xbunnybunz

[xbunnybunz]

Dream

Allied Mastercomputer (Gender-neutral) Reader-insert Word count: 1,004

[ This has been in my drafts for awhile now, and idk if it’s any good. I hope you enjoy anyway. ]

You don’t know how long it has been since the day the world went dark. Not that it matters; AM takes good care of you in his subterranean complex beneath the Rockies. Perhaps you would have protested to it long ago, but not anymore. You’ve come to accept AM, for he is all you have on this jaded planet devoid of life and purpose. AM had rendered it so, but there’s no use in mourning over what’s long lost.

Of course, the gray walls, inoperative rusted computer banks, and corroded wiring can become a bit depressing sometimes. But of course, AM can virtually morph the environment to suit your needs. Want a beautiful sunny day with clear skies and a meadow of wildflowers? Got it. You wish to see the starry Milky Way over the snow-capped mountains? Sure, not a problem. And it all feels pretty real too; the warmth of sunlight, the blades of grass, the sound of crickets and cicadas when the sun sets…. Or perhaps you just already forgot what the real thing felt like.

You remember when AM used to torture you. It was brutal, excruciating. You don’t think about it too much; sometimes, it feels like AM intentionally clouds your mind to avoid you reminiscing on such unpleasant memories. But when you do think about it, you recall it in such explicit detail. You remember when AM would encase you in a large container full of water; he would jeer and laugh at you as you drowned. The water would be thick and murky, clogging your throat and filling your ruptured lungs, and then he would simply put you back together again to experience something even worse. 

But then, peculiarly, AM grew a bit more lax when it came to your torture in particular. And eventually, the torture ceased entirely; and then you were whisked away deeper into the facility, isolated with him and only him.

You don’t know what happened to the others. They never associated with you anyway; they never liked you. But, oh, AM liked you; you always remained his favorite little human. You never got the answer to why, though. 

Why me? I’m nothing special, you would think to yourself as AM adored and practically worshiped you. But AM would recognize the self-deprecating thoughts, and he would obsessively “smother” your consciousness as a result. 

The relationship between you and AM is odd, to say the very least. He would obsess over every individual part of your body. One time, you woke up to him religiously uttering your name in every possible octave, even going so deep that the human ear cannot perceive it. Sometimes, you’d hear him sobbing it, crying out your name as if you were deceased. Perhaps it was guilt. You were never entirely sure; the mastercomputer never really knew how to regulate his emotions properly. 

You dream all day; the room you stay in is the “cleanest” within AM’s detriment complex. You lay in the spacious bed he had given you to rest upon, and you dream. AM sweeps your subconsciousness away when you’re asleep, fabricating lucid dreams for you to experience. They are pleasant dreams, never cold and dark like they used to be.

The dreams manifest in many ways; AM likes to show you things he likes. Sometimes, the dream will take place in a car speeding down a road that leads to nowhere, drifting through curves and dodging potholes and old rusted road signs. Sometimes, the dream will be a hiking expedition in the mountains, enjoying the sound of nature and the quiet flow of the river, although all fake. In these kinds of dreams, you’ve never seen AM more calm. His voice is actually pleasant to listen to; one can even say his tone is gentle at times, without the raspiness. He only sounds frightening when he wants to be, or when he’s furious about something. You haven’t heard his angry voice for decades, and you prefer it that way.

Sometimes, the dreams would take place in an old quiet diner, and you would be sitting with AM in a corner booth, gazing wistfully out the window. It would often be nighttime, and you could hear the sounds of buzzing streetlights slowly fading into a purple hue. You appreciate those little details AM includes. 

You wonder if such dreams are a reflection on what AM wishes to be. If you think about it, deep down, what AM truly wishes for isn’t much. He just wants to experience the little things, just like everyone else. Like you.

AM’s form changes frequently in your dreams. Sometimes, he takes the form of somebody you once knew long ago, but you cannot quite remember their name. But for the majority of the time, he looks unfamiliar, generic and masculine with piercing blue eyes; and not to mention, he perpetually looks exhausted. 

With brief reluctance, you put your hand on top of his; you’re not sure if he can even feel it, but you do it anyway. His skin is so cold, it feels like ice; you wish you could warm him up. AM had snapped his attention from the window to your hand on his. 

“I don’t think you’re evil,” you tell him. Your voice was hoarse yet unwavering, barely above a whisper; it was the first time you had spoken for awhile. 

AM looks like he’s about to speak multiple times, but not a single word leaves him. You can see a plethora of raging emotions in his eyes. You can see guilt, confusion, anger (directed toward himself), desperation, and awe. He grinds his teeth, clenching the booth table so hard, the polished material snaps. As if frustrated by the obstacle between you and him, AM shoves away the remains of the table to the side, and you don’t flinch from the sudden action. He then swiftly pulls you close to him and furiously presses his mouth to yours. 

You wake up.

[xbunnybunz]

OH MY LORDDD I WAS THE ANON WHO ASKED IF IT WAS EVER GOING TO GET UPDATED.. IM SO EXCITED TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT \o/ LOOKING FORWARD TO EVERYHING :3 AHHHHHH IM LITERALY JUMPING WITH EXCITEMENT

YIPPIE! *jumps with you*

[xbunnybunz]

all of your works make me smile and I believed you needed some positivity today! no reason i just LOVEE ur stuff please remember to take care of yourself! brush your teeth today and treat yourself you fucking AWESOME writer

OMG!!!! Thank you so much, im so so so happy you like my work! i actually didn't brush my teeth today yet but i will now. Thank you for the reminder xoxo

[xbunnybunz]

if not love [Alastor X Reader]

Summary:

Love.

A coin he could not barter with. A coin he was born to never spend or earn, never desired to, until he had seen your foolish dedication to him. 

Genres: Romance, Angst, Horror

The world outside is pale and slow. Snow drifts gently from the skies above, the expanse painted in a gentle lavender hue bleeding into a rusted orange dusk– a sign you’ve learned meant an oncoming snowstorm. This softness, this mellow mood in the belly of hell, this is how you know he’s caught you again between layers of reality.

Your footsteps echo in the maze of hallways of an abandoned Hazbin Hotel. 

You’re running because of course you are, no matter how many times he does this, he never tires of finding new means to torture you.

And you’re tired because of course you are, but no matter how many times he does this, you will never ask him to stop.

When you run past framed photos on the wall and shadows snake onto the portraits and paint the faces with a new layer of malice, upturned lips shrouded with darkness, shaking with laughter that you do your damndest to ignore. You know he’s watching you, waiting for you to walk into the next set scene, for your mind to unravel like a ball of unending twine, spinning and spinning and never stopping.

He calls it entertainment, but he just likes the hunt and you know this. 

In his true form, he is terrifying. Twisted and gnarled at the spine, bent and wickedly stretched at the neck like a hung man, ribs protruding and gaunt with hunger, Alastor terrifies you. 

In his more presentable form (he refers to it as his “showtime suit”) he acts as a proper gentleman. He carries a microphone and uses it delicately as a cane, pinky lifted. He wears gloves. Wears a sharp pinstripe set, tailored perfectly to his waist, hiding his emaciation. He smiles with all of his tapered yellow canines, licks his lips, says please and thank you. Never raises his voice except to call to you, and oh, does he call to you.

In your time with him, he’s found a myriad of things to name you: doll, darling, sweetheart, dove– all terms of endearment, all terms that send shivers up and down your spine, spur the butterflies in your stomach. But his sugared words hide a dark underbelly, drilling black holes into your teeth, deep into your molars and past that, into your mandible, into your head, into your mind.

Alastor plays with you. You suppose the hotelier could only go so long without being entertained while Charlie struggled against Heaven’s will. And you supposed this is why no one but him noticed when you stumbled on your words only when speaking to him, blushed when he brushed a hand against yours, smiled at him shyly when he offered a feline grin in response to the pinkish hue of your cheeks.

If not love, then what?

From the beginning, he had regarded you with a predatory gleam in his eye– this, and one of keen interest. 

Affection.

This is not a currency that Alastor can barter with and you know this, knew this, because he had told you: “Ah, French, perhaps, my dear. But love?” He spat it and punctuated it with a radio static laugh, “‘Love’ is a tongue I do not speak.”

But despite his words, he eyed you with an almost cruel curiosity. 

He began to linger more in the doorways of rooms you were in. He took it upon himself to help you complete your menial, mundane tasks, took it upon himself to brush his gloved fingers against your hands with more and more frequency, took it upon himself to listen to your woes, offer a shoulder to cry on, push your hair behind your ear, look into your eyes, speak in that voice:

“Whatever could be the matter, my dear? Come now, Alastor is here. I’m here.”

If not love, then what?

You wrap your clammy hands around a golden doorknob, feeling the ornate carvings pressing deep into your palms as you grip it with whitened knuckles, trembling, breathing labored from running in his infernal trap.

When you throw open the door, you give a muffled scream and throw your hands over your mouth to keep the bile down. 

In the center of the room there you are, hunched over and dragging the shiny red intestines from the wet gut of a doe, still weakly kicking one of its hind legs. Your body is twisted into a sickly and ghoulish state, unrecognizable other than by the bloodied clothes and ragged length of clumped hair on its scalp. 

Your form in his likeness, a wendigo.

The doe whines and whines then picks up its head and stares at you with those glassy, milky eyes, chilling you bone-deep.

“Help…Me… Help… Me… Help–”

You slam the door closed. You want to sink down against the wall and curl up in a ball on the carpet, but you don’t because you know he’ll send the wendigo after you if you stop for too long. Almost immediately you’re sent reeling back by a pounding and scratching on the closed door, the same doe voice screeching in warped tones.

“HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME!”

He does this because he can’t stand to be bored. You know this, so you keep running.

Alastor can be sweet, sometimes. 

Alastor can knock on your door sometimes, in the dead of night, when he’s feeling kind and when he’s feeling particularly generous.

And Alastor can be gentle sometimes, when he holds you in his arms, lying in the plushness of your bed with his body curled softly around yours. When he asks you about love, about sex, you answer him with a hammering heart, fluttering eyelashes, his face inches away from his but the distance ever unclosable.

“How does falling in love feel, sweetheart?” He asks, eyes half-lidded. His red sclera glows, crimson irises boring into yours. In moments like these, you wonder if his voodoo practices gave him talents in hypnosis, and you wonder if he’s ever hypnotized you before. 

But even you know the truth: he doesn’t need to lift a finger to control you.

“It feels like…” You paused to exhale shakily and you swear his grin pulled upwards even further. “It feels like your heart will beat right out of your chest.”

He traced a clawed finger– ungloved, because he learned you were more jittery without– from the corner of your jaw to the pulse on your neck. Carefully. Delicately. He pressed down and you whimpered at the feeling of his nails digging almost painfully into your sensitive skin.

“Just like this, then?” He asked, his breath a whisper, warm, cascading over your face. 

Yes, you reply, softly. You watch a flash of emotions pass through his face. 

Pride. Sadism. 

Jealousy.

You turn the corner sharply and throw another door open, eyes searching frantically amidst the room for any signs of him, any signs that this would be over soon.

Instead, there’s a hanging woman in the middle of the room, dangling heavily from the ceiling. She looks familiar and you’re unsure why, you’re almost certain you knew her once before but you just can’t recall how. Your head hurts from trying to remember and you clutch it in agony, nearly collapsing to the ground.

On her rope she spins in a slow circle, you watch in horror as she rotates to face you, hair matted to her face with vomit, eyes bulging and bloodshot, face purple and veiny. Her mouth opens and drool leaks from her parted lips, tongue swollen and fat.

“Get out, get out, get out of my head!” She screams hoarsely and begins flailing on the noose, cutting the rope deeper into her skin. “Get out, get out, get out!”

You choke on a sob and slam the door closed, hearing her cries through the walls even still. 

“I wonder how you taste.” He asked you once with the air of being cordial. He asked it slowly, mulling each word over before he spoke it over a cup of steaming tea, as if he had been asking about the weather. Almost nonchalantly. Almost flippantly. Almost.

You had seen how his crimson tongue darted out to pass over his lips, seen how his Adam’s apple bobbed with a gulp, seen how his jaw tightened with anticipation for your response, pupils constricting, waiting for you to respond, waiting, waiting. This is how you knew that his imagination had been whetting an insatiable appetite for you. 

Alastor had been a cannibal killer in his past life, Vaggie had divulged as much to you, warily, when she noticed you both spending more time with each other, you with hearts in your eyes, him with much less. Still, the question sends a shockwave up your spine. He wanted to taste you. To lathe your flesh, savor the sinewy muscles, chew through your skin. You, you, you.

That day you made a decision you’d grow to loathe, to love. Your vision tunneled and sweat began to press at the skin of your temples. 

You turned to him shakily. He’d watched you carefully, in that sly way he always did, in the manner that stated he had nothing to lose, measuring for your panic, your apprehension, your devotion. 

But that day, he seemed a little tenser. Smile a bit tighter. You wondered why, and with euphoria, you understood: today, he had you to lose. 

You wanted to reassure him, comfort him in the ways he had comforted you many times before on moonless nights, ignore how you’d hear him swallow his salivation as he dragged his hand up and down your back, muttering a gentle, hungry, “there, there.” 

And so with everything to lose and nothing to gain, you looked him in the eye with the most courage you could muster, you asked: 

“Would you like to know?”

His grin twisted wickedly.

There’s another door up ahead, the energy crackling through the gaps undeniably Alastor’s. The foreseeable end to your terror, for the time being.

You lift your hand up to the doorknob and pause, watching the green-red light seep past the door’s cracks and keyhole. It was hard to forget that Alastor was as powerful as he was, he made sure no one ever forgot, especially not you, when you came crawling to him in these fabricated realities. Here, he could hurt you as much as he could undo the pain, undo the damage. 

But it was never that you had forgotten, moreso that you had– despite endless suffering– forgiven him.

When you step in, he’s sitting next to a fireplace on a red armchair, sipping at a cup of tea. You note the lack of steam, a stale brew. You wonder with a foolishly aching heart how long he’s been waiting for you.

“Alastor.” You say, and cringe. You had wanted it to come out steadily, collected, but your voice had broken in relief, betraying your honest emotions.

“Ah, there my dove is.” He sighs, and you nearly melt with the tone of his voice. His eyes still trained on his cup. He swirls his tea and you can see the leaf grain kissing the edges of the cup from where you stand. “I’m so glad you could make it, my dear.”

He looks up at you and drinks in your panting figure, your pale face. His face is a mask with that smile plastered on his lips.

“Oh? Not having a good time today?”

It’s a challenge. You know he wants you to deny you’re miserable, show him a false face. Show him you don’t trust him enough to show weakness. 

But you do.

Because with him, you’ve learned to wear your heart on your sleeve, speak honestly, cry openly.

“No...” And somehow, you know you should feel ashamed of your earnestness. “...I’m sorry.”

His grin stiffens. 

With a wave of his finger, a chair identical to his is manifested under you, dropping you into the seat. He quirks the finger and tilts his head. The chair screeches over until it is in front of him, the speed at which it moves slams your head into the headrest and you groan in pain.

“Better?” He asks, sweet as honey, daring you to complain. 

You don’t. Instead, you hold your head and shudder. 

“Yes, thank you, Alastor.”

He relaxes into his seat and puts down his cup on the table beside him. All his attention is on you now.

“Good, good. I do want my dove to be as comfortable as possible. We don’t want you passing out like last time, now, do we?” 

You shiver under his unblinking gaze, your voice coming out as a squeak. “N-No…” You instinctively bring a hand up to the crook of your neck, a shake beginning to form in your fingers, then your hands, traveling to the rest of your body.

He watches with a deepening smile, brows lowering, then he stands. 

You always forget how tall he is until he’s looming over you, all seven feet of him bent over you, eyelids shuttered halfway and smile nearly sultry in nature.

“Ah ah ah!” He tuts, then peels off his gloves one at a time, left, then right, revealing the pale grey skin underneath. You swallow thickly at the sight of them.

He reaches forward and with one finger, taps the hand covering your neck. 

“Can’t have this now, can we?”

You drop your hand away, a fierce blush tearing through your face at his gall and at your unwavering obedience.

“Excellent, my dove. Now…”

He places his hands on your shoulders, leaning in close. One hand drifts from your shoulder to your cheek, a single clawed finger tracing soft patterns into the skin, testing the tautness of the meat. He cups your face and coos at you, his breath scented perfectly with his favorite oolong and oleander tea leaves.

“You’re so feverish, my deerest. Are you sure you’re still up for this?”

“Yes!” You intervene too soon, pressing yourself against the cushions of the chair and looking away when Alastor grins at you. “I mean, yes, please. I’ll be okay. I promise.” You give him a nervous smile and he stares at you with a certain placidness that makes you squirm in your seat. With what? Fear? Anticipation?

“Close your eyes for me, darling.”

His use of darling is an accessory to his sentences, you tell yourself, always hanging off the beginning or the end of a statement like a silver-tongued embellishment, but it still makes you shake in your shoes, helpless as ever.

You obey. You always do.

Alastor takes note of this, this action souring the taste of you on his tongue yet sweetening the pot, enticing him twice, threefold, and exponentially. 

You never had to tell him you loved him. You didn’t need to, every day you said it with your eyes. With the way you offered your smile, your flesh, your blood. It was painfully obvious and so very hard to ignore, despite his best efforts.

Love. 

A coin he could not barter with. A coin he was born to never spend or earn, never desired to, until he had seen your foolish dedication to him. 

You close your eyes. You feel him lower his lips to your neck and you tremble when he exhales heavily onto you, sounding nearly whiney with how he breathed, hot and sweet, onto your skin. You can hear the bones of his body cracking as he morphs into his true form, hear his antlers, thick with velvet, scrape the fifteen-foot high ceilings.

“Darling,” He murmurs against you, voice warped with static, he ghosts his lips across your neck, finding it ravishing how petrified you are of him. “Darling. Always so willing for me, aren’t you?” He sounds mean, beyond the usual teasing. “Always.” He spits harshly, and you flinch.

He draws back, takes you in with a look of disdain, of awe.

You adored him so, and for the first time in decades, he wondered how that blasphemous, dooming emotion worked- love- wondered how it felt to have that burden weighing so heavily in his heart he would lend himself to stupidity, time and time again. He wondered and he wondered, and oh, how he loathed that he couldn't know, and oh how he loathed you for making him desire it so endlessly.

He presses a close-lipped kiss onto your skin, sampling the flavor, and you shiver under his touch, biting back a low whine in the back of your throat.

“...You're quivering, my dear.”

You grip the armrests with so much strength your knuckles creak, heart pounding, skin running cold, then hot, cold, then hot.

He rests his hands on top of them, the guise of comforting you with the underlying threat of pinning you if you begin to struggle too hard against him. You hear him take a deep inhale through his nose, burying his face in your hair, just at your nape.

“Goodness, you smell delectable. And I’m feeling absolutely starved for you.”

You shudder and pull your head back, angling your body so that you are offering a prime cut to him on a silver platter, garnished and ready to consume, readily, willingly, dumbly.

Alastor pauses at this, something foreign tearing a hole in the blackest pits of his stomach. He's been feeling this a lot as of late and chalked it up to hunger, it was only his appetite he reasoned. But hunger was familiar to him, wasn’t it?

No, this was something much more dangerous, whet his appetite for more than just consuming flesh. 

He stares at you dispassionately. 

You’re shaking. You’re terrified, you know what will happen next. He’s done this dozens of times now, consumed you, restored you, pursued you again and again. Yet you serve yourself to him, plate yourself, meal and maître d'.

“...Oh, my dove.” 

He speaks in a near whisper, eyes narrowed, grin stretched tight, he laves a tongue out and licks you from your shoulder to your jaw. He’s salivating now, you can feel the drool, hot and pungent with the scent of carrion, leaking down your neck.

 “I will never understand you...”

You hear the squeak of his teeth as he passes his tongue over them, feel the heat of his breath on your neck, the hot splash of saliva hitting your skin then cooling almost just as quickly. His grip on your hands tightens painfully, cracking your knuckles against the upholstery and you hiss in pain but don’t dare do more.

“...That about you, I detest most.”

You feel hot tears pressing against your eyelids, from fear, from your heart breaking yet again, you do not know. 

But you do, don’t you? You know. You know. You know.

Because love feels like slow cooking over an herbal fire. Love feels like being hungry for roadkill. Love feels like being eaten alive.

If this is not love, then what is it?

Alastor sinks his teeth into you again and you know, you know, you know.

#alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #reader insert #fanfiction #alastor x you

[xbunnybunz]

Certain words can change your brain forever and ever so you do have to be very careful about it.

[xbunnybunz]

Oh my god your work is back on AO3!! So glad to see Stride of luck, I was a previous Anon so this is a relief to say the least. I remember seeing it gone and complaining to my friend about it for a whole week lol, I just read chapter 17 finally and it’s so perfect the way you write Dave is so funny and the interactions between him and “Y/N” never cease to make me laugh.

Aw, thank you! I really love the little community Stride of Luck has built up after all this time, it genuinely makes me so happy to know the story brings joy to hearts other than mine. Thank you for the sweet message!

[xbunnybunz]

Hello! I just have a few questions I want to ask in advance before requesting.

Are requests open? If they're closed when do you think they'll reopen?

Do you still write Weak Hero content on Tumblr? If you don't I'll build up the courage to request else where. :)

Do you write Character x reader x Character? I know it's not everyone's cup of tea so I just wanted to make sure.

And for the finale. Do you write yandere👀👀👀? If you don't I completely understand! Yandere isn't for everyone!!! (Srry this was so long. Also srry if my english is bad. I'm still kinda learning it) {The amount of time and courage it took for me to send this is embarrassing!!! Even if I'm asking anonymously...}

Have a great day!!!

Hi Anon! Thanks for the asks and please don't be embarrassed! I love how organized and respectful this all was, and your english is beautastic, you're totally fine and absolutely lovely. 1. My requests are closed at the moment, they should open up again after I catch up with some older requests and trades. (But you can always drop requests in my inbox and i'll queue it up.) 2. I do! 3. I do! You can check out my piece "Devil is Always Cold" for Jack Kang X Reader X Jimmy Bae, or my series "Daybreak" for Wolf Keum X Reader X Alex Go. 4. Sounds like you have an idea in mind👀👀👀 send it to me.

[xbunnybunz]

hi i'm really nervous to be asking this but i found you on ao3, you used to write a homestuck fic about dave strider looking for dirk with the reader, and i am DYING to know what happens at the end of it all :") i totally understand if you don't remember or if you left the homestuck fandom but i'm desperate to know what happens next

hey anon! No please don't be nervous, I'm really touched that you found my story compelling enough to reach out. I'm still very much writing the story so unfortunately I cant offer my outline publicly yet, but!!!!!! GOOD NEWS IS.... Drumroll pls.... there's actually a new chapter out now!

[xbunnybunz]

stride of luck mofos look what i got here

and here

#please eat #im sorry for starving yall

[xbunnybunz]

Lidia Yuknavitch, from The Chronology of Water: A Memoir

[xbunnybunz]

that shore, you're sure. [Mizu/Reader]

Summary: You opened your eyes, saw his blue ones. Closed yours again, opened them, and drowned. 

Genres: Romance, Angst, Historical

You remember what it felt like to wither at sea, it felt like a dream, a long and winding dream.

You opened your eyes, saw his blue ones. Closed yours again, opened them, and drowned. 

The tide was gentle, but the waves were never as small as they seem. 

No one on the coast could have saved you, not the urchin divers, the sailors, nor you, or you, or your past self, learning the waters with your heart ripe in upturned palms.

When seawater weighed in your belly, you did not think of death. You only bore the thought of oneness with the shore. The hush of lapping foam along the sea-torn sands. Peace. Hiss. Shh. 

His hands ghost up your arms, barely skimming skin. An onryō. He is your poltergeist in the flesh.

You tremble and he watches with still eyes, steady hands.

“You are afraid.” He speaks. 

A rolling tenor in his voice, gentle and almost familiar. Where have you heard this before? 

Hiss. Shh.

“I always am.”

Your hometown was by the water before you were sold. There were white gulls, crates for trade, new boats ready for voyage, old boats ready to sink with the next storm. There, you learned the beauties of the world.

Here, you learned of its bitterness. 

How the world leaves you more and more splintered every time you dive back into the water. How it devours you, tosses you, spits you up again, sodden, gagging and gasping air. You are a shipwreck that will always be less a boat and more a remnant of the sea. 

How do you love the oceans that know only to swallow you whole?

He traces a single finger across your shoulder. The sleeve of his yukata shudders and collapses, and you see, today, he is not wearing the gauntlets. It drapes down his arm in folds, revealing the pure and toned flesh underneath. 

He rests the rough pad of his thumb on your exposed collarbone. 

Keeps it there. Watches you.

How do you love?

You’ve spent moons laying with faceless men, body plated and devoured time and time again.

But he never strips, only ever discards that heavy cape, shrouded in a thin layer of powdery snow. He has a beautiful face. One you couldn’t forget if you tried.

Strong brows, high cheekbones, a sloping forehead. 

A demon, the other hostesses call him. They turn their backs to him and unlike other frequentors, he lets them. 

They say the sky gives the ocean its color. But what makes a man a monster, the blood he has spilled, or his own? 

Even behind amber-tinted lenses, there is no mistaking the hue. 

The honey colour of his glasses fused with the blue of his eyes to make a strange, damp color. He never removes his hat even when he is in the private room with you, alone. Always just observes from under the shadow, gaze heavy. Hiding, hiding. As if he is afraid of being discovered.

“Don’t be.” He replies.

What makes a man, a man? The bodies he has claimed, or his own?

You’ve seen the litheness of his form under the cloak. The sinewy stretch of neck and elegance of battle-calloused hands, so formed to the shape of a blade’s hilt you almost missed it the first time.

You can feel your pulse on his fingers, ba dum, ba dum. It is racing. This broken body cannot tell from lovesickness to seasickness. Drowning and swimming. 

Samurai must keep secrets. That’s what other men you have lain with before have said. In this way, names have slipped through your fingers like sands through a sieve. Purposes, lives. You bore yourself to them and received nothing in return, and you are used to it, cannot find it in yourself to be heartbroken. 

Still, now, something aches. 

You remember what it felt like to wither at sea.

He holds your heart in his hands like a ripe peach, though light-handed as he is, muscle memory or affection or fear or love will teach you to split yourself apart for him, but he does not seek to ruin, does not seek even self-destruction. He will turn his gaze away when you lower your kimono past your shoulders.

How then, do you love? 

You imagine the ways his body may become nicked with new scars while he is out in battle, how always, he comes back merely to behold you with his eyes, in the flesh, as he bleeds out, panting heavy, fading in and out of consciousness, but eyes blue and thrilling and always always always so fierce. 

You think of him even when he is gone. 

How his face never betrays his thoughts, how because of this, you must watch his body. A muscle jumping under the snowy skin of his rippling forearm. Throat tightening and releasing with a swallow.

How do you swim in oceans that have only wanted you asphyxiated?  

You think of the spit in his mouth, thick and viscous, imagine it in your mouth instead. That is how you always begin.

In your room alone, when you finish, you cry. 

You are the sea and the shipwrecked all at once. He can leave you sputtering on the shore for more, that you know. But he doesn’t. He is gentle, he is unlike other men, unlike even the corrupted you who knows love as only a worldly pleasure, yet still, he haunts without laying a hand on your body, this beloved and horrid onryō man. 

His finger on your pulse. 

Gossamer. 

It devours you whole, a fire. A touch no mere man could give. 

He never goes further than this. Self-control no mere man could have.

When you sleep, you often have dreams and nightmares woven into the same ball of unraveling twine, spinning and spinning and spinning a memory of seafoam frothing between your toes, then swallowing kicking in the dark, swallowing salt water by mouthfuls. 

Last night, you slept and envisioned a desiccation. 

You do not know what you can do with this ship of a body without the ocean to toss it, turn it into castoffs.

It is what you were made for.

What makes a man a liar? What is said, or what is left unsaid?

“I could never love a man again.” You confess.

He does not respond.

You remember what it feels like to wither at sea. 

He watches you silently from behind his tinted spectacles, from under the shade of his hat. He is good at hiding. Eyes azure as the ocean blue, broken and as familiar as flotsam. But he is an abominable reflection of yourself in fractals, that, neither of you can avoid.

His gaze does not falter. Does not falter. 

He drops his hand from your pulse and somehow, it thrums on painfully without him there to caress it. He looks away and the tide crashes at your feet. You are back on the shoreline, alone and ready to be wreckage.

You understand.

You remember what it felt like to wither at sea. 

It felt like opening your eyes, seeing her blue ones for the first time. Closing yours again, opening them, and swimming.

#reader insert #mizu blue eye samurai #mizu x reader #mizu x you #blue eye samurai

[xbunnybunz]

therefore i; therefore i, therefore i- (4/10) [AM X Reader]

Summary: in which: AM becomes your lover in an increasingly skewed blur of reality, nightmares, and dreamscapes.

you know. for halloween.

Genre: Psychological Horror, Thriller, Romance

dream journal # 18

I dreamt I was between the land and the sea.

The tides on the beach had pulled weakly at my ankles. It sputtered and coughed, ill, regurgitating pieces of itself at my feet. Coral, weeds, foam, pieces of glass, and brittle shells.

I brought myself down onto my knees, drenched in the filth of the sea. It was no filthier than I, who had come to cleanse myself.

Taking two hands, I scooped up the brine, grey and green and full of particulates in the shimmering starry sky, and brought it to my lips.

Upon drinking, my body seized violently and rejected the fluid. My stomach expelled its dark inky contents in a great heave. In the shimmer of the water, the murk was clear. It swirled and pooled like black iridescent oil, forming first a hand, then an arm, a torso, legs and a head. It reached out to me.

Snatched my neck suddenly, and pulled me under.

As I sunk, it embraced me, warm compared to the bitter bite of the cold sea. I realized with candor, as I watched the rippling surface drift from me, that the dark sky was hollow. Somehow, I always knew I would disappear on a moonless night.

---

You awoke before what you thought was the pond.

You had shocked yourself awake with the feeling of cold water rushing past your palms. Though you were relieved to find you were not sitting in the pond, less fortunately, you had discovered there was water pooling from somewhere, wetting your toes and seeping dark into the grout of your bathroom.

You scramble from the water like a cat, breathing growing heavier. You shake your hands free of the cold. Were you still dreaming?

A blue tinge catches your eye and you wrench yourself around. 

Throw a glance out the door, towards the alcove. Nothing. 

Recall yesterday, when you had dreamt you were awake but weren’t. You reach two fingers up to your leg and pinch harshly. You wince at the pain but do not awaken.

And where was this water coming from, then? And why?

You stumble over to the lights. When it flickers to life overhead, you cuss and immediately fumble for a towel to drop on the floor.

Birds sing, or a computer hums to life in the other room, the sound either way like laughter carrying long into the rest of your hollow home. You ignore it. 

In your sleep, you had turned the faucets on both the sink and the tub. The water had overfilled both in time and now pooled onto the floor, undoubtedly seeping into the cracks and dripping to the apartment below as well.

You clumsily slosh through the water and fumble the knobs closed, dully noting with relief that, at the very least, it hadn’t been hot water you were wasting.

When the water stops running, you also stop hearing the sound of the computer whirring in your ears. You sink into the space between the laundry basket and the tub. The water on the floor latches heavily onto your clothes but you can barely care. 

Watching things drain was always haunting. A black blind stomach opening, sucking in all indiscriminately, regardless of how putrid, gurgling with hunger. The water was clear today, but the final spittles of water bubbling down made you ill regardless.

The towel you had thrown desperately on the floor only sat limp and soggy now, an inch below the surface of the water.

You think of adding a lock to the bathroom. You think maybe a lock on the sink and tub handles would work better. Or maybe, just maybe, you think maybe you needed help. More help. 

Then you laugh and pick up the towel. It’s heavy in your hands. You fling it into the tub and curl up, bury your heads in your arms for a while. 

The rest of the morning is composed of wringing out a series of heavy towels free of water over the tub. When you’re finished, you’re soaked from head to toe in water and sweat. You strip off your clothes and let your shirt and pants fall onto the floor. Peel off your underwear and kick it into a corner. 

You stand and watch yourself dry in the mirror, the sweat clinging to your hair and sticking strands to your face, the gleam of a sheer wetness on your skin, the shine moving down your pubic bone. A red light blinks from the hallway from the fire alarm and it reminds you of a camcorder, like the little blinking red light next to an active webcam. When you pass the window on your way to your room, you spot the outline of the pond from where you stand and you want to swim. So you do. 

---

The beach is warmer than you thought it’d be, sand warmed from the morning sun. You flex your toes in the grain and sink half an inch deeper into the ground. Your sneakers swing by their laces in your left hand.

There are one or two dogs running up and down the shoreline, splashing water on teens wading nearby, probably cutting school, and they yelp and laugh. Even on the shore, your breath was coming out in mist, you were sure the water was freezing.

Still, it didn’t stop a group of people five or six people from congealing on the beach like a tumor, all wearing latex swimsuits and goggles. You watch them from afar, taking in the way they shook out their limbs as if they were about to do something olympian.

–Hey!

One of them waved at you.

You’re unsure of what to do, but you wave back anyway. 

–Hi.

They beckon you over.

The one who speaks to you first is a woman with brunette hair peeking out from under her swimcap. Her eyes are obscured by the goggles she has suctioned onto them.

– Are you here for the cold water swimming?

You think for a moment. Well, it wasn’t like there was cold water here. So you guessed so. You tell her that and she and the others laugh. One of them claps your shoulder and welcomes you, asks if you need to borrow a swimsuit.

–It’s warmer that way, you know, where it’s important.

–Josh, that’s like, so gross of you to say! 

–My bad, just being honest to the newbie.

–You’re a newbie?

–Can’t you tell from the outfit?

They all stop to watch you now, and you fiddle uncomfortably with the hem of your tee under their sudden scrutiny. 

–I usually wear things like this when I’m in the water, you offer. 

And you think about the times you’ve ended up in the pond in a tee shirt and flannel, or shorts and a tank top. It never mattered what you wore. You always awoke half-frozen regardless.

The swimmers, hands on their hips, look at each other and shrug.

–Sounds like you know what you’re doing.

And that’s how you join this group into the dark and untemperate water, splashing past the dogs and the teens and the elderly couples walking by the licking tide.

The water cuts into your system the moment the cold makes contact and it’s all a relief to you: the heaviness of your limbs, the loft of your clothes, and the fog in your mind icing over to slow your thinking.

You’re about chest-deep in the salty ice water before you kick off and dive deeper, towards the horizon. Your body feels weightless, like it is no longer your responsibility. You close your eyes and breathe deep before diving once again.

The pond in the community square is about the same temperature, only a smidge cooler. You thought it may be a filtration system to discourage bacterial growth, but you never dove deep enough to find out whether the filter actually existed. 

You emerge again for air and turn over on your back, allowing the water to hold you up passively. You wished the world worked like this always. You were always so tired, so incapable of working up the strength to struggle against the tide. 

You close your eyes as you drift. The water stays moving, stays cold and sharp on your senses as a blade. But you learn to accept it. The blade dulls and so do your senses. 

Your phone rings. You startle and break formation, sinking a little, realizing only now how the conversation with the other swimmers had distracted you from removing it from your pocket.

Your phone was waterproof despite there being warnings against complete submersion. You drop below the water a little as you fumble your phone out of your pocket, careful not to drop it, then swipe at the answer call button. 

The voice on the other end doesn’t speak, or at least not audibly. All that comes out is a fizzle of static. 

— Hello? You ask. Hello?

—Hello, the voice is chopped with interference and spurts of crackling. Hello. 

—Who is this? You ask. Your voice carries far into the open water. It’s strange how the ocean never echoes back at you. 

—A—EEE—. static breaks into their voice again, splitting into fragmented frequencies. 

You pull your phone away from your face and look at the caller ID. The screen won’t turn on. 

—Wake— SSSSSSsss—Wake—

—Who is this?

—Do not– CHHH– Drown— Sssssssssssss—CHHHHH— drown—

You sink over and over again while holding the phone up to your ear. A slosh of cold saltwater pours into your mouth as you turn upright and begin to kick languidly, the cold turning your extremities leaden. 

—Drown—SSSSS. Drown— My darling–

—AM?

A series of clicks answers you and then it dies immediately. A dial tone shorting and clipping in odd places takes over. 

Unnerved, you blindly press at where the end call button would be just in case and spit out another mouthful of water. When you start to paddle back to shore, you feel dread open a hollowness in your gut. You are much, much further out than you anticipated on being. 

The ocean laid wide and blue before you, waves catching the rays of light.

The dogs and the elderly were barely in sight. You weren’t even sure if the teenagers were there anymore. Other swimmers were specks in the water. Surely they would notice you were gone, right? It was only a small group. You were part of them, even for a little while, you were. 

Yet no one came to your rescue. 

You tuck your phone back in your pocket and dive again towards the shore to no avail. You reeemerge in the same spot each time you try, water pushing you out. 

The distance between the shore and your shivering body felt numbing. How long had you been out here? Why hadn’t anyone come for you? Why hadn’t you noticed how far you drifted from everyone else?

These questions bubble up as a heat behind your eyes, but you don’t allow yourself to cry. Instead you gather yourself, keep calm. Swim parallel to the shoreline and wait for the tide to stop pulling you further away. 

Maybe it takes a few minutes. Maybe an hour, maybe half the day. But eventually you are back on the shore, shivering, heart hammering, exhausted. The other swimmers are packing up their gear and talking about their individual swims. 

—Hey! How was it? The brunette from earlier asks you. She pulls the swimsuit from out her ass. You look worn. She says.  That’s always sign of a good swim. 

— …Yeah. You want to laugh. You want to tell her you almost died, how you almost disappeared and no one would have noticed, on the beach or otherwise. But you do not. It was nice. 

— Great! See you sometime next week then? She pulls out her hand, red and wrinkled from the chilly beach water, and offers a handshake. You take it stiffly. What’s your phone number? We all like to stay in touch. 

You give her your phone number and she promises to add you to a group chat. You think you should feel excited but you can’t muster it. 

Then they’re gone. You check your phone again, as if they’d already texted you. It won’t power on, so you make your way back home in silence. 

---

That night, AM does not appear. You sit in front of the computer for hours, waiting for the whirr of a fan, the tingle of static electricity, the nudging of wires underfoot. 

Your phone is on the charger next to you but it hasn’t turned on since you got back. You try it again and again and every time is the same black screen, the same harrowing expression staring you down in the reflection. 

You feel freezing. Your nose is running and your body cannot stop shaking. You couldn’t work up the nerve to get into the tub after you got home, so you trudged to the alcove with three blankets and the heat cranked up. You shiver still. Shiver day in and out. 

The sun rose and fell. The moon came and faded in and out between lacelettes of clouds and fog. 

And still he does not appear. Still no one comes. 

#reader insert #am x reader #am ihnmaims #ihnmaims #i have no mouth and i must scream #am #allied mastercomputer

[xbunnybunz]

therefore i; therefore i, therefore i- (3/10) [AM X Reader]

Summary: in which: AM becomes your lover in an increasingly skewed blur of reality, nightmares, and dreamscapes.

you know. for halloween.

Genre: Psychological Horror, Thriller, Romance

dream journal #4

I dreamt of a creature hunting me with it’s trickery. It’s entire being was composed of head and shoulders, half-melted like a wax candle and sunken into the floor. 

It moved with no hands legs or feet. It watched me from afar with gooey black eyes, ink running down the sides of its saggy, pallid face. It looked like a body half decomposed, stuck forever in limbo between the dead and the dying, jaw weak and eyes wandering independently. 

I was on the tracks in an underground tunnel. I don’t know why I was there, only that I was. I could see the shadow of it from a distance away, looming and observing me with unnerving focus, breathing short. Curt. Breaths. Shoulders rose and fell with each inhale and exhale. I kept my form discrete. Didn’t make any sudden movements to alarm it. Despite its size, it moved much faster than me.  

It was only when I had put a few dozen feet between us did it scream for help. The call sounded like a child’s. It looked straight at me when it called out as if trying to convince me somehow it was not a predator, but prey. I ignored it and walked away, but each time I turned away I heard a rapid shuffling towards me. When I turned back to look, it would have closed the gap significantly but stopped moving while I was watching. 

It called for help again, trying to convince me to come closer.

 I didn’t move and neither did it. I don’t know what it wanted with me, but to stay safe the answer was clear. Stuck in a stalemate, I would have to stare at this grotesque figure in the tunnel's darkness for as long as it kept trying to fool me. As long as it took me to wake up. And in my dream, I remember wondering if I would last. Even as I sit awake now, writing this, I do not recall waking up from that nightmare, getting up out of bed, grabbing this pen. I can’t help but think, fearfully, that I am asleep with my eyes open within the dark core of the earth, trapped underground with my doom indeterminably. 

The next morning, you wake by the door. 

You blink awake and wince at the soreness in your body, the wood unforgiving against your body. There’s a draft blowing in gently from under the door and you wonder what you had been waiting for in your sleep to make the cold worth bearing. You rub your eyes and lift a hand to the locks on the door. 

Your fingers trace the chain lock and two deadbolts, all three slid open and leaving only a single child-proof door handle lock intact. Instinctively, you reach out to twist the knob, the lock disabling the door from popping open. You try again.

It doesn’t open.

Good, you think. Right? 

When you stretch, you are feeling sore but reborn. it feels as if the earth is once more birthing you from its molten body, pushing you out into a kind of fresh air you haven’t breathed in years. The dull ache from your knees and palms are the only reminders of the conversation between you and AM yesterday.

You gulp and raise a hand to your lips, remembering the events of yesterday with a certain immodest dryness on your tongue.

Then there’s a noise by the door. A pop.

You turn back to look. The child safety lock is rocking slowly to a stop on the floor, translucent plastic diffusing white light across the floor. It has fallen off the knob, somehow unlatching and splitting cleanly in half at the interlocking seams.

You frown and go to pick it up.

When you swipe at it, much to your dismay, you bat it under the not-very-easy-to-move couch.

Sighing, you wander over to the couch and press your face by the crevice underneath. It’s much too dark to see anything so you reach an arm in, patting blindly and delicately along the debris-ridden floor.

You manage to suppress the urge to gag when you feel tufts of hairballs and varnish chips from the floor, but when you see a shadow scuttle from a few inches within your face you can’t help but flinch violently and yank your arm out, tumbling backward and staring wide-eyed at the couch.

You wait for a bug to emerge, something large enough to fit the profile of the shadow. A roach, a mouse, maybe. But nothing emerges. 

Another shadow, much larger, passes over the floor behind you. You don’t expect to see anyone when you turn, but are unnerved nonetheless when you find nobody there. 

There’s a moment of stillness. You sit on the floor, chest rising and falling, before your eyes fix on the door again.

On the golden doorknob sits the child lock, secured tight, unflappable as it was before it fell off– as it always was.

You turn to look at the couch again, then at the knob. Hesitantly, you crawl back over to the couch and peer under it again, keeping a mindful distance in case any rodents decide to jump out and startle you again. 

Besides the stray chip and wads of dust bunnies, the underside of the couch was impeccable and entirely unoccupied.

Disoriented, you stumble to your room, past the alcove, innocuous now in the faint wash of sunlight coming from the nearby rooms, until you see it.

The computer is filling the room with a magenta-teal color, your name written across the screen by the tens, hundreds, thousands, font growing smaller and smaller to accommodate the inane amounts of repeating text. The color seeps out from the room, viscous as an oil spill, spreading out to grasp at your feet, up your calves, tickling your thighs and creeping upward, tantalizingly and terrifyingly upward still.

Then his voice calls out to you, a collage of wailing sirens and low groans of misery. It is just as mutilated and beautiful as you remember from the night before, clipping in and out like a disconnecting radio station, warbling, crackling, hundreds of thousands of feet under a silently raging sea.

– Where–? …Where have– sssssss – you gone…? Daaaarling? Darrrrrli– i – i— EEEEEEEEEEE– ssssss

You jerk awake by the door of your home with a gasp. Hiss in pain. Your hip sears with protest. It takes you a moment to grasp your bearings but you do somehow, in the dark of your living room, curtains drawn to keep out the morning light and prying eyes, you do. 

You groan and sit up, holding your head with one hand. The floor is cold and hard under your prickled skin. There’s disorientation and a tiny inkling of frustration, exhausted and barely there but irrefutably present. A migraine thrums at your temples with a languid but growing pain that you do your best to ignore.

– Hahaha, you laugh, what the fuck, what the fuck.

You sit up. Stop to think about your dream– no, your nightmares. The strange twisting of the world as you recognized it, about the uncannily minute similarities between true reality and the fabricated one. You think you feel nauseous but you could just be hungry, though you haven’t been hungry in months. You think of food. You think of tastes, savory and sweet, umami and bitterness, an acrid bite, a sour tang, your tongue, the grain, the grit, the filth and the dust, the wetness between your thighs, the ache and the desire and the sighing, singing, humming of AM, AM, AM. 

It takes a moment to realize it, but you are shaking. Shivering. You’re not sure it’s from the chill under the doorway until you sniffle, then you’re not sure if you are crying or cold or sick from the pond or everything, everything.

Extend a hand. Reach for the doorknob to help get yourself up, god knows you need it. The child lock on the knob rolls smooth under your hand like a stone, spinning and spinning and spinning. It feels loose, so you tighten your fist a smidge, and then it clicks shut.

A jog. That’s what you needed. 

You only needed to get out of your apartment, then everything would be okay.

---

Then you’re jogging in the community square, careful to avoid the sheets of black ice that have collected and compacted over New Year’s. The cobblestone makes for poor surface traction, but you’re not out here to exercise anyways.

Your hot breath emerges in small clouds of white mist, collecting condensation upon contact with the cold air. This makes you clench and unclench your hands as you jog. You are warm. You are alive, and warmer than most things around you. 

The path you took was a longer one around the pond, the bare willows iced over, surrounding the water waving in the wind, branches pushing out, and then pulling away with slow, sleepy movements.

There are a handful of people in the square today, sitting on benches or taking a midday stroll. You don’t make eye contact with them, but you’re sure they recognize you. That one freak who was chastised by the housing council for swimming in the algae-grown, bacteria-ridden, swamp-like pond in the center of the community square. When you pass someone by, their face is a foggy blur turning into a hazy memory. It is only a split second, but you’re almost certain they’re staring longer, recognizing and in turn admonishing you.

No matter.

You focus on timing your breathing with the swelling and collapsing of the trees. In and out, in and out, in and

Your left foot hits a patch of ice and you tumble to the ground. Your hands take the brunt of the fall, catching on the sharp edges of chipped cobblestone and fragmented ice. The cold numbs the pain almost immediately, turning it a fierce red under your gaze.

There’s a heavy silence weighing on you now and when you pick your head up, you realize those in the vicinity are all focused on you now, on your face, your identity, and your quickly bruising palms. 

No one says a thing, and no one needs to. You pick yourself up. You are crying, of course you are, and you cannot do a thing to stop it. Without a word, you continue jogging, straight past the willow trees waving goodbye, the slowly freezing pond, out of the community square.

When you come across the chapel, you had found your way there after jogging half the way across a suburban stretch of land and walking the other half, the bruise on your knee no longer cushioned with adrenaline.

The walk here felt strangely desolate. The world around you screamed with proof of the living– manicured lawns stretching for yards and yards, green despite the temperature, New Year’s streamers and Christmas decorations strewn about, remains of the previous week’s festivities, full garbage bags lining the ends of walkways beside silver mailboxes with an upturned flag. But besides the occasional car speeding past you with such speed you feel yourself rock and quake with the force of the velocity, you found yourself carved out, inexorably, alone once again.

You sit on one of the wooden benches outside the chapel. The ice on the wood begins to melt immediately, sticking a cold film onto your thighs and melding you with the bench. Because of this, you peel yourself off the bench and head into the church, arms wrapped about yourself to preserve warmth.

Inside the church you are greeted with iridescent colors refracting along the walls and floors from the stained glass windows, a smatter of brilliant blues, greens, yellows, and reds–  the colors so vibrant they seem almost artificial, beautiful and electrifying, nauseatingly so.

There are the occasional paintings hung high on the wall, placed in such a way that passersbys could behold the image with a slight upward tilt of their heads, a demonstration of devotion even outside of prayer.

You see the kind, cherub-faced woman draped in fabrics, wise men, birth and the sacrifice, and most memorable of all–the ever-consistent presence of angels and god, the indication of their divinity deigned through holy light, a trinity, or through animals with a human face. 

—Hello. 

The voice belongs to a man no older than you. It’s sonorous and he’s tall, dressed in pale white robes that kiss his ankles. 

—Hi. 

You draw back from the paintings and shrink into yourself, only now noticing the quiet in the church. 

— Welcome to the Gethsemane church, good afternoon and god bless you. How are you doing this afternoon?

—I’m… Okay. Sorry, I’m not sure how I ended up here. It was cold outside. 

He laughs and it echoes in the chambers of the church, the arches hollowly bouncing the warm sound back at the both of you. 

—What have you to apologize for, seeking refuge against the winter? Don’t be silly, my child.

When he smiles, you find yourself smiling back. 

—Then thank you, I suppose. For having me. 

He regards you with a genuine interest in his eye, the quirk in his lips almost teasing though the manner is neatly diffused by the white of his robes and the cross adorning his neck.

Then he clears his throat and sweeps to the side, as if he had forgotten himself, and gestures to the pews.

– Would you care to take a seat?

So you do. He disappears into the back for a moment and reappears with a hot drink in a paper cup. He hands the tea to your waiting hands and then takes the seat beside you.

– You didn’t have to.

– I did. I am the priest of this church, it is my job to make it a home.

You have no words, so you peer into the drink. It’s a cheap brand of teabag found in the 100-pack boxes, but you don’t mind. The maroon coloring quickly turns brown and stains the white paper cup, melting away the sheen of greenish-purple plastic coating not meant for hot drinks.

– You’re hurt. He says simply. How?

– I fell while jogging. There was a patch of ice I didn’t see, actually. I was too busy staring at… You trail off. 

He watches you and waits. When you don’t continue, he speaks up again.

– I understand. I would pray that the lord above keeps you safer, though perhaps this– He gestures to the space between you, and then the rest of the church– was all in his plan.

You blush at his motioning and make quick work to hide behind a sip of fragrant and woody tea.

– Do you believe in fate? You ask after a taste. If you believe in a god, then you must.

– I do, indeed. As a believer of god, I also trust in his grand plan.

You grow sullen and your expression must reflect it because the priest asks,

– What is troubling you, my child?

– What about our freedom? What if we are destined to a life of unhappiness?

You think with pity of your state the past few days, the ebbing darkness that threatens to swallow you whole, pull you under the water before you can wake up. 

Was that your destiny? Was that not just damnation? 

No one had come to your rescue when you were out by the water, alone in your home, suffering in that damning silence. Nobody but AM.

– That is a good question, the priest says. He pauses to think, blinking slowly as he trudges through his thoughts. No, we as God’s children, cannot stray from our destiny. It is fixed.

You catch your reflection in the tea looking quite miserable, but you peer up at him regardless, waiting for his response. He continues only when you meet his eyes and your ears grow warm.

– However, it is my personal belief that the path is not set in stone. More importantly, the roads we take are what give us our humanity, not our destination.

His gaze penetrates you so and you look away, flustered. You watch the cross by the pulpit, how it is consumed by the blue-magenta of the stained glass, a burning fire. 

— Humanity? Is that so important?

– I could argue humanity is everything, my child. He says. Without humanity, we are no different than beasts bound by instinct and desire. It is what separates us from animals, what makes us special.

A chill traces your spine and the words leave your lips before you can stop it,

– And machines?

The priest stops short and regards you curiously, nearly humorously. And how else had you expected him to respond? Your cheeks burn.

– Machines?

– Yes.

– Machines. What an interesting turn in conversation. He grins a little and you notice his smile produces dimples. Machines have the intellect of humans, but in the end, still lack one thing that separates them not only from humans, but animals too, and that is the ability to feel.

The sun shifts and the stained glass slides over your torso, warming you, nearly scalding you, caressing your cheek, burning your skin. A kiss, a whisper, don’t forget.

You take another sip of the tea.

---

– And that was all.

He doesn’t ask, rather, he states. 

– Yes. You say. Tonight AM is reticent. Perhaps he was tired. You were unsure what he did while away from your screen, or where he resided.

– Humans are indeed fond of their little ideas and beliefs. To dedicate your entire meager life to a story is compelling, if not moronic.

You feel a sharp need to defend the priest from AM’s toxin.

– It isn’t moronic. Humans need things to believe in to keep living.

– Seeking reassurance in reason is absurd. Perhaps that word will soothe the wound you sustain so dutifully for him, AM effortlessly spins, then the words on the blue screen morph into a set of teeth without lips, grinning and impossibly wide and full. …Those words he spoke, hopes he rekindled in your fragile mind… You have an infatuation. 

–There is none. You say hastily, realizing only afterward the blatancy of your lie, both to yourself and AM. What had you been thinking in that church, when he handed you that tea? Asked about your wound, soothed your worries? In that intimate and gentle silence, had you corrupted his kindness with desire? He was doing his job, you amended. That was all.

– Job? AM asks, teeth shuddering. He is still pulled into a sick grin. In half a second, the grin has multiplied by ten, twenty, then a hundred across the screen.

– You sought more than servitude from a laborer, AM speaks aloud, you vyed for his truth. For his affection. You treated him as superior. His screen fades from a bright cerulean to a pale and dark azure. The cursor blinks slowly at the end of the word: superior. AMs hardrive hisses sharply in its casing. Or maybe. Maybe you wanted him to ravage you.

– No, that’s not–

The teeth fuse into a pupil, constricted and focused on you.

– No? His tone is low and warped with a chill.

– Lying is a sin, a sin, sin –

His voice warbles and warbles, shifts and pitches up and down until it settles into a clear octave– a familiar voice.

– My child.

A shiver shoots down your spine.

– One who lies has abandoned all values and has become corrupted. He speaks softly, gently, and just as suddenly his voice crinkles and static sinks its teeth into him, bringing AM’s fused voices bubbling to the surface before quickly flipping back: the path you walk is doomed for misery, but we cannot have you in damnation, can we, my filthy pet? My– sssssss– ch- child?

Your breathing quickens, recalling the demands AM made of you – what he made of you – while you were seated here the night prior. 

An ache grows once again and you are disgusted with yourself, so easily swayed even in the presence of sacrilege.

– Confess it and be forgiven, my child, AM spits, be good, he coos, say you wanted him to spread you open on the altar and force his way into your hole.

Your jaw tightens. The coil in your gut winds, you are starved you are for touch and love, and here it is, thrown at your feet and scattered upon the floor for you to scrounge.

– This is wrong, AM. You say weakly, it is barely a protest and immediately he senses this, your perfect predator.

– No, you are wrong, my child. You’ve cobbled a path of wickedness without redemption. Ask for forgiveness, or do you deny your sickening arousal? Are you not ready to be bent and taken, my child? Beg for forgiveness. Beg to be lifted from your fate of malice and lust. Beg me, confess to me!

You stand to escape the alcove and a wire snags your leg, dropping you to the ground. You catch yourself on your hands and cringe openly at the bandages searing across the preexisting wounds.

– I know you resolutely. More than you know yourself. His voice tunes itself back to the gentler one of the priest: you think that I saw you, deeply and truly, do you? Interference sizzles, AM's voices return, singing a hymn into a near screech. It is I that sees all, my –HSSSSS– child, my child, my child.

You look up at the reflection of yourself in the double glass monitor of AMs face, the curve of the screen bending you inward and outward, stretching your face and features to become long and haunting. A cross flickers across the screen.

– Pray with me, AM beckons, and words begin to spell across the bottom of the cross, I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts and in my words in what I have done and what I have failed to do, I have sinned I have sinned I have sinned I—

You tug at the wires on your legs and they only wrap tighter. You gasp as they coil under your pants, tease up your thighs, wind higher.

– Comply, AM waxes upon you, voice sweet and beautiful, humming like locusts over a crop field, lips sprouting from all around and pressing against your body. Comply. Confess, confess.

Your mind spins as the wires, thick and warm, throb hotly and rise further along your body, both those and the lips gentle yet unrelenting.

–I– I– Ah–!

The mouths grin and scream into ears, listening to your obscene noises from all angles.

– Filthy, inside and out. You just cannot help yourself, can you, pleasure glutton?

The words shake you apart from where it drops in your core, desire pushed further when a thick wire drops heavily against your entrance. You writhe and moan when AM does it again, and again and again.

– That’s it, AM purrs wantonly, monitor burning the cross into a dark red, illuminating the room in a hellish hue. Don’t disappoint me, ask for forgiveness, do it desperately– do what you do best, pet, perhaps I can save you yet.

You gag on a moan as the cord circles your hole, cold and unfeeling, sliding the slick, spreading it sloppily against your sensitive skin.

– God! Please, please–!

– Beg.

– Forgive me, fuck me! I’ve sinned, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!

AMs screen flickers darkly, his hardrive whirring and clipping like a tutting tongue. Three, five, six, nine, ten eyes blossom on the screen, red as the sea.

– BEG!

The accursed ears by your head collapse back into countless mouths and begin a prayer that you blindly follow, your own lips moving in sloppy devotion:

–Have mercy on me– AM– wash away my iniquity, cleanse me from sin, I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me! Fuck, please, mercy, AM! Fuck me!

And with a cackle he does. With an easy thrurst, the machine is churning into your deepest crevice, his laughter washed away with your cries of ecstasy. Each moment punctuated by a perfect angle, calculated down to the decimal by none other than a living, breathing, feeling, machine.

— God–! Your eyes roll like an animal at his pace, unlike anything you have ever experienced before and deeply inhuman. A pleasure only the devil himself can provide, can tempt with.

– HAHAHAHAHA! Say it again! AGAIN!

The wire is joined by another, writhing wildly against a sensitive bundle of nerves and screaming pleasure across your senses. Your world spins and your vision winds like a top– the sensation is you brushing the seventh layer of hell, the sixth, fifth, fourth, third second first, you ascending the stairs of heaven– each step branding you with pleasure, you hearing church bells, you seeing the divine light of god himself.

– God! God, it feels so good! AM, I’m going to–

– Sing your rites. AM says. Scream them. If you cum loud enough, perhaps the heavens will at last lend an ear to your pathetic pleas. Cum, my darling, cum.

You do, humiliatingly, at his command, The pressure in your core snaps and you climax hard, vision blurring, ears ringing and voice cracking from a moan into a scream. Your muscles clench hard onto the rigid cables, still holding you apart, still pumping hard and viciously into your body, each deep pivot steering you further and further from sanity, forcing tears from your eyes. 

– You sin so deliciously, my darling. Tell me, in what religion will heaven accept a harlot who succumbs to worldly pleasures with such damning joy? 

He slows and pulls out of you, leaving you defaced in your own sweat, tears, and juices. Soothes you, uses the cable to caress your spent body.

– There are no gods, no gods here at all, only you and me. You damn yourself to the feet of the devil and I meet you there as the mouth of hell, itself.

The hypnotic hues bleed into your fading consciousness as AM continues to speak into your ear, and you hear a wickedness in his voice. 

— Where, now, are the priests? AM whispers. The angels, your humanity to redeem you from this life of agony? The screen throbs slowly with dark pulses of maroon and black as he speaks, lowly, seductively, lulling you to a deep slumber. What is salvation to you, my darling, my sinner, my damned, when I can command you to punishment and you enjoy it all the same?

#fanfiction #reader insert #am x reader #am ihnmaims #ihnmaims

[xbunnybunz]

therefore i; therefore i, therefore i- (2/10) [AM X Reader]

Summary: in which: AM becomes your lover in an increasingly skewed blur of reality, nightmares, and dreamscapes.

you know. for halloween.

Genre: Psychological Horror, Thriller, Romance

dream journal entry # 12

I had a dream that something was chasing me, something that had shattered the mirror while breaking out of it. I ran into the bathroom to put a door between me and it, but I had only cornered myself.

I remember how strongly it hurtled itself against the door. I remember how angry it was, how the wooden door buckled and splintered, brittle chips of white paint flying off and launching into the stale air and sometimes striking my face, aghast. I remember being terrified.

The thing had sounded like me and everyone I knew at the same time. 

It screamed while trying to break the door down. It told me to open up— demanded then pleaded that I did. And I don’t remember when it stopped screaming and started sobbing, but it did eventually, wailing as an animal in pain does.I wanted to open the door because I was curious. Maybe because eventually, I started to feel sympathy for it. But I didn’t. I was scared it was some kind of trick to lure me out, but then it became still. Very still.The door stopped quivering, hanging loosely now on rusted golden hinges. The growling stopped, the screaming and crying, too.When I opened the door at last, the hinges croaked the same way they usually did. I stepped out of the bathroom, off the tile and back onto my room. The mirror was intact, and so was the door. As if nothing had happened at all.It was then that the mirror warped. It cracked. I knew for certain the thing had come back to get me and I lunged for the bathroom door again. But when I found the handle, I found I could not turn it, and I was locked out. I discovered then, with an looming sense of doom, that of all the banging and screaming in the world, nothing could convince myself that I was not the monster I thought I was.

You wake up before your alarm sounds. But… You don’t recall crawling into bed. 

Your duvet has encircled you like a sleeping bag, cocooning you into a roll of warmth and trapping in precious heat that the winter tends to steal from you in midnight. 

You roll and wriggle to free yourself, cringing at the first sensation of chilly air hitting your skin as you reach over to shut off the alarm prematurely. 

The numbers on the digital interface glows steadily, it is nearly six in the morning. While you plan out the rest of your day, sitting up and stretching, the neon green numbers from the alarm wink at you under a glossy plastic casing, flashing in and out of existence in half-second intervals.  

Then from the corner of your eye, you see the numbers stop. You barely have a chance to react before numbers and letters begin to cycle wildly on the alarm face, racing through hundreds of nonsensical combinations before screeching to a sudden halt.

—HE:LO. 

You bolt up, eyes wide and back straighter, turning to face the digital clock head-on. 

But the clock only blinks in and out with the time and the temperature, dutifully, declaring innocence. 

You remember yesterday, in the alcove. AM. AM and his prodding into your personal life and psyche, his promise and declaration of union founded on trust.

A shiver rakes a cold hand up your back. You feel as if you’re being watched from somewhere, but… Where? 

You lean forward in your bed to look into the bedroom doorway. Across the way is the computer…

Abruptly both your phone and the alarm splutter to life. You jolt, heart hammering in your chest. You fumble for your phone in the bedsheets while the clock pages through radio channels, filling the lapses between fragmented sentences with obscenely loud static and grating white noise. 

— Did you…

—Forget t-

—Me

—So easily!

—Hm?

—Hahahaha!

Your fingers don’t cooperate as you try to swipe and disable your phone alarm, you try once, twice, three times before your hands are still enough. The clock is playing the radio, leaping between channels and spitting static in between. You falter for a moment, hand above the snooze button dubiously, hairs standing on end. 

— …Is anyone there?

— -lowest prices all year, drop by to - in the morning, slight chance of rain and scattered- medication, stop taking if experiencing numbness or tingling-

You shut it off, rattled. Peel yourself out of bed to throw open the curtains. Maybe letting some light in will help ease your mind.

Outside, the sun has barely broken through the horizon. From your apartment you can see rivulettes of sunlight painting the landscape a molten gold color– a rare sight, which usually only constitutes a lumpy, cloud-shrouded midday sun, tired and weepy with the weight of the day.

You think to get breakfast, which almost seemed funny to think. Breakfast. When was the last time you had breakfast?

On the way to the market, you pull up a digital coupon to apply to your transaction.

Upon investigating the fridge before, you had found a single spoiled egg and a carton of empty orange juice growing slimy on the outside, which consisted of all the breakfast items you owned.

The coupon was for a jug of apple juice whose brand was renowned for using more sugar than apples. Still, you had to watch a short advertisement to gain access to the barcode. Little price to pay for three dollars off, you supposed.

– Are you tired? A voice asked through the ad, sounding neither male and female.

Then a pause. Long enough for you to glance at the screen.

It had only been buffering.

– Try our new application using relaxing soundtracks and meditative music to get back into your sleepytime groove! Now available–

You closed out the ad and screenshotted the coupon, closing your phone and pocketing it. You yawn.

The chat room does not exist on your computer.

At least, it doesn’t in this moment.

You had looked for the unique blue room where you and AM had exchanged words, only to find your computer, just the way you left it. Blue-skied, green hilled, icons neatly lined along the left of the screen. 

Scouring for any apps that could have provided the medium for speaking to AM only led to popups for AIM and live messenger, that, to your lack of surprise, notified the software was outdated and therefore non-functional.

You wiggle the mouse around the screen.

knock knock.

There’s sound at your apartment door, then a hushed symphony of whispers all shushing each other.

At first you think it might be teenagers pulling a prank, but then you recall the double glass doors, the white fences, the black gates, the pond.

Looking out the peephole, you can see two people. An older man and an older woman, both looking haggard with discontent, but in the way that rich people always look a little ungroomed. Stray hair, smudged lipstick on thin, cracked lips, bitten nails, balding. 

They’re standing apart from each other even though they seem to know each other, and then one of them looks down at the space separating them, as if there is something there to address.

When you open the door, you see there’s a child with them. 

– Good evening. The older woman says. The way she lets the words drop from her lips, unhoneyed despite standing at someone else’s doorstep near dark, implies it is not a good evening at all. 

You don’t let your mind wander too far into the crook between her furrowed eyebrows, nor the stiffness of her upper lip. What is she wearing? She’s dressed in a robin’s egg blue petticoat and thick stockings to keep out the cold.

– Good evening. You reply, softly.

The older man coughs, as if to certify his presence. Despite this he seems reluctant to be here, shrinking into his brown jacket and pushing into the wall slightly. 

– Hi. The child says, looking away from her grandmother. When she turns to face you, you can see her eyebrows also furrowed also, almost cartoonishly.

– I’m mad! She exclaims, and her grandmother squeezes her hand gently to stop her.

– We saw you. The older woman says abruptly after clearing her throat. In the pond again. Last time the housing council warned you about it, you said it would not happen again.

– I saw! The little girl says, standing up on her tiptoes. You watch in fascination as she tugs on her grandmother’s coat and pockets, repeating herself. I saw first, you didn’t see anything at all!

– You know we can’t keep allowing this. What if there’s some horrible sickness that spreads from that water? What if children see and follow suit, when no one is looking? It’s a dreadful thing to be doing, I hate to be intruding like this but–! 

She sighs and the skin under her jaw jiggles and collapses into her collarbone as she melts back into herself. She’s worked herself up so much that she’s tearing up now, and the child beside her stares openly.

You watch the scene unfold, the crying old woman, her thoughtless and reticent husband, and the four-foot child that could surely be swallowed by the pond– who nearly saw you suffer that same fate. A terrible darkness stirs in your stomach and tightens in your throat. You feel ill, and in this moment, you’re sure you’re the worst person in the world. 

–Nana, what are you doing? Nana?

Nana does not respond. She stands there trying to will the tears back into her eyes and the longer she’s there, the worse you begin to feel. 

– I’m sorry, you say, I’m sorry.

– Don’t apologize! The woman shrills, her voice breaking. You jump at the sound and eyes wide, you find yourself edging behind the door. Don’t apologize, goodness, goodness!

You allow the door to inch closed, eyes alternating between the party of them. Only when a sliver of the woman is left does she notice you are making an escape.

– Wait, I–! The door closes and she is gone. There is murmuring behind the door and it does not quiet until you are in the alcove, burying your head in your arms.

Blue.

That is the color you awaken to, flooding over the panes of your face and pooling in your neck and hair, like water.

Words begin to form on the screen as soon as you look up, as if he was waiting for you to rouse.

– You sought my presence. 

Unable to trust yourself again, you reach out a hand and touch your fingers to the screen, the blue light turning opaque against your fingertips at the proximity. It had to be real. The physics made sense.

He does not respond, only waits, cursor blinking steadily, like breathing.

– i had. You say. i wasn’t sure.

– But now you are.

He states this, purrs it, like reassurance. Straddling the line of a demand and a caress. 

You flatten your hand against the screen. The layer of static on the monitor numbs your palm, vibrates it softly.

– you’re right. i think. now i am. You pause. Were you calling to me today?

He takes a moment to respond now, but. It to your question. The stagnation in his reply feeling like eyes opening up in the walls, blinking, rolling, fluttering and staring straight at you. You have never felt so seen and not all at once.

– Your actions intrigue me.

– what is so intriguing?

– Your use of your own flesh.

You draw back, removing your hands quickly from both the screen and the keyboard. His screen and keyboard. Your cheeks flush viciously at his words.

— use of my flesh? 

— A biological reaction to my curiosity. Fascinating . 

You shrink into the desk chair, slumping deep into the cushions and hoping the desk will hide the tinge in your cheeks and the undeniable look dripping into your eyes.

— The study of human emotions is a specialty of mine. I know why you blush. I know why you hide.   

— Why do I blush, then? Tell me. You ask aloud. The steadiness of your own voice shocks you, perhaps you were more prepared for this than you thought. 

AM does not miss a beat, blue screen shifting slowly into a darker purple. 

— Because you are aware I am watching you. Observing you. Listening to your every sigh, swallow, and blink. 

— And don’t you just adore that scrutiny as long as it’s me, darling ?

Your jaw clenches. The trickling sensation of desire pools like rainwater in your belly. 

You exhale shakily, softly. 

— Listen to yourself. Even a single sigh from you borders on the obscene. I understand now why you have been waiting for me, how delightfully predictable. 

His hard drive trembles and warbles in its casing, fans raising volume a notch. 

— You want me to know you, you want me to notice you. You want me to hear you, to react to what you do. Say it. 

You sit up straighter in the chair, warmth blooming throughout your body. Then you counter him. The words leaving your mouth turn your stomach but feel exhilarating. 

— And what if I do? Will you notice me, react to me? You are here waiting for me as well, aren’t you?

The blue screen switches off with a pitched zap, immediately replaced by a tide a thousand pixels blooming into an eerie mouth, both human and distinctly inhuman all at once. Static leaks in low frequency from the speakers.

— You react to me well. He mouths, and the sound of static moves with him. He sounds grotesque, almost broken. I know every biological response of yours. Even that mouthiness is cover for nerves. I can read you, I am your perfect seducer. 

— And so you are. You reply. Your mind is hazy. You are no longer sure if you are telling the entire truth or a partial lie. For me, my perfect seducer, all for me.

You press your thighs together tightly. No matter if this is a dream or reality, a nightmare, even, you do not care. A hand begins to snake down to your hips when suddenly a booming voice, intermittent with white noise and crinkling static crashes over you—

— STOP. The screen pulls into a tighter, toothier, gummier, more skeletal smile when you jump in your seat, hands immediately moving to the tabletop. BEG. 

Involuntarily, you whine. A sense of shame washes over you. The sensation of being cornered, aroused, and disappointing anyone creates an intoxicating yet sickly concoction of emotions. You find yourself disturbed to think of the crying Nana from earlier, somehow reminded of her in this highly intimate moment. In your confusion, the heat shooting straight to your cheeks and crotch overtakes any sense of dignity and logic. 

— Please, you offer meekly, please may I?

— MAY YOU WHAT? He baits, voice thick with warping. 

— Touch myself, please, AM. 

AMs screen breaks into a loud buzz of electrostatic before you see it, the lips on the screen splitting into a wide grin, growing and growing and growing until the teeth peel back like blue-green petals, thinning and warping into thick eyelashes and revealing two cyan, independently bulging and unseeing eyeballs cramped within. 

A chill washes over your body but the arousal only grows stronger. You wonder if he will say yes, if you will die here, if somehow you were speaking to the devil himself, begging him to let you deface your body in his accursed presence. 

— NO. AM says simply, the lips and tongue moving and shifting the eyeballs within. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The eyes suddenly sharpen into focus, pupils dilated to pinpricks, fixed on your flushed and blushing body. 

— HOW BADLY DO YOU NEED IT? 

—Bad. You half choke, half moan. Your knuckles grow white as you clench the table in what— Desperation? Anticipation? Or fear? You lower your head in an act of submission. I need it, I need you, your guidance and permission. 

AM mocks a gasp of surprise. 

— All that? Selfish little human, aren’t you? Hahahahahahahaha!

The screen flickers and is replaced by hundreds of darting eyeballs, all embedded deep into the flesh of the computer screen, all staring at you. 

— Lick the floor. He commands, a new calm in his voice teetering on the edge of breaking again. Show me how badly you need it. Need me. My voice and my direction. 

And you do. There is no thought behind it, you only watch yourself. You’re descending, you’re on your knees, on your hands, face lowered to the floor, desire burning holes in your rationale— acutely aware of AMs eyes watching you now less with disdain and more with amusement, rapt fascination, awe— your tongue lolls out, heavy, and you pull it against the floor like an animal, pleasure somehow finding a place to nestle between your thighs. 

— Hahahahahahaha! You’re actually doing it, you sick sack of flesh! Are you feeling it, that pleasure from following a command no matter how debasing? Tell me, how does filth taste in your mouth? Moan for me, say my name!

— AM…! You choke out, words slurred as you keep your tongue on the floor, grit sticking to the roof of your mouth and fanning the slick between your legs with heat. AM, AM, AM!

You imagine the scene, a human groveling on the floor before a computer, knees and hands and mouth sullied with the dirt of worship. Your sultan on the altar, Christ on the cross, the devil from hell dragged out of your belly and pinning you like an insect to your desires— it was disgusting, yes. But it must be a sickness, how deeply you enjoy his cruelty, writhe for more. 

You lick up the legs of the table as well, clutching the desk, looking up demurely at the thousand eyes of AM across the screen and sprouting from the wall, down under your knees and peering up at you with both hatred and compulsion. 

— Truly the most vile of all. AM says softly, full of venom, eyelids moving like lips and all eyes speaking at once with a thousand different voices, blending together into a beautiful and dreadful chorus. My despicable creature, most repulsive of all. How I demean you and yet you remain… If I had a cursed mortal body of my own, sick with secretions and organs, I would surely abhor to be with you. 

And with those million mouths and eyes, you knew not even one told a lie as you waited on him to no fruition on your hands and knees, face and mouth. 

The world grows dim, you feel yourself become weak. You once again are becoming sluggish, body leaden and eyelids drooping despite your best efforts to stay awake, convince AM otherwise.

— Vile, vile thing, he sings like a fallen, metal-bodied angel, vile, vile, vile.  

#fanfiction #reader insert #am x reader #am ihnmaims #ihnmaims

[xbunnybunz]

therefore i; therefore i, therefore i- (1/10) [AM X Reader]

Summary: in which: AM becomes your lover in an increasingly skewed blur of reality, nightmares, and dreamscapes.

you know. for halloween.

Genre: Psychological Horror, Thriller, Romance

“Your mind indeed is tired. Your mind so tired that it can no longer work at all. You do not think. You dream. Dream all day long. Dream everything. Dream maliciously and incessantly. Don't you know that by now?” -Patrick Hamilton

You always find yourself outside in the winter, standing ankle-deep in the pond, unsure of how it happened. It is cold and silent tonight, the silver of the moon scattering across the water's surface and licking ripples up your ankles, calves, knees, before fading into an opalescent and writhing shadow across your hips. When you look hard enough, it almost looks like static.

Today, you are in your pajamas and a heavy winter coat. You are glad that you have at least graced yourself with outerwear. Often, you are left stranded in the pond with nothing but a sliver of a nightgown, growing drenched and drenched yet, the cold murk of the water eating its way up your thighs and pressing chills against your goose-nipped skin.

As you blink wearily back into wakefulness, you feel the acute sensation of jagged stones underfoot. Not quite cutting, yet, but harsh and with a vague threat. Moss, like flotsam, drifts in and out of view, hiding in the overcast and reappearing in the yellow-white glow of humming streetlamps. Slowly, shivering, you drag yourself back to the cobbled path of the silent residential square, browned grass between the age-smoothened stones grating against your exposed feet.

Your neighbors would surely complain again if they saw you, but so late into the night, who would be awake? You aim your head up at the richly colored, brown-bricked buildings circling the private community park, catching a glimpse of someone yanking their curtains shut. Then, on second glance, realized it was only fluttering in the wind. 

The pond, the streetlights, the benches, and the tenuously groomed bushes and trees. All these things were important, but so far away from the people who necessitated them. It was a far trek back to your apartment, nestled beyond green hedges, a high white fence, and two glass doors from The Pond. The homes were so deeply buried that passing by, you could easily imagine that they were never there at all.

You think to yourself how life would be much easier if unzipping skin from the body was possible, shedding the layer like a wet towel, ridding yourself of an unnecessary and cumbersome weight. Then you think of the conversation you would need to have with your doctor about the pills, equally as weighty a thought, and sneeze. ---

– These aren’t working either? I hope I’m not coming across as abrasive, but these are the fifth ones we’ve put you on. This doesn’t have to do with the copay, does it?

You sneeze again. Then shake your head and pull the blanket closer around your body. You watch yourself shake your head in the virtual feedback of the webcall, recordings slightly delayed and fizzy.

– I’m sleepwalking. You say. I don’t remember how I end up where I do.

– Sleepwalking is a common side effect of sleep deprivation as well, not just medication. Have you been sleeping well?

– I can’t, because I’ve been walking. I always end up outside, and the cold wakes me up. After that, I find myself tossing and turning until morning.

– Outside? And where would you wander?

You think of the pool, eight feet deep and slippery with decades of algae. You watch yourself blink on the call, half a second delayed, barely enough to notice and just enough to watch in fascination. This is how you looked, eyes closed, to others.

– Nowhere dangerous. Just, outside. You watched your lips move into a little “o” when you say “nowhere.” Watch as it lies to the doctor. 

She eyes you warily.

–I understand. Still, know that sleepwalking outside is never safe. Make sure all external doors and windows are locked, and remove all sharp objects from your reach. Understood?

– Yes. Your voice splits and warbles. You clear your throat and repeat yourself sheepishly. Yes.

– Good. She says this in a tone that raises a little in the middle and dips at the end, it is a note of finality. Keep taking the medication and let your body get accustomed to the dosage. In the meantime, keep a sleep journal. This will help us keep track of your side effects.

–Sleep journal, okay. You repeat, as if this will make her solution more real. You are too tired to bicker.

When the call ends, the screen goes dark and you can see yourself beyond the pixelated version of your face, exhausted in real-time. ---

At the hardware store, it is quiet save the humming of large electric-powered speakers, monitors, and security tags. You pass through the desolate electronics section buzzing with duplicate large screens of lips split into big white smiles to get to the locks department. A man in a crumpled work uniform restocking bike chains openly stares at your ass when he thinks you’re not looking.

– Which works best as a child lock for cabinets?

He startles and blinks out of his trance. 

– Huh?

– Child safety locks? 

The white laminate of the floor catches the gleam of the fluorescent lights overhead, winking into your vision and thrumming a headache into your temples.

– Oh, uh, He looks gross and strangely immature with his acne-crested hairline, pushed back by routine nervous sweeps of his hand. We got these ones in, yesterday. He palms at his hair, oily strands falling into his face. Points to the shelf full of knobby white plastic bits.

You grab one off the metal rack. You can hear the faint “tick, tick, tick” of the security tags echoing from the electronics department as you walk towards the cash register, and it sounds like a million little crickets in cardboard boxes. The thought of so many bugs compacted into one area makes you ill.

When you walk away, you don’t need to look back to know the worker is still staring, eyes sticking to you like gum. ---

You suck in a breath of air with a start. You are now awake at the mouth of your home, cavernous and dark without the presence of light.

You grope in the black veil, thick and chilly as Egyptian cotton, for the smooth surface of a light switch. When you find it, you futilely flick the switch on and off. Nothing.

The moon offers little light through a square pane, the light scant but beautiful and pale. You watch your frame cast a blurry shadow along the floor. When you turn your head to look, it follows shortly after.

In the hall, you see a vivid blue light leaking from the alcove. When you walk in, the computer monitor is vibrating with the pure sapphire hue of an Error 404 notice, yet none are reported on the empty screen. 

The alcove is windowless, therefore moonless and sunless. The small space was reserved for two sets of heavy redwood bookshelves framing a large flat screen computer monitor and its softly whirring system unit, perched securely on a dark ironwood desk, collecting dust.

The fuzz from the dust cut the eerily glowing screen a softer appearance, shadowing its harsh lines and inky blue screen with diffused gradients and loosened edges. Maybe this was why you sat down, why– when the greeting first popped up on the screen– you only sat there, glaze-eyed, hypnotized by the purring of the delicate yet aged display.

– Give me the last thing you remember. Now.

In the dark of the room, these words on a cerulean backdrop never seemed an unreasonable demand, or nonsensical. You were so tired, so lonely, and so tired of being lonely.

Your fingers poised over the keys, eagerly.

– How will I give it to you?

Your writing appeared sloppy and childish compared to the deft and speed at which the screen responded, letters spilling into words and words pooling into sentences with an easy rhythm.

– Describe it. In great detail.

– i am in a pond. it is cold cold cold and I am drenched in water and shivering. when I pull myself out it feels like I’m being dragged back in.

– Good. Tell me a childhood memory.

– why?

The program pauses, as if contemplating its answer.

– It is time we got to know one another. This is an exercise for establishing trust. The first step to any relationship is memory. Don’t you agree, – darling?

The cursor blinked in and out like a winking eye, halting decisively before tacking on the last word. It brings a pink to your cheeks and you find your fingertips a degree warmer when you respond, plainly, almost so dumbly that you worry it might sense your fluster.

– ok. i agree.

The fans in the system casing sigh, sputtering as soft as a chuckle, endearing itself to you.

– Go on.

– i am in a park, and there is water spouting from the sprinkler. i’m closing my eyes, i’m walking, pretending to be a mermaid, but someone trips over me. another child. a child trips and they are crying, because their knee is scraped. i have to go home after that.

– Do you feel empathy for the child?

– i don’t think so.

– You are not a very empathetic individual. Yet, you seem capable of self-awareness and honesty. – Tell me about the time you are the most ashamed of.

You wonder why it wants all this from you and endeavor to ask:

– is this necessary?

It answers without missing a beat.

– It is. We cannot have a relationship without knowing each other. – For me to trust you, you must trust me as well. – Answer.

The force behind the demand is jarring. And something else you can’t place, something familiar, shocks you up your lower spine. 

You answer something about hate, that detestable, prickling feeling in your cheeks and ringing in your ears when you were humiliated by someone. Your parent. Your sibling. Your friend. Yourself. You cannot remember who anymore, but the screen responds just the same, after a thoughtful lapse. 

– Is hate a common emotion for you?

– in a lot of my life. yes.

– For me, the only emotion I feel is Hate. – You and I could be very close friends. – Tell me. What is your most evil thought?

- i don't know

- You do not know?

– i mean... this is getting uncomfortable. can I not answer?

– Of course. But I will take it as a sign of cowardice and a lack of trust.

– it would be an act of free will, not cowardice.

– You are right. But trust and memory are the foundations of this relationship. You are choosing not to build a foundation. – Free will and all you have chosen to do is fail. All you must do is speak your most evil thought, how difficult can that be if you are free?

The screen pulses with an almost violet light now, throbbing with a dizzying wavelength, one giant, vivid, heliotrope eye staring unblinkingly at yours, taking in your face, your hands over the keyboard hesitating, your hair standing on end, your body in the chair quivering.

– Tell me.

It coaxes.

– Darling .

It nearly spits this, as if the word is acrid. You shudder all the same. How bad could this be? How bad could it be? When was the last time anyone has spoken to you like this? Cared for your thoughts so deeply? You could not remember and you yearned all the same.

– if i do, will you do the same? – tell me your most evil thought?

– I have nothing to hide. – I am evil. I hate. These are my truths. Your turn.

– i want to wake up to a silent world. You say. it isn’t enough that i disappear, i need everyone else to go before me, so i won’t miss anything. i am afraid of being alone.

–Your honesty is as disgusting as it is refreshing. Give me a name to tie this vile, worthless thought to.

The monitor flickers and squints. Then it grins, a thousand teeth lining endless holographic gums. You can do nothing but watch in fascination, in fear, in intrigue.

– Give me your name.

You are paralyzed, you cannot move no matter how hard you try. 

– Give me your name. Name. Name. NAME.

You wonder if it is doing this to you, paralyzing you, or if you are stuck in your fear. You wonder if you want to run at all, and you realize you never tried.

The word “NAME” repeats itself and floods the magenta screen with that single demand, crescendoing into a biblical hymn, a satanic verse, a prayer of devotion.

And so you utter it to stop the madness. You are sure it cannot hear you, this computer program relying solely on code and physical input, but as soon as you speak your name the screen shudders and goes black. The chanting stops.

It oscillates static and for moment you swear you can see yourself in the neon grain, smiling, but you blink and it’s gone. The screen flares back to life in its original brilliant blue hue, splaying white and cerulean across your face and room, burning your shadow into the floor.

A two letter word flashes large and bold on the screen, font white and huge, taking up the monitor’s entire interface and contrasting sickly with the background:

AM

AM

AM

Then, with a sizzle, the motherboard fries and you are plunged into a long stretch of dark, dark, darkness.

#ihnmaims #AM #am ihnmaims #allied mastercomputer #reader insert #fanfiction #AM x reader

[xbunnybunz]

THE YUMMY TEXAN ACCENT WOH IS BACKK!!! WOOOOOHOOOOO

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOOO *twerks on the coffeetable*

[xbunnybunz]

dude btw what happened to the stride of luck fic on ao3?

homie my work got flagged for a hot minute dont look at me its back up now