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itsbubbleteataro · 3 months

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Hehe inspiration is fun

I'm kinda in the mood for some angst so let's get to it! I ended up getting inspired by one of my favorite songs by my favorite band.

Please enjoy!

Pairing; human!Alastor x human!fem!reader

Warning; Alastor being Alastor, death, gore, murder, cannibalism

Six feet under the stars

Summer of 1932 in New Orleans

You and Alastor had been living together for quite some time now. You moved in with him around two years ago and have been engaged for a little over two months now.

Tonight was a rare night where Alastor had gone out again for both a hunt and a surprise for you. Yes, you knew about his hunts and to be honest you didn't mind them. I mean you yourself had been doing something similar.

You were the daughter of a tea salesman and were well versed in the art of tea. Sometimes when dealing with a rather rude customer as you worked at your father's shop, you snuck a little something extra into the teabag, just a pinch of arsenic. Okay well maybe not just a pinch but enough to kill a man.

Anyways you looked at yourself in the mirror checking your appearance once more in the mirror. You wore a simple sundress as it's the summer and summer in the bayou can get quite hot and swampy.

You looked at the paper on the dining room table double checking where it said to meet Alastor. You laced up your boots with the heels before you stepped outside, walking down to Thames street where your lover wait for you.

*******

When you approached your fiancé you saw that he had changed out of his hunting clothes, he must have stopped at home while you were busy getting yourself ready.

With a hum the two of you linked arms and walked towards the outskirts of a different part of the bayou. Don't get me wrong, Alastor still knew this part very well and you trusted him in every way shape and form and in turn he trusted you. Trusted you enough to see him covered in blood, eating human hearts, even his hair in its naturally curly state.

Alastor lead you over to a waiting blanket and picnic basket, taking your hand he brought you to sit down.

"I was hoping we could have a lovely picnic this fair evening baby"

His eyes shown in the low lighting. You swooned. He was always doing sweet things like this for you. You helped him set up the food, your matching engagement rings sparkling in the starlight. He had picked out matching rings himself, the main stone in yours being a ruby with small diamonds around it. A blood red stone, fitting choice for two serial killers.

About halfway through your evening you both had finished the food. It was one of the rare occasions that you too indulged in the taste of human flesh. Your head was against his shoulder as you watched the fireflies dance in the distance, taking in each others peace when you felt Alastor stiffen.

You were pulling your head back to ask what was the matter when you felt it, a scorching, red hot, searing pain in your shoulder. Your hand flies to your shoulder as a scream is ripping from your throat. Alastor's eyes widen and for the first time in a long time he feels terror make its way into his heart.

You, his love, had been shot by a clumsy hunter who had mistaken the two of you for a pair of bobcats out of all things.

You hunched over, eyes full of tears as you even try to process of what happened when a second shot rings out, this one hitting your torso.

Alastor was furious, quickly confronting the hunter who had yet to realize that he had infant shot a person. All you could hear was the hunters scream as Alastor quite literally ripped him apart with his blade.

He first cut the tendons in the hunters legs so he couldn't run, then sliced the ones in his hands so he can't fight back. Then he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, stopping only after he had plunged his blade between the fools eyes and twisted it.

By the time he had finished with the hunter he turned to you. Quickly going down to you he held you in his arms. His hands were shaking and he was covered in both your blood and the hunters blood.

You were losing blood fast and you both knew it.

"I should have known better than to call you out tonight-"

"Oh hush up love"

You cut him off. You didn't want him blaming himself for your death. You knew you were going to die when you felt your fingers starting to tingle from blood loss.

Alastor gripped your face with one of his hands,

"My dear, I fear that if you're gone I won't be able to hold back. I may just tear this place apart."

Alastor choked out, feeling tears well in his eyes. You took a shaking breath, leaning into his touch.

"Then tear the world apart if you so desire. Just as long as you promise to meet me again someday"

Alastor nodded his head, his heart breaking in two as your voice became weaker and weaker.

"I love you Alastor"

You reached a hand up to his cheek, rubbing it gently.

"I love you too (y/n)"

Upon hearing such words you know that your body won't be long for this world. You let a gentle smile rest upon your lips, pulling his cheek weakly in an attempt for him to do the same.

He gets the message and forces himself to smile as tears rundown his cheeks. With one last breath your eyes flutter shut, your hand slipping from his face and your soul plummeting straight down to hell.

He holds your body close and sobs. The smile never leaving his face as he does. He sits back up, packing up the picnic and stuffing it all in the basket, blanket it and all. He pushes his arm through the loop of the basket so he can pick up your lifeless body.

He makes his way back to your shared cabin walking through the bayou as he didn't want anyone thinking he had killed you, his precious lover.

He knew he would have to give you the best burial money could buy, so he did just that. Your tombstone was made of marble, your name engraved as "(y/n) Hartfelt".

The day he buried you was one of the worst days of his life, right up when he had buried his mother. He visited your grave daily, telling you about his day. His never stopped grieving.

Fall of 1933

Alastor had been shot burying a body. He had gotten sloppy after your death, his hunts becoming more erratic as he worked through his loss. A hunter had mistaken him for a deer.

First his love had been mistaken for a bobcat and now him a deer, how fate has a way of working.

He welcomed his death, being found with a smile etched on his face for he knew that he could finally reunite with his lover as his soul plummeted down to hell.

He had a matching tombstone to yours, it being placed in the grave yard next to yours. As his coffin was lowered down into the ground and the dirt piled on, he rest easy.

As the two of you could finally be reunited,

Six feet under the stars

#Spotify #alastor x reader #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel #x reader #(y/n)#angst #hazbin hotel angst #human alastor

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odditycircus-2002 · 8 months

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Medusa!Reader and Shang Tsung MK 1 (Part 3)

Spoilers for Mortal Kombat 1: Proceed with Caution

At first, Shang didn't recognize you since you changed in height and voice. He realized it was you from your mask and mannerisms. To Shang's credit, he seemed genuinely glad to see you again and relieved to see you are well, almost remorseful to see you ran away because of your "accident."

He claimed that he had guards searching the nearby land for you but didn't think you'd willingly go to the Wastes. Your mind and heart warred with one another when Shang touched your shoulder with a soft, fond expression. A look you haven’t seen in many moons and find yourself sometimes missing as much as hating.

That's when Baraka barked at Shang to back away from you. Internally, the Tarkatan's reasoning was to protect his friend from getting hurt, but deep in his soul, the reason was the same as a territorial male taigore. As if flipping a switch, Shang went from acting affectionately with you to callously gesturing for the guards to hold Baraka down so he could plunge a syringe into his spine, unflinching at the Tarkatan's pained roars. You shout Baraka’s name before demanding the soldiers to release him, chastising him for treating one of your patients so callously as if they were mere animals. Shang Tsung didn’t stop you. You kneel down to check on Baraka, then free him from his bonds and help him get back on his feet. You had to hold the large man back from attacking the Sorcerer, who then made the mistake of opening his mouth.

"Get away from that savage, Y/N! We don't want you to share its fate as well."

That’s when you hiss and yell at Shang Tsung that you more or less share that with Baraka, or has he forgotten that he caused your affliction? Shang’s eyes widened as he seemed honestly taken aback that you blamed him for your accident. He then offers to take you from the Wastes’ ghettos and back to your laboratory as an apology. He would find a way to reverse your mutation there, and you both can continue your noble work on a cure for Tarkat.

You immediately declined his offer, stating you were fine working at the camp. Shang's eyes widen at your rejection, a look of pain flashing across his face before it’s placed with a look of contempt. He narrows his eyes at you as he takes note of Baraka gently holding the hand you had on his chest within his much larger one.

Shang sees how it is and thus changes his tone accordingly. He gives a pantomime sigh, stating it’s a shame you refused since that’ll mean he’ll have to report to the Empress that you abandoned your post to hide your affliction from her. When she finds out, you’ll be stripped of your rank and assets, including your years of research and supplies, before being left permanently in the Wastes. Reminding you that Sindel is likely to take his word over yours because of your schism with Sindel and the promising results he’s shown.

"You remember why I have the Empress's ear, don't you?"

The sorcerer could feel your despair oozing from behind your mask. Baraka lets out a low growl, able to smell your troubled state, as he begs you to let him dice the Sorcerer into tiny meat chunks.

But you don't let Baraka do so. That's when Shang offers an ultimatum. You can continue your research at the camp, and Shang won’t let Sindel know about your condition in exchange for your notes on your progress. Shang will give you some supplies to continue your work monthly since he WILL return to the colony to take what he needs from the Tarkatans. Failure to comply means letting Sindel in on your new appearance and desertion. It was an offer you couldn’t afford to take.

So it’s with a heavy heart that you accept, much to Baraka’s discontent and Shang’s delight. The latter leaves you with the consolation that you could always return to the Laboratory whenever you desire, ensuring you’ll never return to the Tarkatan’s wretched camp. You merely hiss at Shang to hurry up and leave. Later on, in the privacy of your workshop, Baraka demands to know why you accepted an offer with that snake in the first place.

As much as you want to tell him, you have your oaths and can only say that he's treating someone very dear to you; you tell Baraka this as much. While he understands, he promises you that he'll TRY not to kill Shang for the foreseeable future but makes no guarantees that he won't. Baraka admits that seeing Shang in his colony and near you brings out something dark and feral within him, demanding he remove the threat from his home. While he's unable to see, you are smiling warmly at him behind your mask as you thank him.

so for the next few moons, you and Shang stuck to your new arrangement. However, even then, he tried to court you. He’ll leave you with new supplies to replenish your stocks and gifts in the form of herbs and luxuries such as fine soaps and bedding. If it weren’t for the colony’s need for such things, you would’ve thrown his gifts back in his face. So you had to swallow your pride and thank Shang for his “generosity.” You still tried to keep Shang from doing anything more to the Tarkatans under your care, warning him constantly that provoking them only worsens their symptoms and makes them more likely to violently lash out. Yet, the Sorcerer mostly doesn’t heed your warnings. You also had to ensure Baraka didn’t rip and tear into Shang Tsung on sight, but the Sorcerer didn’t make that easy. In fact, he seemed amused to watch Baraka’s hatred and irritation for him tug against your metaphorical leash.

During one of Shang’s monthly visits, Baraka finally had enough of the Sorcerer. Rather than letting the Sorcerer walk away after extracting his marrow, Baraka swiftly killed the guards that held him down with his arm blades. It would appear that, shortly after, the rest of the colony would follow suit and attack the imperial soldiers who herded them to the edges of the camp, finally fed up with their cruel treatment. Baraka then turned his attention to Shang, who grabbed you with a free hand to drag you away from the scene; Baraka then proceeded to kick his ass.

No doubt, the Tarkatan leader would’ve killed Shang Tsung if it weren’t for you holding out your arms in front of the Sorcerer and reasoning that Shang needs to stay alive. However, before Baraka could retort, that’s when Kenshi interfered by grabbing Baraka from behind. As Baraka is surrounded by Kung Lao and Johnny Cage, Shang Tsung drags you away from the fight.

He urges you to come with him, as it's now, or never to join him or be left behind with those beneath you. You refused, backing away from the Sorcerer. Shang Tsung seems hurt by your rejection before it's so quickly replaced by that iconic smug grin that you thought you'd imagined his hurt.

"You'll regret not coming with me sooner."

He then takes the form of one of the Tarkatans before disappearing into the approaching crowd right in front of you. You had no time to ponder about the sorcery you just witnessed, as your attention was caught by Kung Lao voicing your confusion out loud. You stood with the rest of the camp against these intruders. You had no idea whether or not they worked for Shang Tsung, but you wouldn't let them hurt any of the Tarkatans!

You fought one-on-one with Kung Lao as Johnny was occupied with the rest of the camp. Admittedly, the young monk fought valiantly against you, even with your use of magic and toxins. Still, even battered and bruised, you wouldn't back down. You reached your hand to your mask, having not initially taken it off during the fight, ready to unleash your power on the monk. You and the rest of the camp stood off from the three intruders until Kenshi explained to himself and his companions to Baraka that they were after Shang Tsung on behalf of Lord Lui Kang due to the threat he poses to both his and your realm.

Sensing no deceit from him, Baraka explains what he and the rest of the camp are doing along with their illness, including his life before Tarkat. When Johnny Cage asks if Tarkat is why you wear a mask, you take the time to explain that you're not infected as far as you can tell; however, your appearance is drastically altered thanks to Shang Tsung. It's also because of the latter that you cannot remove your mask unless absolutely necessary. You also explain that you treat everyone at this camp as its main healer. You finally drop your hand from your mask after Baraka signals everyone else to back down.

After leaving a couple others to attend the camp, including which medicine is for which, you tag along with Baraka to your former laboratory. You brushed aside Baraka's concerns, reasoning that you know where it is and the layout well, to which Kenshi agrees.

While none of the others could read your expression beneath your mask or body language, Baraka knew what was going through your mind while trekking to the lab. He knows and smells the anxiety coursing through your veins as you get closer to where it all went wrong for you. Yet, he silently assures you he's here for you when taking your hand into his own as if to lend you some of his strength. And you know something? You think you're already feeling stronger just by his touch alone.

You already ran once from Shang Tsung; you won't this time, not after the new information that's come to light and from your experience for these past moons. There are more lives at stake besides your own now, after all.

A/N: And that's all for now. I didn't exceed the word limit this time, but it seemed like the best place to stop. Hope you enjoy it. If so, don't forget to like, comment, and reblog, as those encourage me to write sooner rather than later! Stay weird, my fellow humans.

Playlist while Writing:

"Bury a Friend" By Billie Eilish

"Diablo" By Simon Curtis

"My Demons" by Starset

"Fish Inside a Birdcage" by Fish in a Bird Cage

"Loser" By Neoni

"Nightmare" By Set it Off

#mortal kombat #mk x reader #mortal kombat x reader #shang tsung #shang tsung x reader #mk 1 #mk baraka #mortal kombat 1 #mortal kombat headcanon #baraka x reader #oddball writes #Kung Lao #kenshi takahashi #johnny cage

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mangoisms · 10 months

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come back to bed, my love, my light is low

━ pairing: tim drake x f!reader

━ summary: Tim gets dosed with fear toxin and you are there to pick up the pieces.

━ word count: 3.3k

━ contains: established relationship, emotional hurt/comfort, non-sexual intimacy

━ a/n: technically takes place as an extension of my other tim fic, i'll be the dangerous ledge (you be the parachute), but prior reading is not required! title is from this song

━ you can read this on ao3 as well

Gotham has always had a fairly impressive rogue gallery.

You have limited knowledge of the other cities and their various rogues but you think Central City and Keystone City, the Gem Cities of the midwest of which the Flash is in charge of, are some who can match up to it.

But in the end, Gotham’s will always beat them out.

You have the Joker, indiscriminate in his havoc, truly, truly unpredictable and for no reason other than he simply wants to. You have Two-Face, fates decided upon the coin toss. You have Mr. Freeze, Black Mask, Poison Ivy, Mad Hatter, and so many more.

The Joker is the worst of them, though. That is the general consensus in the city.

But for you?

You have always found Scarecrow particularly unnerving.

Sure, the Joker has his clown thing going on but…

When you were a kid, during the fall, the town over from your own would host a Halloween festival. You could come down and pick pumpkins straight from the patches, take hay rides, drink apple cider, gorge on candy apples, and roam their corn maze.

At the shy age of seven, you ended up getting lost in the corn maze. Separated from your parents, from any other parents or remotely responsible figure, you wandered for some time, crying, terrified, thinking, in typical seven-year-old fashion, that you would be lost forever as the sun set, plunging you into darkness.

You remember accidentally stumbling into a Scarecrow, just a decoration for the maze, but it had seemed so lifelike with its hay-stuffed limbs and mean face scowling down on you.

That would be your boogeyman for a long while.

Eventually, the fear faded and you forgot about it.

Moving to Gotham gave it a little more life.

But it’s never been an issue.

Still isn’t. Not technically.

After all, you think, perched on your couch, anxiously watching the news, it’s not you currently barricaded in the water treatment plant with Scarecrow and a new batch of fear toxin, fighting to make sure he doesn’t release it into Gotham’s waters.

No, it’s Tim. The others.

But the fight is over. Cameras showing police officers with gas masks emerging from the warehouse with Scarecrow tucked between them, hands cuffed. His scarecrow mask is creepy as ever, scowl etched permanently in the rough material of the mask.

“Still no word on whether Scarecrow was able to contaminate Gotham’s water supply but we do see the few workers he had hostage are now being escorted out. Little is known about this new strand of fear toxin but tips to the GCPD say that it is able to be dispersed either as a liquid or a gas. Previously, the toxin was dispersed only as a gas, but it seems Scarecrow has upgraded to another venture of chaos.”

You drum your fingers on your thigh, eyes intent on the flatscreen. Trying to pick them out in the background. But Bruce does his best to keep Batman and the others out of media eye. At least here in Gotham. When it comes to the Justice League and the Titans, they have little choice. They’re officially sanctioned teams by the UN. Batman can’t be an urban legend there. None of them can.

Pictures here are blurry, though. Nothing more than grainy, shadow figures in the night. No stopping for interviews, no stepping into the light.

Outside? Well, you’ve seen literal Getty Image photos of Batman at a UN hearing with Wonder Woman and Superman, looking none too pleased about it all.

You’re not going to find them, is what you’re saying. But you try anyway. Amidst the sea of police cars, blue and red lights flashing in the night, reporters perched several feet away, debriefing their audiences.

Just another night in Gotham.

But not for you.

Your fingers itch to grab your phone. Tim assured you it would be fine as he unlocked the hidden room in your walk-in closet, the room reinforced by multiple layers of lead (Bruce insisted; Tim, annoyed, relented) and only accessible by fingerprint and retinal scans from him and you, as it is the room that holds his Red Robin gear, private servers, and other confidential items. The room you could hide away in if enemies ever managed to breach your stiff security protocols (installed and programmed by Tim this time) and the thick walls and bulletproof, bomb-proof, and heat vision proof windows of the apartment.

You’re safe as can be.

You don’t think the same can be said for Tim.

Even if he told you he would be fine. That Bruce and Damian are constantly mixing antidotes to the new strands of fear toxin and Joker venom that pop up. That Duke and Steph, both of whom have slowed in their vigilante duties like he has, are coming back on for this one. In addition to Cass and Bruce and Damian and Kate and more. The Birds were on standby, too.

You can’t help but worry anyway.

Just a feeling. A bad, bad feeling in the pit of your stomach.

The phone call you get in the next minute affirms it.

Caught up just as Scarecrow unleashed the toxin… Had given his own mask to another worker trapped there… Didn’t yet have an antidote… Only received one a few minutes later… in very fragile condition…

Your name jars you from the cold, petrifying fear inside you.

“Are you alright?”

“Sorry, Alf,” you mumble, standing and shutting off the TV. Your hands shake as you do it. You feel jittery and restless. “I’ll leave now, I don’t know how fast I’ll be able to get to the manor, though, I’m sure traffic is just crazy right now —”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“But —”

“Master Tim has insisted on returning to you. Miss Stephanie agreed and so, it is next to impossible to get them to change their minds.”

“Right,” you say, sitting back down, flexing your fingers, which have gone cold, despite the apartment being well-heated for December in Gotham. A little voice like Tim’s matter-of-factly says, You’re stressed. Blood doesn’t flow as well to the hands and extremities because of it.

You try to regroup. “Are the others okay, then?”

“They all had their masks, so yes, they’re alright. A few scrapes and bruises but nothing we aren’t used to. Master Tim and Miss Stephanie are on their way now and I imagine you’d like to prepare for his arrival.”

“Right, right, yeah, thanks, Alfred.”

“I should thank you for taking care of him. There is a reason he wants to be with you there rather than with us. It is most likely self-explanatory, but it should still be said.”

Of course.

After so many years, he is your home. The harbor to your tempest. And it is the same for him.

“Thank you, Alfred. I appreciate that.”

“Of course.”

You bid your goodbyes and hurry to prepare for their arrival.

A hot meal sounds in order but you don’t think he’ll be up for it immediately, so you grab a pack of crackers. You ensure you have water, as well as some Sprite. You don’t know if he showered there, he probably didn’t, so you grab a fresh change of clothes for him, leaving it on the counter in the bathroom and grabbing him a new towel, too.

You go back to the living room to turn the TV back on, changing it to Ice Age, then lighting a candle you like to turn on every now and then, lavender and vanilla scented. Something familiar, something to ease him. You don’t know if it’ll work but you have to try.

After that, it is simply a waiting game.

You keep a close eye on your phone, where you get notifications from your security system.

Fifteen minutes later, you get an alert — not about movement on the balcony, but at the front door, camera feed showing you Tim and Steph’s figures in heavy thick coats — appropriate for the weather and to hide their suits, since their usual masks are gone. You guess he wasn’t in good enough condition to grapple with her. The thought makes your heart clench. Dismissing the message, you hurry over to open the door.

“Yeah, there you go, sweetie, you’re home now,” she’s murmuring to him, voice softer and gentler than you’ve ever heard.

She glances up at you as the door opens, shooting you a sad smile, then nudging Tim gently.

Your throat tightens painfully as you see his face, paler than usual, eyes glassy, gaze far, far away from here.

“Timmy?”

His eyes shoot to you.

Then he’s moving, strength and vigor seemingly renewed at the sight of you, and his arms are wrapping around you, tight, like steel, painful, hurting, cutting off your breathing, but you don’t care, don’t say anything, you just hold him back, as tightly as you can.

The pain is just a reminder that he’s here, with you, once again. Like it should be.

Steph leaves silently, mouthing Thank you.

You mouth back Be safe.

She shoots you a thumbs-up, then slips out, door clicking closed behind her.

Tim is shaking, you realize, body trembling against yours.

“You’re okay,” you whisper and his hold tightens painfully again but you push through it. “We’re okay, honey. We’re okay. You’re okay.”

What must he have seen?

Fear. Jonathan Crane’s greatest motivation — to master fear itself and to push those boundaries by using his fear toxins on others.

Your greatest fears, convincing you that they have become reality.

For you?

Losing your family. Losing your friends. Losing Tim.

For him?

He has already lost so much.

Been through so much.

You can surmise that you must’ve been part of it. Of course. Of course.

“We’re okay,” you whisper again, squeezing him.

He buries his face in your neck, inhaling deeply. You run your fingers through his hair, not caring about how sweaty it is, Gotham clinging to him even now. You hate it. Can’t he get a break? Can’t he be free of it for even a few hours?

But that’s why you’re here.

To help. To ease the burden. This monumental burden put on him when he was a mere fourteen-years-old.

You two stay there for a little while. You feel him toe off his boots at one point, which makes you smile.

He keeps his face in your neck, despite you knowing the angle must start to bother him. But the contact is what he needs so you’ll give it to him. Whatever he wants.

“Are you up to eat something?” you ask softly, fingers still running through his damp hair.

He shakes his head. You guessed as much.

“How about a shower?”

Quiet for a minute. You feel the rise and fall of his shoulders and the tickle of warm breath against the sensitive skin of your neck. Then he nods.

It takes longer for him to let go. You don’t rush him. And even then, he doesn’t let you go far, holding onto your hand as you lead him into your shared bedroom and then into the adjoining bathroom.

Large and ridiculously luxurious, it has a jacuzzi bathtub, a large walk-in shower with a rainfall shower head, two for the body in the wall, then one detachable head, and it’s controlled by a waterproof touchscreen. Definitely a step-up from the bathtub shower you two had at Rose Oaks.

You turn on the shower, making it hot, then turn to Tim, reaching for the coat.

Underneath it is his suit. Most likely, he and Steph rode here by motorcycle, then she put them both in coats for the walk up here. It’s a bit of a silly image, especially since his cape is longer than it, and you smile to yourself as you pull off the coat.

“What?” he asks quietly, voice raspy. The first time he’s spoken so far.

“You’re cute, that’s all,” you murmur, dropping the coat onto the floor, then reaching up to unsnap the cape.

He doesn’t say anything else. Just looks at you. By this point in your relationship, the intensity of his gaze, taking you in fully, no details missed by keen eyes, does not fluster you. It just warms you. You feel seen in the best of ways. Wanted. Loved.

You love him, too. So much more than you thought possible. Sometimes it feels like you might burst with it. You hope he knows that. You’ll show him.

You take care of the rest of his suit. Fingers finding hidden zippers, carefully unlatching his utility belt and setting it aside, slipping off his compression shirt and the rest of it.

By the time everything has been taken off, the bathroom is muggy with steam.

You step back but he grabs your wrist, saying your name, blue eyes pleading.

“Stay. Please.”

“I am,” you soothe. “Just let me get out of this, okay?”

You strip, too, much more quickly. He steps in and you follow him, gently guiding him underneath the stream of hot water. Your skin breaks out in goosebumps, a little bit chilly from the sparse water touching you, but you ignore it.

Everything seems to fall away. Tim’s eyes slide shut, head tilting back, letting the water run over his face, thick chunks of dark hair sticking to his skin, the water washing away the terrors of the night. You sigh, hand slipping to his cheek, rubbing the skin there gently.

When he pulls his head away from the stream, you reach up to comb his hair away from his face, fingers stroking over his skin idly, tenderly. He leans forward, arms coming around your waist, pulling you into him.

You go easily, hands sliding over his shoulders as he closes the distance between your bodies, dropping his head against your chest this time, right over your heart.

When you think of the reason why, your throat squeezes.

“We’re okay,” you whisper, fingers tracing odd circles on his back, running through his wet hair, gently detangling the knots that formed during his work tonight.

“I know,” he whispers. “I just…”

The fear toxin is effective in what it was conceived to do. Even for Tim, as analytical and logic-minded as he is. When you live this kind of life, the threat of loss is a real one. Janet Drake’s death was entirely accidental. Not for any rhyme or reason other than misfortune. Jack Drake’s, however, was intentional. The list goes on and it’s hardly limited to loss by death. There are so many things that can happen. Things that can happen to you. Either because of Tim Drake or because of Red Robin. Or both.

But you don’t care about that. You never have. The danger is real but what you would lose in that trade-off is not worth it.

It doesn’t help, you think. Not now. Not when he knows, vividly, how he may lose you, because saying that now is as good as saying you’re okay with dying and he doesn’t need that.

He just needs assurance that you’re here now. And you’ll give it to him.

“I love you so much. You know that?”

You feel his breath stutter, arms tightening, chest pressed so closely to yours you can feel the unsteady beat of his heart pounding against you, his fingers digging into the skin of your hips so hard it’ll probably leave bruises. But you don’t care.

“And I’m not going anywhere,” you murmur. “Not in a million years if I had a choice in it.”

A small sniffle. “That’s not physically possible. Unless you’re secretly Kryptonian.”

Your lips quirk. You reach for his shampoo, squeezing out a dollop, then smoothing it into his hair. He sinks further into you, letting out a small noise of pleasure.

“Not Kryptonian. Just human. And very dedicated to those I love.”

A sigh. “I know.”

“Whatever you saw tonight,” you murmur and he tenses sharply but you keep going, keep massaging shampoo into his hair, soapy bubbles spilling over your palm, “it wasn’t real. I’m here. We’re all here. And we aren’t going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s quiet for a long while. Enough for you to rinse out the shampoo and rub in the conditioner.

You reach for his body wash. Your body wash, really. He hasn’t used his own in a long while.

His hand wraps around your wrist, though. Stopping you. He pulls back to look at you.

“Tim?”

His eyes are on your face. Soft. But still a little hard to read.

He turns you, switching your positions. You jump at the first douse of hot water but don’t fight it, allowing him to push you under the stream. You close your eyes to keep the water out. His hands come up to your face. Stroking your cheeks. Pushing your wet hair out of your face. You lean into his touch.

“I love you,” he whispers. “More than anything.”

“More than anything,” you echo, leaning into him. He wraps his arms around you. Hugging you. Tightly but not painfully.

You think you might hear him whisper Thank you but above the sound of the shower, you aren’t sure.

Slowly, you get him cleaned up. He insists on returning the favor and you let him, even if you already showered earlier. It’s a small thing to ask, after all.

After, you step out and dry yourselves off. You help him into his clothes and he helps you into yours. Insistent on reciprocation. Wanting to do something for you. But also just wanting to be near you. Touch you. Helping you gives him assurances, you think, of your presence. The thought makes your heart ache.

His hair is wetter than you’d like it to be, so you grab a towel and lead him out into the room. He sits on the edge of the bed and you stand between his legs, taking the towel to his hair, gently drying it.

Tim holds onto you all the while.

You comb through it afterward, gently taking out the tangles.

He has a distant look in his eyes when you finish, tossing the towel and comb to the side for now, not wanting to be too far from him.

“What are you thinking?” you prompt gently, sitting next to him, taking his hand in yours.

“That I think the last person who did that was my mom.”

You pause. “Was it… I’m sorry. I didn’t ask —”

“No,” he says, looking at you. “No, it was… it was nice.” His voice is small. A little embarrassed. A little bashful. Red stains his cheeks and you smile at the sight.

“I’ll do it anytime you want,” you promise. “In the meantime…”

You leave it hanging, for him to fill.

He sighs. “Let’s just go to bed?”

“Sure. Can I get you to drink some water first maybe?”

He acquiesces, drinking a glass of water, then sliding into bed. You clear the security system — with him peering over your shoulder, making certain for himself, too — then turn out the lights, curtains automatically drawing over the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Tim keeps you close underneath the covers, settling low, laying his head on your chest like he did in the shower. You press a kiss to his head, running your fingers through his hair, feeling sleep start to tug at your senses.

By the way he relaxes into the memory foam of the bed, you know it’s not far off from him, either.

You stay awake to make sure of it.

Feeling his body go lax, his breathing even out. Hoping, praying, his dreams are peaceful tonight. To whoever will listen. The universe, some higher being, you don’t know, you simply want to give him a break. A break from all of this.

It’s just a bad day. You know that. A bad day that stands out in a sea of so many good ones. But bad days for him, for you, are something so different from others’. Unforgiving trauma. Potential loss of life.

But honestly? If changing that meant leaving him… you wouldn’t change a thing.

God, you hope that as the time goes on, he’ll fully step back.

Until then, you’ll be there to pick up the pieces. To tend to the aftermath.

Always.

reblogs are appreciated!

#tim drake x reader #red robin x reader #dc comics imagine #dc comics x reader #tim drake imagine #tim drake x you #tim drake x y/n #red robin x you #red robin x y/n #red robin imagine

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sky-kiss · 5 months

Note

prompt: they* go fishing

*whoever you want, raph/haarps would be fun maybe)

A/N: Mslanna, you wild and I love you. I truly should have taken this opportunity to write like. Wild West Au Raphael. Out on a boat. Fishing.

_________

Raphael x Haarlep: Fishing

_________

"You're brooding, boss."

Raphael doesn't look up at this little gibe, attention fixed, glaring, on the drafted contract. It's hardly his best work. He could fit a few more manipulative subclauses into section sixteen. A few phrases in the main body need reworking to allow for the maximum wiggle room on his part, but…

…well, he supposes his heart truly isn't in it today. It's a shame not to love your work.

Haarlep snorts, inspecting their claws. "Oh, Raphael is pouting, darling. His new favorite toy doesn't want to play."

"Hush, you."

"'Hush, you?'" They give him a look, hands planted firmly on hips. Haarlep hooks an arm around his neck, slipping into his lap. "Take note, Korilla: this is what depression looks like. No energy for witty repartee. No time for his old hobbies."

His warlock shakes her head. Haarlep adjusts themself in his lap, squirming into some semblance of comfort. It'd be easier as the Archduchess, but ease has nothing to do with their prerogative: Haarlep wants attention. Haarlep wants to distract and inconvenience.

"You're being tedious," they grumble. Haarlep pinches the back of his neck, claws threatening to break the skin. "They'll never want to play if this is how you act. Come, have a little fun. Entertain me."

"I've no interest in your flesh, servant."

Haarlep snorts. "However shall I cope, princeling?" The incubus waves off his rebuttal, sliding from his lap in one fluid movement. They clap their hands. "Oh, it's been a while. Can't we play in the Well?"

The cambion pinches the bridge of his nose. Fishing, Haarlep likes to call it, though it is barely an accurate reflection of the sport. "Haarlep…"

"You'll feel better. You always feel better after, dear." Almost as an afterthought, low and sickly sweet. "I know you, Raphael. Trust." The words make him itch, innocuous but with a hint of command. Trust? In the Hells? Trust this miserable creature? He thinks not.

But Raphael stands, hands linked at the small of his back. He lets himself be led to the soul pillars, his prized jewels. Haarlep delights in them, eyes flickering over the shimmering service, tracing the souls trapped within. Their tail thrashes behind them.

He's reminded of a housecat: trapped indoors, still hungry for prey, watching birds flutter past their window.

"You'll have to throw them back," Raphael warns.

"No fun at all." But Haarlep plunges their hand into the pillar, snake-quick. The stone's surface breaks around their arm like water. Haarlep catches one unfortunate soul, brings it forth, and squeezes. Savage glee flits across his features. The incubus holds their victim up for Raphael's inspection: a pretty little thing, no more than twenty, screaming, agonized, pledged to him for all eternity. A summer of pleasure for eons of torment; Raphael chuckles.

"There, look at you enjoying yourself. Good boy," Haarlep purrs, dragging the tips of their claws across the spirit's flesh. They howl. Irritated by the noise, he tosses them back into the pool. It's no fun without a fight. They want something more stoic, more breakable. "You'll feel so much better about the situation if you just relax, princeling. Here," they yank their hand free of the pillar, bringing a fresh soul. Raphael recognizes them: one of his newer acquisitions. An opinionated little shit who thought they'd retain the upper hand in a deal with a devil. "Make this one scream."

He does. And when the spirit is too weary to satisfy them with its cries, Haarlep thrusts them back into the pillar and fishes out new entertainment. The cycle begins again. A touch of mindless cruelty to break the monotony of his day…

…and Haarlep is right, damn them. Raphael feels better.

#bg3 raphael #raphael bg3 #haarlep #raphael x haarlep #i like that idea that they can just fish souls out of his soul pillars #do a little torment #throw em back

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aspoonofsugar · 5 months

Note

So what are your thoughts on kana now having black holes in her eyes instead of a galaxy? and did you ever think we would ever get dark kana? because i was honestly surprised aka gave her that because i thought the dark eyes will be for the hoshino's only

I had not noticed, but you are right! Her eyes do look like black holes here...

In general, I think Dark Kana is necessary for Kana to grow and I am excited about this development. As I have written here:

If Kana wants to shine, she needs to experience shadows. If she wants to have healthy bonds with others, she needs to discover and accept their darkness. She is slowly going through this process.

I talk about others' darkness, but for Kana to start exploring her own shadows makes a lot of sense:

According to Jung, the shadow is what people repress and ignore, like Kana's negative feelings towards Ruby. These emotions are not only about Ruby, though, but rather they are about Kana's own acting career. As a matter of fact Kana's whole arc is about her rediscovering her own selfishness and need to shine:

As a child, Kana shines so brightly that she dazzles everyone. Still, she has a difficult personality, so she is left behind once she grows up. As a result, she matures and learns to work well with others, even if it means she has to sacrifice her own light for everyone's sake. Both Aqua and Akane notice this and try to help her shine again, in their own ways. Still, before Kana can truly explode in a bright galaxy, she should explore her darkest self and learn about others' darkness. It is not by chance that she starts this journey by trying Akane's acting approach:

Akane acts by looking inside. She analyzes her character and empathizes with her, so that she can become a new person and play naturally every part. Basically, Akane plunges into people's shadows with no fear. Kana here is doing the same. She is stepping into Nino's darkness and by doing so she is discovering new things about herself:

This is important on multiple levels:

Psychologically, Kana is facing the heart of her trauma. She faces her feelings of jealousy, which are the result of her low self-esteem born from the belief she isn't enough.

Plot-wise, she is becoming Nino, as Ruby is becoming Ai. Considering Nino is probably involved in Ai's death, it is possible Kana's link with Nino will lead to new discoveries.

Thematically, this movie is about understanding Ai, live her story again, but change its ending. From Ai's tragedy to the twins' happy ending. Nino and Ai's relationship could never be mended, while Kana and Ruby's will. Kana is right now surrounded by darkness, but she will escape them and shine once again. She will restore her friendship with Ruby and help her.

Finally, Kana's choice to show her true feelings to Ruby makes her similar to Ai:

In the end, Kana hurting Ruby is just an attempt to love her. Even when she is showing her friend her genuine negative feelings, she is doing so to help Ruby grow. Kana who never feels loved is right now trying to show love in the wrong way. Just like Ai is a person who was never loved and could not love. Kana is wrapping herself in a lie, just like Ai did. It is just that Ai's lie was "love", while Kana's one is "hate".

Kana is currently growing as an actress because she is experiencing lies and how complex and intertwined with truth they can be. It is not pretty, but it is necessary both for her art to bloom and for her to eventually be able to see the truth about her loved ones. Ruby, Aqua and Akane. Only in this way she can go back to shine brightly for them.

On another note, I wonder if instead Akane will grow in the opposite reaction by trying a more reactive and "bright" kind of acting. I think she should as she has many pieces of information that if shared could help save Aqua.

Thank you for the ask!

#oshi no ko #onk #onk meta #oshi no ko meta #asksfullofsugar #kana arima #anonymous #my meta

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madaboutmunson · 1 year

Text

Ok because the other two little fics were so well liked my brain could stop thinking about it.

So we've got how the song in question was written, the song when Corroded Coffin make it big, so consider this one the last time that song is ever played live by Corroded Coffin.

It starts with a little shocker so I've hidden the story under a read more so people don't accidently read it, in case it upsets anyone, but trust me when I say it's not all doom and gloom 😉 I got you 💚

The day the news of music legend Eddie Munson passing breaks, it plunged the world into deep, dark despair. A shocking departure that stopped newsreaders in their tracks to announce it.

The bombshell news was plastered everywhere for weeks, billboards, posters, newspapers, magazines, murals, tv show opening monologues, and this thing slowly emerging, the internet, had its forums full of theories as to what had happened, as no announcement had come from the Corroded Coffin camp as yet.

There was no sign of illness or injury. No accident or crime details. He seemed to have just...died.

The outpourings of condolences from countless heavy metal icons, hundreds of celebrities, some of which you would never have even guessed, liked Corroded Coffin, millions of fans worldwide held candle-lit vigils and sang their songs sombrely acapella in meeting places all around the world.

A week later, the band finally released a written statement.

"It was during the hellish times of high school that Eddie found us, protected us, guided us and forged this band of brothers that would go on to conquer not just our fears but the entire world. Impossible dreams came true countless times over, but now we sit in a waking nightmare at the loss of our leader, so now our time must come to an end.

A band is a sum of its parts, and with any one of us gone, this is simply not Corroded Coffin anymore. So it is with the deepest sadness but no regrets we have to say goodnight to you one last time.

Thank you for sticking by us all these years.

Remember to look out for one another.

HFC 4 Eva

The Remains of Corroded Coffin"

With the statement is an announcement that there will be a tribute show organised by Corroded Coffin, but they declined to play all but one song, which a special guest on guitar.

A month later, the tribute show goes ahead, but no stadium can hold it due to demand, mainly because the band had to fulfil Eddie's final wishes.

One of which was causing the most problems, Eddie wanted every member of the Corroded Coffin fan club to get the first refusal on a space at the tribute show. So no matter where in the world they were from, they were invited and their travel expenses paid, or something set up so they could join the live feed.

Eddie had jokingly set up the fan club at a merch table in the early days. It got you a Corroded Coffin badge, a hand-painted d20, a poster, access to a monthly newsletter/comic and a hand-drawn membership card signed on the back by the band, all for the price of five dollars. As the band grew, the fan club pack stayed the same, except the merch was better quality, it had to be mass-produced, and the price was lowered to one dollar.

The band also often had membership cards on their person or gave them out for free to fans that wanted them through their music charity for kids living in low-income areas.

So as you can imagine, there were thousands of potential attendees, but if you didn't have the card, you weren't getting in, no matter how much money you had or how famous you were.

The crowd is a sea of Corroded Coffin fans of all ages and all walks of life.

The first people out on stage are Corroded Coffin.

All of them.

The three band members wheel out an enormous coffin encased in rusted metal sheets with haphazardly driven rivets to keep it together, standing up tall, onto a platform at the back of the stage. They do this in absolute silence. The crowd is so hushed that on the recording, you can hear the ting of someone dropping a can.

Then the chants start, "Eddie! Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!" Hauntingly fierce like an army ready for battle, they know they can't win.

It spreads across the ocean of fans like a ripple of deafening voices.

Then the concert begins. Not only is the lineup littered with some of the most famous musical artists in the world, but also many of Eddie's favourite bands, and to introduce each of them is a celebrity pairing.

Nancy Wheeler and Robin Buckley. Prize-winning journalist and film director, respectively.

Tech Whiz Kids Dustin Henderson and Erica Sinclair.

Internet entrepreneur duo Jargyle.

Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers. Heads of a missing children's charity.

Award-winning scientists Mike and Will Byler.

Novelist Lucas Sinclair and Skateboarding legend Mad Max.

Then lastly, a fan favourite, Eddie's Uncle Wayne. He had made a cameo appearance in every video they had ever made, was on every concert video and was always thanked in the album notes.

"It is my greatest honour that the boys chose me to introduce the last performance of the evening. I know this song was his favourite, and many of yours also. So without further ado...Sadly, for the final time, Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Corroded Coffin," he shouts finally over the crowd's roar as flames shoot out of the sides of the coffin on stage, and the three remaining members walk out.

They say nothing and launch into the heaviest song Corroded Coffin ever wrote.

A lead guitar joins in but with no guitarist to be seen.

As the song draws to a close, a man walks out in a denim battle vest a little too snug for him, his hair voluminous but dishevelled. He's holding the prop guitar.

He swings it around, smashing it into the floor behind him, and with an almighty swing back in front of him, the guitar must know this is its last show because the body splits in two. The man rips the neck of the guitar out of the body and holds it above his head. The fake blood spills out of his mouth, and the tears flood down his face as he punches the air in time with the Eddie chants before he blows a kiss at the crowd and then one at the coffin.

There is a curtain call for all involved as pyros and flames fill the air around the stage until the last fan leaves the area. Then the curtain finally drops.

Everyone heads backstage or to the trailers behind it for food and drinks.

All except one person. Steve Harrington.

He looks around to ensure the coast is clear, approaches the giant coffin structure, and puts his hand on it, still warm from the flames.

"I never did find the right time to tell you this, and it looks like I'm too late." The tears prick his eyes again, and the first one that escapes down his cheek causes the rest to follow in droves.

His sobs are so loud he covers his mouth to quiet them for fear of anyone overhearing, "I love you, Eddie. I just didn't know how to say it, I-I d-didn't know if you felt the same, so I'd act like I didn't care and hoped you'd make the first move, but you didn't. And then you got famous, and were gone. I saw you a handful of times, and every time I wanted to tell you, something got in the way, or I chickened out, you know, because...well, because maybe you'd reject me and hate me or worse, you'd want what I did, and the press would eat you for breakfast. It would have ruined everything you built, and I couldn't handle that."

He runs his hands through his hair, bows his head, and presses his forehead against the warm sheet metal. "I couldn't take that chance because I loved you so much, so very very much, Eddie." He plants a kiss on his fingertips and presses it against the name plaque on the coffin. He lets out a final guttural sob. "See you on the other side, Munson", he manages finally and walks away.

He takes a last look back over his shoulder as he wipes the tears from his eyes, and Steve swears he sees the thing move.

He shakes his head and takes a few more steps, he can hear Eddie cursing under his breath in his mind, and it makes him smile.

But then Steve freezes to the spot because there is a loud clang behind him. He doesn't want to turn around and fix Eddie's coffin, but who else is going to do it, right?

"Well, that was suffocating!" Eddies voice rings in Steve's head.

Steve steels himself and prepares to see the worst as he turns back towards the coffin, only to find the front of it completely off its hinges, and standing draped in his guitar, with crumbs in his hair and hat with two beer cans in with straws, is one, very alive Eddie Munson.

Steve cannot move. He mutters, "Oh god, I've finally lost it."

Eddie looks at Steve with a perplexed look on his face, "Ah, yeah, you have" he puts his hands on his hips, "Keeping a secret like that from me for like a decade. First of all, how fucking dare you wait until I end everything to tell me, and secondly, get over here, you big stud, and give me some well overdue sugar."

"What...the...fuck..." Steve fearfully whispers to himself, "I'm actually insane."

"Eddie!!" Dustin's excited voice rings out behind Steve as he charges forward, embracing him.

"Hey, watch my guitar, you little shrimp!" Eddie giggles and Ruffles Dustin's hair.

"Wait a second now," Steve says, finger pointed out in front of him, slowly stepping forward, "You can see him?"

Now it's Dustin's turn to look confused at Steve. He scoffs out a laugh, "Well, of course, I can! Are you feeling ok, Steve?"

"But...but...but he died...again...is he like... immortal, or something. Like a-a vamp.. vampire?" Steve tries gingerly, moving closer, one hand still stretched out in front of him like he's trying to ward off something evil.

Dustin and Eddie look at one another in confusion and start laughing.

"Steve, have you sampled some of the special backstage treats?" Eddie asks and turns back to Dustin, "I mean, that might explain why he also just confessed he's had a massive boner about me for over a decade!"

"Really?" Dustin says curiously, and Eddie nods as he takes off his guitar. "Wow."

Then the others start piling onto the stage, all of Eddie's nearest and dearest, and all of them are smiling and laughing and joking, except for Steve, who is watching this happen around him until he erupts.

"How can you all be so god damn normal about this??!!!!! He's just come back from the dead. Not like last time when he passed out. He's been dead for like a fucking month, and your all just-just fucking OK WITH THAT??!!" Steve is yelling at the top of his lungs, hands gesticulating wildly at them all, still keeping his distance, and the group falls silent.

"Oh, no, honey," Joyce says soothingly, walking towards Steve. "It's ok, it must be really scary to see this kind of thing, but you remember, right? It's all just for show." She turns and whispers to Hopper, "I knew all those bumps to the head needed looking at."

"FOR SHOW?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN FOR SHOW?! IT WAS EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE" Steve starts counting on his fingers, "It-it was on the news, and-and in all the papers, and-and the fans did all those vigils" He points accusingly at the band, "You were at least three of those!!"

Robin's eyes go wide "Steve, it's me, Robin. Hi!" She approaches him slowly, "I'm real. We're all real here. Everything is ok" Once Robin is within arms distance of Steve, he pokes at her and squeezes her arm to make sure she is, in fact, real, "OW!! Jesus!!!"

She bats Steve's hands away, "Ok, enough. Listen, did you open the fan club mail this month?"

"The fan cl-? What the hell are you talking about?? Is this a nightmare? Am I dead??!! Is this Hell??!!!" Steve shouts into the air.

"In this month's fanzine, it explained everything. The band wanted to stop and spend time with their families and start new projects, but the press was getting to a fever pitch with them. Gareth had his bins rifled through. Jeff couldn't even take his kid out for his birthday without getting hounded. So Eddie came up with this plan. That way, no one gets blamed for breaking up the band. It just is no more." Robin explains compassionately to Steve.

"So the whole crowd, all of you and the bands, they all knew it was fake?" Steve asks quietly whilst everyone is still staring at him and Robin.

Robin nods but then adds, "Well, not the other bands. We couldn't risk it, but we and the fans are loyal enough to keep a secret. Plus, if anyone even tries to say they've seen him, they'll be labelled like those Bigfoot-spotting people."

Steve shakes his head, "But I'm not a member of the fan club?!"

"The absolute audacity!!! What, you fucking love me, but you're not a member of my band's fan club? What kind of half-assed groupie are you?" Eddie shouts, astounded and a little insulted at Steve.

Jeff turns to Eddie, "You knew he wasn't, man. You made him that special membership card at the hideout for valentine's day, but you never gave it to him, remember?"

"Shut up!" Eddie says through gritted teeth at Jeff.

Steve stands more confidently, his hands on his hips, "Oh, is that so?"

"Yeah, that's right", Gareth laughs, "And then when we were talking about this, you said you'd call him and tell him yourself, Eddie, remember?"

Eddie bites his bottom lip and tries to look as innocent as he can from under his hair, smirking over at Steve, "Did I say that? Really? Funny thing that... I don't remember"

Steve's eyes go wide, "Why, you little shit!!" Steve runs and lunges for Eddie. Eddie is laughing and yelling as he's being chased around the stage by Steve, who eventually captures him in a bear hug when he runs the wrong way around the drum kit.

"urgh...god...let me..." Eddie struggles angrily and tries to wriggle free as Steve squeezes him.

"Oh-hoh no, you are going nowhere, you little prick!" Steve says, squeezing him tighter, making Eddie's face screw up, "What you did, was so not cool!"

"I...only...did...it...cus..." Eddie tries to talk, but it is difficult. He can hardly breathe.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Excuses. You wanted to make me look like an idiot!" Steve says with an unimpressed tone.

Eddie's face is turning pink as he frantically shakes his head in a no.

"Oh, you didn't? Then why?" Steve says, loosening his grip enough for Eddie to take a breath.

Eddie's body sags a little as he takes a deep breath, "Because... I wanted to see if you'd be sad if I died." Eddie says quickly, "I mean, I didn't expect you to agree to headline and the whole speech, you know?" Eddie says, trying to hold back an adoring smile.

Steve squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head in disbelief, "You made me go through a month of grief to see if I would be sad if you died?"

"Well...it was supposed to be just a day, but then I got genuinely distracted by everything, and then it was two weeks later, and then I thought I could surprise you by jumping out of the coffin, and you'd be overjoyed and I'd say something romantic to maybe win you over, like..." Eddie looks everywhere but at Steve as he details everything.

"Like what? What could you possibly say to make up for that, you complete shithead!" Steve says with an angry squeeze, making Eddie wince and groan.

"That I fought an army of angels and the hordes of hell for one kiss from your sinfully perfect heavenly lips because you're my muse, my love." Eddie manages to get the words out with a struggle.

"What?" Steve says, lessening his grip.

"The songs I write, the ones with my name next to them on the albums, they're all about you," Eddie says as he catches his breath.

"What?" Steve says again, wholly bewildered and fully releases Eddie.

"Our first number one, the one that got a Grammy, and was used in a bunch of movies. That's about you. The um, slow one with the choir on the unplugged album, that's about you. The one we close the shows with, the one with no words, that's about you too. And loads more," Eddie says, adjusting his clothes, looking back up at a dumbfounded Steve, "What? You had no idea? You don't remember? in the garage? You corrected the spelling of sleeve, but it was supposed to be Steve. I just forgot to cross the t" Eddie looks between Steve's eyes for a glimmer of comprehension.

"Ohhh", Steve says finally and points at himself and smiles.

Eddie smiles back at this lovable weirdo and nods.

Steve claps his hands together and looks pleased as punch, turning to the others still pointing at himself with a look of happy surprise.

Everyone nods at him except for Mike, who throws his hands up, "Are you kidding me? The song we danced to at our wedding was about Steve??? Oh my god!" Mike has to be consoled by Will and Nancy.

Steve eventually turns back to Eddie with a massive smile on his face.

Eddie plays with his hair and looks coyly up at Steve swaying from left to right, "So I dunno, do you maybe wanna come live on a secret island with me for a few years until people forget about me, maybe? I mean, I'll have to get my hair buzzed first, and um, lose the whole rockstar get up" Eddie looks up hopefully and gives a cute little shrug.

Steve folds his arms and taps his lips thoughtfully, "Hmmm."

"OH, MY GOD! Could you grown-ass idiots just kiss already? I could be solving the mysteries of the goddamn world, ok? But instead, I'm stuck here waiting for a long-haired freak and his little ex-sailor boy bride to figure out what everyone else knew years ago!!" Erica shouts, exasperated.

"Apart from Mike", Dustin whispers.

"Yeah, except Mike, who is also on team dumbass!" Erica adds.

"Hey!!" Mike says, annoyed, and is immediately swamped by Will, Joyce and Nancy as Hopper pats Erica on the shoulder with a smile.

"Get offa me, sasquatch!" She says, rolling her eyes.

"Well, you heard the lady," Steve says with a smile walking with an over-the-top swagger towards Eddie.

Eddie grins mischievously, jumps up to grip onto Steve like a koala on a eucalyptus tree, and kisses him, once on the lips, with an audible mwah sound.

Steve looks at him with a laugh, "I hope you've got more where that came from because you've got a lot to make up for, Eddie Munson."

AO3 Link

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fellpyrean · 1 year

Text

So we all agree the ‘personal pet’ line messed us up, yeah?

So here’s some King in Yellow/Arthur. CWs for uh. Gore, torture, mindbreak??, eldritch horny. This is not nice. Dare I say, dead dove do not eat. (Edit: BODY HORROR ALSO! I forgot orz)

Slice of an AU where ep20 went badly below the cut. ~1400 words.

_______________________

Humans can adapt to anything.

It probably wasn't the thought Arthur should have had. He probably wasn't in a state to still have any thoughts at all, if he was being honest, but he didn't have much else to do. Not anymore.

John was gone. Had been for… well. Probably quite a long time.

The King had taken him back - pried him from Arthur's flesh, with clever words and cruel fingers that had driven him to such bright, piercing agonies that he could almost still hear John pleading through them. Defiant to horrified to begging until the King hadn't even needed to pull very hard for John to dive back into him; as long as the King didn't kill him.

Well, haha. He didn't. It would have been a mercy.

The King stayed true to his promise.

Arthur had been far, far too bloodied and weak to fight the tentacle that oozed between his lips and began to spill something thick and vile down his throat before he lost consciousness. His last delirious, relatively peaceful rest before he awoke - still blind, but his body feeling oddly whole - before he heard the muffled singing and learned his new reality.

He was the King's pet.

After that first… visit. He had wanted nothing more than to die. The King had dismantled him. Slowly, methodically. Narrating as he sliced skin from muscle, as his claws and tentacles slipped across bare, bloody muscle and dug down between his sinews, sliced into his stomach and examined him inside and out, pawing at his organs like fruits at a market. The dreadful sounds above his screams as the god cracked open his chest, all so he could more easily stroke and squeeze at his heart.

And all, vividly, viscerally described in his low, purring voice as the King made sure he understood every word, every action, and kept him conscious until Arthur was sure he no more resembled a human than a lump of hideous flesh. How he did not die, he did not know. He tried to die. Tried to bite off his tongue in a stage of delirium, but all he got for it was choking on his own blood as the King tutted.

Then the tentacle came back, stuffing its way back through the ruins of his body, and Arthur fell back into blissful darkness.

So it began.

The King's special pet, locked away in a tower far and above the city, whose screams would rain down entwined in the King's beautiful song.

The King's special pet, who slowly learned each and every way a god could take a mortal man apart. He thought the King would tire of it. Began to pray beneath his hideously cruel touch that it would end. That one day, he wouldn't bother to feed him his essence. That the King would hum and pet his bloodied hair and let him fall at last into the abyss. But he never did.

He began to know when he entered, where his touch first fell, what he might expect. Whether he would be flayed or slowly ripped apart, whether the King would grab his hands with his tentacles and force Arthur to pry open himself. Whether their hands would be tangled as he was vivisected, what songs the King might hum as he inserted strands of himself into Arthur's spine and hijacked his nerves, his mind, and allowed him to experience such pure, inhuman agonies he could almost feel his soul shatter.

Without the King to speak, he could describe what was happening to him. And oh, he liked that. Arthur remembered the way the monster had shuddered with unspoken delight when first he ordered him to narrate his own skinning.

The tentacles had been eager that day. Eager to tangle in his muscles, eager to plunge into his mouth and feed him as he blankly drank it down.

He belonged to the King now.

Every bit of him by this point he knew was more formed of the King than anything human.

Everything except the eyes. One of them at least. Never once had the King taken those. Arthur had taken one of them, once. But he'd only managed to gouge out one before the King had caught him and chained him in soft, unbreakable silk and. Fixed him.

That had been new. Unique. He'd never felt tentacles swarming his eye socket before. Plunging into his skull and oozing about against the inside of him, wrapping in barely repressed rage about his brain as Arthur screamed and thrashed and begged until more tentacles stuffed his throat.

It had been a brief incident.

When he'd woken up, still shaking on the floor, he felt silk bound about his eyes.

He couldn't remove it. It was… affixed to his skin.

Perhaps… that was when Arthur accepted it. This was his existence now; his tiny room, the faint sounds of the city below, the cycles of light and dark that warmed and froze his skin, and the King. No others ever entered the tower. He doubted even if the Dancers approached it. Certainly, the King's only herald was the click of a so normal sounding door latch.

The only other voice, the only other presence in his life became the King. His everything.

How far gone was he, he would laugh to himself, that he was almost relieved when he heard that latch click? That it was a relief that the King still came, that his tormentor still traced so meticulously over his skin every time before he began to peel? That his breath came, hot and cold and close above his nape as the King laughed and sighed and sang and narrated his red, red blood spattering on to shining gold?

There was a collar now.

Arthur knew it was gold, just as he knew the silk around his eyes was. The King had slipped it around his throat with a hum, had choked him and purred out Arthur's struggles until he'd gone limp. And when next he had awoken, the collar still rested against his skin.

Whatever it was, it was soft and supple, embossed with some twisting, coiling pattern, and a cold, metal pendant hung from its front.

It made part of him pleased. God he hated that. But the broken, twisted part of him - larger far than Arthur wanted to admit - nearly preened at the damn thing.

He blamed that part of himself when the King yanked him by the collar, and he couldn't stop the moan that tore from his choked throat as he hung in the god's grasp. Breaths fast, body oddly warm, fingers clammy as he clutched at the King's in that eternity long moment.

And oh.

Oh how the King had laughed.

Genuine, like hundreds of bells tolling at once in his mind, and then. Then, something new.

Almost tenderly, the King pulled him close. So close. He felt the robes part, felt his skin prickle in danger he could not name, and then. Felt the tentacles pull him in.

Into what, he could not… dare imagine to say. Into the King, though the words did so little to capture it.

He had been torn apart on a level he couldn't comprehend. And he had clung to the King as he did it; as his body devoured him, as Arthur clutched at him, as Arthur's screams mingled with the god's slow, steady breaths and heady laughter. As his too long, too sharp fingers stroked his hair, urged his tear-streaked face to nestle on his shoulder.

Idly, Arthur thought he could picture it. From the outside, it probably looked tender. Wrapped up in his cloak, none would have been any the wiser as to the shattering agony/ecstasy Arthur experienced as the King did… something horrible to him. As the King entangled them.

Did he plead for him to stop, or beg for more?

He didn't know.

But the King. When. When he finished. When he deposited the remains of Arthur's body on the floor, when he felt the god begin to piece enough of him back together that the tentacles would have something to feed, he stayed. He stayed and he pet Arthur's head and. Praised him.

Good pet.

And fuck. Fuck.

Arthur remembered it. It was seared into his fucking mind like a beacon; how he'd whimpered and sucked so obediently when that dripping tentacle slithered into his mouth and he fed on the god's slick like it was ambrosia.

How had it ever tasted vile, when it was so honey sweet?

#masked #king in yellow/arthur #malevolent #malevolent fanfic #that line seized me by the dick and refused to let go until i gave it an offering #i PRAY that a certain someone has masked as a filtered tag because i would cease to exist #anyway uh yeah. yeah. shout out to the KiY/Arthur tag on ao3 #i have such respect for your work #i will label this mature in 30 seconds when i swap to the app #i hope you like this #arthur lester #the king in yellow #crowswritings

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capnjaket · 6 months

Text

The Opposite of Lost - Chapter One

The Opposite of Lost

Pairing: Josh Kiszka x Female OC

a/n: So this is my first fic ever, and I’m super nervous to post but here goes :) It’s set in highschool and will be nothing more than fluff, I’m sorry if that upsets you. Although I love and respect our incredible smut writers, I am unfortunately not one of them :( Anyway, back to the story. The premise is ‘new girl with secrets meets sweet boy’ - very sappy and overdone but whatever. If you like John Denver, I can promise great things for you in this fic ;) This story is a complete slow burn told mostly by Josh’s pov after the first chapter. Also, I’m Aussie so if I get anything wrong to do with American slang, school or spelling please forgive me! I hope you enjoy :)

We will reach a bit of domestic abuse in a few chapters so please be cautious!

Word Count: 4.5k

Chapter One

☾ ⋆･ﾟ:⋆ Joshua

I caught sight of a pair of dungarees ahead in the trail, and watched carefully as she walked barefoot towards us. I looked to the ground for a moment while she came close, not wanting to stare, though I turned my head to her as she passed with a shy smile.

“I swear she’s always here when we are,” I whispered to Jake once she was out of earshot. “It’s almost like she’s following us.”

“I guess.” Jake said absentmindedly, continuing up the hill. But I turned to watch her for a moment, squinting to see her track off the side of the trail and disappear into the woods. My sudden urge to follow her was interrupted by Jake looking back from a ways in front, “Someone in love over here?” At that, I ran back uphill to shove my brother.

We saw her a bunch that week, though I seemed to be the only one to notice the way she was always going off the trails, or how she would be sitting on a boulder on the next hill over when we reached the summit of our usual trail.

I had finally convinced my brothers to explore beyond the trails, and we’d decided to go into the valley that was surrounded by a loop hiking track so we’d be able to find our way out easily. As we reached the ridge, I spotted a clearing around the middle of the valley along the riverbed.

“That’s gotta be our goal,” Sam said, pointing exactly where I was looking. We all grinned in agreement before setting off with a joyful huff.

*❀。• ₊°。Rosemary

Shedding my overalls and crop top, I plunged into the chilly river water in my bikini. I swam a little around the river pool and ended up wading right to the small waterfall where I sat on my special little rock, just as I had everyday since I moved here. It was so perfect here, the waterfall singing its everlasting song while I sat in the sun, just warm enough to tolerate the sprinkle of water from the waterfall. The wash of sound was able to fade out the distant calls and laughter I heard earlier, presumably from the three boys I passed once again today.

I furrowed my brows as that laughter seemed to come back, and upon realisation, my head snapped across to those very boys peeking through the tree line. “Woah,” The tallest said, standing still at the side of the river, far from the waterline, “Guess we’re not the first to find this place after all Jake.” Concerned and confused looks plastered their faces. “Should we go up to her? Maybe we should leave..” he asked.

“Dude no! I didn’t hike all this way for nothing!” ‘Jake’ said

“Well what do we say?” The first retorted.

“It’s not like we have to ask permission!” I chuckled at their bickering.

“It kinda feels like we do… she did find it fi—”

“Are you boys going to swim or did you just plan on standing there all day?” I yelled, putting them out of their misery. I took a good look at the three, the first, a long haired boy with his shirt buttoned so low it seemed to have no purpose; the second, a lankier tall one that looked younger in the face than the other two, and the last, with similar features to the first, but with short curly hair, who I hadn’t seen look away from me the second he entered the clearing. Nor had he uttered a single word to the other two. He was grinning at my call; enough, in fact, to show his dimples, while the others looked at me in shock. Cute I thought.

☾ ⋆･ﾟ:⋆ Joshua

I was in awe from the moment I left the trees. I don’t think I have seen a more beautiful scene in my entire life. The glistening water was beautiful. The waterfall across the rocks was beautiful. And she was beautiful. She was bronzed by the sun, brown hair shiny and slick as she sat on a rock, revealing her soft face, spare of makeup. She looked so natural, one with the gorgeous world around her.

She started swimming over towards us as we stripped to our shorts and started getting in.

“Nice spot you’ve got here.” Jake said, slipping into the water.

“Why thank you! And who may you be my trespassing friends?” She said with a smile.

“I’m Jake.”

“And I’m his bro Sam!” Sam said as he jumped into the water straight on top of Jake.

“I’m Rose.” She said, laughing as they continued brawl. “And you are?” She turned to look up at me with her hand out to shake.

“Jo—” Just as I took her hand she tightened the grip and yanked me into the water. I rose to the surface in shock, but when I looked at her I couldn’t help smile at her giggling. “Josh. Joshua Michael Kizska.” I said finally after she calmed down a bit.

“Well in that case I’m Rosemary June Finch. Pleased to meet you Joshua.” Rosemary replied.

“And you Rosemary.” I returned. We held a beat of eye contact, the moment softened by our smiling eyes.

“Come with me, I’ll show you guys the jumping spot!” She widened her grin as she cocked her head toward the waterfall before swimming over to the edge. I looked into blank space for a moment as she dipped beneath the water until my vision was occupied by Jake, who had a smirk plastered on his face as he looked at me, shaking his head.

After we’d each had our share of jumping off the small waterfall cliff and swimming around, we settled on the rocks to bathe in the afternoon sun.

“You must be new in town Rosemary, I’ve never seen you before. And you look around our age?” I started.

“Yeah, I moved here at the start of summer break, and I’m turning eighteen this year.” She replied.

“I can’t believe we’ve been hiking here for our entire lives and never found this place, and you’ve been here for literally two months and you seem to know the place like the back of your hand.” Jake said, furrowing his brows.

“About time you come off-the-beaten-track then.” Rosemary laughed.

“So are you in like, school or something?” Sam questioned.

“Yeah I’ll be in senior year at Frankenmuth High school this year.”

I sat straight upright from laying flat on the rock. “No way we’re in senior year there too!” I said, motioning to Jake and I.

“You’ll have to show me the ropes then.” Rosemary said with a warm smile.

We each rambled on about the high school experience for a while, trying to warn Rosemary about some of the teachers and students until we were satisfied that she wouldn't die on her first day. Then, we all laid on our backs, listening to the waterfall and the afternoon wind in the trees.

“I gotta tell you Rose, it’s pretty brave to come out here alone and all,” Jake said after a while.

“Oh, I didn’t come alone, don't worry! I brought Jack with me.” She replied, a mischievous smile growing on her face as she turned to shuffle through her bag as everyone sat up.

“Who’s Jack?” Sam said, as we all started looking around for some other person while she pulled out something from her bag.

“Captain Jack!” I turned to see her holding a small hunting knife, removing it from its sheath. A chorus of ‘woah’s and shocked huffs erupted as us boys leaned back a little. “He’ll get me out of trouble. Haven’t had to use him yet, I don’t think I ever will though.” She said as she twirled the thing in her hand, before tossing with a spin and catching it skilfully.

“Any particular reason you didn’t feel like using it on us?” I asked.

“I’ve seen you all heaps along the trails. I know you brawl, but none of you would hurt a fly.” She laughed, placing it back into her bag. We all smiled, seemingly glad to have that thing out of sight. “I think we’d better get moving if you guys want to get before dark. I’ll show you my path back.” We all agreed, putting on our clothes over our mostly dry swimwear before setting off up the hill, following Rosemary’s lead. She was quite mesmerising to watch; bare feet treading carefully as she dragged her hands on some of the leaves and tree stumps she passed. Her eyes were focused, looking ahead for the familiar landmarks that told her she was going the right way, and sweetly, she would often look back with a tiny, upturned lip and bright widened eyes to check that we were all following all right. Once we’d reached the main trail to the carpark she hung back, letting my brothers walk in front, leaving me to naturally fall in step with her.

After a little while of silence, I finally built up the courage to speak. “You should come walk with us next time we’re all around. It’s nice to have some different company for a change. You’re cool.”

“I think you’re cool too, and I will definitely see you all again. I’m here most days, so we’re bound to see each other at some point… but I can give you my number if you want to actually set up a time and place?” She said, motioning to her bag.

“Sure. But my phone’s in the car, can I give you mine instead?” She nodded, reaching around and pulling out an old flip phone.

“I know it’s old, but I don’t really need it for anything but texts or calls you know? If it ain’t broke!” She explained while I put in my number and name as ‘Joshua’ and texted ‘:)’ to my phone.

“No I think it’s great,” I said, passing the phone back. “I don’t even know where my phone is half the time… they’re just soul sucking little machines you know, I don't what it near me.” She smiled as I gestured wildly in the air to express my disdain.

“Exactly!” She laughed.

“Anyway, you’ll have to show us some other cool spots around here off-trail. I’m sure you’ve found some. That is, if you’re willing to share.” I pouted a little as I spoke, jokingly.

“I can and I will. Their beauty is too beautiful not to share. Besides, they’ve been hidden long enough, and I’m sure they are sick of me.” She turned to look me in the eye.

“Trees can’t get sick of you!” I said with a furrowed brow and a lopsided smile. How could anyone get sick of you?

“Look around Joshua, Everything’s living! Maybe they have hearts and minds and souls too.” She said, admiring the nature around her with a concerned look before our eyes connected once again. Then, we just continued walking happily. I adored the way she viewed the world.

“See ya rose!” Sam waved as we reached the car park.

“Nice meeting you. Until next time.” Jake saluted.

I smiled. “I’m glad we met Rosemary. I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye Sam! Bye Jake!” She yelled to the others. “Bye Joshua. I’m glad I met you too.” And at that we both grinned before parting ways.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆ Joshua

I decided not to text her that night. As much as I was excited to see her again and make plans, I didn’t want to freak her out. I had a feeling it would happen naturally. And it did. A couple of days later, we went out late one afternoon once Jake finished work at the record store. I noticed her car in the parking lot as we pulled in. We walked one of the shorter tracks since it was pretty late, and as we reached the summit of the track, I felt a bit discouraged that we would find her. We looked around at the view for a while, enjoying the way the wind was a bit stronger and cooler up where the clearing for the summit was. I felt deflated as I couldn’t see her anywhere around us, but just as we started to leave, I felt my phone ring in my pocket. I took it out - it was Rosemary.

“Rosemary?” I said as I pulled the phone to my ear, hoping I was loud enough that my brothers would figure out what was going on.

“Nine o’clock” She said.

“What?”

“Check your nine Joshua.” Rosemary chuckled. I turned around to my left, darting my eyes across the valley and back down the track a bit, but I couldn’t see anything. At my sudden change of direction, the boys were looking too. “Now look up.”

And there she was. Sitting on a high branch of a tree about thirty yards along the path, waving straight at us. We had walked straight underneath her not five minutes ago. She had her camera out, snapping a photo of our shocked faces staring up at her. Rosemary wore her signature blue-jean overalls today along with a white strapless top, she was leaning against the trunk with one leg propped up and the other hanging down.

“You are wild Rosemary June.” I yelled as we ran to her.

“Well I’ll try to be rabid next time!” She said between fits of laughter, carefully climbing down the tree to meet us. “You should have seen your faces!”

“Yeah yeah,” Jake rolled his eyes, “Should we go sit on magnet rock? I think we’ve got time.”

‘“Sure.” “Yep.” “Sounds good!”’ We all replied.

We walked for about ten minutes until we reached the rounded-horseshoe shaped boulder, sitting down in the bowl of it like a couch.

“Explored anywhere else in Frankenmuth so far Rose?” Jake asked as he laid back on the warm surface.

“Nothing past the grocery store to be honest.” She said, “I can’t seem to stop coming here!”

“Then I think we should show you around a bit. Starting Saturday.” Jake stated.

“If you’re free.” I added.

“That I am!” She smiled, “What’s the plan then?”

“Well, we’re playing at the old pub at seven, so If your parents allowed it, we thought you might like to come and watch. Thats one spot in town crossed off the list!” I said.

“Excuse me, if you’re playing pool at a bar I would certainly be playing too, not watching!” She said, eyeing each of us as we tried to conceal our laughter. “What’s so funny? I’ll have you know I have a lot of pool experience.”

“It’s not pool we’re playing Rose, it’s music. We’re in a band.” Jake spoke carefully as we all searched her eyes for some sort of dismissive thought. But her eyes lit up instead.

“Really?” we nodded. “That’s so cool! What kind of music do you play?”

“You’ll have to find out on Saturday!” I announced.

“What about the instruments? Can't you at least tell me that?”

“Mmm.. now that you mention it, I think we'll keep that one a surprise too.” I replied.

She looked at me with this pouty smile and low-lidded eyes that told me she didn’t mind our bickering.

❀。• *₊°。Rosemary

I walked into the old bar expecting to see the usual Saturday-night crowd for a place like this, but I was shocked instead to see a very large gathering of people, filling the space and favouring the far right corner where I could see a small stage. Wow, okay. These guys must be good. The whole town was basically here, and I was suddenly feeling a bit strange about knowing them. Nonetheless, I ordered a mule from the bar and watched from the only free stool as they started setting up. To my surprise the bartender didn’t mix a virgin mule, he gave me a real one - but I didn’t say anything. Each of the boys were lit up with excitement, and it was wonderful watching them focus on their gear and talking to one another — they were in their element. There was a boy I didn’t know sitting behind the drum kit, which was where I expected Sam to be, but when Sam slid the strap of a bass over his head, it made sense. Still, I wasn’t expecting a four-piece. So as Jake grabbed the electric guitar from behind him, I was shocked to see Josh walk up to the mic stand, twisting a few knobs while looking at the crowd.

He finally met my eyes after a while of looking around and gave me the widest grin I’d seen from him yet. I shot one back with a small wave and he just winked. I was completely giddy to hear them perform now, he was so confident and happy.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆ Joshua

I’d never been this nervous for a performance before. I told myself it was because of a large crowd, but once I spotted Rosemary sitting at the bar, I fatefully accepted the fact it was her making me nervous. She was wearing a white mini tee with a patterned vest overtop, and blue jeans that flared just enough at her boots. She was so cool. What if she doesn’t like it? I thought.

That question shuffled aside the longer I stared at her, because I was excited to perform for her, and because she too looked excited — and… maybe a bit nervous? I sent her a wink to be sure while I finished up fiddling with my mic.

❀。• *₊°。Rosemary

I continued to watch Josh as he turned and put his hand on Jake’s shoulder to whisper something in his ear. Jake looked up with surprise and immediately found me and waved. Sam saw him looking and sent me rock horns as they all got into their places.

The opening riff of ‘Layla’ by Derek and the Dominoes played and I watched as the room came alive. Jake and Sam were shredding it, the drummer was bringing the energy and pounding a beat I could feel in my heart, and Josh — His voice was just something to behold. As a whole they were completely captivating, each born to be onstage and radiating their love in this form. Mid way through the song, Sam left his Bass and sat at the keyboard and started playing the piano section of the song, which they all quietly joined in on to create a vamp below Josh’s speaking.

“Welcome ladies and gentlemen to our show tonight, it’s great to be here with you and to bring you love, peace, and music, I’m Josh, behind me here is Danny,” He said, motioning to the boys, “Up here is Sam, and Jake. We’ll be playing some you know, and some we’ve written, and we hope you enjoy. We are Greta Van Fleet.” He spoke clearly but fast into the mic with barely a pause in the entire speech, and was finally interrupted by a strike of Jakes guitar just as he finished the word ‘fleet’.

“Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move,

Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove,”

Josh suddenly erupted into singing ‘Black Dog’ from Zeppelin IV. If I thought his voice was incredible before I didn’t even have the words to describe it now. Their set was thrilling, from Joplin to Cream, they had the 60s and 70s covered which the audience clearly appreciated. There was not a soul in the venue who wasn’t mouthing the words, singing along, bopping their heads or tapping their foot. They finished on an original which Josh introduced as ‘Safari song’. Josh hadn’t looked at me at all during their set until now, smiling into the lyrics of the song and making eye contact every now and then. I couldn’t help but smile back, and ‘Safari song’ was instantly my favourite song of the night.

“Thank you!” Josh yelled into the mic, eliciting a powerful applause peppered with shouts and whistles as the boys walked off stage. I decided to stay at the bar for a while and let them be, as they were bombarded by old friends and the like to congratulate them on their performance the second they were off the stage. The boys finally found their way to me after talking to basically every single person in the room. Josh immediately pulled me into a tight hug as soon as I stood.

“Hi” he whispered

“Hi” I giggled back. We pulled apart and I went on to hug his brothers and shook hands with their drummer, who introduced himself as Danny.

“You guys were amazing!” I exclaimed as we turned back to the bar for drinks.

“Really? It wasn’t too… I don’t know, old?” Josh asked, looking quite unsure.

“Are you kidding? I knew every word!” he raised his eyebrows, and the boys all looked at me.

“Even Safari song?” Josh broke out in a grin.

“You know what I mean. Play me some Zeppelin and I’m hooked.”

“Well we’re glad. We would have had to give up a really fantastic swimming hole if you didn’t like it.” Jake nudged me on the shoulder.

“You guys are weird.” I said, raising my glass and taking a sip to hide my smile.

The other boys ordered their soft drinks and mock-tails while Josh sat down next to me, eyeing my drink. “Whatcha got there Rosemary?” He said, grabbing the almost empty glass before I could stop him. He smirked cheekily, taking a sip. Josh’s face fell and his eyes almost bugged out of his head, looking back and forth from the drink to me. I slowly pushed a finger to my lips with a knowing glance, trying not to laugh. I folded as he chugged what was left in the glass, and we both laughed at ourselves, eliciting confused looks by the other boys.

“Hey can I get two more of these man?” I said to the bartender with all the confidence I could. Josh couldn’t hold himself together, looking away from the bar to hide his face. The bartender mixed the drinks and placed them in front of us.

“Only one more though, understand? Otherwise I'll tell your mother Kiszka.” He looked serious, but winked at us nonetheless.

“Let’s play pool!” Sam said, and we all followed.

“Get ready to have your ass beat, Jake!” I said.

“We’re not on the same team? Fine, then I get Danny.” Jake retorted.

“H-hhem - We come as a package deal.” Sam said, putting his arm around Danny.

“Ugh Fine.”

I turned to Josh. He was already grabbing us some cues, one of which he threw to me. “Joshua you better be good at this.”

“Have a little faith will ya?” he said, focusing on chalking his cue.

Jake set down the balls and the game began. We were collectively mediocre at playing, though Danny and I seemed to have the upper hand. Jake and Josh were all talk, yelling loudly or saying something right as the other would go to strike. And Sam was hopeless, spending half the time groaning with his head in his hands after aiming at literally nothing and barely hitting the cue ball.

Near the end, we realised we were pretty even, and anyone could win - and it suddenly became the most competitive game of pool I’ve ever played. Snarky comments and celebratory cheers were made play-by-play, and it felt like the world was going to end every time Josh or I missed.

It finally got to a point with one of each ball type left on the table, and it was my turn, meaning I could win the game if I sunk our striped ball. I took a swig of my drink, leaning down low on the table to investigate my options. Josh put his arm around me, coming down to my level to whisper in my ear.

“You got this Rosemary you can win it, I know you can. Are you gonna hit that left there and bounce it off the wall?” As serious as our faces were, I was giddily enjoying this soft moment up close with Josh. I could feel his breath on my neck.

“Yeah but I don’t know if I can do it.” I replied.

“Nah its easy you’ve got it” He stayed low as I moved my cue into position. The other boys were on the opposite end of the table, holding each other and bending down to our level as well. They looked terrified.

“Nervous Rose?” Jake yelled, making them all chuckle.

“Never.” I said, my eyes never leaving the ball. I could hear Josh laughing lightly into my shoulder at my smart-ass response as I took the shot.

It hit perfectly and our winning ball rolled right into the hole below the boys, their heads following it in amazement. They looked up at us in shock before crumbling, dragging their hands down their faces, hitting them on the table and angrily groaning in disappointment.

Josh and I turned and screamed at each other in joy and danced around wildly, then hugged a long, tight embrace. It was warm and unapologetic. Maybe it was the three drinks I had but this was the best hug I’d had in a long time.

Once everyone had settled down, we finished our drinks and decided to head out, so we all grabbed the kit from onstage and started loading it into the back of their van.

“Okay that's everything, we’ll walk you to your car Rose.” Oh shit. It was just then that I realised I really shouldn’t drive myself home. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at Josh, and he seemed to have made the same realization. Jake looked at me with concern. “Do you want a lift home instead?” He asked.

I had to think for a moment - I knew I shouldn’t drive, but it was rude of me to ask for a lift home when as far as they were concerned, I didn’t need it. After a while I reluctantly nodded to Jake. We walked to their car and Jake started getting in the passenger seat, waiting for Josh to get into the driver's side.

“I can’t drive Jake I’m too tired.” He said as he rounded the truck to push Jake across the bench seat towards the wheel.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jake shoved Josh in the shoulder and got situated, starting the car. I tried to conceal my laugh as Josh glanced back at me.

I quietly gave directions as we drove through the town. Once we arrived on my street, I said “Here's fine,” making Jake pull up. I hopped out and stood at their open passenger window. “Thanks for a great night guys, can’t wait to hear you play again.” I said, smiling at everyone.

“Thanks for coming Rosemary.” Josh gave me a knowing glance with a bit of cheekiness to it.

“Bye Rose!”

“Bye!”

I hit the roof of the van before standing back to watch them drive off.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆ Joshua

I watched in the side mirror as Rosemary walked down the street a bit; sitting down on the porch of one of the houses instead of going inside. Strange.

#josh kiszka #josh gvf #josh kiszka x reader #josh kiszka fic #josh kiszka gvf #danny wagner #jake kiszka #sam kiszka #josh kiszka x oc

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female-malice · 2 months

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At the start of February, Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, announced a major scaling back of its operations, exiting wind markets in Portugal, Spain and Norway and cutting both its dividend and its 2030 target for the number of new installations. The announcement followed the firm’s shock decision last November to back out of two major wind projects in New Jersey. Last week, it agreed to sell stakes in four US onshore wind farms for around $300m.

But Ørsted’s troubles are hardly unique. In September 2023, the UK government’s offshore wind auction failed to secure a single project from developers, who argued that the government-guaranteed prices on offer were too low in the face of rising costs. Two months before that, Vattenfall pulled out of a major wind UK development for the same reason. And in February, the German energy giant RWE – which provides 15 per cent of the UK’s power – warned that without more money on offer, the UK’s next auction, opening this month, might just fail again.

These cases are only a handful among many and have come as jarring setbacks for an industry grown accustomed to triumphalism: headlines over recent years have routinely celebrated the plunging cost of renewables and the seemingly unrelenting transition to clean energy advancing around the world. A quick Google of “renewable energy deployment” yields no shortage of charts with impressive upward slopes.

Much of this enthusiasm has centred on a metric called the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE), which represents the average cost per unit of electricity generated over the lifetime of a generator, be it a wind farm or a gas power station. The LCOE has something of a cult status among industry analysts, journalists and even the International Energy Agency as the definitive marker of the transition to clean energy. When the LCOE of renewables falls below that of traditional fossil fuel sources, the logic goes, the transition to clean energy will be unstoppable. If only it was that simple, argues the economic geographer Brett Christophers in his latest book The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet.

As Christophers writes: “Everyone, seemingly, has gravitated to the view that, now they are cheaper/cheapest, renewables are primed for an unprecedented golden growth era” that will see them supplant fossil fuels. Doing so will be no mean feat. Despite the vertiginous growth of new renewable capacity in recent years, renewables have scarcely made a dent in the proportion of global power that comes from fossil fuels. The overall share of fossil fuel power in the energy mix has remained broadly stagnant for an astonishing four decades, from 64 per cent in 1985 to 61 per cent in 2022. Critically, the absolute amount of fossil fuel power generated each year – the figure that ultimately matters for the climate – has continued to rise.

In large part, this stems from overall growth in electricity consumption, which will continue apace in the coming decades as millions around the world gain access to electricity and as we race to electrify the economy. Thus, for all their upward momentum, global electricity consumption is still growing faster than solar and wind power is coming online, meaning the gap is widening. To close it, by the IEA’s estimates, the world needs to install 600 GW (gigawatts) of solar and 340 GW of wind capacity every year between 2030 and 2050. By comparison, the UK’s current total installed wind capacity is approximately 30GW, the sixth largest in the world, while Germany’s domestic transition plan implies installing the equivalent of 43 football pitches of solar panels every day to 2050. In short: the task is immense – almost unimaginably so. It is similarly urgent.

Where will the momentum needed to build this clean energy future come from? As Christophers documents in detail, the industry has thus far relied on an array of subsidy and support around the world. Extensive state support is hardly unique to clean energy, much as detractors and climate deniers may like to highlight it: the fossil fuel industry benefited from tax breaks and direct subsidy to the tune of £5.5trn in 2022 according to the IMF. The declining LCOE of renewable energy has been increasingly viewed as an argument for unwinding this government-backed support. As Christophers shows, however, in practice this has proven a near-impossibility. The question he therefore asks is why, in the face of declining costs, subsidies continue to be necessary, and what this tells us about whether the current approach to decarbonisation is fit for purpose.

The answer, Christophers argues, is that we’ve got it all upside down. When it comes to investment in renewable energy, as in anything else, it’s not cheapness that matters. Just take it from the investors themselves, he notes, citing one former JPMorgan investor who described the LCOE as a “practical irrelevance”. What matters instead is profit, and expectations of it.

Despite its simplicity, Christophers’s account is a quietly radical one that contravenes the received wisdom of not only the technocrats, mainstream economists and free marketeers who tout the wonders of the market, but also many on the left, for whom the problem with profits is typically their being far too high. Instead, as he demonstrates, the trouble is that renewable energy is nowhere near profitable enough, and certainly not reliably so, for the market to deliver it with anything like the pace, scale or certainty that is needed.

If the costs of renewables are indeed so low, one might ask, and profits are equal to revenues minus costs, then surely plunging costs should mean higher profits. But Christophers shows that low and unreliable profits are the definitive obstacle to the decarbonisation of the electricity system and, by extension, the wider economy.

The precise answer as to why low costs don’t necessarily translate into high and steady profits in this sector is technically complex and multifaceted, deftly handled by Christophers, a reformed management consultant, over nearly 400 pages of fine detail drawn from company documents, interviews and dense sectoral reports from global energy agencies. Put simply, the core of the problem is that the very features of markets so celebrated by mainstream economics – mediation via the price signal, increasing competition and private investment – are the undoing of a private-sector led transition to clean energy.

For Christophers, the commitment to marketisation in electricity systems is increasingly self-defeating. At the heart of this problem is the so-called “wholesale market” that prevails in many parts of the US and Europe, including the UK. Under this system, generators are paid a single price per unit of electricity for a given period, regardless of whether it is derived from a wind turbine or a coal plant. This price is based on what’s called a “merit order”, with the cheapest sources – generally renewables – being deployed first, followed by as many sources as are needed in order of escalating price. The wholesale is set by the last unit of energy needed to meet demand. In the UK, this is typically gas.

The defining feature of this wholesale pricing system, cast in sharp relief over the period of sky-high energy prices in 2021-2022, is volatility. With a host of factors potentially feeding into the price – from the balance of supply and demand through to global gas prices and geographic location – the swings can be enormous, regularly spiking from double to triple digit prices and back again within a matter of hours. In times of crisis, the figures can become outlandish, with the price of electricity in Texas during the state’s 2021 shock winter storms reaching $9,000 per MWh.

For Christophers, this volatility is nothing short of “an existential threat” to the “bankability” of a renewable project – that is, its ability to secure financing – because it makes profitability so uncertain. Worse still, within a competitive wholesale market, as the proportion of renewable generation in the market grows, and by extension the proportion of time in which renewables drive the wholesale price, the more frequently and strongly prices swing to the lower extreme, a phenomenon known as “price cannibalisation”.

The energy industry and governments rely on an impressive array of methods to circumvent these problems, from financial hedging to feed-in-tariffs, and from mega corporate Power Purchase Agreements with the likes of Amazon and Google to the UK’s “contracts-for-difference”. As Christophers writes: the reality of “liberalised electricity systems such as Europe’s is that, to secure financing, renewables developers ordinarily do everything they can… to avoid selling their output at the market price.”

Thus, despite ultra-high wholesale prices over 2021-2022, many renewables generators failed to enjoy correspondingly high profits, because they had traded the possibility of these certainties in the face of intolerable market volatility. For Christophers, this is the “signal feature” of the liberalised electricity market: that “the hallowed market price… is the one price that renewables operators endeavour not to sell at.”

It is in explaining this apparent contradiction that the book offers its most radical suggestion. Borrowing Karl Polanyi’s concept of a “fictitious commodity”, Christophers ultimately contends that electricity – like land, labour and money, Polanyi’s original trio – is not a commodity in the conventional sense of having been created for sale, and is therefore ill-suited to market exchange and coordination. This incompatibility sits at the root of the spiralling complexity of interventions that policymakers are obligated to make in the name of upholding the freedom of the “market”. The result, in the words of the energy expert Meredith Angwin, is that today’s electricity markets are less market and more “bureaucratic thicket”.

Thankfully, if the forces of capitalism, defined in terms of private ownership and the profit imperative, are fundamentally ill-equipped for this task, then we are not for want of alternatives. Public ownership and financing of energy, if freed from a faux market and the straitjacket of the profit motive, seems an obvious one. Christophers writes that the state is the only actor with “both the financial wherewithal and the logistical and administrative capacity” to take on the challenge of decarbonisation. The trouble though, when all you have is a hammer, is that everything looks like a nail. Thus, in the face of irreconcilable market failures, most policymakers seem only to offer more market-based fudges.

In this context, the tremors in renewable energy investment that we have seen with increasing frequency over the past several months are more than just a blip. They represent a potentially fatal flaw in the prevailing approach to the task of decarbonisation. From the perspective of the climate, every tonne of carbon matters, and every delay is significant. To continue to leave the future of electricity, and by extension global decarbonisation, to the whims of profit-motivated firms, is an intolerable risk. Rome is already burning, and there’s no time left to fiddle.

#cc

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 6 months

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Using eclipses to calculate the transparency of Saturn’s rings

A Lancaster University PhD student has measured the optical depth of Saturn’s rings using a new method based on how much sunlight reached the Cassini spacecraft while it was in the shadow of the rings.

The optical depth is connected to the transparency of an object, and it shows how far light can travel through that object before it gets absorbed or scattered.

The research, led by Lancaster University in collaboration with the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The NASA-ESA Cassini spacecraft was launched in 1997 and reached Saturn in 2004, carrying out the most extensive survey of the planet and its moons to date. The mission ended in 2017 when Cassini plunged into the Saturnian atmosphere, after diving 22 times between the planet and its rings.

Lancaster University PhD student George Xystouris, under the supervision of Dr Chris Arridge, analysed historic data from the Langmuir Probe on board Cassini, an instrument that was measuring the cold plasma, i.e., low energy ions and electrons, in the magnetosphere of Saturn.

For their study they focused on solar eclipses of the spacecraft: periods where Cassini was in the shadow of Saturn or the main rings. During each eclipse, the Langmuir Probe recorded dramatic changes in the data.

George said: “As the probe is metallic, whenever it is sunlit, the sunlight can give enough energy to the probe to release electrons. This is the photoelectric effect, and the electrons that are released are so-called ‘photoelectrons. They can create problems though, as they have the same properties as the electrons in the cold plasma around Saturn and there is not an easy way to separate the two.”

“Focusing on the data variations we realised that they were connected with how much sunlight each ring would allow to pass. Eventually, using the properties of the material that the Langmuir Probe was made of, and how bright the Sun was in Saturn’s neighbourhood, we managed to calculate the change in the photoelectrons number for each ring, and calculate Saturn’s rings optical depth.

“This was a novel and exciting result! We used an instrument that is mainly used for plasma measurements to measure a planetary feature, which is a unique use of the Langmuir Probe, and our results agreed with studies that used high-resolution imagers to measure the transparency of the rings.”

Τhe main rings, which extend up to 140,000 km from the planet, but have a maximum thickness of only 1km, are to disappear from view from Earth by 2025. In that year the rings will be tilted edge-on to Earth, making it almost impossible to view them. They will tilt back towards Earth during the next phase of Saturn's 29-year orbit and will continue to become more visible and brighter until 2032.

Professor Mike Edmunds, the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, added: "It is always good to see a postgraduate student involved in using space probe instrumentation in an unusual and inventive way. Innovation of this kind is just what is needed in astronomical research - and an approach which many former students who are in a variety of careers are applying to help address the world's problems".

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #esa #astrophysics

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elemit · 4 months

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A Gift, A Curse

A story in which we discover just how damned an ascended vampire can be, and just how far you will go to save the spawn you loved.

Read in full on AO3

dead dove/not beta read

fic warnings: Abuse, Angst, Biting, Blood and Gore, Blood Drinking, Bondage, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, Food Restriction, Hate Sex, Horror, Mental Coercion, Mind Control, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Sexual Coercion, Torture, Total Power Exchange, Trauma, Vampire Bites

Chapter 15: Trade II

You wonder if shaming you is the only reason he brought you here today. You fear the real reason he did it is to show you how hopeless your situation is. A parade of the great and the good of the city passes before you in one appointment after another, and not one of them seems to take umbrage at your position. Indeed, more than a few seem to have been entirely enraptured by the near-naked consort of the Lord of the New Watch. You can feel him smiling against your cheek as their eyes roam over you, shifting and uncomfortable in their arousal.

You try to follow the plans that are laid out in each appointment, but both Astarion and his guests speak in half-truths and vague metaphors. Nebulous deals are made before your eyes and yet you find you can barely distinguish those of finance from those of a more mercenary nature. Perhaps Astarion brought you here to show you just how dim your mind has become in his thrall. Even when your mind is at its clearest, after a servant has delivered a cup of blood for you and wine for him, you struggle to unweave the threads of the web that he is carefully setting out across the city. You find you've drunk the blood before you can even try to resist its pull - your hunger is still too overwhelming to think of fighting it.

Your mind starts to wander away from the obscurities of your husband’s business dealings, and you are only pulled back to reality from time to time by the light brushes of his fingers along your inner thighs. You hate that the tingling trails his fingertips trace leave you craving more. As time goes by his touch moves higher and higher, achingly slowly, and you find yourself pressing your body closer to his in unwanted desire. He pays you no mind, not breaking concentration from the discussion with his current guest for a moment, even as he teases you to distraction.

Finally - finally - the current visitor leaves, and as the door closes behind them Astarion turns his full attention on you. His fingers ghost over the ache between your legs, never quite touching, but so close you swear you can sense them even when you close your eyes at the torment. When he finally grazes the pad of his thumb over your clit, a jolt of yearning shoots through you, so strong you let out a whimper.

Astarion lets out a low chuckle. “You’re playing your part so well, my dear. Such a needy thing. Such a pretty consort. Your good work deserves a reward, don’t you think?”

Before you can nod your head he’s plunging his fingers into you, curling those masterful fingers inside you, slowly pumping in and out, thumb still applying just enough pressure on your clit to leave you squirming and moaning in a heart-wrenching ecstasy on his lap. The pent-up need from his teasing has you at the edge in moments, but he knows your body like it’s his own, and his prowess in the arts of pleasure allows him to keep you balanced there, slowing the strokes of his cunning hands as he watches your face with cool intensity.

“Not yet, I think,” he murmurs, and then he removes his hand. His fingers are slick with your excitement, and he shoves them roughly into your mouth, which you had just opened to beseech him to deliver your release. You suck them clean dutifully, trying to blink away the tears that have welled in your eyes from your desperate want.

“There’s still one more visitor who needs to be seen. But soon, my treasure,” he says in response to your begging stare. As a servant enters the room to announce the final guest, Astarion pulls his fingers from your mouth and wipes them on a piece of your skirt.

“Marshall Bormul of the Flaming Fist,” calls the thrall, holding open the door for a hulking figure of a man, who strolls in with that specific swagger of a person who thinks they could best anyone they came across in a fight. It takes all of your willpower to stop yourself grinding against your husband’s leg in wanton frustration. The guest takes a seat opposite you, and their conversation is lost to you in your lustful haze.

Your concentration is suddenly dragged back to the pair of men by a sharp pinch on your thigh.

“Our guest was speaking to you, darling. Do try to be polite.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” you manage to say, unsure which of them you’re really apologising to.

“I was just saying what a beauty you are,” says the Marshall. “Very pleasing on the eye.”

“Very pleasing in plenty of other ways, too, I assure you,” says Astarion. “I’m sure she’d be more than happy to show you. Wouldn’t you, pet?”

The realisation of what he is asking washes a cold wave of fear through you. He is only joking, you tell yourself. He is many things, but surely he is too possessive to ask you to do what you think he is asking of you. Perhaps this is a test of some kind? You twist in his lap to try to read his face, but his mask is as impeccable and indecipherable as ever.

“But I only wish to please you, my love,” you say. You try your best to sound sensual, appealing, almost teasing, but you worry he can hear the desperation in your voice.

Astarion pouts mockingly. “That's terribly sweet, my treasure, but it would please me to see you please my friend. Now.”

With that final word, he pushes you from his lap, and you fall onto your hands and knees on the floor.

“Go on,” he encourages, voice all sing-song, eyes glinting, nodding his head towards the Marshall. You start to get to your feet, but he stops you. “No, no, darling,” he says. “Crawl to him.”

#astarion smut #astarion x reader #bg3 fanfiction #astarion x you #astarion x tav #bg3 astarion #astarion #bg3 spoilers #astarion romance #a gift a curse #astarion fanfic

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riverioli · 3 months

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Storm Cloud

Sailing through a cloud is a bitter experience. You’re plunged into a misty realm of suspended water droplets that sting your skin with ice. You can barely see a hand’s length ahead of you. It is so cold and miserable you wonder if you’ll ever be able to move again. Sailing through a storm cloud is simply suicide.

It had been pretty much smooth sailing up until that point. I remember I had been wandering the deck waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I was wrapped up, of course, being at such a high altitude. I stamped my feet to keep warm. Our whale was singing into the evening, keeping us and our boat afloat in the endless sky. I was whistling some tune I’d heard on a dock a few weeks gone when it suddenly seemed as though we were plunged into nothingness. Complete darkness. The cloud had crept up on us like a wild cat stalking prey, and now we were clutched in its talons, taken as its plaything. Let me tell you it tossed us around for all we were worth. The air seemed to crackle with electricity; lightning waiting to strike. A split second and there was chaos on deck, the captain barking orders, men running everywhere. I found myself running to the side and looking over at the whale. It was bellowing with fear and writhing. The wind tossed it this way and that. The wild cat continued to toy with us. Ice as large as boulders rained down upon us, heaven’s wrath upon our souls. One crushed into the main mast, flinging netting and sails and people out into the crackling beast. Another struck the fin of our whale, who let out an otherworldly wail that deafened us and brought me to my knees.

It seemed like time froze. And then I heard my name drifting over the wind, sharp and urgent. “You’ve gotta go down there! You’ve gotta calm her down!” I cursed every god in existence. I had been hoping and praying to be forgotten in the chaos. That no one would remember the whale’s strange obsession with me. And I with it, of course, though I never admitted it then. In calmer weather, when we floated low and skimmed the surface of the ocean, I would clamber overboard and climb down her back. There I would sit and sing her new songs I’d heard, or tell her tales, or even just talk. She would half close her eyes and croak and hum, such a vibration that warmed the entire ship. I was finally useful. Of course they wouldn’t forget. “Pit! You’ve gotta get down there!” The captain roared over the storm. Other members of the crew ran towards me, and I found myself stuffed into a makeshift harness thrown overboard into the eye of the storm.

There was a moment where I felt like I was flying and then I crashed into her fin. It was slick with blood. The ice had pierced the tough skin and buried itself there, like some morbid jewel. They had ordered me to first pull it out, clean and treat the wound. Something about steering her away from the storm; balance. I knew it was futile, and any time wasted was more time in this blasted storm. Thunder and lightning lit up the sky, rattling my bones. I kept low to the ground, desperate to find any sense of gravity. I was trembling, sweating, freezing. I could have died of exhaustion right then and there. I crawled hand and foot to her side and began to scale the great mountain of flesh. There was no grip, my hands were coated in blood and her skin was soaking wet, but I planted by feet and pulled myself up by the rope connected to the ship. All else faded, it was just me and her, and the storm.

I reached the top, ready to burst with exhaustion. My vision was blurring, my muscles aching. I stumbled down to her head. Her eyes were wide, frightened, glazed over with pain. She did not see me, I doubt she even felt me place a reassuring hand on her. “What do I do now, old girl?” I sat between her eyes, gods know how I wasn’t swept away by the wind. “What can I do?” Tears were streaming down my cheeks, mixed with rain, and I began to hum her song. The song of my whale. It wasn’t loud, I could only feel it in my throat as the wind ripped it from my lips. But there, in the heart of the storm, I heard her begin to sing.

Later, the captain swore our song killed the storm. The wind died down and we soon found ourselves in a beautiful empty sky. We sank below the clouds and floated down to the sea. They found me, half-dead at the base of her head, in between her eyes. We vowed to never sail through a storm cloud again.

#writing #literature #short story #fantasy #whale #boat #storm #fantasy writing #original fiction

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adsevel · 9 months

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Among statures of mortal customers, a snake-like entity plunged in undetected and unheard. Wrapping itself around the shopkeeper's ankle on four loops; gently like a silken thread, flapping miniatures of virescent wings like on Hermes' sandal. Imitating speech and intonation of its master and his familiar: ' You forgot something on the rooftop. ~ ' || @kuraikyu ❤️

It was one of those particularly busy days. One where he had, for better or for worse, not a moment to himself for a few hours already while watching his companions flit to and fro in attempts to alleviate workload that the shopkeeper truly did not mind. In a sense, he enjoyed the bustle of human souls filtering themselves in and out of the Shōten, so that, already by noon most of his new arrivals had been snatched up and were gone, leaving patrons arriving 'too late', to have him note and jot down more and more orders. Alas, that was just how it was, some of the imports of specialities from all over the world would ring in the ears of potential buyers all over the city before he could even announce that he had any of these delicacies for purchase.

These minutes turning to hours spent wiling away, were enough for him to be that slightest bit distracted to not quite catch the little 'intruder' making its way through customers and soon enough finding him standing amidst them all.

" What do we have here~? " A whispered intonation past so that not even the most attentive and nosy of 'guests' would be able to hear. Not a moment's notice to waste when he looks down, watching the small creature with particular interest, the softness of it, the gentleness of it. If he were any other or would not have the acquaintances he had, perhaps the sheer sight of this little snake could startle him, put him on edge, into the defensive - but so?

Urges turned and churned, driving him to excuse his presence with words of unimportance, turning attention towards a little someone far more important for heartbeats spared.

He finds a place to be for a moment. Just reaches down for the little curse that sits tamely and willingly, having uttered just that bit of teasing amongst the crowd, now repeating it like a parrot would in the seclusion of the two together. It's quite a beautiful little creature, even-tempered, just as all of Suguru's pets had turned out to be, delighting not only him but Jinta and Ururu as well should they come across them with show after show presented voluntarily [ sometimes near too freely? ] whenever the Sorcerer had been close by. Just as much as now, when the snake curls around the merchant's wrist in a fashion similar to how it had sat just moments prior, tongue flicking in mild and decided attempt to, perchance, figure out what Kisuke would now do---

--- " So I see. " Waiting, waiting, just letting it hang in the air for a bit. Free hand is used to carefully stroke along the miniature scales, reaching for those small wings to feel the texture beneath a benign touch. Nothing for the little creature to flinch away from, careful and near reverent he was with the softness of this gesture before a low chuckle follows and he would tilt his head in contemplation. To allow a message to be brought back towards point of mutual play and interest, what should he say? - Now that there was awareness spun of the ease with which it could all travel?

" Go back and tell who I forgot.--- " Of course, he was aware of the implications of the something residing upon the top of the store in hidden veils and away from prying eyes, keeping shrouded a presence that could be overwhelming when it came into contact with those that could not see or perceive the unknown. " That I will come up in an hour. If he deems it too long of a time to wait, can always come and join me a bit earlier. " Wings slowly move, stretching in all its pretty nuances of shining glimmers in the indication of understanding being granted, before the merchant would lift his arm towards the ceiling and allow the small creature to find and wind a way back to where its master would reside and expect an answer for the time being.

' You forgot something on the rooftop. ~ ' - how curious of a mocking intonation even that the Curse User was very obviously aware of the hustle and bustle around this time of the day drawing to a certain close, time halting for the night to arrive, ticking slower and slower the more concentration would be placed on ticking clocks slowing down and down - and yet he chose to remain and wait and want?

Alas, an hour is what he had aimed to let pass till joining someone so 'forgotten' in a place of mutual secrecy. Mayhap, if the cultist was willing and not let himself be guided back down in sheer throes of curiosity and restlessness, he could arrange for an array of sweets and drinks to be brought up as well. After all? If such a discardable spell had truly passed, the night-time ringing in and shining through at the edge of the horizon may just underline whatever treasured mystery they sure do hold for each other.

#kuraikyu #☆ [ ic ]#☆ [ drabble ]#geto tag tba #[ this is all gonna go on my todo list for my time off BUT HMM #here have the thing :) 💕 ]

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