#something I wrote a few weeks ago

[azzo0]

You sat on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through your phone, when you caught your boyfriend approaching you. Shirtless. Seeing Sero hanging around your guys' shared apartment without a shirt wasn't anything new. You were quite used to it, in fact. But it was the look in his eye that made you put your phone down. It's not every time he looked at you like that. 

Half-lidded eyes, head tilted slightly to the side with raven hair falling on his cheek, slow steps, taking his sweet time to walk over to you. You couldn't fight the heat that had crept up your face as he looked down at you from where he stood. He kneeled on the ground, hands on your knees, bringing his face dangerously close to yours, hot breath hitting your lips. He forced your legs apart, settling in between them. 

Your heart raced, and you leaned a little closer, only for him to sit on the floor and turn around so his back was facing you. You looked down at him in confusion as he massaged the back of his neck. 

"Ahh, babe, can you please massage my shoulders?" He asked, "They hurt so much." 

You felt like someone had thrown a bucket of water over you. All that drama, just for a massage? Half-heartedly, you put your hands on his shoulders. 

Sero was well aware of the effect he had on you. He couldn't help but smirk to himself as you gave him a massage. He knew what you wanted, and he was going to give it to you. But only after teasing you a little more <3

#i finally wrote something for sero!!! #this was loosely based on a reel i watched a few weeks ago #i can't find it now or i'd link it #tbh i almost wrote this for katsuki at first but when i thought about it with sero instead... #made me feel dizzy #we need more sero appreciation here #sero x reader #hanta sero x reader #hanta x reader #sero #bnha

[dirtcrawlerz]

i think my favourite thing about the gang's relationship with one another is the way they've made so many movies, commercials, etc. and how passionate they are about it. they made Lethal Weapon 5, 6, and 7 solely because they enjoyed the movie franchise and wanted more content, not because they expected the movies to make them famous. i mean, LW 5 and 6 just ended up in the public library, where i'm sure the gang didn't make any money off of them. mac also made Project Badass seemingly only for himself and the gang to watch, because he doesn't ever mention wanting to sell the idea to anyone or make money off of it (also charlie told him that he "watches those tapes all the time" and that he loves them which is so cute). when charlie, mac, and frank tried to make their own news broadcast, and obviously put SO MUCH work into it, they tell dee that they're going to be putting it on Public Access, which they also likely won't make money from. they put so much effort into making these things simply because it's something they enjoy, not because they expect to profit from it. even with how toxic they are to each other, it's really sweet to see them coming together and working on projects that they care about

#i wrote this a few weeks ago and totally forgot about it so here you go lol #this is so unimportant like it's literally just something i noticed it's not even a headcannon or anything #but i just needed to get it out of my lil brain </3 #charlie post #iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #charmac #charlie kelly #mac mcdonald #dennis reynolds #dee reynolds #frank reynolds

[hes-a-rainbow]

Something Happens And I’m Head Over Heels ~ e.m.

Summary: The freshman spring formal is approaching and they need one more volunteer to make it happen. Also, Eddie’s stupidly in love. 

Warnings: fluffy, Eddie being embarrassed

Word Count: 1.1k

“Absolutely not,” Eddie was already answering Mike’s question before he could even finish asking. Gareth had warned him last period that the little sheep of the Hellfire club were looking for volunteers for the upcoming freshman spring formal. Something nobody could convince Eddie to do even with a gun to his head.

Eddie turns back on the power saw, cutting the wood where he marked it just moments ago with his pencil. Whoever decided to give a bunch of high schoolers power tools was a total fucking idiot but Eddie would be lying if he said he didn’t look forward to wood shop all day.

The scraggly freshman backs away from the work table as pieces of plywood fly into the air around him. Eddie turns off the saw, rolling his eyes as he lifts it back into the safety position before reaching for an extra pair of safety goggles under the table and tossing them to Mike.

Even though they are no more than 2 feet apart, Mike still fumbles with the plastic goggles before hastily putting them on.

“What?! No, dude, listen, it’ll be fun!” Eddie grabs the measuring tape and his pencil, measuring out the exact size he needs for the mug shelf he was building (another good thing about wood class; free birthday and Christmas gifts for Wayne.)

“I don’t know about you, Wheeler, but being a chaperone for a bunch of horny freshmen is not on my list of fun things to do around here.” He positions the wood back under the power saw which cuts easily through the wood. Lifting the saw again, he takes the newly cut wood and adds it into the slowly building pile beside him.

“We just need one more volunteer!” Eddie looks over at Mike, now covered in pieces of plywood that stick to his black hair, Eddie’s sure his mane doesn’t look that much different. “Robin will be there! And Nancy! You like them!” At this point, the young boy was grasping at straws, and he must’ve known it too because Eddie could see his shoulders starting to deflate as he spoke softly down at the workshop table separating them.

“Look, if we don’t have enough volunteers, the dance will be canceled. El and Will are flying all the way from California to be here for it.”

Now contrary to what most of the other students of Hawkins thought, Eddie was not a soulless guy. Sure, he could come off as loud and obnoxious, but he was always there for the people he cared about. Especially his little sheep.

Eddie lets out a sigh as he leans his hands on the table, “Look, Wheeler, I feel for you I do, but I’m probably not even the type of guy they want watching after all you kids anyway.”

“But that’s the thing! They're looking for any Juniors or Seniors to help out right now! And it’s only like two hours after school for a week and then like 4 hours of your time on a Friday night and the time will count towards your volunteer hours for graduation and–” Mike’s pause during the middle of his rant got Eddie’s attention as he began counting up the pieces of wood he had in his pile.

1, 2, 3–

“And Y/n will be there.”

Eddie’s brain completely stopped as he took in Mike’s words. He knew the freshman was just playing dirty now, bringing up Eddie’s fellow classmate who he’s been crushing on since she moved to Hawkins last year.

Now Eddie could admit that maybe he was less than smooth when it came to staring at her from across the lunch room and maybe his cheeks flushed just a bit when the other Hellfire boys would tease him about her, but he liked to think he had at least some dignity left.

“Y/N who?” He pursed his lips as he looked everywhere but at Mike, trying and completely failing to come off as nonchalant.

The freshman threw up his hands, “Y/n who? Y/n WHO?! Oh I don’t know, maybe the same Y/n who you’ve been crushing over for months now but–” Mike cuts off his own words as Eddie leans across the table to grab hold of his Hellfire collar, “You want to take it down a notch, Wheeler? I don’t think they heard you in Ohio!” The students around the two boys pause to watch the scene unfold before them, but quickly lose interest when they see it’s only the freak and one of his minions.

Eddie pulls his hand away from Mike, slapping down the material of his shirt, “Don’t you need to get back to class anyway, I’m pretty sure that hall pass doesn’t last this long.” Eddie starts back to counting his pile of wood, using his finger to point as he adds them up in his head.

1, 2, 3, 4–

“Look man, all I’m saying is there’s only two months left before you graduate. I know you need the extra volunteer hours and it also means that this might be your last shot with her.” Mike leans his elbows on the table and lowers his voice as he continues,  “What’s the worst that could happen, she’s not everything you dreamed of and then you never see her again after you graduate?”

Eddie quickly played a million scenarios in his head, some ending with his dream girl laughing in his face and calling him a ‘freak’ just like he has been his whole life, another of them slow dancing in the empty gymnasium, and lastly a not so PG scenario of them in the janitor’s closet. He had to physically shake his head to get that last one out of the way, wood shop was not the time nor place to be thinking like that.

Mike’s eyebrows were raised nearly to his hairline as he awaited Eddie’s answer with bated breath.

“Okay, fine.” Mike let out a yelp as he clapped his hands loudly, causing one of the students at the next table to jump and drop the hammer out of their hand. A dirty look flashed towards their direction as Mike replied with a soft ‘sorry’.

“Not so fast, Wheeler. I’ll volunteer at the spring formal,” Eddie leaned over the table, clapping Mike on the shoulder causing some sawdust to blow off his shirt and into the air, “if, and only if, you can get Nancy to pull some strings and make sure I’m paired up with Y/n.”

Mike’s smile quickly dropped “Eddie, Nancy’s pretty strict when it comes to these things and–”

“Great! Sounds like you’ll figure it out one way or another,” He rustles his hand through Mike’s hair before going back to counting his pile of wood, “Because I would just hate for the dance to be canceled and you too not see your little girlfriend and Will…”

1, 2, 3, 4, 5–

Eddie can hear Mike’s small mumble of fuck, before the freshman is shedding off the safety goggles and headed towards the door. Eddie smirks to himself before continuing.

6,7,8…

.

A/N: Something I just wrote a few weeks ago, I love the idea of nervous Eddie with a big fat crush. I started a part two but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ let me know if you even like it first.

#I don't know #something I wrote a few weeks ago #Eddie munson #stranger things #Eddie munson one shot #Eddie munson fluff #Eddie munson blurb #Eddie munson smut #Eddie munson imagine #Eddie munson fanfic #Joseph quinn #my wriitng

[skoulsons]

Small, uh, drabble, I suppose

Ellie stormed out of the bar, heavy inhales and exhales as she directed her steps down the street and as far away from him as she could be.

“Hey!” Someone called, but her ears were filled with chatter and anger and every fucking memory of him.

A hang grazed her arm, her skin slipping out of its grasp as she turned. “Don’t fucking touch me, Tommy!”

“Hey!” He shouted, his anger filled to the brim.

She stopped, eyes wide as she faced him head on. “Why the fuck is he in there? He’s never in there.”

“You two need to talk,” Tommy started, quieting his voice down, attempting to get Ellie to match his tone.

It didn’t work. “What, are you our fucking meditator now? Get a better fucking hobby,” she spit, scoffing at his attempt to try and force them to reconcile.

“You two need to talk,” he repeated.

“No, we don’t. There’s nothing to talk about. You know all about it, don’t you? He lied. I’m done with him, for good.”

“Ellie…” he started, but her back was already turned, heavy steps in the direction of their house her garage.

Tommy sighed, running a hand down his face as he turned back towards the bar. Joel was standing on the inside of the double doors, whiskey in hand. He looked at Tommy like he was a deer caught in Tommy’s headlights. “Joel…”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Tommy.”

-

No amount of strumming guitar, wood carving, or reading could put Joel to sleep. He heard the whole conversation, it looping like a chord progression in his head. There’s nothing to talk about.

What he’d give to talk to her again.

But her animosity towards him was otherworldly. She was in the bar not ten seconds before she was out again after she caught one glimpse of him. Tommy had watched keenly, racing out after her as she roughly pushed through a crowd of other Jackson residents.

He couldn’t get a word in to her no matter how hard he tried.

Maybe she’s awake. Maybe now. Chosen ignorance, maybe, but he had to try. It had been almost two years, there had to be something there.

He swung his legs over the side of his bed, lightly tapping the cover of his An Idiot’s Guide to Space book before setting it on his nightstand and loosely throwing a flannel on.

-

Joel stood at her door for ten minutes, fingers fiddling with the knob as he thought about what to say. That is, if she even let him get a word in.

He inhaled heavily and exhaled slow, leaning close to the door frame. “Ellie?”

Nothing. Again, “Ellie?”

He turned the knob.

She was asleep. She was on her stomach, arms tucked behind her pillow as her cheek was pressed into the pillow as she breathed heavily, light snores filling the space. Her covers were strewn across her bed, her comforter lightly covering the lower half of her legs.

Joel smiled at the sight of her sleeping. She was calm. She was…probably happy, right now. Dreaming in a world that didn’t have him in it.

She adjusted, turning on to her left side as she tucked her left arm under her pillow and curled her right in front of her chest. She was facing him now and Joel saw her shirt.

It was his. It was one of his old shirts. A navy blue t-shirt stained with dirt and even a little blood. The same tears of fabric at the shoulder seams and a few small holes around the lower abdomen. The right sleeve was a lighter blue, discolored from being exposed to too much sunlight from its days sitting on Joel’s bed as the sun shined down on it.

Joel breathed in sharply.

Don’t fucking touch me.

I’m done with him, for good.

#hi found this in my drafts and it feels like it’s cut super short but #I don’t know what my original thought process was for this and I doubt I could replicate it now and continue with what I was thinking #so #have this I suppose #you fill in the blanks however you’d like #I wrote this in an emotional slump a few weeks ago #anyway maybe I’ll think of something better sometime soon to write for you all :) #but whoooo knows #the last of us #the last of us part 2 #joel miller #ellie williams #L writes

[falling-hand-in-unlovable-hand]

hazbin has me writin like CRAZY (this isn't even counting a multi chapter fic that's hopefully also happening (i didn't wanna add up all the wordcounts from its multiple docs lol))

#i've been reading a ton of hazbin fic w nothing of my own to show but NOT FOR LONG >:3 #also i wrote the 2k one (radiorose!!) almost entirely two nights ago which is. unheard of for me #kiwifae says shit #hopefully something will be coming out in the next few weeks!

[plume8now]

Luffy looked up. The sky was nowhere to be seen. He looked around, frantically. Fragments, shades of darkness. Down. The ground-- cold, under his small, weak hands.

Blank.

"It's okay," he hears. "It's better," the voice-- Robin-- adds.

Or AU in which confronting Teach takes more from Luffy.

#something i wrote last a few weeks ago #i kinda love angst lmfao #lawlu #monkey d. luffy #nico robin #marshall d. teach #blackbeard #one piece

[rooolt]

Snippet from an eldermourne wip I may or may not ever finish, but liked a lot and wanted to share

#This takes place in what I’m dubbing my “sitcom verse” based off that one post I made abt the third mates all living together in modern au #I was gonna write a fic called “pilot” like exposition stuff but then had no motivation #Then I took a shower and this was all I could think of and the full thing was gonna be called “newspaper dance” #but then I got tired #And I have a few more half ideas for this whole au #So maybe it’ll be something one day #But today? Have this #naddpod #not another dnd podcast #Eldermourne #Also if there are typos I literally don’t wanna know I wrote this at night like two weeks ago

[freuleinanna]

trials (and errors)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | AO3

Chapter 5: Bonds

The afterthought. Of cold creatures, scarce friends, and inevitability that comes with it.

Welp....... As you might have noticed, I suck at consistent writing. I wouldn't blame you if you have no idea what was happening in the fic before :D Maybe it's even a plus. I struggled with this chapter so much, because I think it's kind of abundant, and then it kept growing longer and longer, and I'm sorry in advance if it's over-explaining or simply not good. I like parts of it, though, so I'm posting it to have it all there. Let's have the last look at Marisa - and see the aftermath of a bloodbath that was love.

Asriel walks out of the court that day stripped of all status, lands, and money, yet still somehow a free man.

She walks out a widow and a pariah with her husband’s estate still hers, with her money untouched, and a gnawing feeling of being flung into oblivion.

The car is moving, but she sits immobile: shell-shocked in a way, staring out of the window and not really seeing a thing behind the glass. Inside her, something spreads. What Marisa initially thought to be an exhaustive after-wave of tension, accumulated up to a breaking point and then suddenly released, continues to grip her in a far less decipherable manner. Head tilted in curiosity, she’s tracking an unfamiliar presence. Come to think of it, it’s been there the whole time. The presence appears alive, conscious even, and cold – cold enough to raise concerns with little icy snakes slithering through her limbs. So much so, it makes her frown and collect herself for confrontation.

She never does confront. In a similar way, victims of a shipwreck know it’s over when the last crumbs of their warmth succumb to the glacial sea. A tragedy, yes, but also a salvation. As the same coldness crawls between Marisa’s ribs and over the devastated lands beneath, a sigh escapes her, for at that moment she starts to feel preciously,

mercifully,

less.

Parts of her resist, fighting to keep the pain. Her daemon becomes restless. There’s turning and chattering, and looking around, and clawing at air as though he senses some vague threat but cannot locate it precisely. When his little paw brushes against Marisa’s elbow, she almost cries out, so hot it gets in her chest. She thinks of volcano eruptions: mountains of earth convulsing lava out of their smoldering depths, wailing in pain. No wonder it happens so rarely. It must be terror for volcanoes to erupt.

Marisa Coulter, née Delamare, cannot afford terror.

With her bankrupt nerve, she can hardly afford anything anymore, so she invites the freezing touch further in. The monkey zings away from her. It feels like discovering breathing for the first time. No one discovers breathing and then gives it up.

Questions of right or wrong do not entice her while busy streets outside grow emptier and wider, dissolving into landscapes. Her womb still aches, and her heart does too, and she is, simply put, tired of things constantly aching. She wishes for a relief.

Then, of course, the house. The car door opens, inviting the raindrops to draw a haphazard pattern on Marisa’s dress. She hesitates, locked in her metamorphosis. Funny, how colors get darker with water. Blue grows dim, as if across her knees miniature bottomless trenches appear, like those on a sea floor. Something’s coming from them. It is rising,

flowing,

entering her,

filling her to the brim.

Water is licking embers off the ground.

And then – it spills.

‘Madam?’

‘Yes.’

Snapping out of it, Marisa draws cool air.

She steps out with flooded lungs.

Raising its mighty roof into the drizzling skies, the house looks a living creature, a nightmarish one. It opens the hungry gates to swallow her, and rearranges the corridors, and prepares for a long, long digestion. A few lit windows could pass for unevenly placed eyes, the gravel – for the voice. Exile, exile, it whispers in the rain. What the house doesn’t notice, however, is the change occurred in Marisa, for a creature that came forth within her is strong, stronger than masonry walls, and much more twisted in its nature than their elaborate floral moldings. When she walks in, a spark of indigo against the muted shadows, she’s not afraid of being consumed.

She may be stuck with the house, but the house is just as much stuck with her.

From there, it’s fast.

Whatever isolated hermit life she was leading is rushing at her from every corner. Sinking into it was gradual, but sinking back after having got out is a plunge. A dive. A jump into abyss, now dreadfully deeper if Marisa cared to feel dread.

Instead, she–

Well.

She spends her days locked up in countless rooms with a maid that hates her and acid burning her insides. She drinks, and goes insane for a while. She wears the most extravagant dresses and demands dinners to be served in the dining hall. She tortures the help into submission. Whether it’s a part of her defense or something she was born with, Marisa doesn’t bother herself with contemplations. She contemplates very little at all, but enjoys contempt in Hilda’s eyes. At least it’s a feeling, a mark of her existence. Marisa struggles to feel properly alive. At the same time, she undeniably is.

That vicious mind of hers sits right between her eyebrows day and night, always hateful, always painfully alert. She drags it around like an anvil. Perhaps, it is the tragedy of brilliant people: their mind never truly sleeps. It studies everything with a probing interest, assessing and categorizing, analyzing and synthesizing, seeing in perfect clarity all the vulnerable spots to attack, everyone a subject, including the carrier.

So Marisa wanders, and watches, and keeps silent except to wound with words. Then wanders some more. Always an enthusiast for shadows, now she downright rejects having sunlight seep through heavy drapes. Oftentimes, she forgets to eat, or eats a pick or two out of whatever feast she makes the kitchen staff come up with, so she grows thinner, scrawnier. Maternal roundness slips off of her, no more missed than food leftovers she doesn’t think twice about. It gives her a girlish look. It gives her a girlish look in a sense of there being multitudes of girls who burn their woman’s grief like fuel to keep running.

Time is stealing around without causing too much disturbance to still waters.

There’s one particular day when Marisa spends hours staring at her reflection. Not for vane reasons, and not for philosophical ones – she merely stumbles across the mirror and feels drawn to it, exploring herself as a scientist would. To her genuine pleasure, she discovers that, when she makes a little effort to hide the monsters, she still looks extremely attractive, with the kind of allure that can easily be used as a weapon.

‘Why, yes, Your Excellency, I’ll gladly resume my work,’ she laughs, training the dry cracking out of her voice. ‘It truly takes extraordinary people like yourself to look beyond the old ways and welcome the scientific potential.’

Sounds flow lighter than a melody, equal parts fluttery and charm. Marisa tries a few more phrases. They all come out just as perfect – silver bells chiming in the wind, waiting for a listener to enchant. She winces in anger, at once losing her appeal. Words are just words until she has something substantial to offer, an actual line of research, because empty-handed beggars, however pretty, receive nothing.

Her mirror self returns a heavy look. She has a weary face now. That’s unpleasant. Around her mouth the lines have deepened, etched into her skin, adding elle-ne-sait-quoi to the appearance. Something monkey-ish, it feels. Animalistic in the worst form. Marisa stands miming violence at the mirror, conjuring the most horrible expressions in complete silence, biting air, so close to the glass that her reflection all but disappears under the foggy trails of breath she leaves on the surface.

Her daemon sits nearby, engrossed in picking at a loose thread of a curtain. In his crafty fingers it slowly, but inevitably, comes out, sometimes tearing the cloth when he tugs too hard. A hole appears then, and some growling is heard. The thread is golden, shiny. Beautiful. He undoes it for however high he can reach from the floor, then jumps on the table to continue.

To Marisa, he doesn’t pay attention. An unforgiving daemon he is and a proud one, and rejected things are prouder than any. When Marisa hisses him away, the monkey chatters aggressively over his shoulder before fleeing to the other side of the room. She throws a comb at where he sat. The ivory thing bumps against the drape and falls hanging on gleaming zigzags caught helplessly in its teeth.

Where there was a crack, now is a canyon. They never speak, yet he never resists another digging into his fur: the pain is excruciating, outweighed only by its intimacy.

Marisa thinks they still look impressive side by side, which is enough for whatever purpose she might pursue – a perfect mask to hide the holes and loose threads barely keeping them together.

She thinks she’d like another daemon.

She thinks no other daemon could match her.

She thinks, sometimes, that it is yet a question to be answered: whether it’s her who flooded him with darkness, or the other way around.

She thinks – she thinks. The process never stops.

She thinks of Asriel, too. The more time passes, the more within Marisa grows dissatisfaction, vague at first, then fully-fledged and poisonous. More and more she finds herself haunted, revisiting that day in court in her memory and boiling over her own stupid generosity. Generosity – for lack of a better word, although dozens of better words crowd her mouth, she’s just too embarrassed to even spit them. That brewing keeps her awake at nights, making her grunt into the pillow thinking: Asriel got it easy. His life wasn’t shattered, he hasn’t truly lost anything.

He continues his research, Marisa learns from the Institute’s monthly print, timely delivered to her a few weeks after the trial. She reads every word about harnessing Aurora energy and shrieks like a furious cat, because didn’t they both use to agree that that kind of research lacks zest? That it’s laughable at best, below their pride? Yet here Asriel is, obsessing over scientific expansion, resource control, wilderness, witches, and, somehow, spreading the holy teachings – all at once – still managing to make sense of it. She knows that kind of writing. That kind of writing attracts serious money, grants. He’s after the sponsorship, and he knows exactly what to promise to the high and powerful to become irresistible.

Pages are flicked through until they bulge in the middle of a thin print. Marisa has to burn them to stop reading.

Her own research article, the one she fought for getting published under her name, gets mysteriously pulled the last minute. It is a minor thing, considering. Still, the unfairness is driving her mad.

She could have crushed him. She should have. Even her daemon couldn’t pick this obsession loose.

So Marisa chooses the next-best thing. She grows colder still. Where this cold was used for mere bone-structure, it now thickens. Where it sent little snakes across her veins, she now feels rivers, oceans. No temperature is too low. No depths hold little enough life.

Every day, bit by bit, the swirling pool of scorching, messy emotions inside her starts to solidify under a crust, much like a pond in winter. Frostbites spread from the edges to the center. Waters become heavier to stir. Drowning in them, everything Marisa wants to rid herself of: the longings, the painful recollections. Nothing breaks into emptiness, she learns. There are always shards to graze and cut your fingers on, and she’s a walking bag of them – so out, out with everything that hurts. North has nothing on ice settling in her blood. Radical, youth is. Never thinks about what’s going to happen, when that numbing pool is drained, and emotions, shivering, half-forgotten, claw their way back into the chest. For now, Marisa finds not feeling to be quite liberating.

Thus, on her own will, she keeps sinking.

Further.

And further.

Yielding as much of herself as possible.

Excited for someone else to take over. Someone whose rage has cooled down into calculation and pain become productive, allowing her to wait and play the necessary part.

Roaming the empty halls in the shadows, Marisa is listening to the steps. To each of her own, there is another. The sea creature is following her closely, and very soon the little pauses between their steps disappear. She and Mrs. Coulter walk as one, talk as one, feel as one, until finally, at the very end of ends, become one.

Time keeps flowing.

***

Survival, scientists agree, is an instinct. All living beings have it. There is, however, a regrettably thin line between taking drastic measures for the purpose of self-preservation and repeating them beyond reason to keep up the illusion of salvation. In simpler words, a wounded animal gnaws through its own leg to escape the trap. A wounded person, already out of the snare, continues gnawing through the remaining limbs to recreate the feeling of escaping. No research is needed to say who stands a better chance at surviving.

It could have gone very wrong for Marisa at the time. She almost reaches the coldness incompatible with any life, her own included. Her predator mind almost starves on insufficient prey. It almost eats through itself, chained to the prison walls and slowly getting used to it.

What saves her, peculiarly, is Hilda – for none other reason than her being, thank heavens, human and petty, and fed up to her neck with Marisa.

‘A visitor for you,’ the maid announces shortly, voice no softer than a stale cracker fallen on the kitchen floor and forgotten there for days.

Marisa chooses to ignore her. A rather early morning escapes her worldview. Her sleeping habits have deteriorated so, it’s a wonder she still has any internal understanding of the time passage. Nights spent reading, or sometimes staring at the pages for hours without turning them, melt into mornings of withdrawal when the help starts clanking around the house with the usual noise of steps, chores, and rare conversations. Marisa prefers to avoid them altogether.

A thud comes – the monkey lands on the back of a sofa across from her. Behind him, bookshelves tower. Anbaric lights are gleaming off two black voids where nothing reflects but vicious animosity. Instantly, the house cat daemon bristles up. Ears twitch, flattened. The monkey leans forward: his tail rises straight to the ceiling and hooks a little over his head, long fangs silently bared. He hates that fucking cat.

Marisa feels his hatred as a deformed clump in her side. It moves, pushing at her insides like an unborn child. She grimaces at the sensation.

Her daemon, the purest, physical part of her soul, a faithful friend and companion, a confidant, a keeper, screeches like a common animal. Even Hilda is unsettled. Her eyes dart to the golden creature as she takes a step sideways to protect the cat. The monkey paws at the upholstery, scrutinizing them both. He doesn’t sound like a daemon. He doesn’t even look like one with his lustrous fur dusty and dimmed to a mere memory of gilt.

He appears a wildling with no consciousness.

A deformed clump, somehow forever attached to her.

Enough!

The book is slammed shut. Around the four of them, air sizzles – or, perhaps, it’s just the humming of the lamps making itself audible. Without saying a word, Marisa looks up.

Enough. Go.

The monkey is staring at her. She knows that stare very well. The feeling of it, rather: a tingling at the back of her neck following her around the library. A rustle of careful steps overhead. Beady eyes shining in the dark. Like a twisted game of hide-and-seek all children play with their daemons, only he’s the one both hiding from her – and seeking. Oh, how he seeks her.

Her things go missing at times: a ring, a bracelet. A hairbrush with a few hairs still stuck in it. There must be a pile of treasures somewhere in the house. Sometimes Marisa wonders if her daemon sleeps among them, and if so, if he’s doing it for comfort or bites on an old earring of hers, pretending to sink teeth into her flesh.

As if catching on to her thoughts, the monkey squeals a shredding sound, then quickly turns, and the next moment he’s gone. A spot of dirty-gold flashes on top of the bookshelves, and the dusty kingdom of neglect regains its ruler.

Marisa opens the book again. A different page, not that she’s noticed. The humming continues.

Has it always been this loud?

Symbols cluster in unpredictable ways, mocking her with gibberish. She might as well be reading in a made-up language, but she’d rather die than show it. Scanning line after line of outdated research – and badly composed at that – takes a considerable willpower on her side, yet Marisa feigns utmost concentration. Something about Hilda discovering that her pastime has been reduced to staring into space feels especially humiliating. Marisa couldn’t say exactly how it happened. There’s plenty of literature to go around, she’s just lost… interest. Prospects. Purpose. Whichever makes more sense.

Every seven lines or so, the lower humming switches to a high-pitched one that continues for another one or two lines of text. By the end of the second page, that’s all Marisa can focus on.

‘Did you want something?’ she snaps finally.

The hovering figure by the door scoffs, earning itself a hostile glance.

‘Well?’

‘As I said, Madam,’ if only politeness could kill. ‘There is a visitor to see you, waiting in the East Room.’

‘I don’t accept visitors.’

‘I am well aware.’

Oh, are you.

It is a pattern they have, admittedly, fallen into. Competing species in conditions of forced coexistence always do. When the mood is right, it even entertains Marisa to poke at the maid’s patience and see what insults her bitter mouth can produce. She is a fighter, that one. Never runs out of things to say.

Tell the staff to keep quiet, Hilda, they’re giving me a migraine.

Everything is, Madam, comes the response.

Or even: That would be the brandy.

Now is no such time.

‘Send them away,’ she waves a dismissive hand.

That’s usually enough to get the situations resolved. They tend to disappear when Marisa stops looking – a useful trick she’s applying to the world. Her mind wanders to having a half-glass of something and sliding into bed. Maybe sleep will come. Maybe, sleep will last. There’s hoping.

‘I had, on five different occasions, which is neither my responsibility nor a way matters are handled in respectable houses.’ An arrogant tight-bunned head is sitting so proudly on Hilda’s shoulders, there’s no denying how little of that respect pertains to Marisa personally. ‘If you want him gone, Madam, you can tell him yourself.’

It takes some restraining to not hiss an attack. Not hiss, in general.

What a rotten inheritance Edward left her.

‘Him?’

Marisa moves in the armchair. The eyes opposite of her are steel-colored and steel-hard. She, too, can be steel-hard. Her wrists limp in perfect arches over the armrests, whereas the features of her face sharpen. It’s almost a muscle memory at this point. A grimace she learned in front of the mirror – to warn, to scare.

Yet she forgets.

‘Don’t flatter yourself. His daemon is no snow leopard.’

She forgets that her bleak, unforgiving inheritance knows her too well to be afraid.

Meteors fall. A series of steady hits, one for each word, ruptures the surface. As loud and terrifying as it is, that’s not the worst. Stones keep sinking, driven by sheer combination of mass and catastrophic speed. Then: a series of quakes. An underwater impact. A shock wave of such magnitude, it pierces through miles of breathless, half-frozen space in a matter of seconds, exploding the sea outwards. Causing hands to shake with anger.

‘You are forgetting yourself, Hilda, darling.’

Marisa presses palms together. Tsunami almost breaks her fingers. There isn’t one imperfect note in her chiming.

From the library darkness, laying an undertone to it, a distant snarling comes. The cat daemon looks up. As does Hilda, for a moment. She steps from one foot to the other, clearly cautious of the malicious creature lurking nearby. And yet it only adds to her spite.

‘I suggest you hurry,’ she nods. ‘He did mention he’d be leaving shortly.’

‘Do you have any idea what I could do to you?’

Snarling is creeping closer. This time, the old maid doesn’t bat an eye. She pulls her apron down, demonstrating a remarkable resilience. The cat arches his back at her feet.

‘The East Room, Madam. If you can’t navigate the house in daylight, just ask the help for directions.’

On that, she leaves. Well-oiled hinges purr.

Humming, humming, humming.

Marisa imagines herself throwing a book at the lamps. Then going after Hilda with a pistol from Edward’s study. Both options feel unnecessarily dramatic, although the latter amuses her– but no, no. She’d have to stand another trial. The thought rips a laugh out of her lungs. It sounds sick. She feels exhausted.

It’s pleasantly dark when her forehead touches the smooth silk of the robe, and her hair streams down. Fingers are digging softly into the ribs. Marisa presses. Bones are right there, somehow unshattered by the rippling. The other thing is there too: that un-dissect-able part she drowns, and freezes, and can never fully extinguish. It flames underwater. In a palpable, scientific reality, it takes aluminum and something else to flame underwater. Finely powdered, set afire at the highest temperatures. What was the other thing?

Smoldering pieces fly out and continue burning brighter than day.

Did she see that somewhere? She couldn’t have, not in the Magisterium. Before Marisa’s eyes, a dozen of suns are exploding at the bottom of – what, tank? She must have seen it.

Well. She doesn’t want to see it now.

Dim lights attack her eyes. Reality is slowly fleshing itself back. A visitor in the East Room. Couldn’t be Hugh, could it? She ignored enough of his letters to earn a house call, but in no scenario would he have let an old hag to turn him around. People like him don’t. Not once, certainly not five times.

Actually, none of the people she knows would. Certainly not… but it isn’t a snow leopard. The snow leopard one (don’t flatter yourself) wouldn’t come.

The sensation of being watched tickles her skin, and as soon as Marisa notices it, she also realizes it’s been present for some time. From beneath the ceiling, her daemon is peering at her. They exchange a long look. The monkey doesn’t move. He resembles a statuette, an alarming little monstrosity placed on top of the bookshelf as a practical joke on those whose eyes drift up – and then forgotten, left to gather dust. His gold barely shimmers through it.

Just minutes ago, he was a wildling. Now some clarity has settled over him, knotting Marisa’s stomach. Her soul; unkempt, unloved. She would have preferred him an unintelligent beast. Unintelligent beasts are easier. They aren’t attached to people by umbilical cords, drawn to emotions like parasites, shining consciousness from their eyes until the chest boils. Marisa jerks a shoulder. The monkey shows teeth. At least, that part hasn’t changed.

I dare you.

He blinks. Two glimmering sparks hover in the dark.

Then they disappear.

Marisa hears herself exhaling. Proper ladies in proper dresses shouldn’t look for excuses to torture themselves, but she isn’t a proper lady. She’s not even a properly dressed one, which brings her back a little. She winces.

Right.

The visitor.

Marisa rises from her chair, half-suspicious that is she waits any longer, Hilda will bring him right to the library and lock the door from the outside.

The hallway light is way more irritating to the eyes. Daylight, that is, not the flickering lamps. Somewhere in the house heavy drapes are open, the air brings sounds of the help going about their daily routine. Marisa makes it exactly till the second door on the right and has a split second of pride to enjoy, when punishment comes. A brutal tug. She sways, clawing at the doorknob. In the library, her other part presses itself against the wall and growls in pain, scratching at the wooden panels. Ancient instincts yank their hearts back to the safety of blissful togetherness, but ancient instincts have never fought Marisa Coulter and her daemon before: each angry and stubborn, each pulls in their own direction.

The next few steps are a nightmare. Her chest feels raw. Every breath swishes right through, cold as a blizzard on the open wound. Nausea comes in waves. The damned monkey resists. Without seeing him, Marisa knows exactly how heavy the risings of his chest are, how sweaty the forehead; how clenched the teeth, threatening to crush from the force. How terrified, and pained, and longing he is. She’s all that too, but someone has to be stronger.

She has to physically drag herself forward until finally, there’s a release. Threads fall loose again, stopping the horrible stretch. A squeal in the back of Marisa’s mind mixes with the rattling in the air ducts. She smirks, panting. The little demon never wins. In equal measures he can’t stand seeing her – and being apart from her, so he’s taken a habit of following Marisa around through the ceilings. A smart solution, save for the dust. Most of the time, she can’t stand seeing him either.

Her dress of choice is jade-green. The color is as sharp as she needs to be, and, by coincidence, only a shade darker than splashes of Aurora lights.

When she leaves the room, her daemon is already glooming in the corridor. He’s evidently cleaned himself. Patches of old web have disappeared. His fur breaks scarce sunlight into a ripple of glints across the wall. He is beautiful, audience-ready, except when Marisa looks, the golden elegance crumbles to reveal the same dirt-coated creature, always hissing and snarling around. They walk down the corridor together. The care placed in keeping the distance might have reminded somebody with a keen eye of a crowded room where every soul treads just as carefully, stepping and flying around paws, hands, tails and shoulders, avoiding the forbidden contact to the best of their ability. Between two beings joined since birth, it looks oddly repugnant. Unnatural, one might say.

Marisa would put it differently. She’d recall coming back to their floral-molded prison. The burning feeling she got from her daemon’s touch, the piteous cry of him recoiling when coldness sprouted. She’d call it self-preservation.

One of the hallways she walks twice. Not that Hilda could pry it out of her, that stuck-up old if-you-can’t-navigate-the-house-in-daylight witch.

The East Room welcomes them with a closed door.

Marisa pushes it, and goes blind.

The light.

Winter sun is flooding the space. There are no drapes here, no peaceful twilight. Everything is hard, bright, and aggressive. Two nocturnal creatures withdraw, seeking shadows. Something golden is flitting around the space: floor – the fireplace – windows – floor again. Something green is standing frozen, tearing up against the cold shining. The hasty getting-up and the turning of another figure escape Marisa, taking away her chance to prepare.

‘Madam,’ a voice rises to her ears. What a curious voice it is. A male one, for sure, marked with slight roughness of age. There’s a quality to it that makes Marisa hesitate. An unexpected care, almost… respect. She got unaccustomed to hearing genuine respect.

Light keeps pouring in. As does her uncertainty.

‘Allow me,’ the man says.

Promptly, and with nimbleness of step that betrays years of excellent training, he walks to the window. Sunlight seems to collect around him for a moment, as if he was the source. Then a drape slides over, cutting the flow in half. Marisa blinks the blindness away.

Her daemon stops pacing around and settles beside her. Even before the man turns, they recognize the bolding head, and a winter coat, and the sleek black fur of a pinscher daemon.

‘Madam,’ Thorold repeats with a slight bow.

His pinscher follows the example. Marisa can’t answer. Her lungs get overcome with the urge to cough up ribbons of air, thickened and shredded by at least a dozen of invisible knives. The monkey crawls forward. His golden tail is rising in a warning. There’s a flash of surprise on Thorold’s face, one he is quick to hide, but not quick enough for Marisa to miss.

Good, then. That’s settled.

She makes an effort to miss sorrow in that surprise.

‘What does he want?’ A demand, not a question.

Thorold looks up. His shoulders shrink a little, even though a minute ago he was demonstrating the perfect posture. He’s obvious in searching for words but his own thoughts, apparently, are giving him a battle too. A mixture of indecision and half-concealed sadness boils into a real suffering across his face.

‘Have you completely forgotten speech?’

A beat of pause.

‘No, Madam, I have not.’

‘Be useful, then. He must have sent you for something.’

The pinscher daemon brushes against the man’s leg. The simple comfort of the gesture frustrates Marisa. It could be jealousy. Could be disappointment, because at least with Hilda, she always knows when cruelty hits. Counterstrikes never leave her guessing.

‘I’ve come on my own behalf,’ Thorold manages at last.

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, Madam.’

Well, a man of few words and fewer answers. Her expression darkens. She would have understood Asriel sending his servant: reasons may differ and still remain plausible – but that? She hardly knows what to make of it.

And the way he says ‘Madam’. Like he’s asking a storm not to rage, soothing waters into clarity. Despite herself, Marisa catches a shiver. People who haven’t received a lot of compassion cannot abide the warmth it brings, thinning the numbness of detachment where their hearts plunge to heal. Survival is an instinct. All human beings have it.

‘Then what do you want?’ Anger clangs inelegantly in her voice.

‘To return something of yours. If I may?’

He hesitates for permission. Marisa, frowning, just nods. She watches Thorold approach a set of sofas: there, on a chair next to them, sits a leather bag she’s seen countless times before. Its worn-out patterns haven’t changed, still keeping in themselves a mystery. A reminder of home, perhaps. Half-illegible words of a half-forgotten language breathe northern air. On the side, a flock of birds, always just about to fly off the leather on spirit-borne wings. Marisa used to admire the birds. They never flew anywhere, but they looked free.

She moves closer, her steps drowning in a ridiculously thick carpet. The golden shadow follows in a distance. His observant presence tugs at Marisa’s side. She wishes for him to disappear in the air ducts again. It is a passing feeling, but the precise thing is, she doesn’t want to feel. It gets harder when her soul is wondering around.

Thorold turns.

‘Here it is, Madam.’

He hands her a book of sorts. A smallish one, and the first thing Marisa registers is that something’s wrong about it. Her frown deepens. She takes it with caution: not exactly alarmed, just confused. Thorold lets go – there’s a glimpse of his fingers with white calloused tips. Then his palm disappears, and the mystery of the book holds no longer.

It’s badly burned, that’s what’s wrong about it. The cover’s all bulgy, melted in random places. Patches of coal-black mix with the remaining tints of color but there’s no logic in it, no structure. Just a hardened, deformed leather flesh, curled from the heat. The bottom corner is the worst. Something burned through the cover there, leaving a crescent-shaped edge with brown contours. Pages underneath are burned in the same exact fashion.

The other side is nearly intact, save for a few spots blooming here and there. It’s been burned the front side down. Besides that, the examination offers very little.

Marisa has never owned anything of the sort. She almost says as much. Then it occurs to her to look inside. She sits down, book on her knees for convenience, and tries to open the smoldered brick. Pages refuse to give in: their fire-licked edges stick to one another. It takes Marisa a minute to part them. When she does, however, realization comes at once. She’d recognize her own handwriting anywhere. Line after line is filled with it, neatly arranged statements bursting in cascades of notes on the margins. Beginnings of phrases on one side and endings on the other have disappeared in flames, but it doesn’t stop Marisa from reading a whole paragraph, tracking her own ideas and filling the gaps with words that have once been written.

She recognizes now not a book, but a research journal she kept at Asriel’s house. Sea depths heave. A sharp sensation knots her stomach. Marisa blames it on her daemon approaching, taming an overwhelming urge to kick him away. Her mouth is aching with words she can’t spill.

‘Why?’ she croaks.

Thorold takes a seat, too. His plain wooden chair can’t be too comfortable, but it allows him a space next to Marisa without the inappropriateness of sharing a sofa.

‘I thought you might need your work back,’ he simply says.

She shakes her head impatiently.

‘No, why come five times just to return this?’

‘Madam?’

The old man looks so sincere. His daemon is tilting her head in attention. Marisa catches her eyes: brown they are, but nothing close to burned paper. More like almonds, or sunlight dancing on fresh earth. Brown kissed with gold. She never knew golden things can be warm. Somehow, right now, it’s Thorold’s fault, too.

‘You could have left it with my maid.’

‘She seems a good woman,’ he nods respectfully.

‘A treasure,’ Marisa sneers.

The journal rests on her knee. Thorold glances at it, appearing again to be choosing his words. He doesn’t resemble someone to whom the trick of conversations comes naturally, least of all with Marisa, but the effort brings out a heartfelt sympathy in his eyes.

‘If you pardon my saying… Madam,’ he adds, like he wanted to address her differently but didn’t allow himself the right, ‘I thought you may want to talk with someone.’

‘Talk?’

‘Ask questions, is what I mean.’

‘Questions.’

‘If you wish to… to know of…’

He struggles finishing the phrase without letting the ghosts in. Fails, too. Unnamed hauntings surround them, as if woven out of light. The pinscher flaps her ears and yelps quietly. Daemons are intuitive like that.

From the shadows, the monkey is prowling forward, his little face twisted in a grimace of pure hate. Marisa smiles. The scent of heated metal hangs in the air. It’s going to betray her emotions for years. She’s going to think everyone can notice. In fact, there’s only going to be one person who will, probably because mothers and daughters have a connection that, in human measures, is just as sacred as the one with their daemons.

Lyra will always associate metallic scent with menace, but will never learn to understand that it comes not from steel, of which her mother, an masterful self-deceiver, deems herself made, but of fires flaming underwater, where it’s the darkest and the coldest. Where human feelings shouldn’t survive at all.

Extinguishing those fires is something Marisa will never be able to do.

‘No, Thorold,’ she objects softly, softness honed to a sharp edge. ‘I don’t wish to know. Spare me your old man sentiments. If you thought we’d be shedding tears over your stories, you’re an even bigger fool I took you for, and you never learned a thing about me.’

See? Self-deception.

That is easily the moment when Marisa finally combines both sides of the mirror: the loud, perceptible beauty mixed generously with ferocious instincts of an animal hiding in deepened lines. It will cause her few allies and all of the enemies to address her respectfully as Mrs. Coulter even in her absence, barely restraining the urge to look behind their backs in case she’s there – or worse, her spying daemon is. High Magisterium officials and children will both learn the danger of pretty gleams dancing in those wonderfully blue eyes that make you think of frostbite. Marisa is quite happy with the image. It’s got enough claws to keep her safe.

She sees a change in Thorold’s expression as he’s watching her. The pictures must not be aligning: he’s searching Marisa’s face as one does when trying to uncover familiar features, match them with something from memory, but cannot. The pinscher nuzzles against his hand. The man hardly notices. A look of regret settles over him. He’s watching, and watching, and then his shoulders sink a little, and the kindest sorrow spills all over his wrinkles.

‘Oh, child,’ he says. ‘So very young.’

Just that – just that.

And suddenly, the pool is drained.

‘Copper?’ she asks, somewhat disgruntled by the eagerness, with which a golden lightning zings around the laboratory, fetching equipment for Asriel.

Asriel glances over, so incredibly smug she wants to both kick him and watch him forever. His investment in this stupid experiment is driving Marisa insane. It’s not even science, just a… well, a party trick, at best. His beloved professors at Jordan must be showing it to a bunch of 10-year-olds to gain their attention.

He just laughs, mixing a brown-red powder to the aluminum one. When he laughs like that, new universes spring into existence.

‘Watch.’

A strip of something white goes in. Magnesium burns silver, then – then everything is bright orange, and the little ceramic pot is submerged into a tank, and the fire is flaming all hells underwater. Resilient, absolutely magnificent.

Oxygen, Marisa realizes. An oxide, that is. Next to her, Asriel, a world-class scientist in the making, is looking incredibly proud of himself for that silly amusement. He’s always doing that, showing her something she missed out on. The same is true about their whole relationship.

‘Iron oxide,’ she exhales. Then nods, ‘Beautiful.’

Asriel chuckles. He looks at the blinding, raging fire shooting pieces of molten iron to the bottom. A corner of his lips curls up, but the eyes remain serious, full of furious admiration. The one Marisa often notices directed at her.

‘There’s beauty in corrosion, don’t you think?’ he says.

Iron oxide. Corrosion.

Rust.

The second part of that volcanic combination that keeps igniting the living day out of itself until the flames eat through. No wonder her fires keep burning.

She’s made of rust.

A steel carcass inside Marisa shudders and gives way. Down below, in the pool drained of mercifully numbing waters, the longings and feelings she pushed in have re-emerged. Shards sharper than glass and pain sharper still – she can see it all rusted, layered so thick with corrosion, the blazing is going to persist for years.

A barely audible whimper catches her off-guard. Marisa turns before realizing: the monkey is standing beside her. There’s not a single wretched line on his face. His hand hovers mid-air, reaching out. In his eyes, a plea for consolation. An offer of one, too. The brainless thing doesn’t seem to understand what he’s offering.

It is terror for volcanoes to erupt. Her chest, where the damage of connection grows, pulsates with it.

Making a conscious effort, Marisa twists her heart, watching her daemon flinch. He resists for only a second, and then drops to all fours, backing away from her slowly. The further he gets, he more hunted his expression becomes, until familiar sparks stare at Marisa, and it’s the same wild, ill-tempered creature that hides behind the sofa. She wonders if he would have touched her hand. She wonders if he wonders how badly her cold would have burned him.

She wonders how people breathe without pushing away their soul. Aren’t they choking on it?

‘I am… truly sorry, Madam.’

A voice holds her in embrace. Marisa does her best to reject it. Her teeth clench. Facing kindness feels unnecessarily cruel, so she avoids looking at Thorold, staring at the journal instead. Her fingers slide across mountains and valleys of disfigured leather, tracing the non-existent patterns. Every peak is whispering its own story, and yet none of them has sufficient answers.

She imagines Asriel. Was it morning, day, night? What was he wearing? What was he thinking? Did Stelmaria try to talk him out of it? Or was throwing the damned thing away simply not enough for his hatred?

‘Why would he burn it?’ Marisa whispers.

Her eyes stay low. She’s not waiting for a reply, but when it comes treading the air, her whole body listens.

‘I don’t think…’ Thorold pauses, starts again. ‘I think he was trying to do something else, Madam.’

‘What, then?’

‘Well…’

‘Well?’

Despite herself, Marisa glances. Sharp winter sunlight falls onto the old man’s shoulders. Where it touches his coat, light seems to lose its cutting quality. Gentle streams of gold float around.

Thorold sighs. His palms open, as though he’s trying not to grip the words too hard, afraid of saying anything too much, too certain.

‘I can’t speak for him, Madam. His thinking is of heights I could never follow, but I suppose… The way I see it, he was breaking a bond.’

Words are laid carefully on the air. Elusive to the grasp as they are, their shadows are heavy and fall into Marisa deeper than she can recognize at the moment. Another pinch of rust and aluminum to burn later. She just nods, not trusting herself with speaking. There’s nothing left to say anyway – or ask, or confess. Even coarse leather stops singing under her fingers.

Was it singing under Thorold’s? His hands are still open, fingertips calloused and hard. Mostly on the right hand, Marisa realizes. The placement is so uneven, it doesn’t look like callouses at all. Pinker streaks run from under patches of thick, pale skin. Like scar tissue. Like old burns. Those permanent kisses from burning coals and melting leather, pressed to the naked skin of hands that were hurrying to salvage something they cared about.

Palms curl, hiding the injury. Marisa looks up. Thorold is looking back with an apologetic smile which only makes his eyes sadder and warmer. He doesn’t say a word. There’s nothing left to say – or ask, or confess. It’s all there, between an old man, whose heart has softened for the sea, and a young woman with sea in her name. Both of them understand it is the care she cannot afford to accept. Both of them grieve it a little.

Any reasonable timing has now passed to continue the conversation. Marisa draws a long breath. She’s never been the one to avoid the inevitable.

‘Go now, Thorold,’ she says quietly. Thorold has no idea of knowing it, but that moment makes him the last person to ever hear Marisa’s actual voice – at least, for the next twelve years. There’s no silvery smoothness in it. Just cracks all over.

‘Madam.’

He gets up, takes his bag. A flock of northern birds flies in front of Marisa’s face. Buttons of a winter coat take Thorold’s attention for a few moments as he meddles with them. Just then, Marisa remembers what Hilda said: he’d be leaving shortly. She wonders, where. Is Asriel’s research finally taking them north? She concludes so. She also concludes that Asriel must have left earlier to set up, leaving his servant to oversee the last preparations here in Oxford. Otherwise, Thorold wouldn’t have come looking for her. A strange fondness moves in her.

He stands now, pinscher daemon by his side. Two heads bow courtly. With the last exchanged look, their shared grief stings a little, knowing it’s probably a farewell. Marisa just nods. When Thorold leaves the room, the light leaves with him.

At least, it feels that way to Marisa.

She wipes the sudden tears away. The gesture is nervous, angry. Embarassed. Her breathing sounds incredibly lonely in the emptiness of surrounding space.

‘Get away,’ she hisses, sensing the clump in her side twitch as it always does when her daemon approaches.

A golden shadow stops on the floor in the corner of Marisa’s vision. Thoughts and feelings, awakened so inconveniently, are buzzing worse than a beehive. His presence amplifies them. Flooding fires with water won’t make a difference now because he who is responsible for this madness is too close.

Leave me alone.

No movement. Marisa raises her eyes. She sees the hideous creature swing his tail. A hypnotic stare is burrowing into her, reaching where threads are caught in their warlike endurance of each other. He won’t go. There’s no place for him to be except between her ribs, leeched onto humiliation that is her feelings. The truer they are, the more powerful, and the harder he’s drawn. The closer he wanders, searing Marisa from the inside by simply drawing breath. She wishes desperately to cut whatever’s sewn them together.

She throws a cushion, and doesn’t look where it lands. She senses her soul clear enough to know it’s not as harmed as she’d want it to be. Maybe then he’d learn.

The monkey only growls, when she refuses to acknowledge his attempts at connection and opens the journal again. As far as choices go, hatred is a preferable one. Better hatred than constant self-pity. Pondering over half-eaten lines, Marisa recalls that thing Thorold said, about Asriel breaking the bond. Asriel, it stings her suddenly, seems to have succeeded. In fact, while she spent months sleep-walking through wall-papered corridors, Asriel kept himself busy.

Blood rushes to her head, throbbing in such an agony, her temples all but explode. Masses thick and hot come breaking against the eardrums. They seem possessed to pound their way out, tearing the thin veins. Asriel would have laughed at her.

She bites on a nail. A stupid habit.

Another habit is cold-ing herself down as soon as she hears paws coming nearer. Her daemon hesitates. Then turns. Marisa sits peering into space, gnawing on her lip until it swells. She doesn’t want to sleep. Not anymore.

The thing is, predators are not designed for prolonged sleep. They wake up hungry. Quite newly to herself, Marisa feels hunger for something to do.

Pages crust as she’s flicking through them slowly. Hard edges cut her fingertips, hardly even shifting her attention.

She thinks.

She thinks.

The process has never stopped.

‘Breaking the bond,’ her whisper ripples the air. It tastes like something. The golden silhouette jumps on the sofa across from its human in crisping, snow-fresh Aurora color. Sunlight remembers of there being winter. Chilly coolness spreads. ‘Breaking the bond.’

Something’s stirring in her mind, though what it is, Marisa cannot fully formulate yet. The idea, however, is strangely fascinating. Her eyes lay on the daemon heavily.

She’s made of bonds. One with Asriel, another with their child – she may resist it, but it’s handwritten all over her body, and the handwriting it hers. A bond with her own soul, too. The one she hasn’t yet succeeded in dissecting in order to understand and control. Cutting it should feel miraculous.

Perhaps, if she were still a child, she muses. She’d give anything to go back and nick those annoying threads that got handed to her as a given. She remembers questioning why they existed at all – not in words, certainly not in scientific terms, but he knew she thought about it. Always digging deeper than children do in glorious self-understanding. There seemed to be the answer there. Why she was so restless all the time. Why her behavior never satisfied anyone. Why she was doing every wrong thing, why she loved Asriel, why she needed Lyra. The answer might still be there, only there’s no way of harvesting it now –   

But a child. A child could answer those questions in all their childlike innocence. Marisa could learn the answer. She could steal it.

She could learn how, where, and when to cut.

The air is freezing now. The monkey is anxious. Marisa sits very-very still, like predators do. Much like an image, her fate comes to its fullest, cleanest form. It’s not a grand, heroic fate, and there’s no description to it yet, only anticipation. It is, however, going to be more befitting one for a woman, young with the cruelest of youth, with punches and heartbreak and blood on beautiful hands from hitting a wall, than anyone could have imagined.

She will spend her short life trying to break the three most powerful bonds she’s ever formed – and fail, miserably.

Marisa Coulter, née Delamare, walking to her late husband’s study with full intention of making it her own, is a long way from knowing it yet. The irony will unveil itself twelve years and a war later as she leaps off the edge of an abyss. Those three sacred bonds she could break however hard she tried, they will all weave together to save what she cherishes most. For now, she’s too enthralled by a monstrosity that will eventually lead to the silver cages, and lacks serendipity.

Youth, people say, is arrogant. It’s wrong emotions at the wrong time, it’s thinking that love can be left trampled to the ground. That love can be examined, prepared, dissected and understood. That it hides logic.

That it ceases to be if you just deny it enough.

As Marisa ravages through Edward’s old papers, three things occupy her mind. One, is that rattling air-ducts are a small price to pay for a chance to function productively instead of being crippled by emotions.

Two, is that she’s going to need a place somewhere else, perhaps in London, because these walls are making her sick.

And three, she hopes she succeeds.

After all, breaking a bond shouldn’t be that hard.

Just a simple process of trials and errors.

#SURPRISE BITCH I BET YOU THOUGHT YOU'D SEEN THE LAST OF ME #phEW #so it took me a few weeks over the span of 6 months to write the whole story and i love-hated it #there could also be a LOT of typos cause I grew tired of editing it and basically got MAD EVIL ARGGH and just finished the whole thing #but but but BUT BUT #to those who appreciated it and asked and kinda poked me about it?? and remembered i was even writing it some time ago for that matter?? #THANK YOU YOU ARE SO NEAT #💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛 #i canNOT express myself in any way other than howling to the moon but I'm just !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! every time #hope you guys find something to enjoy in this last chapter #i basically felt self-indulgent and wrote all my fav ideas #oh #and the scene from the gifs isn't random #thorold is there alright #he's the MAN he truly is #oOOF #alright i'm done #hdm #hdm fic #his dark materials #trials and errors fic #masriel #young masriel #marisa coulter #asriel belacqua #marisa x asriel #asriel x marisa

[gorkaya-trava]

I wanna return to writing but my head is absolutely empty and I can't put together even two words

#the last time I wrote something was... a few weeks ago? I hadn't written since then and didn't even reread the text #I have an ongoing fic and I was really passionate about it when I just started but now I'm looking at it and just... meh #I hate being in writer's block

[dumblebumblebee]

OH MY GODDDD SOMEONE MADE A PODFIC OF MY FIC?!?!?!?!

go check out GoLBPodfics!!! they’re amazing outstanding incredible

#they actually commented on it a few weeks ago but i totally forgot about it #this was the related work i couldn’t see!!! #guys i’m so like #aaaaa #i cant believe someone made this from something i wrote #also go check out their acc on ao3 #they do a lot of podfic recordings and their voice is so calming and lovely to listen to #it completely encapsulates the characters perfectly #agh!! #giggling and kicking my feet #meowy come home #ao3 #podfic #fanfiction

[sysig]

I thought I was done being feral about Tamagotchis but no, it was just a lull

#I was already interested in getting a Gotchi for the past couple months and then KKClue dropped that video (praise be) #And Then I learned that there was a cheap way of purchasing legit Japanese Gotchis?? I may uh. Have. Purchased a few #I never really had That Moment as a kid or teen of being impulsive with money - I'd either save it up and get one big thing #Or I'd buy little things until I eventually ran out - and that habit has kinda continued into adulthood lol #Nowadays the one big thing is usually something like a new computer when my old one dies but it certainly is a big thing lol #And I like getting little things like my puzzle cubes <3 But I'm fairly miserly! #Well. Until. #I've finally hit The Phase of impulsive purchases because of a perfect storm of Things Happening lol #I first wrote down that I wanted to start looking for Tamagotchis in March of this year and I was going about it rather casually to start #Just looking around Big Box stores to check pricing - then various toy and vintage stores to see if they had stock #Most of them didn't but I did get in some delightful networking :D I want to go back and continue! #I finally broke down a week ago and checked Amazon for the ''custom'' shell designs because I like the galaxy one hehe #And then - that accursed video (affectionate) #I may have watched it five times so far lol and then actually bit the bullet and checked out the sponsor and Fucking Hell #I can never get into gambling this does absolutely wack shit to my brain it's only half about the Gotchis themselves anymore #That said I am very excited for my Mesutchi to arrive! I really want to get an Osutchi to go with her and a Gen 1 and and and #I want to collect all the Angelgotchs so bad you don't understand I Must Have them in all the colours it's very important #I'm even considering doing some kind of Project with them once they arrive I don't know it's just all so exciting #I'm feeling very normal #Oh yeah and barely related other than IRL silliness - I finally got a haircut! :D #It'll take a bit for my sona to update but it was today! All sorts of things haha

[orcelito]

genuinely tho me jumping right into reading volume 9 of trimax and then volume 10 (and then most of the rest of the manga) on the night before i had a presentation at 9:30 am (that was entirely not prepared) was literally one of the most unhinged decisions ive ever made

this is what a hyperfixation does to a person

#speculation nation #like that experience was transcendent. i will NEVER be repeating it again but it sure was something #crying 5 times in a night chugging my monster perusing the wolfwood tag tearfully as i listen to the same sad song on repeat for an hour #struggling to get myself to work on the presentation but continuously going back to the manga bc it was SOOO GOOOD #me being like 'im gonna need a few days to process and heal' after reading volume 10 but then after an hour just. starting reading more. #gettign only 2 hours of sleep bc i was like 'ok i need to recover from crying Five Times and then i will focus entirely on this' #literally what is wrong with me lmfao. this sure was something. #this was literally just last week. i can hardly believe it. #this happened on tuesday/wednesday. i spent wednesday recovering. then on thursday i was like 'ok time to write' #there was hardly ANY wait time before i jumped into my next writing project #bc i had the idea after volume 10 but waited until i finished the manga to see where would be the best time to implement it #& that shit with the plants was the PERFECT time. i knew as soon as it happened that That was what i was gonna use. #wrote chapter 1 within a day (while working) then chapter 2 within a day (while working) #then chapter 3 within 2 days (while working AND doing family stuff) #guys i havent had a proper day off of work in over a week bc i covered on tuesday and came in on wednesday and covered on sunday #uhm. sunday before yesterday. i think my last day off was actually uh. the thursday before? a week and a half ago. #and im not getting a day off until thursday. two whole goddamned weeks. i am having a fucking time for sure. #and what do you know that coincides with The Time. oh i dont think it was even thursday. when the fuck was my last day off #uhmmm. oh haha it was that tuesday. aka the 18th. i havent had a goddamned day off since the 18th. #head in my hands. i am losing my fucking mind. #literally unhinged. and it makes sooo much sense now lmfao.

[snoopyearss]

When jjk characters call you ‘clingy’

Feat. crybaby-ish!reader

Gojo, geto, toji

Cw: hurt, guilt, angst (if you squint)

This is inspiration from a mini series i read a few days ago by user @fumekara. It was so good, I love me some angst to hurt/comfort.

But i also wrote this from personal experience too, my bad yall i treat this like my own personal diary

Anyway, enjoy!

Satoru Gojo

He was pissed. He doesn’t typically show it much, but when he does, he gets kind of scary. He’s more quiet, his voice gets deeper, and his whole body language just shifts. So when the higher-ups piss him off after a very long meeting, the last thing he needs is someone to pounce on him. He usually loves it when you greet him at the door when you’re home for work. But today, he just wanted to strip off his clothes and hop into bed.

Gojo huffs as he leaves the elevator of your shared apartment and grabs his keys from his pocket to unlock the door. As he opens the door, he sees you in the kitchen grabbing ingredients for dinner. “Hi baby,” You softly greeted him. “Hey.” was all he said back. It confused you for a second because he’s never greeted you like that before.

“Is everything okay?” You walk up to him to try to kiss him on his cheek. “God- Y/n, please.” He grumbled, walking right past you and placing his briefcase on the table. “I’m just trying to help,” you defended, walking up to take his coat off for him. “At least let me take your coat-” That’s when he snapped. Something he’s never done to you before. “Y/n, I fuckin’ got it! Geez, you’re so fucking clingy!” He aggressively shrugged your hands off his shoulder. It scared you a bit, to see him so angry at you. You were confused, all you wanted to do was make him feel better. Were you really that clingy?

“I-I’m sorry.” your voice came out shaky and defeated. Hearing how small your voice sounded in response to him lashing out made Satoru’s heart shatter into thousands of pieces. He wanted to turn around and apologize, but the words weren’t coming out. By the time he turned to face you, Your back was already facing him, preparing dinner for the both of you as tears rolled down your face.

Suguru Geto

It was 2 weeks after Suguru deflected. 2 weeks since he committed mass murder in that village. 2 weeks since he left Satoru, Shoko, and the others. It was weighing on him and you could tell. Nothing but him, his two adopted girls, a few people who believed in his cause, and you.

You promised him you would go wherever he would go, and he was so grateful for it. He loves you deeply and would do anything for you. But some days just threw everything on him at one time, today was one of those days. Monkeys non-sorcerers begging him to exercise curses left and right, Nanako and Mimiko begging him to take them shopping, missing payments from those begging for his service. It was all too much. And the guilt was eating away at him.

He genuinely wasn’t paying attention to what you were saying and it annoyed him how much talking you were doing in his ear at that moment. You were both sitting outside watching the two girls play in the yard. “Y/n,” He interrupted you. “Don’t you have something better to do than to just bother me?” He sighed sounding so condescending. “What do you mean?”

“Must you always cling to me? Isn’t there something else you can do besides following me everywhere I go, at all times of the day?!” His voice raised a bit as if he was talking to a non-sorcerer. “I didn’t realize I was. I was only trying to tell you about what me and the girls did today,” You defended. “You’re always so busy, I rarely get to see you anymore.”

“Yeah, because you’re always underneath me. Sometimes-” He stopped mid-sentence because of the saddened look on your face. His eyes softened a bit. “Sometimes I just need my space.” He sighed. You only nodded and started to walk back inside. “Ok, I understand.” Your voice cracked. Leaving Suguru alone to think about what he had just said to you. As if he didn’t feel guilt then, he definitely feels guilt now.

Toji Fushiguro

Toji was a bit frustrated today. He was cheated out of his money after doing a side job, the bet he placed on the race he kept constantly telling you about fell through, leaving him with zero, and to top it all off, the child support payment was coming up. You being an empath and knowing your boyfriend so well, you wanted to help him any way you could.

He was sitting in the chair by the island in the kitchen with his fingers combing through his hair. He was on the phone with multiple people at once, trying to solve his money issues. “Shiu, you guaranteed me way more money than this! How am I supposed to cover this months child support with this amount?!” You walked up to where he was, wondering what all the commotion was about. “Baby?” You softly called out. You could hear Shiu on the other line trying to calm him down and explain the situation.

“That sounds like a bunch of bull and you know it Shiu, you better have my money by next week thursday or else I’m taking it myself.” He grumbled and hung up the phone. “Baby,” You gently placed a hand on his broad shoulder.

“What, Y/n.” He sternly said. You merely blinked a few times. “I was just checking to see if you were okay. What’s with the attitude?”

“I’m fuckin’ frustrated okay? Please leave. You aren’t helping right now.” He waved you off.

“I barely did anything, I just wanted to know if you needed help with anything-”

“Jesus, I said enough! I don’t need your help. Fuck, you’re so clingy.” His voice booming caused you to remove your hand from his shoulder in fear. Seeing your reaction caused him to think about what he said and how he said it. The last think he wanted to do was scare you. He wanted you to feel safe around him. But with the way you jumped at how he raised his voice, it saddened him a bit.

“Y/n, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” He was cut off by the sound of his child wailing in the background. “I’ll take care of it.” You said in the smallest voice, not even leaving him time to protest against it and apologize.

“Fuck.”

Part 2

#jjk #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen #jjk gojo #jjk geto #jjk toji #jjk angst #snoopyearss

[sonicenvy]

there is a new scourge on AO3 that I discovered recently...

that scourge is "Placeholder fics". This is thing, where someone posts a "fic" on AO3 with a summary and tags (and sometimes even a complete tag), but when you click on the "fic" the content of the "fic" is something like:

"coming soon" or "in progress" or "an idea I'll write someday"

This is a scourge on AO3 tags that directly violates TOS Section IV, as it is spam (sect B) and inappropriate content (sect H) (not, strictly speaking a fanwork).

If you see these "placeholder fics" on AO3 REPORT THEM. It is easy to do.

Link the fic in report and in the description, you can write something like this:

The linked "fic" is a so-called "placeholder fic" where the author posts a work to a tag and the only content is the words "In progress". The "fic" appears in tags, yet contains no content, so I would consider it to be spam. Thank you!

(This, btw is the actual thing that I wrote to report one of these a few weeks ago)

If you want to get jazzy you can even mention that you believe the "fic" violates TOS IV.H (which is what the AO3 mod told me in the email response to my report) or TOS IV.B.

You can report anonymously if you want afaik. Once you submit a report the AO3 moderators will get back to you at some point to update you on that report and action taken.

This is a simple way that YOU can make AO3 better today. If you see a "fic" that violates TOS in any way, REPORT IT. There are literally millions of fics on AO3 and the moderators can't possibly go through all of them without YOUR help.

I suspect that the people who are posting these "placeholder fics" are probably very young people who are very new to fandom and fanfiction and do not know better. If you are reading this post, and you are one of these people, know that I don't hate you, I just want you to know that what you are doing is a violation of the AO3 TOS and that it fills AO3 tags with spam, preventing readers from finding actual fic to read. There can be (and certainly are) MANY fics on AO3 with the SAME names, if that's what is motivating this.

AO3 isn't a social media site, it's an ARCHIVE for fanfiction. If you want to communicate with your following that you are planning on writing a new fic, use your tumblr, your reddit, your dreamwidth, your substack, your pillowfort, your livejournal, your bird site or whatever the fuck you have to do this. Link your socials in your bio on AO3 if you must. Mention it in the author's notes on your latest work. IDK, just don't post empty "fics" on the ARCHIVE.

#AO3 #archive of our own #fanfiction #fandom #fandumb #writing #margaret babbles #whining #followers please share this so that we can work together to rid AO3 of this scourge

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Love is a Many-Legged Thing

Yandere Squid Merman x Gender Neutral Reader CW: Noncon, tentacle noncon, light tentacle bondage, stalking, kidnapping, squid-based merman, big slimy prehensile merman dick, reader fucked senseless, merman fantasizes about receiving oral sex, general yandere behavior, delusional yandere, voyeurism, exhibitionism Word Count: 2k (Happy MerMay!!!! I really hope you all love the fic, would have been done weeks ago had the ac not died. But still 40min left of MerMay! I wrote this fast without a beta reader so please forgive any mistakes! The name Onyk is a reference to Onykia Ingens, a deap sea squid with an astoundingly long dick.)

Seaspark Aquarium was a very unique establishment. Not only did it contain the usual attractions that an aquarium housed, the tide pools, the sharks, a seemingly unending variety of colorful fish and corals and nudibranchs, but it also housed transient merfolk. The aquarium was situated on a flat outcrop of rocky land. Via submerged tubes it granted access to a huge tank to the ocean and merfolk below.

The tank was absolutely massive and had many different areas including a reef, a seaweed forest, a beach, and even a secluded sea cave. There were underwater cameras in most of the areas that live streamed what was happening on screens for the humans. Though the sea cave feed was restricted to adults only since the merfolk sometimes mated there.

The aquarium was just as much an exhibit for the merpeople as it was for the humans, they had underwater screens that allowed them to view the humans at play and at the food court. They enjoyed seeing and even communicating with their terrestrial cousins. There were several areas where humans and merpeople could talk face to face or via the cameras. Many of them visited quite frequently and made friendships with regular customers and their favorite staff members.

You had been blessed with landing a really good job at Seaspark Aquarium. Though it was entirely because you were the cousin of the curator of the establishment. You did janitorial tasks, including sometimes scraping the tanks, and occasionally you had to provide food for an exhibit. Even though interacting with animals or merfolk was not a common part of your job, there was one squid-man who had become quite friendly with you. Onyk.

Most of the squid type mermen shied away from human interaction, and really the aquarium as a whole, but not Onyk. He had always been a frequent visitor. A knowledgeable observer might even say it seemed that he had been hoping to find something there. The first few times he had gone had been out of pure curiosity about humans after hearing tales about them his entire life. But after his first couple of visits he was enthralled. Everything about the land walkers amazed him.

And then he met you and felt his heart flutter every single time he looked upon you. He frequently tried to engage you in conversation whenever he could and was always watching you, though often it was in secret. Onyk cherished your chats with him, he found you so interesting, even more so than he found other humans. He loved seeing you go about your tasks, it made him think of you cleaning his home as his mate while he went and got food for the two of you.

Of course if you had any say, that would never happen. Onyk, for some reason you couldn't quite place, creeped you out. No, it wasn't the head of tentacles he had in place of hair, nor the dark purple tentacles he had from the waist down, it wasn't his smile that showed off his dangerously sharp teeth, or his cyan blue eyes. No, it wasn't anything physical, just a weird energy he seemed to give off. Like a hungry animal hunting its prey.

You tried to be nice to Onyk, though you always tried to keep conversations brief and hurry on to other tasks that would take you out of his reach. Unfortunately he took your awkward stammers and clumsy rushing to zip away from him as you being extremely shy because you liked him. He sighed and stared at you longingly, head resting on his hands, as you rushed off once more. Clearly you were simply too embarrassed by your emotions to act rationally around him. Onyk had to find a way to get you to stop running off. As adorable as it was that you kept scampering off from your shyness you really needed to be closer to him.

Onyk had a brilliant, though simple, idea. It came to him right as you were in the middle of making another excuse to run away from him while the two of you were chatting in the beach area. He'd simply grab you. It wasn't the first thing he'd normally do, but you were just too prone to running off. It was more than obvious you needed him to make a firm and forceful first move.

"Well uh... it was nice seeing you again Onyk... but um... I gotta go check on the tide p-"

Onyk lunged at you suddenly with the speed and ferocity of lightning. He pulled you into the water and swiftly took you into the empty sea cave and sat you on the dry ground within. Yes, this would do perfectly for his purposes. It was a huge room that had an area for him to swim and enough space for you to run about and get exercise. This would make a lovely home for the two of you, he'd have to keep all the other merfolk out from now on but that wasn't an issue, they were respectful of claimed territory.

Once you caught your breath you were confused and angry at the sudden relocation.

"What the f-"

He interrupted you again, this time by pressing his hungry lips to yours in a passionate embrace. His long tongue slipped past your unsuspecting lips and explored every inch that it could reach. His saliva pooled in your mouth, claiming it. The offending muscle snaked down your throat before finally retreating as he broke the kiss, you struggled to find your breath once more.

"Heh, sorry for interrupting, I have just been waiting to kiss you for so long I couldn't hold back any longer!"

“What!? Why did you do that? Why did you bring me here!?”

“Well your shyness was making it hard for us to take things to the next step in our relationship, now you can’t let your nervousness get the better of you and make you run off!”

“Next step in our relationship? We have no relationship, you creep!”

“Don’t say that! Y-you just have the jitters because moving in is such a big step! Yeah, they’ll wear off soon I’m sure.”

“There won’t be a soon, I am going back to the beach!”

You started to head back to the water, but Onyk closed the distance between the two of you easily.

“But you can’t go! You’re just in denial and nervous, but you’ll love living with me, I promise. M-maybe I’m not moving too fast but too slow. That must be it, you must be all pent up and eager for my dick! So naughty~”

Onyk’s blush was evident even on his light blue skin. He swallowed your complaints in another deep kiss as he stood behind you and rubbed your crotch gently.

“We’ll do it in front of these cameras so everyone knows you’re mine now~”

And, indeed, the screens in the adults only section of the aquarium definitely picked up some viewers as the scene between you and Onyk unfolded.

Most mermen would have had trouble traversing land, but Onyk’s strong tentacles allowed him to maneuver easily enough. He peeled off your wet clothing and wrapped his arms tightly around your bare chest, rubbing and caressing you with greedy hands. His prehensile cock wrapped partially around your waist, held you close as it rubbed against you. At first you mistook the sensation for a tentacle before looking down and seeing it, the cock was tapered, icy blue and glowing at the tip, with the rest of it being dark purple.

Your shouts and screams were ignored as Onyk convinced himself they were just you being grumpy or maybe playing hard to get. The merman’s sharp teeth bit carefully at your tender neck as you squirmed. Most of his tentacles had wrapped around your legs, powerful suction cups firmly adhered them to you. They held you staunchly in place despite your best efforts to struggle.

The remaining two writhing appendages were busy with another task. They gently prodded and massaged your tight hole, slowly worming their way inside you. Your efforts to clench and keep them outside of you were rendered futile as they finally worked their way inside of you. They began thrusting in tandem back and forth within you, loosening you up well.

Your next attempt at protesting devolves into several lusty moans as he ministrations begin to elicit pleasure. It’s all the confirmation he needs that he has been right all along and definitely went about everything in the right way.

“Your mating sounds are so lovely,” he said as he nipped at your ear.

His tentacles suddenly withdrew from your lovingly stretched hole, leaving you involuntarily whimpering at the sudden removal.

“Awe, don’t worry, love. I have something far better to put into you~”

You snap out of it when you hear those words and feel his cock move itself from your waist and start wiggling against you in search of its target.

“What!? No, please do-oooh~ Aaah!”

When it found your entrance it deftly slithered right in. Much to your unwilling pleasure.

Onyk chuckled.

“I knew you just needed some good dick~ You feel soooo good. You were made for this!”

When you happened to look up at one of the cameras you blushed and looked down. The room that monitored the sea cave was now packed, everyone enjoying the sight. The aquarium was already at work recording with plans to put it on their website for sale.

You couldn’t help the lewd cacophony of noises that tumbled from your mouth as the thick slimy cock thrust back and forth inside of you.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you!” Onyk chanted louder and louder until he slammed into you hard, filling you up with warm viscous semen at the same moment that you were shuddering from the strongest orgasm that you had ever experienced.

You were far too dazed and overstimulated to realize what was going on in that moment or what you were saying, but on autopilot you mumbled back what your brain thought it was supposed to when someone told you that they loved you.

“I l-love you too…”

Onyk was overjoyed to hear those words from his beloved human. He pulled out of you and laid down on the floor of the cave, pulling you close to him and resting your head on his chest. His webbed fingers gently caressed you as did both the tentacles that made up his "hair" and the ones below his waist. Cum slowly ebbed out of you and onto him but he didn't mind, the two of you would just get messy again the second you came to your senses. He nuzzled into your hair and gave you dozens of little kisses. Your mind was too blank and your body too exhausted to do anything but drool a bit on his chest while he cuddled you.

His head was swimming with all of the things the two of you would do together. Sharing meals, chatting, mating. He couldn’t wait to wrap his cock gently around your neck while at the same time plunging it down your throat and having that pretty mouth of yours suck it until he was feeding you his cum. Maybe the two of you could try it when you woke up.

Meanwhile onlookers on the viewing screens were putting away their cocks and slipping their fingers out of their pussies with the spectacle now over, but word soon spread and tourism was up over 300 percent! Scientists the world over were interested in documenting this rare species of merman having sexual relations with a human. Grants were given. A great raise and credit to your cousin, the curator.

It was even considered a diplomatic victory for merfolk and humans!

Everyone came to the consensus that on all fronts, but yours, it was far too beneficial and lucrative to make sure you had to permanently stay in the sea cave for the rest of your life with Onyk. At the very least they equipped the habitat with amenities like a proper bathroom, tv, video games, and human food. The sea cave area was also expanded, and you were afforded some privacy, except for most of the times that your “husband” Onyk was spilling his seed into you. That’s what people wanted to see.

#yandere terato #yandere teratophilia #yandere x reader #monster boyfriend #gender neutral reader #yandere monster #yandere boyfriend #male yandere x gn reader #my ocs #yandere mermay #yandere merman #yandere squidman #mermay #mermay 2024 #My OC Onyk

[beloved-nyx]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 “𝐁” 𝐈𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 !

ᝰ.ᐟ Why does it feel like someone’s following your every move?

જ⁀➴ STARRING: 𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐑 (𝐂𝐀𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐍) 𝐱 𝐆𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

જ⁀➴ CONTENT: stalking, suggestive, reader is in college, reader is insecure, nothing to bad ??, not proofread (we die like kings), soft yandere (?), nothing graphic, mentions of jealousy and clinginess

જ⁀➴ FORMAT: 1.3k words, full fic

જ⁀➴ AUTHORS NOTE: This is my third time writing yandere ahhh! Anyway, it's been so long since I wrote something!! Um enjoy <33 also damn...reader really going through it.

“There,” You mutter under your breath. “Finished.”

You balance precariously on a wobbly stool, hands parting from a sleek, black camera. A security camera, to be precise. 

You would have never thought of putting a camera in your apartment, not because you were naively dumb, but because you had thought you lived in the safer part of the city. Friendly neighbors always alerted you when suspicious people even lingered next to your doorstep, but also because you were broke. Broke, broke, broke. 

Your rent was taking up more of your money than your groceries were. It had taken weeks of splurging on food to even be able to afford a security camera, much to your disdain. You were living on leftovers, and you were getting sick of week-old Chinese takeout. 

Stepping off the stool, you admire your handiwork, cringing at how gaudy it looked in your minimalistic (or in much harsher words, bare) apartment room. 

Your phone dings softly, and as you pick it up, you grin at the name displayed on your notifications. Caelan. 

Caelan is your crush. Your cheeks seem to grow hotter at even admitting it in your thoughts. You felt like some highschool kid, even using the word “crush.” But Caelan did that to you, you guess. Make you feel childish and absolutely hopeless, and sometimes you wish he knew that. But then again, if he did, you would probably self-destruct on the spot. You were fine with admiring Caelan from afar. 

Heard what happened U ok?

Ahh. That. 

The very reason you put that gaudy camera in your apartment in your first place. 

It had been a month ago, when you first saw the signs of someone breaking into your house. You were doing laundry, a perfectly normal thing to do on a Friday night while your friends were getting drunk and partying at a local club. Some of your underwear was missing, but you had chalked it up to your own clumsiness.

But then you saw the note, and everything changed. Written sloppily, penmanship atrocious. You had thought that the person was just bad at writing-but in hindsight, he must have used his less dominant hand to write it. Biting your cheek, you read it, and you wished you hadn’t. 

It was the most perverse, disgusting thing you had ever read. That night, you couldn’t even sleep, scared that the unknown intruder-stalker would come.

The next day, the stalker sent you pictures of you doing the most mundane things. Sleeping, eating, studying, doing laundry, and even changing.

You immediately called the police on the next day, when a bouquet of roses showed up on your doorstep. The police had said, “We’ll look into it.” 

They never did. 

It led you to ask for help from a friend, and you instantly regretted it. Because the next day, the whole campus learned of your supposed stalker. And even though their sympathetic, “You okay?” made you feel a little bit more safer, a little more secure in your tiny world, it still made you embarrassed, scared too. 

You type in a quick, I'm fine! And then wonder if you should put an emoji after that. After spending an embarrassingly long minute of deciding if you should, you just send it with no emoji. 

That’s good.  If you need anything just call me.

…

A few days pass by, and still no stalker appears on the camera footage. At first, you’re elated. But then another few days pass, and you feel silly. Maybe there was no stalker, maybe you were being overdramatic-but even then, those pictures? The note? You shiver. You hear a knock on the door, and turn to the noise, a small hum escaping your lips.

Must be the delivery man. You had ordered some new textbooks for college. You walk towards the door, and twist the knob. 

Caelan smiles, pale fingers holding a bouquet of roses. He wears a black turtleneck, gray pants and a black dress coat. You, on the other hand, were wearing your pajamas. 

If you could melt in a puddle, you would have. You wished you were buried in a pit. You wanted to be flung into space. Your cheeks were burning hot. You must look like a mess. Is it too late to be flung into space? 

“C-Caelan. What brings you…uh, here?” You cringe at your words. 

“For you, of course.” He laughs, taking a rose from the bouquet and putting it behind your ear. “I just wanted to check up on you. I hope I wasn’t intruding on anything, like your beauty sleep,” He muses, eyes wandering towards your pajamas. 

You never wanted to turn into a puddle so badly. 

“Hah-no, I just woke up!” You lie, ignoring the way he cocks his head to the side skeptically. Ignoring the fact that it's three p.m. 

“You should’ve called…I would’ve,” You gesture towards your clothes, “y’know, prepared.” 

“Oh shit!” His eyebrows furrow, a hand yanking at a loose black strand of hair that escaped his braid. “I’m sorry, I was just so worried–”

“No, no it’s fine!” You hate the way you sound-so, so desperate. “Um, do you want to come inside? I’ll go change and then we can talk.” 

You lead him inside, ignoring the fact of how oddly happy he is to be inside your home. 

…

After Caelan and you became official, he started to change. Slowly, like how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. 

He became more clingy, and at first you thought it cute. You loved the way he doted on you, liked how he curled up into you in the mornings when he stayed at your home (more often than not) and begged you to stay in bed for just a few minutes. 

But he also became more jealous. Whenever you were next to someone, he always hovered close by, a suffocating presence that almost drowned you. Always insisted on going wherever you went. 

You sit on the couch, nestled closely next to Caelan. He hums softly, hands nestled under your shirt as you watch some shitty rom-com. A masterpiece. You called it. Caelan had raised a brow at that, but didn’t say anything except for a snort. You had elbowed him in the stomach after he jokingly (?) insulted one of your favorite moments. 

“‘m gonna get some water,” he mumbles, hands retracting from your body and making you feel cold. You whine at the sudden coldness, complaining about how you might die of hypothermia if he doesn’t come back soon. He scoffs at that, planting a kiss on your temple as he walks into the kitchen. 

And leaves his phone. 

You pick it up, grinning. Your intent was clear. Take a silly photo of yourself and make it his wallpaper. A perfect, opportune moment. 

You open the camera app, successfully taking a horridly candid shot of yourself, before curiosity takes a hold of you. You open the photo app, scrolling through his photos. Most of it was just pictures of landscapes, before you stop. 

A picture of you sleeping, drool leaking from your mouth. 

You stop, before groaning. Did you really look like that when you slept? You scrolled some more, before stopping again. Blood running cold. 

Was that a picture of you changing?

You frantically scroll through more photos, and with horror realize that most resemble the photos that your stalker took. You would never forget how disgusting you felt, at how you felt like your privacy had been breached. 

You choke down a scream, eyes wide and hands shaking. 

And then you feel something-a hand, on your shoulder. Tight enough to bruise, and tight enough to secure you in place. 

“Oh.” A single word escapes Caelan’s lips, and you turn. You can see your own, frantic expression in his black eyes. Black eyes that you thought were beautiful. 

“So you saw them, hmm.” It wasn’t stated as a question. No, it was a statement. A fact, indisputable. The most horrible part was that he wasn’t even trying to deny them. 

“Well, isn’t this cute?”

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