photos? And what was the deal with the eerily realistic life-sized doll she had seen in his room... Not to mention, the human flesh in them??

It’s not like they cared about the human flesh anyways, because suguru has done more fucked up things than that — he literally committed mass genocide and other heinous crimes!! This shouldn’t be so surprising.

But still...

It felt so strange...

“Flings?” Mimiko asked.

Suguru simply raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

“None either,”

Suguru replied, his lips curling into a half-smile. He crossed his arms over his chest, trying to appear nonchalant, but his eyes betrayed a hint of confusion.

The two girls seemed interested in prying into his nonexistent love life, which, in his case, was quite literal... non-existent, since his everything, his betrothed, his soul, was already non-existent indeed. He had come to terms with it, of course, but he still doesn’t wanna let go.

“Girl friends? As in girl friends, I mean. A female friend,” Nanako clarified.

“Like a really close female friend,” Mimiko added.

“That’d be Ieiri,” Suguru replied, a fond smile playing on his lips as he mentioned her name. 

Mimiko and Nanako exchanged puzzled looks, seemingly trying to connect the dots. Was Ieiri the mysterious girl they had seen on the pictures then?

“Do you really wanna know?” Suguru’s voice was tinged with a mix of amusement and curiosity as he leaned back in his chair, intertwining his fingers and tilting his head to the side. His deep obsidian eyes gazing off into the distance.

“I used to have a fiancée,” Suguru dropped the bombshell casually, and Mimiko and Nanako’s eyes bulged in disbelief. Fiancée? This was news to them. Was she the mysterious woman in the photos, the one who seemed to inspire the lifelike doll of Suguru?

“A monkey killed her, if you can believe it,” Suguru stated with a hint of disgust.

“We were childhood sweethearts.” He sighed, a mixture of sorrow and bitterness evident in his expression.

“But she’s gone now,” Suguru continued, a hint of melancholy in his voice as he clenched his jaw ever so slightly.

Nanako and Mimiko were struck silent. So she was actually dead...?

Their frowns deepened as a twinge of guilt began to seep in.

Had the life-sized doll been Suguru’s way of coping all along? And to think they had once been repulsed by it... It was making them feel guilty.

The realization weighed heavily on them. They had no idea that Suguru had a fiancée, and now they felt genuinely remorseful. 

“She would’ve adored you both... especially since she was such a girl’s girl.”

“You know, I’d do just about anything for her,” Suguru said with a lovesick sigh, sinking down into the couch and gazing off into the distance with dreamy eyes.

“I would walk across hot coals barefoot if she asked... I’d kill for her..”

“I love everything about her... First of all, i love her eyes, second, her smile, third, her hair, fourth, her face, fifth, her personality, sixth, her confidence, seventh her wit, eight, her intelligence...

Suguru sighed blissfully as he began to ramble on.

Nanako and Mimiko exchanged a horrified glance as Suguru enthusiastically rambled on about all the strange quirks he adored in his late fiancée.

It was utterly bizarre to witness how utterly and completely captivated he seemed by a woman who was no longer among the living.

His enthusiasm for his deceased fiancée was bordering on the absurd — it was as if he was carrying on a love affair with a ghost...

“—Ninety-fourth, her kindness,” Suguru counted off on his fingers dreamily.

“Ninety-fifth, her passion for—” He paused, just now seeming to notice that mimiko and nanako was gawking at him.

“...Why are you looking at me like that...?”

“A man’s allowed to worship his queen.” He cleared his throat.

He was just getting warmed up, ready to pour his heart out about his undying love for [Name], when mimiko interrupted his soliloquy.

“Master Geto... how... how did she die?” mimiko asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Nanako shot her a disapproving look, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

Suguru’s face suddenly fell.

“Don’t you think that’s an invasive question—” Nanako began, her words trailing off as she glanced nervously at Suguru, fearing his reaction.

Suguru was stagnant, scarily stagnant before he finally spoke after some moments 

“it’s fine...”

Suguru’s fingers twisted in his long, ebony hair as he stared into the distance, his expression distant and troubled. A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he considered how to answer.

“Let’s just say it was brutal,”

“Through Evisceration and Mutilation.”

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕 || 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓

𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐏𝐀𝐃 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍: Faster Updates and longer chapters here!

©𝐍𝐲𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐚𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐡 || 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐒: 𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐆

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠♡ 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬, 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞<𝟑

𝐀/𝐍: this one is unedited and not proof read and is a mix of the other chapters on doll smitten on wp:)

Also, this is out of topic but i’d really appreciate it if you all read this and this, and spread awareness of what's currently happening on my country:) because we're currently in danger and in near in declaring war against china.

[santsukii]

ᯓ✿ say you love me

ˋ°•*⁀➷ anemo boys falling for you (alt angst version here)

ˋ°•*⁀➷ venti, xiao, kaedehara kazuha, shikanoin heizou, wanderer x gn! reader

₊˚ character story spoilers, this is more or less just an excuse to write the silly little scenarios in my head involving these boys, some more angsty than others but it’s like 90% fluff

it’s not as if venti were completely oblivious to his own emotions, he understands what’s going on when he notices his heart fluttering when you’re around. when you smiled at him, it was as if his heart were beating right out of his chest. his music so clearly and beautifully graced the air, drowning out his own whispered confession of love. if he were to say it loud enough for you ears to pick up, how would you look back at him? as if fate itself were turning its head and laughing at him for falling so helplessly in love with someone he only considered a friend until recently.

to all but the archon himself, such melancholy tunes played on his lyre while sitting on the hands of a statue made in his likeness were simply meaningless and carried little to no weight whatsoever. the sky was clear, allowing him to gaze ever so wistfully at the constellations in the night sky as he thinks of you. maybe he’d find yours, reaching up and tracing the connections of the brightly shining stars with his finger. he knows he’s nothing more than a god fallen from grace, and not even you knew of the gnosis that had been taken from him. venti’s heart ached at the idea that he may never be able to scream out his love for you due to his own doubts.

yet right now, in the dead of night, he could sing of the love residing deep within his ever-beating heart. with a final song to confess to the night sky, he sings and plays so softly that it’s difficult to hear. even with that, his voice is so soothing and comforting as he sings out the love that had plagued him for a long time now. as he finished his song, he noticed the smallest amount of tears dripping from his face as he finally let out the pent-up emotions. even if he presumed you were far away, he hopelessly hoped that his voice would reach you. your beautiful smile and laugh were etched in the archon’s heart, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

if xiao met the same fate as those he once held dear, he hoped he could at least let out his love for you. it brings him peace that he can protect you as the last yaksha of liyue. he often finds himself separate from society for their own sake, his karmic debt often drawing closer the demons he swore to kill. yet, you stayed close to him despite the immediate danger you often faced. sometimes, he would find the tears pricking at his golden eyes as he reminisces the life he wished he could have lived with you. it would have been a peaceful life full of happiness and love beyond compare, surrounded by his fellow yaksha.

even with that, the light of your smile never passed him by. silently watching over you from afar during the lantern rite, he was torn. xiao wanted nothing more than to join you in the crowd, but what if you got separated from him? would he have the courage to hold your hand? those doubts landed him sitting atop a building and watching from a distance, silently hoping you’d turn around and notice his affectionate observations. as hundreds of lanterns gently floated into the air, he found himself once again fighting the urge to join you in the crowd. it would only be a matter of time before the fireworks begun, maybe then he’d have the opportunity to stand beside you and welcome in a new year.

in the bitter cold of the night air as the first of the fireworks exploded into the inky dark sky, you saw him next to you. xiao smiled gently, not saying a word as the landscape was illuminated with the bright and lively colors of the fireworks. his hand in yours, welcoming a new year together with a kiss. the one thing that couldn’t be heard beneath the explosions of color that could outshine the brightest star was his voice, saying three words he never thought he’d say again. “i love you”

he had fallen for you without a care in the world, allowing it to grow as the days go by for no reason besides the idea that he has nothing to lose by falling for you. kazuha’s heart felt as if it were bursting with love and passion whenever he looked at you. it was a whirlwind type of romance, one in which both parties involved were constantly sharing knowing glances and giggles, overly affectionate with a passion that will surely burn itself out if given enough time.

but it didn’t. he never once doubted his love for you, in fact he was quite open about it. it was bound to make others jealous, the way he was constantly sending letters with gifts when he was away on various travels. whenever kazuha was away from you, he found himself missing you exponentially more as the days went by. oftentimes, he only wanted to return to the place he belonged, in your arms. he doesn’t really enjoy being all alone, so he’d take your hand and hold it ever so tightly. you’ve always been what guides him and gives him peace of mind. your smile was like a guiding star in the darkest of nights, always there to light the way despite the circumstances.

kazuha never truly “confessed”. his actions alone indicated his love for you, and he one day just began saying he loved you. it came so naturally to him that he could never overthink it, like a second nature. those three words flowed so naturally out of his mouth with that beautiful and soft voice of his, it just felt right. what began as simply a lighthearted summer romance had quickly grown into a love that would stand the rest of time, despite any struggles the two of you may face. if nothing else, you’d face it together.

heizou is a naturally flirty person, using that to his advantage to conceal his true feelings for you. being a detective, he was naturally able to read people, yet he could never truly understand what was going on behind those eyes of yours. really, it was such a nuisance to hold these feelings in. alas, it was a hinderance to his work. sometimes he wondered if you could hear his heart beating out of his chest whenever you were around, surely it wouldn’t take much to realize what’s going on here. he’d need for you to simply let him in and he’d be the happiest man in teyvat.

it really doesn’t take a detective to figure out he loved you, it was quite obvious really. how many words at minimum would it take for you to notice his love? even with heizou attempting to hide the feelings in his heart, the summer days spent with you made his feelings soar. sitting on the beach and watching the sunset together, he really couldn’t be happier. he knew he was helplessly in love with you, warmth creeping onto his face every time you smiled or laughed because of him.

so here he was, singing and dancing in the warm sand with you under the sun’s fading light. the crashing of the waves on the shore drowned out your voices, but he hadn’t a care in the world. with his hands in yours, your laugh as the both of you fell into the cool water, he couldn’t be happier. even if both your clothes were now wet, you didn’t care even one bit as his lips met yours.

ever since the day he met you, he feigned indifference and rudeness to hide his feelings for you. he was a perfect example of using his naturally intimidating demeanor to hide the love he held for you. a puppet made without a heart, you had given him all the more reason to continue living. the nameless wanderer was so into you that he couldn’t help but smile to himself after any interaction with you. of course, he wouldn’t be caught dead smiling over you. just like magic, he was immediately done in by you without your knowledge.

he wanted to hate you as much as he pretended he did, that much was true. even after he warmed up to your presence, he wanted to stop acting like his true self around you. he wished he could just shut you out again, yet he couldn’t stop wondering if you felt the same. he assumed you did, based solely off of your words and actions without even the slightest verbal proof. with every single touch of his puppet body, his heart beat out of his artificial chest. maybe he had known you in his past life, maybe his heart broke knowing you wouldn’t remember him.

yet, you seemed to love him in every iteration of his life. he knew it all along, he said as he held your hands and forced himself to confess. the more he tried to fill the metaphorical gap between you, the more he unintentionally forced himself away. sure, he’d admit that he was greedy for your love. it wasn’t that bad to be in love, was it? under a beautiful tree surrounded by colorful flowers, he had his first kiss. hundreds of years living, but you were the only one he ever seemed to want to be around. angry looks and scoffs had been replaced with smiles despite all odds.

[oneforthemunny]

what we do in the shadows |familiar!eddie munson x vampire!reader|

prompt: eddie is your familiar, but sometimes, he can be more than just your supernatural servant.

based off the fx show, what we do in the shadows. a little au version with eddie and the gang from hawkins :)

contains: au. familiar!eddie, vampire!reader. mentions of murder. vampire things. blood. types of vampires (energy vampire lol). mean! bitchy! reader. alludes to smut?? sorta smut but not really but slight dom!reader x sub!eddie. language. minors dni.

“Eddie!” 

The muffled screech jolted Eddie from his mundane dusting, the feathered duster falling with a heavy thud onto the dark carpet, dust flying in a cloud at his feet. “Son of a bitch,” Eddie huffed, chains of his belt rattling when he bent, snatching the duster off the rug. 

“Eddie! Can you not hear me?” The piercing scream echoed through the hallway, echoing off the dark, wallpapered walls. Eddie knew he needed to hurry, that the banging on the coffin’s lid would come next, your fury following for the rest of the day. 

“I’m coming, Mistress!” Eddie’s teeth gritted, sliding down the dim, candlelit halls. How this place had managed to not burn down yet, Eddie wasn’t sure. The three of you were careless enough with the candles, always leaving them burning without a care. He supposed it was his job. 

“Eddie! Where the fuck is he?” Your muffled tone came from the coffin, black and dramatic in the middle of the room. 

“I’m here, I’m here.” Eddie huffed, pushing his bangs back out of his eyes. He needed a haircut, desperately, but with his new career, he supposed that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. 

“Finally,” You growled. Eddie was met with your glowing amber eyes narrowing in predatory rage when he lifted the coffin’s heavy lid. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?” You snapped. 

“I’m sorry.” Eddie nodded, swallowing back a snapping comment. “I was dusting down the hall, and I lost track of-” 

“-Nevermind.” You snapped, rising quickly into a standing position. “Help me down. I have much to do today.” 

“Yes, Mistress.” Eddie stood to the side, offering his hand for you to take as you climbed down. He always wondered why you insisted on being helped out, as if you couldn’t fly out, snap your fingers and be wherever you wanted to be. It was symbolic, he decided, a way to ensure that he knew his place. 

Your hand slid into his. His skin tickled when you brushed your long, claw-like nails that were freshly painted every Tuesday. He’d gotten very good at it, Eddie thought. A hiss fell through the room, your hand pulled back with a sizzling burn, teeth bared towards him in threat. 

“What- Eddie! What have I told you about those rings?” You pointed accusingly at his rings- silver. It was a habit, to slip them on in the morning, one he hadn’t broken yet. “Are you trying to hurt me?” 

“No, no.” Eddie shook his head frantically, tugging the rings off, shoving them in his pocket. “I’m sorry. I-I forgot-” 

“-I’m sure you did.” You rolled your eyes, lips pursed in displeasure. “Don’t let it happen again. I burn myself again on those cursed things, and you’ll not have a hand to put them on anymore. Understand?” You clipped, nose in the air as you climbed down, nails digging into his skin just enough to solidify the threat. 

“Yes, Mistress.” Eddie swallowed, following the commanding sway of your hips. “I won’t let it happen again.” 

“Good.” You chirped. There it was. The whirlwind that was your emotions. Mood swings, Eddie never understood why they called them that until he met you. How you would go from raging to sweet in the bat of an eye. Maybe it came with being a vampire. 

“Get my dress.” You waved your hand, the heavy mahogany closet door flinging open with ease. 

“Which one were you wanting today?” Eddie swallowed his agitated sigh. 

It had been a rough couple of days, the three- fuck, four, of his new found ‘roommates’ had been on a bender of sorts. A bender that would put the rockstars he idolized in high school to shame, much more metal than them. It was fun, Eddie would admit, but it was tiresome. Especially when he was still very much human, and so very exhausted. 

“The black one.” You hummed, looking into a mirror you couldn’t see yourself in. Habit, of course, even after all these years. 

“They’re all black, Mistress.” Eddie gritted, eyes pinching closed. 

“The one with the long sleeves.” You waved him off. “You know the one I like.” 

And he did. Eddie knew most everything about you at this point. Which dress you liked, your preference of food source, how many candles you liked lit at a time. 

Eddie pushed through the racks, stopping when he saw the velvet garment. It was what you were wearing when he first met you. At the Hideout, where he was still bussing tables, hoping to finally get a weekend gig. You strolled in, magnetic from the moment his eyes laid eyes on you. So… intriguing in your tight velvet dress, fastened with a corset that held you up and in beautifully. Initially, he’d went to try and ask you out, and you’d humored his attempts because you were hungry. Then, after a few hours of conversation, you both decided he’d be a better Familiar than a meal.

“Eddie,” You hissed, breath whistling through your fangs. The sound never failed to make Eddie’s spine tingle, hair raising on the back of his neck in fear. “Have you hit your head? Is that it?” 

“No,” Eddie grumbled, pushing the wooden hangers. 

“Then what is it? Hm? Why are you dragging your feet today?” You snapped, hands curling around your hips. 

“My apologies, Mistress.” Eddie huffed. “I’m just- nevermind. Here. I found it.” Eddie pulled the lacy material, hanging sleeves and bouts of black fabric out of the closet, hanging it on the door for you. 

“No, finish what you were going to say.” Your eyes narrowed into his, commanding, but lacking the usual tone of challenge and threat. “You’re what?” 

“It’s nothing. I’m fine. Do you need help zipping up this one-” 

“-No, answer me, Eddie.” You lifted a finger towards him. “Do not make me use compulsion. I know how groggy and moody you get after it, and I have many plans for today. I’d rather not, but if you’re not going to comply, then I will be forced to-” 

“-You don’t have to- Fuck, I’m just tired.” Eddie’s shoulders slumped in defeat, running a hand over his face. “I didn’t sleep much last night.” 

“Why?” Your head tilted, lips pursed in curiosity, reaching for the dress before sliding behind the dressing curtain. 

“Because,” Eddie tried to focus on the carpet, on the candle wax that dripped off the table, anywhere but the curtain you were behind though he ached for even a silhouetted sliver of your frame. “I just couldn’t sleep.” 

“Maybe you should get a coffee?” You peaked over the bamboo wood, a brow lifting in… playfulness? 

“I think Robin has the lock box in her room. Ask her for it and go get yourself one.” As if draining a victim of their blood wasn’t enough, Eddie’s career consisted of stealing from them too. It always left him feeling a little uneasy, guilty, robbing the deceased. 

“I’m alright. I just need a second to wake up.” Eddie muttered, heel of his palm pressing to his eyes, rubbing so hard he saw stars. 

“Fine, but I better not hear one yawn during the house meeting.” You glared, stepping out from behind the dressing curtain. “You know how that irks me. Zip me.” 

Eddie stood, one hand holding the top together, pulling the zipper slowly up your spine, finger brushing over your spine. Your skin was cold, like ice, a chilling reminder of what you truly were. 

“Last chance.” You turned, swiping your shoes from the floor, discarded from the night before. “Before I go and wake the others.” 

“I’m fine.” Eddie nodded softly, lips curling with the hinting of a smile. “Thank you.” 

Your lips pursed, shifting at the sudden gratitude. He knew you were about to say something mean, put him down to establish your own dominance, you were predictable that way. “Don’t thank me,” You scoffed. “It’s not for you. I don’t want to hear your yawning.” You scoffed, eyes rolling hard towards him, before you were stomping down the creaking wooden planks of the hall. 

The Creel Mansion was still standing strong, despite its abandoned looking exterior. It had been your refuge for years, decades even, since Victor had first brought you there. It was his house before, but now all that remained of him was a portrait at the end of the hall, half covered by a black veil you refused to let Eddie move. 

“Robin!” Your shrill tone made Eddie wince, ears ringing at the pitch. “Nancy!” 

“What?” Robin groaned, her voice muffled with sleep from the door of her coffin, which you pulled open, uncaring of disrupting her slumber. “What- Why?” 

“House meeting. Hurry, before he gets home.” You muttered, turning over your shoulder towards Eddie. “Eddie, go check downstairs. Make sure he didn’t slip in early.” 

Eddie nodded, grabbing a small handheld lantern- a gift from you. He kept burning himself with the candle opera you’d gifted him, and when he wasn’t searing his skin off with the flame, he was turning to quickly and extinguishing all the flames. You told him it was because he’d wake you up with his fumbling in the dark. When you’d included the batteries with the small lantern, Eddie was convinced it was because you were growing a soft spot for him. 

A creaking of a door had Eddie jumping, looking through the flickering flames with his bright plastic lantern. “Uh, hey,” Eddie stepped closer. “Anyone there?” 

The silence was an eerie answer, Eddie swinging the lantern around. It was times like this, he really wished that the electricity still worked, that he could flick a light on, and see what was lurking in the shadows. The dining room appeared empty, a few spider webs and lots of dust, but lack of any danger Eddie could see. 

“Looking for something?” 

“Jesus Christ! What the fuck-” Eddie jumped, nearly dropping his lantern, tripping over his own feet to scatter away from the figure in front of him. 

“Did I scare ya?” Jonathan’s lips curled in a half smile, standing rigidly in the doorway. “You know, they say if you get scared easily, you’re not living right. That’s a saying that’s been repeated and found all throughout history. In Christianity, oddly enough, is where they-” 

“-Alright, Jonathan. I got it.” Eddie lifted a hand, his heart still hammering. He could feel his lids beginning to droop, eyes starting to gloss over the way they always did when Jonathan ‘fed’. A shitty excuse for a vampire, Eddie thought, What the fuck even is a psychic vampire? 

“Oh,” Your face fell, contorting into a grimace when you came down the steps. “Jonathan, you are home early today.” 

“Yes, I decided to come home early today.” Jonathan droned in a painful monotone that had your shoulders tensing. “I didn’t want to miss the house meeting.” 

“Wonderful.” You grimaced, looking at Eddie with an annoyed sneer. He fought back a snicker, turning to the bat down a cobweb that he missed. You could be funny at times, when you wanted. 

“I know you three tried to hide it from me, but you always talk too loud. You forget the walls are thin. Which reminds me, did you know that back in the early nineteen-hundreds when this house was first built, that architects of that time used-” 

“-Yes, Jonathan. Please, shut the fuck up.” Robin groaned, falling into the leather armchair. 

“Jonathan, I really can’t humor you today.” Nancy glared at him lightly. “You know the rules, if you’re going to be in a house meeting with us, you can’t feed off of us.” 

“I know.” Jonathan lifted his hands. “Sorry, I can’t help myself.” He turned to Eddie with a grin. “Guess it’s just you I’ll be feeding from.” 

“Not from my Familiar either, Jonathan.” You snapped, teeth baring in territorial threat. “Eddie is off limits.” Eddie’s chest swelled with pride, chin tipping towards the floor, hoping it would hide his blush. 

“Why are we even having a house meeting?” Robin rolled her eyes, the bags under her eyes especially prominent from lack of slumber. 

“Because,” You hissed, shoulders tight with annoyance. “You three need to get your own familiar.” 

Robin scoffed, Nancy rolling her eyes in agreement. “What?” 

“You three always call for Eddie to do everything, and it distracts him from me.” You jabbed a sharp nail into your chest. “I need him to be attentive to my needs, not yours. Go get your own familiar.” 

“Oh, please-” 

“-We only ask him to do a few things that should already be done-” 

“-I have to agree with Rob and Nance on this one.” Jonathan lifted a finger. 

“Do not call me that.” Nancy hissed, her teeth baring in the dull light of the room. 

“Nan?” Jonathan turned, eyes lighting up though his expression stayed neutral, the way it always did when he was feeding. 

“Ok,” You lifted your hands, stopping the attack Nancy was about to launch. “Find your own familiar. Eddie is my familiar, and is to attend to me exclusively.” 

“I’m sure he does.” Robin muttered, Nancy’s snicker making your ears burn- well, it would, if they still could. Eddie’s cheeks did burn a bright red, shifting at the innuendo. 

Your eyes narrowed, a threatening glare that neither of your roommates seemed phased by, only furthering your irritation. A sharp snap of your fingers, heavy soled steps clicking down the hall, and Eddie was following you.  

“Idiots,” You hissed, flinging the door open. “All of them. I should’ve told them no, that they’d have to find their own nest, but oh no. I had to feel fucking generous and kind that day.” 

Eddie stood in your doorway, hands rubbing down the material of his jeans, unsure of what to say, what to do. His eyes on you, waiting for your next command, for you to tell him what you were wanting, what you were thinking. 

“Are you just going to stand there?” You huffed, a lashing tone that had Eddie jumping. 

“No, wha-what do you need me to do?” Eddie stammered, uneasy with the glare you were giving him, so menacing. He knew better, or at least he thought he did, that you wouldn’t hurt him. You’d chosen him to be your Familiar for a reason… right?

“I don’t know, something?” You scoffed, eyes rolling back over his frame. “Maybe start with changing your clothes. We’re going out tonight and I’m not being seen with you in that.” 

Eddie’s lips pursed, jaw grinding tight. He’d blame the lack of sleep on his agitation. “What do you want me to wear then, Mistress?” Eddie’s tone was bitter, toying on the edge of annoyance. 

“Who are you speaking to-” 

“-You.” Eddie snapped, shocking both of you. There was a pause, realization washing over the two of you. “I just- I like what I have on, ok?” Eddie’s tone was softer, looking down at his ripped jeans and holey band tee. “It’s what people from this century wear.” 

Your lips rolled, flattening into a furious line. For a moment, Eddie thought you might pounce- fully preparing himself for the hiss, the baring of teeth, to feel his throat being ripped from his neck. Instead, you simply huffed, turning on your foot. 

“Fine.” A quipping, positively moody huff of a reply came. In that moment, you sounded petulant, human. 

“If you insist on wearing mauled clothing, then so be it.” You shrugged, a snarl still pulling on the edge of your lips. 

“Thank you.” Eddie nodded, swallowing down the tremble in his throat. “And, uh, thank you for before, too.” You turned, brow lifted in intrigue. “For- During the meeting.” 

“I didn’t do that for you.” Your reply was quick, teetering on defensive. “I did that for myself. I can’t wait for you because they’re too lazy to go out and compel their own Familiar.” 

“Right.” Eddie’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He gave up, ready to throw the towel in. Clearly, you were set on your mood and there would be no changing it. No swaying it with charming kindness today. 

“I’m going to go.” Eddie stepped towards the door. “I’ll go dust or something. Just let me know when you’re ready to go-” 

“-No.” Your voice echoed through the halls, bouncing off the walls, a sense of urgency that had Eddie freezing. 

You wrung your hands in front of you, anxiously. “No, just- stay in here.” 

Eddie frowned. “You just told me to go do something.” 

“I know,” You huffed. “But, just stay in here with me. Robin and Nancy won’t be ready for hours, and… and if you go down there Jonathan will try to feed and drain you, and-” 

Eddie recognized the ramble in your tone, a sliver of humanity breaking through the cracks of your cold, monstrous exterior. It was rare, you to turn soft like this- needy, but Eddie knew why you did it. He knew what you wanted. 

“Fine.” Eddie nodded, stepping into your bedroom, shutting the door carefully so the candles didn’t blow out. 

A lingering pause fell between the two of you, thick with an uncomfortable but familiar tension. Routine but an oddity all the same. 

“What do you want me to do in here, hm?” Eddie’s voice dropped, slow steps across the hardwood towards you. “Just sit here and stare at you.” 

“No,” Your chest tightened. It had been years since your heart had beat, but you swore Eddie could make it skip. “Surely, there’s something better that we could do to pass the time.” You declared, voice a little shaky with desperation to regain your control. 

“Yeah? What do you have in mind?” Eddie’s lips curled in a smirk, his face near inches from yours. “I’m at your service, Mistress.” 

Your body tingled with heat, the only warmth you craved, the only warmth you needed. You were shocked, when you first transitioned to your undead state, that this feeling didn’t go away. If anything, it grew stronger. 

“I think you know what I have in mind.” You glared at him, half heartedly. “Don’t make me beg, or I’ll make you beg later.” 

“I would never, Mistress.” Your thighs twitched, Eddie’s hands sliding over the lacy material of your dress, the swell of your hips. “I’m your faithful servant. You just tell me what you want- whatever you need.” 

“Hm,” You breathed slowly, your body closing in with him, chest to chest. Your nails raked over the etched skin of his forearms, dragging a sharp nail up his neck, to his jaw. Eddie shuddered, fingers sinking into your waist 

Your lip grazed over his, mouth parting just barely, your fangs hovering over his bottom lip teasingly. Eddie swallowed back a moan that you didn’t miss. Your eyes met his, darker now- nearly black, the way they always darkened when you got like this. Aroused and needy, entirely hungry for something. 

“You’ve got to be quiet this time.” You gave him a pointed look. “They heard last time. They’re starting to catch on.” 

“Sorry.” Eddie swallowed, nose brushing over yours. He wanted to press his hand to the back of your head, kiss you with an urgency, but he knew better. That wasn’t how you liked it. Oh no, you liked the anticipation, the adrenaline filled excitement that came with teasing. 

“Who cares if they know anyways?” Eddie muttered brainlessly, eyes glossing when they met yours. “What’s so wrong with it?” 

“It’s unnatural.” You whispered. “Complicated.” 

“What’s so complicated about it?” Eddie scoffed lightly, hand sliding up your spine, towards your zipper. “You’re turning me into a vampire anyways, right? Why’s it matter?” 

You hesitated, breath hitching and ghosting over his lip, chilling him. “It’s just- it makes things difficult now.” You stammered, fingers sliding through his hair. “I don’t want to talk about that now.” Your thumbs pressed lightly to his temples, his eyes meeting yours. 

“For now,” You purred, lips curling in a small grin. “I think you should thank me again, but this time,” Your nose brushed over his. “By letting me sit on your face. That seems fair, right? You thank me, I keep you quiet- a win-win.” 

Eddie blushed, lips spreading in a wide grin. “Yes, Mistress.”

[floylia]

A MOMENT DESIRED

— wanderer x gn!reader

SYNOPSIS: He doesn’t need a heart to feel. Puppet or human. A heart or without—it does not matter anymore.

Kunikuzushi was designed to serve a divine purpose.

Kabukimono searched for curiosity and acceptance.

Scaramouche existed to fulfill that which he lacked.

While Wanderer was created to embrace humanity.

To walk beside them. A fresh start–whether he had a heart or not. Because despite it all, his mother discarded him for his emotions–sorrow and laughter–which proved to be a weakness, but perhaps, it’s finally time he acknowledges that craving for the impossible is a waste of time.

So he learns to live.

Rather, Nahida makes him learn, quite literally.

Instead of performing mass destruction, he stands in the House of Daena, scanning through the thousands of books they harbor. He skims through the pages, coughing once in a while from the dust that had settled on the shelves.

A once renowned Fatui Harbinger has now turned into a Vahumana Scholar.

How ridiculous, he thinks.

“I have your tea,” A familiar voice declared through the hushed voices in the room. You approach him with two drinks in hand, “I don’t understand why you like bitter things.”

“The more bitter the better,” he replies calmly, tracing the book spines, and skimming through its contents. Too immersed to engage in a conversation, but he indulges.

“My arms are tired, hurry up”

He pulls out a decrepit book before grabbing his tea from your hand, “You complain too much.”

“It’s piping hot. I don’t understand how you don’t notice the temperature.”

He shrugs and leads both of you to a nearby table. On it, mechanical items, cloth and a sewing kit scatter around, clearly tinkered with, “What is this?’

“I’m making a toy,” you respond.

He raises a brow, expecting you to explain further but you don’t. You take a seat across from him.

“Kshahrewar scholars,” He whispered while shaking his head.

You pass him the sewing kit, “We’re making toys.”

“What. Why?”

“Less questions, more doing.”

At times like this, you remind him of Nahida. Constantly ordering him around. Yet he follows like an obedient dog.

This time not out of obligation as a “prisoner,” but because he wants to.

With you, he doesn’t need to give his actions reason.

It’s a foreign concept.

But he’ll learn. He’s best at adapting.

“Let me teach you,” You say after watching him struggle to put the thread on the pin.

“I’m not made for this.” He says.

“Clearly.”

Your hands brush, he doesn’t understand why his face flush, or why he craves your touch–a moment too quick, a moment desired. But he observes how your concentrated face contorts into various expressions—how your eyes twinkle with passion, how your lips fall into a steady line, how your hands skillfully follow a rhythm as you teach him the ways of knitting.

Admiration flows through his body.

Yes. Admiration. That is the word.

You must’ve noticed his stare, because you match his gaze. It’s too soft. Too intimate. Too close. He looks at your lips then back at your eyes.

Admiration. He reasons.

But the urge to cup your face and kis–

No.

He coughs, “Sorry.”

You continue.

In no time, he gets the hang of it. Hours go by, but it didn’t feel like it. Your presence alone makes time a fickle matter.

Finally, he finishes the small doll.

Both of you admire his work—a short boy with white clothes, dark black hair, paired with a waistband and a teardrop beside its eyes.

In some way, it resembles him. A version of him derived from misery.

“You should’ve joined Kshahrewar. You have the talent for it,” you say truthfully.

“I’d rather not work myself to death for a penny.”

You gasp, “That stereotype is old. Is reusing the same content natural for you Vahumana folks? Does creativity not flow through your class?”

He scoffs at your words, but finds no offense in your statement. He’s fond of your annoyed face, how you ramble into oblivion. Something about hearing your voice makes his none-existent heart flutter.

This. He’s not used to.

“Who is that by the way?” You point at the doll.

“A puppet.”

“A puppet? Don’t they need strings?”

“No. It’s not tied down. It’s free.”

—

You don’t see him the next day.

But you do see another doll lying on your usual table–one that resembles you followed by a note underneath, “The puppet found itself a companion. I hope you don’t mind.”

You certainly don’t mind.

NOTE:

inspired by wanderer’s friendship level 4 story

[kiame-sama]

Tender Love and Care- (Yandere!Miguel x sick!reader)

Warnings; reader is bed bound by illness, helplessness, obsessive miguel, mention of kidnapping, yandere behavior, yandere tendencies, lovesick yandere, semi-soft miguel, scolding, confusion, fever, mention of death, possessive behavior, slight objectification,

~~~~~~~~

"Reckless and stupid, that's all it was! Do you not understand how stupid it was? Truly? You could have caused the multiverse to completely collapse!"

Miguel hissed as he paced in front of the three most recent spider-people to let him down. He thought that they would be able to handle a simple mission, but it was clear that he put far too much faith in those standing before him. Keeping the multiverse from collapsing was no easy feat, but so far it seemed like Miguel was the only one holding things together.

"But, Sir, the parameters of the mission were to deal with the anomalies."

"And did you deal with them? No! Ay, madre de Dios, now Noir and Spider-punk have to deal with the extras you all missed. If I have to step in again on another botched mission-"

The soft sound of coughing made Miguel fall silent, his head turning to the door at the back of his office where his most treasured possession lay. A soft whimper and croaking noise made his brow furrow in worry. The other spider-people standing at attention exchanged a look of confusion before his attention snapped back to them.

"Do better next time or there won't be a next time. Dismissed."

He held his stony demeanor for a moment longer as they shuffled out of his office with their heads bowed low, red eyes trailing the group with precision. The coughing sound came again, this time closer than before. Low ragged breaths were being gasped down as the raspy sound of labored lungs fought to inflate.

"Miguel..?"

"(Y/n)," the dark haired man turned on his heel and approached the now open back door, "you should be in bed resting."

Despite their sallow and sunken features, he still found his dearest to be the most beautiful person he had ever seen. It didn't matter how many universes he had to look through before he found them again, he was going to keep this version alive. Of course, the constant canon events were trying rather hard to take them away, but he wouldn't let that happen.

The current problem was a rather debilitating illness that wracked the body and lungs of his beloved, leaving them gasping for every breath. Each cough struck his heart with pain as Miguel heard the following whimpers that came with any fit. If he could only lift away the illness that plagued his dearest, he would happily do so. However, all he could do for them at this point was keep them comfortable and hope their immune system could fight off the worst of the virus they were plagued with.

"Come on, you need your rest."

They didn't argue or fight against his gentle touch as he herded them back towards the large bed in the room. Though the room had once been for Miguel alone, it was now less sparsely decorated and seemed to have a bit more life to it thanks to the new life he felt he received from his darling. Miguel was careful to keep an eye out for any sign of stumbling or struggling so he could catch his darling before they had a chance to fall.

As their foot caught on the corner of a carpet, he quickly caught them in his arms. He may not have the spider sense like many others did, but he was no less observant of his surroundings. His muscled arms were hardened after years of training and fighting, so lifting his darling the rest of the way into the bed was an easy task for Miguel.

The other spider people knew Miguel had someone in his room, though they didn't know the true origin of how that person came to reside in the room. Not that Miguel would tell them, but he had scoured the many universes for any incarnation of his beloved and only found them after months of searching. They were laying in bed, rendered helpless by the pandemic illness that consumed that universe. He couldn't just leave them laying there without any help or defense.

His universe had already mostly eradicated the virus in question, so he knew they would be better off with him instead of in their dying universe riddled with the aggressive virus. Sure, he hadn't exactly asked if he could take them away, but in their delirium they weren't exactly able to deny thier savior anyway.

Once he got them back to his home, he endeavored to keep them safe and sequestered until the virus passed. Lyla was both supportive and judgemental of Miguel taking and keeping his beloved from their universe, she also knew how it would destroy Miguel to lose them again. She brushed off any questions the other spider-people asked her and simply said Miguel was allowed to keep his personal life away from his work life.

"Miguel..."

The hoarse whine of his dearest drew him back to the present as he finished tucking them into bed, resting a cool cloth over their forehead. They rest their cheek against his hand, nuzzling into his touch affectionately as they stared up at him with a kind of feverish delusion. He let the small smile tug at the corner of his lips as he stared lovingly at his darling.

"Rest, I'll wake you up later with food, alright?"

"M'kay..."

"Te amo, (y/n)."

[cameronsprincess]

Pretty Blue Eyes — R.C

— summary: you see rafe at a party after he’d dumped you, and it hurts more than you thought it would.

— CW: 18+ only! angst, strong language, alcohol consumption, drunk!reader, hurt/no comfort.

— a/n: i’m so sorry. i love angst and when i’m sad, i have to make y’all sad too. this angst prompts list gave me ideas and i used dialogues 3, 14 and 20<3 likes, comments and reblogs are very appreciated <3

I never knew losing him would hurt so much. Losing the one person I’d spent the last six months of my life with.

Six months might not seem like much to some, I understand people have gone through greater losses. But I’d fallen in love with him. Fallen in love with all the meaningless words he’d said. Fallen in love with his scent, his touch, his pretty blue eyes.

But he never loved me. I was just a game. Something to use to pass the time. I boosted his ego, made him feel special. And all the while, he was using me. Playing me. Making me fall in love with him, just so he could break my heart. It was random, and very unexpected. Four words was all it took to shatter my heart into a million little pieces — “I never loved you.” is what he’d said.

To make matters worse? He’d told me this right after we’d had sex. I gave myself to him. My whole self. And he took. He took and took, but never gave. He took until there was nothing left for me to give. He owned my soul, my heart, my body. He owned me, but I never owned him.

That was three days ago. Three days of crying myself to sleep, three days of not eating and drinking myself to death. Three days since I’d seen his face. I’ve tried to avoid him, but I knew I’d see him again. We live on a small fucking island for Christs sake. And he’s everywhere. He’s very well known. There’s no escaping him. And tonight proves that. He’s here. His pretty blue eyes watching me from across the room. I wish I could show him I don’t care, that he didn’t rip my fucking heart out and stomp on it…

But I can’t. I still love him.

“Are you okay?”

My best friend, Ashlyn’s, voice pulls me from the darkness I’ve allowed myself to crawl into. I slowly turn to face her, light brown eyes filled with concern intensely stare back at me.

I put on my best fake smile. “Yeah. Fine, why?”

Lie. I’m not okay, and I don’t know if I ever will be. But I can’t admit that.

She frowns. “You’re not okay though, I can see it in your eyes. Do you wanna leave? We can lea-”

I quickly cut her off. “No, no. It’s fine. Let’s just go get another drink. I’m gonna need them if I’m going to last here all night.”

Her frown deepens, but she nods her head. I internally thank the Heavens that she dropped the subject. I don’t want to talk about Rafe and how he’d absolutely obliterated my heart.

She grabs my hand, lacing her fingers with mine before pulling me off to the kitchen, and out of the eyesight of the beautiful, blue eyed man I once had all to myself.

“I’m thinking shots of fireball. Shit will get you drunk so fast.”

I laugh. “The alcohol version of red hot gum, I’m down.”

Laughing at my lame attempt at a joke, she grips the neck of the bottle, grabbing two shot glasses next and filling them both to the rim. I quickly grab mine, tossing it back and swallowing the harsh amber liquid. A shiver wracks my body as the burning liquid makes its way down my throat.

I cough, placing my hand over my stomach. “Fuck, I forget how much that shit burns.”

Ashlyn chuckles. “Yeah. But that’s what makes it great. The burn of this can help erase the burn you feel from Rafe being a royal douche.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. She’s right. I prefer the burn of the liquor over the burn of Rafe and his heartbreaking words.

She quickly fills the shot glasses again, handing me mine and watching as I down the amber liquid once more.

I slam the shot glass back on the counter. “Another, please.”

She smiles widely. “Atta girl. You’ll forget about the smug bastard by the end of the night at this rate.”

***

Ashlyn was right. I was…. twenty shots in?? I don’t fucking know, I was drunk. And I wasn’t thinking about the pretty blue eyed man.

I’m about to take another shot when a voice I didn’t want to hear anytime soon has me dropping the glass on the floor, clear liquid spilling at my feet as the glass shatters — representing my heart because of him.

“Y/N… I think you should cut yourself off and go home.. I’ll take you.”

I snap my head in his direction, those damn pretty blue eyes staring down at me. Looking at me like I actually meant something to him. Lies. He doesn’t give a fuck. He just doesn’t want me embarrassing him tonight. Fuck him.

With shaky hands, I grab another glass from the counter, my eyes never leaving his. I reach out and find the tall, glass bottle of Tito’s, pouring myself another shot and then downing it with my eyes on his.

“Fuck you, Rafe.”

He sighs, setting his beer bottle on the counter and placing his hands on my shoulders. His blue eyes search my face.

“Y/N. Please, go home. You’re drunk, and you’re hurting.”

I roll my eyes and scoff. Fuck him for trying to pretend he cares. He doesn’t give a shit about me. And I’m done caring about him.

“Stop acting like you give a fuck about me, Rafe. You dumped me. So it’s done. I just want to get drunk, and fucking forget I ever loved you.”

He glances behind me, his eyes taking in everyone that’s watching us. “Hey, can we please go talk outside?”

I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but he grabs my hand, pulling me outside. I’m so drunk I can’t fight him off. He pulls me all the way down the stairs of the front porch and down the long driveway until we reach his truck.

He opens the passenger door, tossing me inside and slamming it shut behind him. My heavy eyes watch him round the front of the truck before he hops inside the driver seat. He pulls the keys out of his pocket, sticking them into the ignition and bringing the truck to life.

I cross my arms over my chest with a huff. “Where the fuck are you taking me, Rafe?”

He glances at me from the corner of his eye before placing them back on the road. “Home.” comes his clipped answer.

I lean my head against the window. Why does he do this? He left me. Why does he care if I’m drunk at a party or not? Why can’t he just leave me alone and let me heal?

The smell of leather and his cologne fills my nose. I feel the tears begin burning the backs of my eyes, and I swallow the lump that’s formed in my throat. I lift my head, turning my head to the side to look at him. He still looks so good, and it hurts. He has one hand firmly gripping the steering wheel and the other lays lazily in his lap.

He has on a tight baby blue polo, and khakis with a backwards hat on. I want him to kiss me, and tell me everything will be okay. Tell me that he made a mistake and he does love me. But I know that won’t happen. He meant what he said, and there’s no getting him back, no matter how badly I want him back.

A few minutes later, he’s pulling into the driveway of my parents house. He puts the truck in park and hops out, rounding the truck to my side and opening the door for me.

He reaches his hand out, and I take it. My heart pulls in my chest at the feel of his touch again. I miss him.

He helps me out of the truck, and walks me to the front door. I turn and face him, wanting to get some things off my chest before he goes.

“Why’d you do it?” I ask softly, tears stinging at my eyes and threatening to spill.

He sighs, and the look in his eyes hold slight regret. “I can’t answer that… I just, I didn’t want to be with you anymore. And I’m sorry I hurt you in the process, but I couldn’t pretend to love you when I didn’t.”

The first tear falls, and I blink rapidly, swiping at my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I still don’t understand what I did wrong..”

He places a hand on my shoulder, and I can’t stop the sob that is pulled from me.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Y/N… I promise. I know this is so cliché, but it’s not you, it’s me. I just couldn’t commit.”

The tears are now flowing uncontrollably down my face and my body is shaking. I’m in pain. And he’s making it worse.

“I love you, Rafe. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I’m sorry.. I just can’t. You need to stop loving me.”

I choke out a sob. “I don’t want to love you anymore. But I do.”

He sighs, letting his head fall and his eyes look to the ground.

This is the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. I’m not getting him back. I’ll never have Rafe Cameron in my life again. And that thought alone has me spiraling into a depression I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back from.

“Say something, Rafe.” I choke out.

His head lifts, and his eyes find mine again. He’s went from looking regretful, to angry in just seconds.

“What do you want me to say? I left you. And now you’re showing up to my friend’s house, getting fucking wasted and causing a scene. What the fuck do you want from me? I can’t fucking force myself to love you! I just fucking can’t! I’m sorry, but that’s the fucking truth. I never fucking loved you, Y/N. Let it the fuck go.”

Another harsh sob wracks my body as I come to terms with the fact that he truly never loved me. He never cared about me. He used me, and I let him. I grab my house key out of my small purse and stick it into the lock. I push open the front door, turning to face him before I walk inside, I say, “I could have lived without knowing you never meant anything you told me. You fucking broke me, Rafe. You ruined me. A once bright and happy fucking woman, and you’ve shattered me. I fucking hate you, and I hope you’re happy. Please, just leave me the fuck alone.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but I slam the door in his face, quickly locking it and sliding my back down the door until my ass hits the floor. I bring my knees up to my chest, curling in on myself. I let out a loud scream, knowing my parents aren’t home tonight. Sobs wrack my entire body and I feel the physical pain in my chest from where he once lived. He fucking broke me, and I will never forgive him for that.

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[solbaby7]

Put On A Show

pairing: Rhysand x reader

warnings: smut, exhibitionism, explicit language, some light degradation, i couldn’t help myself guys sorry

Summary: Rhysand brings you along as a plus one to a celebration at the Court of Nightmares and you put on a special show for your High Lord

—

High Lord of the Court of Nightmares.

Lord of Night.

Death Incarnate.

There’s no place for the teasing smiles, the playful jokes or restrained power here. All the things of Rhysand that you’d grown accustomed to was swapped out for that arrogant smirk, the pristine elegance of his attire that exuded centuries of wealth but beyond all of that; his most noticeable accessory was the ebbing darkness that seemed to loom around him. “I’m sorry for how I talk to you down there. I can’t—they can’t see me that way.”

“I promise I won’t take it personally,” You’d told him, meaning it no matter how high your brows shot up when he’d sheepishly handed over your outfit for the night.

If you could call it that.

It was basically see though, soft fabric just barely covering your breasts, criss-crossing at the stomach before settling into a skirt that barely covered your backside when you walked. Rhys had insisted on a little precaution, waving a hand and covering you in tattoos so dark it looked like the night sky was plucked from above and stamped into your skin. The intricate designs didn’t move when you touched them but anytime you’d accidentally brushed into Azriel or bumped shoulders with Mor, the ink smeared. “You marking me or something?”

It was meant as a joke but he’s serious when he answers. “Yes.”

Your roll falls into place when you’re winnowed to the front entrance of the Hewn City and instantly you understand why none of the Inner Circle came here much. The air smelled of mischief; chaos bled from the windows and greed reared its head when the High Lord sauntered through the front doors like he owned the place—he did.

The shift in the room happens quickly, guards dressed to the tee in heavy armor and swords sharp enough to disembowel with one sickening swing; men who’d fought in great battles and devastating wars, bowing to their knees at the sight of him.

This version of Rhysand eats it up, chin high and nose higher as he looked down on each and every person in attendance. Gone was the male with great dreams of peace and prosperity; dreams of a place where people of all types called home without fear of it being ripped from them at any moment.

This version of Rhysand was the fear.

He was the darkness that lurked around at night, waiting and watching patiently for his victims to slip up so he could reach out and capture them in his dark web. “All of this, for me?” The High Lords voice clears across the room easily with everyone so silent, heads bowed and the few who’d bravely raised their eyes to feast on a slice of your skin was met with the silent threat of death by the shadowsinger that followed your flank. “I’m flattered.”

The High Lord sits comfortably in his thrown, legs spread wide and arms lazily spread out on the sides. For the first time since you’d gotten here, he looks at you, beckoning you forward with a cocky little jerk of his head and only when you stand before him does he allow the others to rise. “You sit.” He tells you though, gesturing proudly to the spot on his lap and you resist the urge to see other people’s reactions when you obey.

Despite the dark ambiance, something about the unsettling atmosphere intrigued you; eyes catching over carefully carved dragons with wings that seemed never-ending as it curved around the walls, the crown moulding and ceiling like it was preparing to take flight and burst through the roof. The citizens of the Hewn City, you find are equally as unsettling; groups of people coming up to bow and greet their High Lord, shamelessly taking in the ample curves left on display by your flimsy attire. “Pretty, isn’t she?” The Lord of Darkness questions after a moment, violet eyes fixed on the curve of your spine before settling on the armored male to the left.

The male swallows thickly, his gulp audible when he nods just barely. “Yes, High Lord.”

Rhys hummed in agreement, the back of his hand beginning to trace the curve of your shoulder when you hear some muffled voice coughing out “whore”. The touch leaves and that ebbing darkness grows again, robbing the man who’d dare utter the syllables of his breath. The man’s hands reach for his throat, eyes wide as his mouth gapes open and closed like a fish plucked out of the water and you don’t place your hand on the High Lords chest until the man’s face is a unusual shade of blue. “Aw, let him go. He’s just mad you’ve got me all to yourself,” You lean in closer, voice sultry and a little bored when you settle deeper into his chest. “Poor bastard probably doesn’t even know what to do with his equipment under all that armor.”

Another best of time passes before you hear the desperate gasp behind you and the feeling that washes over you when seeing the part of Rhysand he kept hidden—the all powerful Lord of Destruction ready to ruin anyone in his way.

Lust.

The man is forgotten, carried away by his friends and briefly you notice Cassian and Mor drifting off into the crowd. Azriel remains close by, a healthy enough distance away for you to feel confident enough to grind down on the thick thigh between your legs.

“You should stop that,” The words rumble against your bare back a half a minute later, hands dripping tight at your hips to still the movements. “Unless you plan on giving them a show.”

A brow raises and your neck craned to look Rhysand in the eye, the smirk pulling on your mouth matching the same one he’d seen every time he stepped foot in this city of violence and deviant morals. “Would that please you, Lord of Darkness?”

Rhysand goes still and for a moment you expect him to deny you, hands bracing yourself to get off and apologize when his grip keeps you in place. You can’t look away when he drags your hips on his thigh the same way you had before, inky pupils devouring violet irises when you let out a breathy moan.

It captures attention and you notice Azriel step a little closer—for further protection or to watch you can’t tell and you don’t care to figure it out when a shudder runs up your spine at the delicious drag hard muscles against your clothed cunt.

Your body burns with want when your High Lord grabs a handful of your ass, forcing you to ride his thigh faster, moans spilling out like summons to the dark creatures that lurked about the Court of Nightmares. “You look so pretty like this,” His voice is gruff, raspy and he’s quick to call upon dark power, a cool sensation spreading over your skin where it touched.

“Fuck,” The curse drags on your tongue, eyes clamping shut when your orgasm washes over you, no longer caring about the eyes that burned holes into your body. No doubt every fae or creature alike could smell the scent of your arousal permeating the air but where embarrassment was supposed be was relief.

The bulge in the High Lords pants is evident, a hand sneaking down to cup it through the expensive fabric. “You think the citizens of the Hewn City want to watch their High Lord fuck his girl?”

The sound of a button popping open, a zipper sliding down and a hand settles around your throat. “Deliciously filthy thing, you are.” The top of your dress falls apart and you’re certain Azriel can see everything when Rhysand fished his cock free. “Let’s find out.”