STAY SAFE!! [ID: the Gilbert Baker pride flag with the words “Happy pride to all those who are unable to celebrate openly and safely. You are loved and seen!” in all-caps black text over it. /end ID]
Summary : You received a cute dm on reddit for Christmas from a stranger and decided to be nice and answer him. You never thought it would lead to love and deception.
wc : 4,8k
Warnings : Simon “ghost” riley x f!reader // older!simon riley // age gap (around 10years) // cod x reader // hurt/no comfort // smut // oral (m receiving) // angst // no hea // unprotected piv (wrap it up guys) // creampie // cheating // ghosting // afab reader but no description
A/n : I’m trying to come back to writing but my life has been chaotic for the last 5 months now. Also, I’m sorry as it’s the 1st time I’m writing for Simon and it has to be a ansgt/no hea kinda story. But he was the character that fitted the most to the real man.
Also, this was written on my phone as I don’t have a pc anymore. And not proofread because my eyes hurt af 💀
Anyway, please consider a like, a reblog or a comment if you like my work. Thank you for your support, ily <3
Nine months and it ended up like this.
You texted, sent voice notes, videos or called each other every day for nine months. Well, almost everyday.
When he was deployed or in training, he would let you know and you would spend days, weeks even without hearing from him. You would grow worried, sad even as you were missing him and you wouldn’t know how he was doing. Was he fine? Or maybe he got injured? Or worse? And then, out of nowhere, he would text back. Saying how much he missed you, how much he was craving to feel you around him. He would send you a dick pic, or even a jerking video to show you how much he misses you.
You thought it was hot that a man like him would show you so openly how bad he had fell for you. How did you end up with a soon-to-be 40 years old man showing you how hard he was by only thinking about you or just by seeing a picture of your pretty face.
You remember in late December last year, he slid into your dm to wish you a merry Christmas. It was out of nowhere, really. And at first, you find it odd that a complete stranger sent you something right before Christmas. You answered him two days after that. And since then, you never stopped talking to each other. We were in June now, and you were more than excited. You were getting ready to take your plane and finally get to the same country as him.
Even if he was British, he finally settled in the US and because of work, you also had to fly from Europe to the US. He was determined to meet you, he planned your meeting a few months before your arrival. You were lucky as you would work in the same state, in the same city his friends were living in. He was ready to drive 14 hours from his state to yours just to do a breakfast date with you.
And neither of you were disappointed. He asked you to come without any makeup on. Not that you would usually wear tons of it, but you liked how your black eyeliner would make your eyes look better, and how your mascara would make your lashes even longer and fluffier. But he said he loved you all natural. That you were even more beautiful and that he wanted to see you. So, to gather some bravado, you bought a pretty nice dress. Short above the knees, tight at the waist with a plunging v-neck. It was all black with patterns of white roses and other flowers.
You arrived earlier than planned at the brunch place. Around 8:30am even if you agreed on meeting at 9. But you were nervous, oh so nervous to finally meet the man you were talking to since December. The man who already saw every part of you, the one who also showed you his body like it was yours to play with already.
You stayed outside in the parking lot to smoke one cigarette. Hell, you started another one right after the first to try to ease your mind. It failed. You were so stressed, so nervous. What if he never showed up? What if he was disappointed by how you look in real life? What if you were disappointed? Your thoughts spiraled into your mind as you stomped on the end of your cigarette before entering the place.
The AC hits your first, a huge contrast with the heat outside. You shiver and ask for a table of two. You followed the directions to your booth and waited. You had 20min left all alone before he arrived. Still nervous, you ask for a bellini. You needed liquid courage and something to keep your hands busy. From time to time, you were checking the entrance, just to anticipate the moment when he would open the doors.
8:55. I just parked. See you very soon :)
Your heart stopped beating at his text. This was it. This moment. It was the culminating point of nine months of waiting, yearning, dripping for this man. Because oh how his words were so sweet and powerful. The way he described every single thing he would do to you if you ended up under him. It was graphic, intense, hot and everything else. You couldn’t ignore the desire. Couldn’t ignore the ache in your pussy when you thought about every one of his texts.
You were still daydreaming about him fucking you the way he described it until a heavy form sat beside you, sagging the sofa where you were seated. You froze and then slowly turned your head to see what was happening. All you could see was a pair of deep but shiny hazel eyes and a wide smirk. You blush, your face turning tomato red. He was here, flesh and bones. His cologne intoxicating, his warmth emanating from his body warming you, and his voice, deep and low when he asks if he could hug you made you feel dizzy.
You nod, not able to move your mouth and his strong arms landed gently on your upper back and around your shoulders to give you an amical hug. There was nothing sexual about his gesture. Just two old friends that were finally reunited after what felt like an eternity. Then he let go and sat on the couch in front of you. You readjusted yourself on your seat and were about to properly greet him when the waiter came by.
Simon ordered a coffee. Black. Without sugar or milk and asked you if you wanted another whatever you had ordered before he arrived. And that’s how your conversation started. You were still blushing, the liquor of your bellini and the few cigarettes you had before you entered the restaurant helped you relax. Your cheek was still pink, and your smile wide. But it was genuine, it was thanks to all the pretty names he gave you, all the compliments and how he would look at you intensely during a silence. It was crazy to finally have this man in front of you.
Nine months.
You exited the restaurant an hour and half after, both smoking a cigarette in front of his car. He had to go to his friends around noon for lunch but neither of you wanted to end this moment right now. So you went to Marshalls to get him a new phone charger for his car. And after that, as you were both sitting in his car, he kissed you.
It was soft at first, like he was scared you would disappear if he wasn’t careful. That was the whole point of having a breakfast date. It was his idea so you wouldn’t be scared of him, of whatever could have happened. But when you deepened the kiss, he knew you weren’t scared at all. You were impatient, horny. As horny as him apparently as he grabbed your hand and put it over his pants where you could feel how hard and big he was. You gasp, and that was his cue to go further, his hand letting yours to sneak up under the skirt of your dress to reach from the inside of your thigh, your flesh warm and soft under his calloused fingers.
Simon didn’t waste any seconds and pulled your panties to the side to glide two fingers through your folds. You were so hot, so wet he almost moaned against your lips. You did. The feeling of him touching you there sent sparks all over your body. You wanted him to keep going but he pulled back from your face and withdrew his fingers from your clit. The sound you made, desperate, almost broke his heart. But without looking away from you, he locked his eyes with yours and brought his fingers up into his mouth.
You watched him in awe, savoring your taste like a starving man. This was hot. Maybe the hottest thing you’ve ever witnessed. And it made you even more hungry for him.
Simon drove you back to where you were living, making out at the drop off point until it was time for him to go. He didn’t want to leave, neither did you. But he had this stupid lunch with his stupid friends... He would text you, keeping you updated about how his day was going so maybe you both could meet again later.
You really hoped so.
You spend the afternoon at the pool with some of your newly made friends, sharing your date as they were already aware of this story. They were all excited for you and they hoped that Simon would meet you again too.
And he texted you.
In five minutes, you had the hotel booked—he was staying at his friends’ and you couldn’t bring strangers into the campus you were living in—paid for it and then got ready to meet him again. He would come by around 9pm to pick you up so you wouldn’t have to take an uber. You were smiling wide, excited to spend the night with him. You remembered everything he promised you and couldn’t wait to keep going with what you started earlier in his car.
The way to the hotel was fast, only 15 minutes from your campus. Simon could see you blushing and buzzing with excitement. He was excited too. He told you how he drifted away during the entire lunch with his friends, thinking about you on repeat with your taste still longing on his tongue. He wanted you oh so so badly.
Again, he didn’t waste his time as his lips were on yours the second after you closed the door of the hotel room. This time, Simon wasn’t gentle. He knew now you wouldn’t fly away so he showed you how starved he was for you. How desperate he felt. How hard his cock was for you and for you only.
The feeling of his tongue fighting with yours was intoxicating. His strong hands were all over you as he pulled you even closer to him. You could feel how big he was. All his muscles flexing under your touch in a delicious way. You smiled against his lips, excited and so happy to finally finally have him all for yourself.
The clothes you put on for tonight were already on the floor of the bedroom and by that time, Simon threw you on the bed and crawled above you. His massive form caged you. All you could see, smell and touch was him, his large shoulders and the scars on his torso. You were surrounded by his cologne and the scent of his laundry product. You were dripping wet, already soaking the sheets underneath you with anticipation. Simon kissed you, hard. One of his hands landed on your throat and you couldn’t help a moan escaping from your lips.
“Good girl,” he growled. “You like that don’t ya.” It wasn’t a question at all but more an affirmation. You nodded and moaned again, trying to grind your hips against his and he tsked at your eagerness. But oh how hard he was seeing you like this, completely soaked and trembling before even being touched. He would ruin you tonight, he made this a promise in his mind.
His pants and boxers joined your clothes and the floor in a record time but instead of crawling back to you, Simon walked around the bed to aligned his hips with your head. From this angle, his cock looked even more massive than what you felt earlier through his pants when you were making out in his car. You were drooling already at the thought of finally tasting him after seeing his dick only in pictures or videos. Simon gently caressed your cheek with the back of his hand and that was your cue to open your mouth wide for him. He didn’t waste a second to step forward and push his fat mushroom tip past your lips. The saltiness of the precum already there hits you first. And then your jaw had to accommodate his thickness. He was large and you struggled to fit his length entirely in your mouth. You moan again, your voice sending vibrations from the tip of his cock to the back of his neck.
“Fuuuuuck… look at ya, ‘lready cryin’ on that cock. Damn ya feel so good luv.”
Simon rolled his eyes to the back of his head, feeling every tastebud of your tongue against his sensitive skin. He had imagined this scene so many times in his head when he was alone at home or on deployment. But nothing would be better than the real feeling of this cute little mouth of yours gagging on his fat cock. As his hand landed on the back of your head, he started to thrust into your mouth, forcing you to take more inches of him. Your tongue swirled around his length, tracing every vein and around his big tip. The taste of him drove you crazy and you started to move your head in rhythm with his hips, taking a bit more of him every time. Simon hissed when you hollow your cheeks before trying to get him entirely in your mouth. You felt him deep in your throat and gag hard, tears running down your face. You tried to push him a bit so you could avoid gagging again but his hand still at the back of your head holds you still, pushing you even further down his cock.
“Fuck,” he groaned, keeping you there. “Jus’ right there. You’re a fucking good girl. Look at that, so pretty with ya lips ‘round my cock.”
He felt you squeezed your throat again as you gagged for the third time and Simon took this as his cue to finally release you. You gasped for air and swiped away the tears on your face and the saliva on your chin. You were so aroused by this man you felt lucky to be there, in the same room as him.
Simon kissed you and joined you on the bed. He had waited enough and he decided that after what you did, you deserved to be fucked the way you both wanted. He nested his hips between your legs and slid in one harsh thrust into you. You hissed, the pain of being stretched surprised you. But Simon didn’t want to waste any more time. Condom? Not even in his mind. Tease you? Well he knows you were dripping wet already and he was so eager to feel your pussy… for the next round he will try to be a gentleman and finger you first. But for now, he stayed like this, buried to the hilt. Your pussy squeezed him so good, your velvet walls already fluttering around him.
“Fuck luv you so tight…”
You squirmed when he finally started to move, gripping his shoulder in an attempt to anchor you. He kissed you, slowly at first to match the rhythm of his thrusts but you and him knew better than that. You moved your hips up to meet him halfway and that’s when Simon decided that slow was enough. So he pinned you down to the bed by grabbing your legs, pushing them against your torso. Your knees were on both sides of your head as he spread you open. He smirked as he looked at where you were both connected before pulling out almost entirely.
“ ’m gonna ruin this pretty little pussy.” Simon said, like a promise to you, before diving back into you, hard. You cried out, feeling the tip of Simon’s cock reaching behind your navel. The hotel bed creaked under both your weight and because of the way Simon was pounding into you. This was too much, he was too much in a delicious way and you could already feel your orgasm building up.
“Si-Simon please,” you plead. “I… I’m gonna cum!”
Oh what a pretty warning for him. Your moans were melody to his ears and Simon was here to please you. He kept his rhythm and one of his hand snakes up to your throat, squeezing lightly at first. You clenched around him instantly, your hands now gripping his upper arm so you could keep his hand where it was. His fingers flexed around your throat a bit more and you felt dizzy. Before you could call out his name again, that delicious rope inside your belly snapped and your orgasm flooded you like a big wave. You squeezed Simon’s cock like a vine as you came undone under him. Your entire body was shaking but Simon didn’t stop, chasing his own release. He watched how good you were milking his cock and squeezed your throat one last time. When he felt you clench again, Simon thrusted one last time and burst his seed deep inside of you, painting your insides white. Your body shivered as you felt hot ropes of cum filling you and his hips pinning you down so you both wouldn’t waste a drop.
“Mine,” he growls as he thrusts one last time, his forehead against yours.
You were a trembling and squirming mess, sweat making your skin glimmering under the low bed lights. Simon pulled out slowly and gave you a peck on the lips before getting in the bathroom to clean himself. Your mind was blank but you were happy. Satisfied even and a big smile spread on your face as you were still cock drunk. When Simon came back to bed, he kissed your temple and laid down beside you with a sigh of relief and sleepiness.
You couldn’t blame him for being tired. Even though you wanted to spend the night talking and cuddling with him, you didn’t forget that he drove 14 hours to get there the day before you met. So you went to the bathroom too to clean yourself and hugged him when you joined him in bed.
You didn’t really sleep that night, between your sex sessions with Simon and then laying next to him, cuddling. You spent the entire night entangled with each other. The way you were sucking his massive cock, tears falling down on your cheeks as you were trying to ease him down your throat made him see stars. But oh your pussy was even better. So warm and dripping wet and tight every fucking time... You were so tight he had to control himself to not cum right away every time he pushed his fat mushroom head inside of you. You gripped him like a vine, moaning his name so desperately as he thrust into you hard. And his hands landed on your neck so many times you couldn’t even count. But the way he praised you, calling you a good girl, his good girl when you avoided your gag reflex as he fucked your mouth was what made you cum over and over again.
Damn you fell so hard for this man… You were so into him you couldn’t help but watch him sleep and give him some hugs and scratches, calming him down when he was having a nightmare.
The morning sun arrived way too early for your liking, ringing the end of your remaining time with Simon. He had warned you last night during your way to the hotel that he had to wake up early in the morning and that he would be busy all day.
You yawn, stretching your sore muscles after the wild night you had. And Simon finally gets up to get a shower, kissing you good morning. You stayed in bed, hugging the pillow he slept on, your face buried in it so you can smell his cologne. You wanted him to stay. You wanted him to spend the entire day with you in this bed, fucking you on repeat like he did last night. But he had things to do, so you leave the bed too and dressed up.
The goodbyes in front of your campus felt like it was the hardest thing ever. You didn’t want him to leave. And he didn’t make it easier when he kissed you like this right in front of everyone. Claiming you like he said several times when you were texting. He wanted you to be his, to show you off because oh what a pretty bird you were. Even prettier when you were by his side.
Those were his words.
He said a last goodbye with a chaste kiss on your lips before getting back in his car. You sigh, already missing him. But you knew it wouldn’t be the last time you saw Simon. Because he promised you to do his best to come down here to see you as much as possible.
He promised.
And you believed him.
Nine months.
Two months already passed, your new job was taking you more time than you thought and you were exhausted as you were starting your day earlier than you used to before coming here. But it was okay. You felt grateful to be there and you were finally able to text Simon without this 6 hours of difference. You knew he was busy. His work took so much place in his life you were used to waiting a few days for an answer. But after meeting him, you thought it would change for the better.
It did not.
Was it even worse? You wouldn’t believe that. But the facts were there. He would not text you back until a week after, sometimes more, without telling if he was in deployment at this time. Or, the only thing he would text you was just him sending you a dick pic from time to time, saying he missed that tight pussy of yours.
It still turned you on. He was still turning you on but that wasn’t what you needed right now. Being away from your friends and family, plus your new job that was completely different from what you used to do back in your country, makes you feel… meh. And you reached out to Simon for support. You needed reassurance, sweet words from him so you could feel better. But all he was offering you was crumbs of his presence and horniness… After a very bad day at work, you ended up crying in the breakroom, feeling dumb about it. You sent a voice note to Simon even if you were still waiting for him to answer you for 9 days now. But you needed him right now.
As usual, Simon didn’t respond. Not right away. It took him 2 days to send you a voice note. It was short, too short for your liking but at least he responded… right?
And the days went by. You felt sad to not have any news from him. You tried to make up your mind, convincing yourself that you were used to it, that he was in deployment or in training. Soon enough, his birthday was coming. You asked him if he planned something and that maybe you could come see him. Gifting him with your body wrapped in pretty lace. But he said he wouldn’t do anything and that he will be off the grid at this time. It saddens you and Simon heard it so he said he will videocall you the day before his birthday.
That day came, you were excited and got ready for Simon. You did a simple makeup and hair do, and you were wearing a pretty outfit, showing off a bit of that lace you had for him. But after waiting all day for his call, Simon texted you that he was busy and that he will call you tomorrow.
Tomorrow. His real birthday.
Wasn’t he supposed to be off the grid at this time? Wait. What was happening there…
You don't know why it happened at this specific time but your mind finally decided to work again. That filter called love disappeared and now you could see everything differently. In a clever way.
Wait.
It was Simon’s 40th birthday today. But he was distant for a while. Always have been. And since you met, you blindly believed him it was because of his work. It made sense in your head. But now, why does it feel like he was lying? Like he was hiding something from you.
Someone? Maybe…
And now you remember what some of your friends said when you shared the fact that Simon never called you on the phone but via a message app. That it was weird that you didn’t know his last name, or that he never gave you his phone number… Because in the end, you could never reach out to him directly. If he was offline (and it was always the case), he would only see your texts and calls when he logged in…
Your heart raced as fast as your mind. And as you were feeling desperate, you texted him again. A long ass text, asking him what was going on. You tried to not sound angry or miserable but you told him you were worried something happened to him, or between you. Have you done something wrong? You asked him what you did or did not to deserve this silence. And then you typed that sentence that lights on the little bulb light in your head.
It feels like you have another life in which you don’t want me…
You didn’t want to lose him, really but at this point the whole situation was pissing you off. You finished your message with a bitter note saying you would have been happy to wish you a happy birthday but as he never called, you didn’t say anything.
Then, you start to read your convo from the very beginning again. Nine months of talking, sharing thoughts, sharing pictures and more. You now cringe seeing the nudes you sent him. Why does it feel like this now? You checked all the pictures he sent you. Most of them were dick pics to be honest. Others were selfies and the few of them were him during training, wearing his military gear. Damn, this man was massive. No. Time to focus now. You scrolled down every text he sent you, every media to find something. A clue of what was really happening. And finally, you saw it. The only thing you didn’t want to see, especially on him as you were already feeling something strong for him.
A ring. A bloody golden ring decorating his engagement finger.
How did you not see that?! It was on a picture he sent you so early in your conversation you couldn’t believe you missed it.
Nine months.
At this point, you felt stupid, so stupid. How could you believe that a man like him would be in love with you?! Because to you, Simon was perfect. He was handsome, smart and interesting. He was kind with you (at first) and dominant when you needed him to be. He was open minded about sex and you felt grateful for not being judged by your desires and fantasies. Simon looked like the perfect match to you. But when you think about it, it was too good to be true. And the red flags you should have seen in the first place were hidden by his lovely behavior and pictures of his massive cock leaking for you.
He cheated on his wife. With you. And now you understand why he never gave you his phone number. Why did he never tell you his last name. Maybe “Simon” wasn’t even his real name after all. That’s why he wouldn’t be available for his birthday and that he didn’t want you to come visit him. His wife would be there.
You cried. A lot. Not able to forgive yourself for being that blind. And then you waited. You needed, at least, a last text from Simon so you would be able to close that chapter and then go on with your life. But after your long message a month passed by. You were still thinking about him everyday because this man was stuck in your head and in your heart. You tried one last time, texting him your anger but as you pressed the send button…
Your message could not be delivered. This is usually because the recipient is only accepting direct messages from friends only.
This bastard unfriended you instead of facing the storm. This, was the confirmation you were waiting for. And after nine months of ups and downs, fake promises and no depth-sex, you ended up with a broken heart. Angry at yourself and at this man too for making you believe he was in love with you. What a fool you were.
This series of one-shots is a bit different from what I’m used to writing because it’s based on real life events. Because what’s the best inspiration than life itself, right?
If you need to share your hurt/no comfort story, vent about your latest date that happened to be an asshole or to comfort you with a happy ending, feel free to send me your story and the character you want your date to be. You can also send me a prompt.
Everything is and will stay anonymous. This blog and my dms are a safe space.
Please consider like or reblog if you like my content to support me.
݈݇— pairings: The Creature(2025) x Duke's Daughter!reader
݈݇— themes: Established Relationship. Friends To Lovers, Fluff, Gentle Giant, Self-Doubt (Adam), 1800s Era, Desire, First Kiss, Size Difference No use of y/n.
݈݇— summary: Hidden beyond the your father's manicured gardens lies a secret only you know: a towering, gentle creature who saved your life and asked for nothing but friendship in return.
A/N: I am playing it safe because The Creature is precious and deserves to be loved T_T Also forgive me, it ain't proof read.
You had a friend.
A peculiar one.
A friend who is tall, broad, and unyielding as the trees itself. He is a peculiar thing, indeed, for though he is large in a manner that makes even the pines appear diminished for a heartbeat, he is gentle and shy as a fawn startled in the underbrush.
He saved your life long ago, when a pack of wolves had made sport of chasing you through the frost-bitten dark. You would have surely perished had he not stepped between you and their snarling jaws.
After he saving you, he lingered only at the edge of the clearing, half-hidden in the shadows. You had been shaking, breathless, terrified, and yet something in his stance begged reassurance, not fear.
You offered him the smallest smile you could muster and whispered, “Please, come into the light. I wish to see the face of the one who saved me.”
It became a code. Your gentle call that told him you are safe with me.
You told him then that you owed him your life. When you asked how you might repay him, he had hesitated the way only Adam hesitates; almost frightened of his own voice.
He asked for a friend.
So you granted it.
Night after night, beneath the moon’s silver eye, you met him in the forest beyond your father’s gardens, arms full of novels, philosophy, and whatever academic curiosities you thought might delight him. And he always listened, knees drawn up, shoulders hunched, great hands folded as if unsure where else they ought to rest.
Tonight, you arrive early. A soldier had stopped you on the path back to the manor, handsome in a polished sort of way. He flirted boldly, bowing far too close, fingers brushing yours as he tucked a stray curl behind your ear.
You had smiled simply to be polite.
But in the trees behind him, unseen even by you, Adam watched.
He stood stiff as a plank. Unblinking. Arms tight at his sides. A strange, smouldering something burning low behind his dark eyes. He did not understand the word for it.
He only felt… wrong.
Later that night, the soldier forgotten, you step into your forest clearing and speak softly into the shadows, “Adam… come into the light.”
A breath.
A rustle.
And then he emerges, immense and hesitant, because he knows the code is only spoken when it is you approaching him.
You sit together beneath your usual tree. You finish reading to him and close the book upon your lap. The night hums. The air is velvet.
He is too quiet.
His voice breaks the silence.
“Why did your face alter,” he asks slowly, “when that man laid his hand upon yours?”
You blink. “…My face?”
He nods, gaze following the ground like he fears he has overstepped. “It moved. I know not the term for it. Yet… it changed.”
You let out a soft, sheepish laugh. “How so? What manner of expression did I wear?”
Adam considers the memory with earnest seriousness, brow furrowing.
“You appeared… startled. And warm,” he says carefully. “As though your breath escaped you.” He looks up, eyes gentle, confused. “Does touch compel such a feeling? When the one touching is… desired?”
The laugh dies in your throat.
Your heart seizes. Because you want him. You want him in ways you barely allow yourself to think, let alone admit in the open air.
His voice lowers. Almost frightened. “Tell me… what is it like, to be wanted?”
You freeze.
He is looking at your mouth. Or perhaps you are looking at his. You cannot tell, because the world goes silent except for your pulse.
Your breath hitches and you lean—
No.
No.
You scoot away from him so abruptly the leaves whisper under you, because you nearly did something catastrophically foolish.
His head lifts.
“I see you look at me, at times,” he says, tone soft as moss, deeply innocent. “It confounds me. Am I… displeasing to behold?”
You choke on nothing.
You are caught between You’re beautiful and I must throw myself into a swamp immediately.
He misreads your silence. Of course he does.
“I meant no insult,” he murmurs quickly, shoulders curling inward, as if trying to make himself smaller. “I am aware my form is… strange. I am—”
“Oh heavens,” you cry, hands flying up. “I think you’re beautiful! Inside and out. Must we suffer through this?”
He startles like you’ve hurled a stone at him.
“Beautiful?” he repeats, voice a low, incredulous echo.
You bury your face in your hands. “Yes. Beautiful—Handsome. Maddeningly so. Would you stop looking so wounded? You unsettle me, Adam. You unsettle me dreadfully.”
He moves then. Slowly. Cautiously. Like approaching a wild creature that might flee.
His fingers brush yours.
Barely.
Traced with hesitance, reverence, fear, longing, everything he does not yet have language for.
“Then… why did you draw away from me?”
Because his touch sets your world on fire.
Because you want him with a weight that makes the earth seem too small.
Because if you stay close, you might do the very thing you are terrified he will not want.
You swallow, voice a thin whisper.
“Because had I remained… I fear I would have forgotten myself.”
His brows pull together. “Forgotten… in what fashion?”
You meet his eyes.
They widen.
Very gently, he lifts your hand between both of his, treating it as though it is the most precious thing in creation.
“I wish,” he says quietly, “to understand such a fashion.”
Your breath leaves you in a rush.
You do not kiss him. But you lean just close enough that he feels the tremble of the need you carry for him alone.
And his thumb strokes once, reverently, across your knuckles.
“Would you show me?” he asks, voice unsteady. “What it is… to be wanted?”
The forest holds its breath.
You lift his hand to your lips and whisper, “Put your lips on mine, and I will show you.”
Then he leans in.
Very carefully. Very slowly. Like a man approaching fire with the knowledge it may burn him… yet choosing it anyway.
His lips touch yours.
A tremor goes through him so sharply you feel it in your bones.
This is his first kiss—You can sense it in the hesitant brush of his mouth, the fragile uncertainty of his breath, the reverence in the way he barely dares to touch.
You kiss him gently at first, soft and coaxing, because you do not wish to startle him, do not wish to overwhelm him. Your fingers find the side of his jaw, guiding him, telling him he is welcome in this closeness.
He answers you with a broken exhale.
Then his hand rises—slow, trembling—and he cradles your face.
His palm is broad, slightly cold, shaking as though the moment itself is too precious, too impossible to hold steady. He cups your cheek as though you are something divine, something he fears the world might take from him at any second.
You deepen the kiss by a bare breath, only enough for your lips to mold softly against his—and a sound escapes you.
A quiet, helpless little hum.
He startles.
His entire body jerks back as if struck.
Adam tears away from your mouth, eyes wide, chest heaving, gaze fixed shamefully on the ground.
“I… I did not mean—” He swallows, throat working. “Did I hurt you? Forgive me, I did not know… I thought… I feared I—”
His breath stutters, the words entangled in panic. “Your sound—I feared it was pain.”
Your heart breaks and swells all at once.
You reach for him carefully, your fingers brushing the back of his knuckles.
“Adam,” you whisper, soft but sure. “Look at me.”
He hesitates, shoulders drawn tight, but he obeys.
His eyes lift, and the fear in them is a living thing.
You cradle his face with both hands, mirroring how he had held you moments before, and your voice steadies.
“You could never hurt me.”
His breath shudders. “But you—”
“That sound,” you murmur, leaning close enough that your words warm his lips, “was not pain. It was… pleasure. It was want.”
His eyes flicker.
Understanding comes slowly, uncertainly—yet with a hunger that feels older than his bones.
You draw him nearer again, your lips brushing his as delicately as flower petals.
“This is wanted,” you breathe. “This is me… wanting you.”
He makes a low, astonished sound—and when he kisses you again, it is still gentle, still careful…but fuller. Warmer.
A trembling, reverent claiming from a man who has never dared to claim anything.
One of his hands stays on your cheek, shaking; the other settles at your waist, large enough to span nearly its whole curve, holding you.
Your lips move together slowly, sweetly, with a rising thrum of passion beneath the tenderness.
Not urgent. Not rushed. But something blooming—deep, molten, inevitable.
Every breath, shared. Every tremble felt. Every inch of him learning you.
And every inch of you, melting.
When you part, the air is warm between you, his forehead resting almost shyly against yours.
He whispers, voice barely more than a breath, “Is… is this what it is to be wanted?”
Your smile answers before your words do.
“Yes,” you whisper. “This is precisely what it is.”
And he breathes you in like a man starved.
You barely have time to savor the trembling stillness between you before he leans in again—less hesitant this time, more drawn, as though something inside him has unlatched and will not be shut again.
His mouth finds yours with new hunger. Still gentle…but no longer timid. A firmer press. A seeking. A wanting he has no name for, yet feels with every part of him.
His hand cups your jaw fully now, his thumb grazing the corner of your mouth in a motion that feels almost—possessive.
Your breath catches.
You kiss him back with equal fervor, lips parting for him just enough to draw a quiet, startled sound from his throat. He answers with a soft growl of need, the faintest hint of bite in the way he pulls you closer—your bodies brushing, your pulse thundering.
It is slow and deep and dizzying.
A kiss that tastes like discovery and hunger and that first spark of something far too dangerous to name.
Your fingers curl into the fabric of his jacket.
His other hand hesitates at your waist—then grips, warm and trembling, pulling you the slightest fraction nearer. The kiss deepens again, heat rising, your lips molding, parting, meeting with a rhythm that feels older than breath.
You make another sound—soft, wanting, shameless.
He echoes it, a low, rumbling answer in his chest that sends shivers down your spine.
You are just about to lose yourself entirely in the press of him—When a voice in the distance calls your name.
“My lady? My lady—are you in the gardens?”
You freeze.
Adam stills instantly, every muscle locking beneath your hands.
Another call. Closer this time. “My lady!”
You breathe out against his mouth, reluctant, trembling.
He draws back only a few inches, eyes wide and dark, the left iris glinting, lips parted, confused and almost wounded by the interruption.
You rest your forehead to his, breath warm between you.
“Adam…” you whisper, already aching for the kiss you have no choice but to leave behind.
His hand stays on your waist, gentle, uncertain. Yours lingers on his cheek.
The voices draw nearer.
You swallow, whispering, “I will see you again soon. Wait for me.”
He nods once.
And as you rise to slip back through the brush, he watches you with lips still swollen from your kiss…and longing blazing in his eyes.
Simon watches you watch him, and it is perhaps the most intimate thing he's ever done with someone, which is fucking insane because he's been with women before. Many people has seen him without the mask. But this vulnerability, this sort of gentle surrender, is not intimate for lack of experience.
It's intimate because it's you.
When the mask falls from his face, you inhale. His living room is suspended inside a bubble, there's no other sounds except your clumsy breathing and his own heartbeat hammering between his ears.
The silence camps and lingers, and all he can do is watch the way you study him and remind himself to breathe.
Finally, finally, your lips part. "I knew you're pretty."
He smiles half a smile, folding the mask painfully slow so he has something to do with his hands. "Yeah? I prefer handsome, hot even, but I'll take what I can get."
Your smile is wide, sunny, and you can't seem to stop fidgeting. Simon leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees. He likes the view from here, likes you standing over him like this, in that little dress you picked out just to have dinner with him.
"Are you nervous, luv?"
You touch your collarbones and glance away from him, a flush rising from your neck to your cheeks. "A bit. This feels intimate for some reason."
Simon smirks. God, he wants to tease you so badly. The urge is almost physical, a hand coaxing his mouth open and pulling the words out, a truth serum coursing through his veins. "Yeah? That's cute."
You huff at him. "Don't tease me."
He leans back against the couch, a wolfish grin pulling at his lips. "It's fun."
"For you!" There's no conviction in your words. It's obvious to Simon that you're enjoying this, too, in your own way, and it makes every atom in his body vibrate with an energy he can't identify or understand. He's never felt this restless, this hungry. It's a bone deep craving.
He hums, watching you from under his lashes, a small smile playing on his lips. It's hard not to smile when you're all giggles and flushed cheeks, looking drunk without enough alcohol in your system. It's the energy in the room, the lateness of the night, the soft lighting washing over your features like a filter; you look like an angel, like a pleasant memory, like the person he wants to spend the rest of his nights with.
But he doesn't say that.
"I should probably go." You tuck a hair behind your ear. "It's getting late."
Simon doesn't want you to go, but he nods, walks you to the door. He reaches over you to open it when you pause and turn to face him. He freezes, the proximity, the way you look up at him and swallow, hard, when you realise how close he is to you makes his heart stutter. His eyes dip, involuntarily, to your throat, watches the subtle movement of your throat under the delicate, untouched skin of your neck. His hold on the door knob tightens, lips parting as his breathing grows heavy.
Your neck, seven kisses long, is a part of you that he can never resist the urge to glance at, even in normal conversations. And here it is now, stretched out before him because the only way for you to look him in the eye is if you tilt your head back. Oh how he loves you like this: startled, flustered, small compared to him. Pushed up against his door. Not trapped. Caged in lovingly, in desperation.
"What is it about you?" he wonders.
Your lips part but no sound comes out, just a stuttering exhale. You're a blushing, breath too heavy mess. He is your undoing, and you are his.
Everything that follows is pure instinct; how he reaches for that one stubborn strand of hair and tuck it behind your ear, then, instead of pulling back, lets his hand linger, gently drift down the side of your left cheek, thumb tracing the edge of your jaw, reaching your chin, tilting your head up more towards him.
"I don't want to overstep," he murmurs, studying your face.
You shake your head. "You're not."
The only force in the world that could stop him just admitted he didn't need to be stopped, and double shivers slide down his spine like warm, encouraging hands. He shudders, eyes closing, going into this kiss the way a blind believer goes into prayer: desperate, convinced nothing else is right but this.
To say he kisses you is to undermine the intensity of that moment; he melts into you, inhales you in, his lips devouring yours. His hand slides to the back of your head, holding it in place in a way that is both firm and gentle. His other hand finds your back, pulls you in, his body pouring all its natural warmth into your skin. It's overwhelming, you feel it everywhere. He feels it everywhere, every atom in his body buzzing and shaking just below the surface.
His tongue touches yours and he can only describe it as a current of electricity traveling from your mouth to his.
You pull back, severing the connection. You're panting, chest heaving, lips glistening. "I think that's the best kiss I've ever had," you whisper, still trying to catch your breath.
Simon's breathing is just as labored as yours, twice as heavy. He leans over you, resting his forehead on your shoulder, head turned towards your neck, watching your pulse jump just below the surface.
"Plenty of that where it came from, luv," he whispers back. "Just let me and I'll do all the work."
You breathe out a shaky laugh. "This line ever worked on other women?"
"There isn't usually this much talking involved," he says, the smirk evident in his voice. "So you tell me, sweetheart, is it working for you?"
You rest your head back against the door. "It's not."
Simon can hear the smile in your voice, too, but that's not enough. He wants to see it, so he pulls back, looks down at you. Your pupils are almost swallowing the white whole when you glance up at him, lips still flushed, kissable, hair slightly messier than when you first walked in through that door.
"You're so pretty," he breathes out.
You bite back a timid smile. "Hmm, that line works for me."
"It's not a line."
"I should probably go."
"Not yet." His hand finds yours without looking. "I want to take you out."
"We love when a man cooks for us so most women would consider this a date."
"What do you love?" He asks and before you can say anything, he kisses you again, quick despite all his instincts, despite the craving. "I want to find out. Let me try everything and find out."
cw: suggestive language and content, mature language and content, smut, unprotected piv, breeding kinks, cumplay, oral, graphic depictions of violence + gore + murder, depictions of assault and bodily harm, dubcon, obsession, possessiveness, halloween/horror movie vibes (18+)
The one thing that no one can outrun is time.
It's not possible to pause; you cannot escape the path that it moves, the only thing you can do is keep moving with it until your feet catch up. Even when you can't hear the clock ticking, you know it's still moving because everything else moves along with it, at the same pace, always.
No matter who you are or what you do, it's not something you can buy. It's not something you can block with a heavy door or weaken with a solvent. As small as the ant you step on and as large as the wave that pulls you under, time is an inevitable hook.
One day, it will wrap a hand around your ankle and tug; and there will be nothing for you to hold onto to keep you from falling.
You end your podcast right on the hour. You hit the button on your monitor, stopping the stream, and you lift your headphones off and set them down onto their little stand. You sigh as you rest your head in your hands, scrolling through some of the comments. You smile a little at the praise; you just finished your multi-part series about a real-life serial killer that had yet to be caught. It has been your most successful series to date—you had interviewed actual stakeholders in the investigation, including the family of one of the victims and a detective from one of the police departments that hoped your global audience would be able to help them gather clues or information. The new information and your extensive research made your re-telling of events more recent and more exciting.
You prided yourself on discussions about true crime primarily based on factual evidence and little assumption. Of course, there is always room for interpretation sometimes, especially when caught killers don't give reasons or motive for the things they've done, but the evidence is always laid out in a particular way that you've always believed will lead to putting the puzzles pieces of a crime back together. It's all in how you look at the full picture. Sprays of blood have origin points of trajectory. The murder weapon has ownership, fingerprints, sometimes residue from where it came from. The cause of death can tell a lot about what kind of killing has occurred—sixty stab wounds were more personal than a single gun-shot wound.
Crimes of passion. Crimes of vengeance. Crimes of evening the scores, split-second reactions, love and obsession and irritation. It was fascinating and horrifying to you all at once, and you love that your telling of these stories and events could resonate with such a large audience. There is importance in giving victims remembrance and attention. There is significance in talking about how innate systems fail victims, in how the occurrence of violent crimes in certain places can be perpetuated by environments, failing governments, and societal expectations. It gives a platform to discuss mental health and advocacy for different groups.
Your most recent spotlight case is unique; normally, you like to discuss cases that have been solved. You like to poke holes in the investigations and talk about what went right and what went wrong, from beginning to end. This time, however, you discussed a case that hasn't been solved yet. A serial killer that originally seemed to be based in the UK, that seems to have now gone international. United States. Canada. Mexico. Argentina. Italy. Germany. Their hands are in many places, their mark left just subtle enough to identify them as you followed their crimes from one country to the next.
You've nicknamed him Ghost. You discussed in part two extensively about how the signature and manner of the killing can only be done by a man. You don't prefer to reduce killers down to their gender or sex, as the ability to kill is not reduced just to those single factors, but this one in particular makes the most sense to you. A man is the most likely to kill in this way.
There is a particular way he leaves his victims. Some of them have been gutted and carved with great precision and care. Others have been murdered by a great distance with a single gunshot to the head or right through the heart; one of his victims, a giant in the world of human trafficking, was hit straight through the femoral artery and left to bleed out and suffer straight through to the end. A deliberate killing—he had the ability to give him a swift end, but he chose not to.
Sickening. Admirable. Interesting.
You've deduced that he must have a military background and be from the UK. His first few kills were identified around the London, Brighton, and Manchester areas, and all were similarly killed with a precise gunshot wound to the head or heart. From the bullet casing found on the scenes and the angle of the bullet, investigators had placed their killers from at least a thousand yards away.
His more personally-killed victims were outside of the UK. Traffickers gutted in the deserts of Mexico. Child predators run over in the hills of Colorado. Domestic violence perpetrators hung up to bleed out in Capri, Italy. He was traveling the world and cleaning up the streets, overpowering his victims and terrifying them until their very end. Statistically, there were more men in the service than women, and with the size of some of his victims, it was very unlikely that anyone except a man was committing such crimes. Men tend to be more driven by their testosterone as well; anger, violence, the need to release energy in such a terrible and nasty way. You weren't completely omitting the idea of a killer that wasn't a man, but you felt it made more sense to go with statistical and deductive reasoning.
Your Ghost is ruthless. Kills without remorse. Illusive. He leaves no evidence except for a bullet casing that's untraceable or a victim with too much of themselves missing to make any sort of conclusions. No one wanted to believe that all of these murders could be by the same perpetrator, but there were too many similarities in death circumstances to make you think it was anyone except for your Ghost.
My Ghost, my Ghost, my Ghost.
You tried to keep the admiration out of your voice, but it was hard. The people your Ghost killed were illusive themselves; their cases getting thrown out of court, their pockets too deep for any systems to hold them accountable. He strung them up and rung them out, and while you had to condemn him for killing outside of the law, he was a vigilante that you saw as all too redeemable. Maybe you were letting it get too personal. Maybe you were not looking at the cases through an objective lens. Maybe you had reviewed too many cases where murderers and killers slipped through the hands of the law too easily, serving just a couple years for causing nothing but terror and destruction, and you were letting your Ghost's heavy hand be the hammer of God that you wished so badly to wield yourself.
Your Ghost was judge, jury, and executioner, and you liked him that way. You liked him free and anonymous and hiding in dark corners. You liked that when systems worked in favor of wrongdoings, your Ghost kept the balance where he could. He has a Rolodex of people on a hit list, and he was going through them one-by-one.
Every time you read about someone new eating the shit they dealt themselves, you hoped it was your Ghost.
Your cases shift. The next case you discuss mentions the father that murdered his entire family, slipping away from accountability when the evidence brought by the state was thrown out due to the lack of a warrant when the murder weapon was obtained. He was walking free in Cincinnati, Ohio, working a day job and sleeping in the same house he murdered his family in.
When the same man is reported missing a few weeks later, you pretend not to notice. You pretend to be surprised when someone mentions it, how awful it must be that something so tragic has occurred, but at night, in your bed, you dream about your voice being the invisible hand that drives his own. You the brain, he the muscle.
You the judge, he the executioner.
Your favorite day of the entire year is October 31st. Halloween, your favorite holiday, a day filled with festivities and warm lights and cool weather and sweets. There's a party later that you're eager to attend, and you get to host your Halloween special showcase. You usually tell scary stories and host a special guest, and it's always a good stream with an influx of new subscribers and viewers to join in on the spooky theme.
Tonight is no different. You get hundreds of new subscribers, host a paranormal investigator to discuss their upcoming web-show, and a user going by redthread141 donated $1,000.
Your costume is intricate, something you made yourself. An angel costume with heavy wings, a white silk dress with a leather corset around the middle. You've decorated the whole outfit with feathers and pearls and rhinestones so it glitters and moves with every swing of your hips. It's cheesy, sure, but it's Halloween, and you like the contrast of horror and innocence melded into one holiday.
Your friends are terrible pranksters. As soon as you make it to the pub, everyone is dressed as interpretations of a ghost. Some of your friends have draped sheets with holes cut out for their eyes over their heads, others have bought cheap Ghostface masks and swung plastic daggers in your face. It's funny, and it makes you laugh, and it's subtly a celebration of all your success with your recent series. Your show is really resonating with people, and you've got a good thing going on.
It's cool outside when you step out for a breath of fresh air. You take a seat on the curb, digging your heels into the pavement, and when you rest your head on your knees, you smile at the figure you see smoking a cigarette next to the streetlamp. It's a man, a big one, leaning against the pole as he stares at you with a cold gaze. He wears a mask that's pushed up out of the way so he can take another drag of the cigarette, and you smile at him as you meet his eyes.
"I like your interpretation," you say softly. His mask is crudely DIY, with a skull faceplate sewn to the front. He wears all black, a hoodie over his head and windbreaker overtop, dark cargoes tucked into thick boots and skeleton-painted gloves to hide his hands. He licks over his teeth when he realizes you're talking to him. "Of Ghost. It's cool. Creepy. Did you make it yourself?"
He flicks the end of the cigarette, dropping ashes, and when he blows out a breath of smoke, he nods once in your direction.
You stand up a little too fast, stumbling a little. There's a lot of alcohol in your system, but you steady yourself with a few steps before coming towards him to admire his costume a little closer. You smile up at him, shaking out your wings, and when you put your hands on his chest, you coo at the feeling of fat and muscle underneath.
"Mmmm…" You tilt your head back so you can look up at him better. He's much taller than you, big and broad, and you slide your hands boldly down his pecs before settling around his solid middle. He flexes a little under your touch, and you bite your lip. "I think I like your costume the best. Everyone else's is kinda stupid. Yours is the real deal, huh?"
He tilts his head to the side, like a predator studying prey. His eyes rake over your face, splaying you open, and your lips part gently as you stand on your toes to get closer to him.
"W-Will I see you inside?" You hiccup, blinking up at him. He stares for a few more moments, not moving, and then he nods once again. You smile, a little giggle leaving you, and you drop your voice to a whisper. "W-Wait, what's your name? I forget."
He tilts his head to the other side, and you put a hand over your mouth to stop your louder laugh.
"Oh right," you snort. "Ghost."
You're warm and tingly all over back inside the pub. Your leg bounces as you sit at the bar, your lips wrapped around a plastic orange straw as you stare at the door and wait for the mysterious Ghost to come back inside. Your drink is spilling tufts of delicate clouds from the dry ice the bar procured for special Halloween drinks, and you whine when every man that comes up to you isn't the big, giant skeleton-man you met outside. You wonder which one of your friends invited him—maybe it would take your mind off your anonymous admirer if you got your back blown out by a tall bear-man in your very own bed.
You never see him come back inside, which disappoints you. You nearly jump out of your body when you turn around and see he's standing right behind you.
A nervous giggle leaves you. His hood leaves a dark shadow over his face, and you gasp with delight when you see him there. Your hands find his chest again, and you lean forward, chin resting on his chest, staring up at him with sparkly, wet eyes.
"Ghost," you whisper, relaxing when you feel his big paw-hands gripping you by your waist. "I-I didn't see you come in. I thought you were leaving me hanging."
You pout a little, your lashes fluttering, and he leans down towards you, saying nothing but shaking his head. Your pout falls, and a smile comes back, and a little squeak leaves you when he bends down far enough to press the front of his mask against you, his covered lips touching your own. You laugh, giving him a kiss back, and you whine when he grips the back of your seat and tugs you forward. You grip the front of his jacket and hold onto him tight, your feet kicking a little as he moves you so easily with nothing but a flex of his big arms.
"I like calling you Ghost," you murmur. "Is it—" You hiccup, "—okay if I call you Ghost?"
He nods once, and you shiver a little. Maybe you're just too drunk. You're not thinking clearly. You're using this masked stranger to fantasize about the very personification of your anonymous killer. Your Ghost. Your man of mystery, that you think might be listening to you, taking hints from you, taking advantage of your silent offering as if to entice you—serenade you. He notices you, and he wants you to notice him, and now you're staring up at this big, beefy stranger and hoping you can put all of your explicit, terrible thoughts about another man you don't know doing just as you please him to. You're sick. You're twisted.
Horny.
You squeeze your thighs together, biting your lip.
"D-Do you wanna…" You breathe against the front of his mask, gripping the collar of his jacket now, tugging him even further down towards you so you can kiss him again over the mask. Your tongue pokes out to slide against where his lips would be, and he grunts, squeezing your waist a little too hard. "C-Closet—there's a closet—oh!"
It's pitch-black when he closes the door.
You giggle, swaying, and you shriek with delight when he uses those big arms to pick you up from under your thighs. You wrap your arms around his neck, leaning your forehead against his, and you whine as he presses his hips against yours and grinds up into you.
"C-Can—" You hiccup again. "I-I wanna kiss you—"
He grunts, and one of your hand falls so you can touch his masked face.
"P-Please? Please—" You gasp. "Let me kiss you—"
"No."
You whimper when his hand wraps around your throat and shoves you into the wall. You grip his shoulders tight, shivering, and your eyes flutter shut as he keeps rutting his hips against yours. You moan, entirely too loudly, when his cock slots against your cunt and he pushes up against your clit. Delicious, hot pangs of pleasure warm up your spine, and you cling to him for dear life.
You come fast, and you know it's because you're drunk. You grip the edges of his shirt, panting against his mask, and he hums, all satisfied, at the way you cry. You feel like a teenager, getting touched by your crush during a little game of seven minutes in heaven. This is better than heaven, cause it's definitely been less than seven minutes, and you are seeing paradise behind your eyes.
"I-I'm coming—" You whimper. "C-Coming…"
He sets you down onto jelly legs afterwards. You reach between your bodies, feeling under your dress, giggling when you feel how sticky and wet you are between the thighs. He crowds you against the wall, and your head bangs against it as he presses you into it.
"I wanna…" You lean up on your toes and kiss the front of his mask. It's like there's nothing behind his eyes as they look you over, but you think you feel his tongue on the other side of his mask, and the tease of it only makes you drool. "Will you…t-take me home? Pretty, pretty please?"
This role play thing he has going on is really doing it for you. You might be tipsy, but you're lucid enough to know that you would have never had the confidence to bring him home if you were truly sober. You're still so giggly as you open the door to your apartment, grabbing his gloved hands and tugging him inside as you shut and lock the door behind you. You flick on just the lamps, creating a soft, yellow glow in the room, and you light a few candles to set the mood before turning to face him.
You shimmy your angel wings off, tossing them aside, and Ghost just tilts his head to the side and watches you. You kick your heels off, smiling at him, and he puts a big hand on his chest and slides it low as he watches you fit two fingers under the straps of your dress and slip them off, the fabric pooling at your feet.
You think if you weren't drunk, you'd be much too shy to do this, too. This man is big and bulky, and there's a little voice in the back of your head that wonders if you're the kind of girl he would like. Soft, thick around the middle, in your thighs. Your insecurity vanishes the moment the dress falls—his hand grips his bulge, squeezing as he shakes his head and lets out a harsh breath at the sight of you.
You try to climb him like a tree, and he takes the weight easily. Picking you up with barely a sound, crowding you until he can tip over your couch and fall over on top of you. You slide your hands down his back, throwing your head back as he grinds into you, and your mouth falls open at the sound of his belt unbuckling.
"Oh—please—" You gasp. "Please, please, please—" You nudge your nose against his. "Won't you let me kiss you?"
He grips your jaw with a big palm, sitting up on his elbows. He stares down at you, eye-black around his eyes smudged by his sweat. It's now that you realize his lashes are blonde, and you smile up at him all relaxed and gooey under his touch. You close your eyes and stick your tongue out, and you are finally rewarded with the feeling of his lips. His tongue is wet against yours, saliva pooling between your mouths as you kiss all sloppy and hot. You close your arms around his neck tighter, crossing your ankles at the base of his spine so you can force him to lay over you. You moan into his mouth when you realize he's lowered his cargoes just enough, his cock hot and heavy between your bodies.
"Yes, yes, yes—" You pant, arching your back. He chuckles low, one of the first real glimpses of his voice that you get, and you want more of it. You reach between your bodies, wrapping a hand around his cock, and he hisses roughly as you squeeze the leaking tip. "O-Oh…" You lick into his mouth. "S-So…oh, y-you're big."
He growls at that. He falls from one hand, supporting himself on an elbow, and you give his cock a languid stroke as you giggle against his cheek.
"Easy, love," he finally speaks. He's got an accent, something deep and gravelly and English, and your eyes roll back in your head as you drink it in. "Drive a man mad like tha'."
You cup his cheeks, kissing him again, and you breathe all labored and wanting as he uses one hand to push your panties to the side so he can slide his cock between your folds.
"He speaks," you whisper, touching your tongue against his, and he doesn't give you any more words before he slips the tip inside and rocks your whole world. You don't have the kind of head space that asks him to wear a condom. You're so needy, so eager, that you need it, and you need it now. You sink your nails into his shoulders, locking your knees around his hips, and you laugh breathlessly as he hooks his arms under your knees and sinks all the way inside of you. You feel him so deep—he's in your stomach, that's for sure—and you squeeze around him tight. You've never been this wet, and you think that's your only saving grace.
You don't spend the whole night underneath him. You change positions quite often. You let him take you on your tummy, his thighs smacking against your own. You let him flip you over, his back against the couch, and you bounce pathetically on top of him as you try to match the fast pace he set. You close your thighs around his head, cunt grinding along his mouth, with the tip of his cock between your lips as you suck the taste of yourself off of him. You never undress him—he's fully-clothed, the fucking asshole—but you're naked and crying underneath him for most of the night. You don't count the orgasms. You don't count how many times you change positions. All you can do is nod and let him move you and then come again when he touches you like he knows you.
Like he knows me. Like he knows me. Like he knows me.
He's smoking a cigarette on your balcony. He's got his boots still on—the weirdo—even though you fucked him six ways to Sunday. His mask is still there, barely over his lips, and you smile as you pull the blanket over you a little more, tucking your chin under it.
He lingers after he finishes the cigarette. Paces slowly around your living room, gloved hand tracing over the outlines of you that are scattered across the flat. The pictures hanging on the wall, the books along the shelves. He pauses in front of your desk where your setup is.
Expensive, high-quality microphone. Your notebooks filled with your talking points. The streamdeck beside the speakers, the little glowing lights and knickknacks you keep around, the keyboard with the thocky switches that you spent an hour assembling all by yourself. You sit up a little, watching him as he rolls your chair back and admires the standing desk. You giggle when he uses the little buttons, making it rise and fall.
"Neat, right? Ergonomic," you wink at him. He spreads a few of your notebooks out on the desk, and you watch with a curious eye as he picks up a particular one and opens it. The pages crinkle from all the writing, and you swallow. "I…that's my…work."
His gloved hand stops on a particular page. He drags a finger over the words written there, and you clear your throat.
"Uhm…I have a podcast. I do like…" You rub your eyes. "True crime. Investigate cold cases and things…like that."
Ghost looks over at you for a brief moment before looking back down to read. You stand up, holding the blanket over you. He eyes you, squinting, and you point to your bedroom.
"I'm just gonna…get dressed really quick. I'll…be right back."
You smile nervously before padding to your room, dropping the blanket to find some clothes. You slide on a pair of underwear after a trip to the bathroom and slip a pajama shirt on over your head. You look in the mirror as you fix up your hair a bit and wipe the makeup that's smudged, and then you go to open your bedroom door again.
You shriek when you run right into Ghost. He's standing there like a brick wall just on the other side of the doorway, and you put a hand on your chest as you step backwards, your heart thumping.
"Jesus!" You gasp, laughing. "What the fuck?"
He's holding out your notebook to you. It's open on a page, your writing extremely scribbled.
Is he talking to me?
It's been crossed out, but not well enough—you can see it clearly through the strokes you tried to put through the words. You hold your hands close to your chest, cradling them there, and you read the words a couple times over before looking up at him.
"Those are just my work notes. For the stream. It's not…" You shake your head. "Those are private!" You laugh, swiping the notebook from his hands. He tilts his head to the side, narrowing his eyes, and you lean up on your toes. "You are just a nosy Nelly. It's…just research stuff. If you wanna know more, why don't you just watch the episodes, huh?"
He steps forward, and you're forced to step back. You clutch the notebook close, frowning.
"Hey. T-This is my room. I didn't invite you in."
He steps forward again, and you put a hand on his chest.
"Hey. Ghost. It's not funny. I'm serious."
The bedroom door creaks as it shuts behind him. Your hands shake a little, and you step backwards again, putting distance between you. He's intimidating in the dark. He's all bulk, all muscle, all too much for you to take on just by yourself. He could lift you with one arm, the fucking man he is, and you swallow and shake your head.
"I…" You bite your lip. "I-I think you should go. I…had a nice time, b-but I think you should go."
Ghost doesn't move. He tilts his head to the other side, like what you said had no effect on him, and it probably didn't.
"I really." Your voice is small, and it shakes. "I really think you should go."
Your heart sinks straight into your stomach when you see the subtle shake of his head. Your eyes move to the space around him. It would be impossible to maneuver towards the door without him catching you. The window is a no-go—you live on the tenth floor, and you don't have a fire escape. If you want to get out of here, you'll need to improvise.
You'll need to be smart.
For all the fucking podcast episodes you've recorded and streamed, for all the scenarios of people in the same position you stand in just now, you wish you had thought of your game plan when things went to shit.
"You don't want to go," you say softly. Ghost stares still. His eyes drop, looking over you, slow and steady. If you had known you were going to be having sex with a crazed stalker of yours, you would have tried harder to tire him out. You purse your lips, straightening your posture, and he seems amused by that. His gloved hands twitch at his sides. "Then what are you here for?"
He keeps staring. He's still, won't move, and then you look down at the notebook in your hand.
Is he talking to me?
You close it after reading it again. Your fingers tremble as you run them down the cover, thumbing through the pages and pages of notes you have. Quick scribbles, frantic connections you've made, your hunches and your thoughts and your ideas about who your silent killer could be. He's an enigma in your mind but personified by your pen, and you've dreamed about the kind of thing he might be, have had countless different versions played in your head, but you've always thought it was a true stretch that he might be listening.
You picked up the phone constantly, and you never thought there was anyone on the other line—but fuck, you never did hear that dial tone, did you?
"I…" Your eyes sparkle. Tears. He sniffs under the mask when he sees them, and you stiffen when he reaches over and touches just under your chin with his knuckles. You curl into yourself, but you stop yourself from pulling away. You don't know why he's here, but he's obviously fascinated with you. He wants something. He wouldn't have come if he didn't. "I won't tell anyone that…t-that you were here. If you promise to go."
That doesn't satisfy him. He steps forward now that he knows he has you, and your head jerks as he grips you by the jaw and forces you onto your toes. It's frantic, the way he pushes his mask up, and he fists your hair as he kisses you.
You let him.
There was something to be afraid of. There was so much to fear; but as soon as his tongue touches yours, you let your feet shuffle closer, and then your mouth opens wide for him.
You pull away after the first few seconds of bliss, pressing against his chest to keep him a step away. You shake your head, whining, closing your eyes tight to keep yourself from looking at him again. The air around him is intoxicating, and looking at him draws you in.
"I can't do this—we—we can't do this."
You melt when he presses his mouth against your cheek. The hot air from his mouth warms your skin, and the way his hands trail down your back and around your waist is making you dizzy. No one has ever touched you this way; no one has ever made you feel like the object of all their affections, like the center of their gravity. His attention feels stripping, but it feels so good, and as you tighten your fingers around the fabric of his shirt, you know you shouldn't feel this way.
You know him better than most, you'd like to think. There's something about death that is just so intimate. There's something about killing—about its details, all the gory and scary ones—that is just so personal. You may not know his name, but you know where these hands have been. You may not know where he grew up, but you know the places he's been, the corners he lurks in. You know what his cock feels like inside of you, and you know that his face must be scarred to shreds based on the haphazard way they put his lips back together.
These hands have seen war. This body has been used—sold to the highest bidder, turned over in more than one grave, buried alive and then back to the surface. He came for it, for more, because he tasted blood, and he liked it. Fuck, what are you going to do with him?
What are you going to do with the perfection of one man?
Your fingers trace down between his pecs. He's all strength under your palm. He's been molded by time and by things much heavier than you. These hands wield the hammer of God, and those eyes have seen more in his three decades than many have seen in a thousand lifetimes.
"You want something from me," you whisper. With your eyes closed, you can only feel, and the step he takes closer to you envelopes you in warmth. You fall into him, head against his chest. "What is it that you want?"
To want. Do monsters want? This one does. Is he a monster? He can't be. His scars are telltale enough that he is made of flesh and bone. What he does is human because he is human.
You open your eyes. When you touch his face, you notice that his lashes are blonde. Pale.
"Are…" When you blink, a tear makes its way down your cheek, and he watches it fall. "Are you going to kill me?"
That gets a laugh. A deep-bellied, gravelly laugh. When he pinches your chin, your face grows warm, and you feel his kiss through the mask, that press of his lips against the side of your face as he bends to get closer to you.
You wonder if this is what they mean when they call it making love.
His glove hands intertwine with yours. He presses the backs of your hands into the mattress, breath hot as he grinds against your hot cunt. When he lets go to shred your panties out of the way, your hands slide up his sides, digging into his shoulders as he fucks you again.
The kisses feel more raw. His cock is so hard, swelled with blood—like you knowing and letting him have you is his ultimate wet dream. That place in your belly that his cock hits, he touches—he keeps a hand there, pressing down, and your thighs are shaking as you feel him thrusting up into that spot, determined to keep himself there, focused on the illusion that it's possible to carve the shape of his cock into you and keep it there.
"You…You c-came for me?" You whine. You want to cry with it, with the idea. "You knew…about me?"
"Y'r a lot o' things," he rasps. You nearly come just at the sound of his voice, drinking it in, and you reach down to press the heel of his hand hard against your clit. "Stupid…not one of 'em."
Ghost sits up on his haunches, leaning over you. He guides your legs up and over his shoulders, and you rest your hands on his forearms as he stares down at you. You arch your back, wiggling your toes, and he barely can handle a few moments of eye contact before he's coming inside of you.
You cry when he does. You reach down, eyes rolling back as you use your own sticky fingers to get yourself there. His hand falls to squeeze the side of your ass, and with his hard touch, you come, too, eager, wet, creaming. He draws his hands up your thighs, grabbing around your hips, and you pant hard. You lean your head back, eyes fluttering, and you nearly come again when you see Ghost moving his wet gloved fingers under his mask and hearing the sound of his tongue sucking on the fabric.
Ghost drags a blade down the side of your face once your eyes are back on him. His cock softening inside of you, he contemplates it for a moment—what it might look like if he turned the blade over and used the sharp edge against your soft skin. What color your blood might run if he ran it across your throat and let it soak the very cushions he made you come on. When he runs the edge of it over your pebbled nipple, you don't even cower; you giggle, fucking adorable, and he feels you clench around his cock.
Sick. Twisted. Inevitable.
When he runs the hilt of his knife against your bottom lip, his cock hardens all over again when you let your tongue fall out and you suck it into your mouth.
He's gone in the morning. Not even a boot print left behind to tell you he was there. The cigarette he had stamped out on your balcony is gone, and if it wasn't for the feeling between your thighs, you might have thought you imagined him.
You cry when you feel the empty spot in your bed. You cry because it's cold, and you cry because you miss him, and you cry because you know you shouldn't feel this way, but you do—you do.
You don't have the motivation for research. You sulk for hours, ignoring your phone and the way it rings. You're too upset for this week's episode that you were supposed to record tonight, and you're too mad at yourself for not latching onto him and forcing him to stay.
What did you think was going to happen?
Did you really think he was going to stay? Stick around? Admit to all of the horrible, terrible things that you know he's done and wait around for you to turn him in?
Would you have?
You swallow it whole, these awful truths, and you accept them. It's how you feel; you can't change that. You don't want to. He fascinates you, he intrigues you, and he fucks so good, he made you forget about murder, and for a man whose whole persona revolves around killing, you think that's a pretty good sign to keep him in your bed—
You barely blink at the e-mail notification. It's from one of your video editors, sharing a news article with you. You sigh, bored, hovering your mouse over the link before clicking it. Someone's dead—someone knew. Someone right outside the very pub you were at last night, someone found with a pack of roofies in his pocket and a cheap mask. There had been people complaining about him all night, apparently. There's a leaked picture attached to the e-mail.
The man is splayed out on the pavement, throat slit, arms outstretched—and he's wearing angel wings, positioned as if he's making a snow angel in the middle of the sidewalk. You swallow hard as you sit up, looking around your living room. You see the dress you were wearing still on the floor by the couch; your heels are still beside the coffee table.
You look back at the photo, cursing under your breath.
Those are your angel wings.
Is he talking to me?
When the phone rings, there is no caller ID. You stare at the phone buzzing in your hand, heart thudding as you slide your thumb over to answer the call. You put it to your ear, and there is silence on the other end.
"H-Hello?"
Nothing.
Is he talking to me?
The call does not end. When you bring the phone away to look down at it, the timer still goes up—there's someone on the other end. There's someone listening. You smile. So big, it hurts, this kind of smile.
You put the phone back to your ear, and you close your eyes.
"I saw what you did."
You imagine him there. Underneath you. You imagine him as big and imposing as he presents himself, and you imagine him holding you in a spot you can't escape and forcing you to put your eyes on his. You draw your legs together at the thought. Your mouth waters.
God Of The Gaps
01: The Family We Are Fed To
Sleep Token x Fem!Reader
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You wake in a world of dead gods, with no name and no past. You are pulled into a family not bound by blood, but by devotion. They see something in you that keeps you alive. As you are kept within their crumbling world of rituals and whispers, their strange affection begins to warp you.
“You’ll tear open the sky just to feel something divine, and when the stars don’t answer, you’ll call it fate, not failure. And when the gates finally opened, it was not angels you found.”
You awaken face down in the grass.
There was no wind. No birds, no voice to greet you but your own breath, shallow and foreign in your lungs, as though borrowed. The ground beneath you was cold and mushy, smelling of ash, iron and something softer, something like roses long dead in a sealed tomb.
You opened your eyes and the world that greeted you was wrong.
The trees rose tall and skeletal around you, their limbs twisted upward as if in mourning, not growth. You were in a forest suspended in eerie stillness, draped in odd colours that did not belong in the waking world—ashen greys, dull silver and that unnatural magenta colour, thick like bruised petals left rotting beneath glass. Every leaf, every petal, every blade of grass was stained some shade between these colours.
You sat up slowly, trembling fingers sinking into strange grass, which was soft but wrong, more like velvet than anything living. Fog thickened low across the ground, swirling white and heavy, not like mist but milk curdled in the lungs of the forest, dense and watching.
You were cold.
Not from the weather, but from the inside out.
Cold in your bones. Cold in your mind.
There was a road ahead, if it can be called that. Ivory stone tiles decorated the ground, clean and polished, laid into the dirt with surgical precision, forming a labyrinth of path that led away in every direction, nowhere and everywhere at once, like silver veins carved from old porcelain. No moss grew between the stones. No dirt clinged.
You shivered.
You looked down at your hands, as if they might explain something. They were your hands. You knew that. But whose? Who were you?
Your fingers rose in frantic sequence, to your chest, your throat, your cheeks, as if memory were something you could touch. As if familiarity might hide in the dip of your collarbone, in the shape of your jaw, in a mole or a scar you once claimed as home. But there was nothing. No jewelry. No mark. No tether. Only skin that felt borrowed and a body that no longer spoke your name.
Your name.
You didn’t know your name.
The realization didn’t strike like lightning. It didn’t come like a wave. It arrived like the true absence of sound. A void blooming in your chest, black and bottomless, still as death and just as certain. You didn’t know your name. The panic arrived before memory did, as though your body remembered mourning something your mind had not yet named. It wasn’t frantic. It was surgical. A theft of breath. A quiet slaughter of certainty.
Your lungs stuttered. Your throat narrowed.
“I don’t—” your voice cracked, barely a whisper.
You rose too fast, and the world reeled with you. The skeletal forest buckled sideways, tilting like a ship lost to a storm. Trees loomed above, their limbs twisted into shapes that shouldn’t exist, like ribs cracked open, reaching to claw the heavens. But the sky offered no anchor. No sun. No moon. Just a pale expanse without pulse or warmth, as if the gods had forgotten to finish it. The branches creaked softly, whispering warnings you couldn’t quite understand.
“Hello?” you cried out into the quiet. You tried again, voice cracking. “Please—”
The fog held the word like breath held in a stranger’s mouth.
No echo. No return.
It was not the quiet of peace, but the silence of forsaken places.
Your knees gave way, and you collapsed like breath leaving a prayer, palms cradled your face as if trying to hold yourself in. A name clawed at your throat, but there was nothing there, just a shape without sound slipping through your fingers. You were shaking now, not softly, no, but violently, as though your bones were rejecting the cage of your skin, as though your heart was pounding to be set free, desperate to escape the body it no longer recognised.
You crouched there like something newly born, knuckles dug into the alien velvet grass that didn’t bend like grass should. The air smelled like time left too long in a sealed room. Stale, and wrong. Tears stung your eyes, but before they could fall—
—you heard it.
Footsteps.
Measured. Unhurried. Close.
Each one fell into the quiet like punctuation, as if they were always meant to be written there. Then, somewhere in the white, something moved. It arrived with precision, with weight, with the patience of something that had never been hunted. It stepped from the fog as if the world itself had been waiting for you to see it. A silhouette began to form.
And when the fog thinned, you saw it—
—saw him.
A man. Or something like one. He seemed wrong in the details.
Too smooth. Too silent. Too deliberate.
He wasn’t tall. No, he did not need to be. He wore black from neck to toe. Velvet shirt tucked into tailored trousers pressed too perfectly, patent leather shoes that gleamed like mirrors and carried no sound, and over it all, a black cloak with a wide hood that swallowed most of him in shadow. And where his face should have been there was a mask, thick and ornate, sculpted from gold and lacquered black, decorated with strange symbols, like something ceremonial or holy, except it wasn’t. The mask didn’t cover his entire face, his mouth was visible through the vertical slits, his eyes and jawline were visible too, but that made him look much more haunting. It was too still. It looked fused to his skull. There were no visible straps or seams. Just polished metal where a face should be.
Only the suggestion of death dressed up like a man.
And he was looking right at you.
You gasped, your body pulling backward on instinct, feeling like a specimen pinned open on a silver tray. The uncanny man stopped just a few steps from you, tilting his head curiously. Not dramatically, not even threateningly, no, but something about the angle was unmistakably predatory, like the way a cat turns its head before it pounces.
“Did you call?” he asked.
The voice was soft, surprisingly warm, but that only made things worse. He spoke as though he were reciting something from memory, not really feeling it, mimicking a peculiar accent of the human kind. Like sound made through teeth not meant for language. You blinked, breath caught in your throat, unable to form a word.
He took another step forward. But not in threat. In curiosity.
And now he was looking down at you.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
The word wasn’t for you.
It was a finding, not a greeting.
“Who—who are you?” you managed to whisper, your voice breaking like a dropped glass.
He stepped to the side and began to walk around you in a perfect, measured arc, circling you. You turned to follow his movements, your body frozen, your limbs stuck between flight and collapse. His polished shoes whispered against the ivory stone.
“You may call me IV,” he said at last.
You stared.
That name meant nothing. It was a number. A placeholder. A cipher.
“What is this place?” you whispered, barely audible. “Why can’t I remember anything?”
He stopped walking.
“You remember how to speak,” he said. “That is not nothing.”
The words came gently, almost like kindness, but they didn’t comfort you, no, they made you shudder instead. His words felt like the patient assurance of something that knew what you were made of, because it had taken others apart.
“Don’t come closer, please—”
Your voice broke as he crouched.
The movement was seamless. It was perfectly graceful, in the same way a snake descending a tree is graceful, uninterrupted and fluid. Effortless. Boneless even. His knees bent too evenly. Like his body wasn’t governed by the same physics as yours, as though it remembered the shape of bones, but no longer needed them.
You looked up through your tears, and the gold of his mask caught the fractured light of this godless forest. It hovered above your face now, and through the thin slits near the mouth, you saw the faintest stretch of movement. A smile, maybe. But it never touched his eyes.
His gaze held something else, something fondly clinical. The way a scientist might speak to a wounded thing in a jar. He looked at you like he pitied you. Or was it sadness? You couldn’t tell, not with the mask hiding most of him, not with those blue eyes so terribly distant, like someone watching you from underwater. But there was something undeniably melancholy in the way he watched you, as though observing something that had already begun to crumble.
“Please,” a pitiful sniff followed your plea. “Can you help me?”
IV didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he studied you, his blue eyes guarded yet openly curious, as if weighing something important, something that would change the shape of this moment forever. You could almost hear your pulse, and the way the forest watched it throb behind your ears. It was unbearable.
Finally, IV spoke.
“Come with me, then.”
You blinked, confusion mixing with dread.
“Where?”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he tilted his head again, this time with a subtle shift of his posture that seemed amused. Still, his gaze remained fixed on you.
Every instinct screamed at you to run and to tear through the lifeless trees, to disappear into the endless fog and hope that somehow you’d find something familiar, something safe. But your feet wouldn’t move. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Only this eerie forest, this unsettling stranger, and the profound loneliness that coiled around you like a noose.
Slowly, reluctantly, you stood.
Your legs trembled beneath you, weak with a fear that burrowed down to your bones, but you forced yourself upright, swiping the back of your hand across your damp cheeks.
IV wasn’t much taller than you, but his presence loomed large in its intensity. Like a shadow cast by something monstrous and ancient, something that didn’t live in this world. His mouth still curved gently, as though he found your hesitation strangely endearing.
Without another word, he turned and began walking ahead.
His cloak trailed behind him, not dragging but floating just slightly above the fog, kissing the tiles, leaving you to follow in awkward silence. You stumbled slightly at first, your limbs still numb with dread, but quickly scrambled to match his pace. Your breath hitched as your bare feet met the polished and cold stone tiles beneath you, each step feeling like a judgment from the ground itself. So you sniffed again and quickened your steps, falling into a clumsy stride beside him, trying to match his pace.
As you moved, you glanced around desperately, trying to memorize your odd surroundings, trying to absorb. To remember. To understand. But the forest remained stubbornly unfamiliar. There was nothing here. No animals. No sky. No smell of rain, no sound of wind. Only fog, and ruin, and the haunting bloom of magenta that stained everything like a parasite. Broken fountains lined the path, silent and dry, ancient ruins crumbled quietly in every direction and the shattered remnants of statues. Their marble bodies leaned in uncanny angles, some frozen mid-prayer, others mid-scream.
“Where are you taking me?” you finally dared to ask, voice trembling.
IV hummed quietly, almost thoughtful. “Somewhere safe.”
He offered no further explanation.
You tried to ignore the creeping sensation that something watched you from the fog, eyes you couldn’t see yet felt acutely. Shadows flickered at the edge of your vision, shapes danced and dissolved in the mist, making you flinch more often than you’d admit. It was impossible to shake the feeling that this forest observed you with hungry curiosity.
Eventually, the trees began to fall away and the forest opened into a clearing so large the fog couldn’t even hold it all. It spilled into it like milk into a bowl, veiling the edges of the world until distance itself became meaningless. At its heart stood an massive cathedral, so immense and surreal that your breath caught sharply in your throat. Ancient stones rose high and stark, entwined with thick vines of grey and vivid magenta. It rose out of the earth like the skeleton of a god. Towering spires reached upward, sharp and ambitious, piercing the ashen sky as if attempting to breach the heavens themselves. Its glass windows were stained, but not with saints. They shimmered faintly despite the oppressive gloom, and banners of deep green and faded beige, embroidered with intricate symbols in tarnished gold thread, hung still.
You halted, awe and terror mixing uncomfortably in your chest.
You didn’t even see the top of the building.
It stretched so impossibly high that the spires disappeared into the fog, swallowed whole by the pale sky. It felt less like a structure and more like a monument to something the world had chosen to forget, something ancient, sacred, and wrong.
IV had stopped walking.
“What is this place?” you whispered
He turned back toward the cathedral, his voice calm and steady, filled with quiet reverence and a hint of something deeper, darker. As if he had brought others before.
He held your stare for a long moment. Then, without turning back to face you fully, he said, “This is where you will belong. If my brothers agree.”
You repeated the word under your breath, frowning faintly.
“Your… brothers?”
With those words, he resumed walking, leaving you with no choice but to follow, your heart aching with uncertainty. Like slipping beneath water and not knowing how deep it goes. Each step toward those towering doors felt like descending into an unknown abyss from which you feared you might never emerge.
IV moved like this place answered to him. Like the stones beneath his feet knew his weight, like he’d walked these tiles a thousand times, and you were just another shadow behind him. The entrance loomed higher the closer you came, until they weren’t doors but gates, massive slabs of carved black wood, etched with runes you could not read.
They opened before he could touch them.
It was worse inside.
The cathedral was impossibly vast. Cold and hollow, as though built by something that had only ever imagined humanity, but had never loved it.
The air inside was heavy and thick with the scent of wax, old wood, and something coppery beneath, a metallic tang, like blood held too long in a chalice. The walls were tall, constructed of dark stone and from them hung rows of banners in emerald greens, stitched with more of those strange symbols. Candles burned in impossible quantities. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Pools of melted wax stained the floors in ribbons of ivory. Their flames danced in patterns that felt intentional, like they were reacting to your heartbeat. Enormous staircases curved in directions that defied logic, vanishing into alcoves and narrow corridors you hadn’t noticed a moment before. Marble columns lined the nave like the ribs of some old beast. Wilted petals littered the floor, silvers and dull lilacs, and their smell was overpowering.
Your head turned and turned but nothing stuck. You couldn’t even recall where the doors had been now. The halls branched endlessly, spiralling staircases and empty alcoves and yawning arches that led to nowhere. You saw statues, some with missing limbs, others with bleeding eyes. Most had no clear faces. Their expressions had been worn away by time, leaving only smooth blank stone where their mouths and noses should have been. You passed a hallway where a black fountain stood still in the dark, its surface smooth as glass.
You didn’t know where you were.
You didn’t know if you could ever leave.
You followed blindly, each step sounding like it didn’t belong here.
Finally, IV brought you to a chamber that made your breath catch. A great hall opened before you, its vaulted ceiling stretching into a haze of candle smoke and silence. At its center stood an enormous table carved from obsidian, long and glistening like the surface of a still lake. It was wide enough to seat thirty on either side, and every chair stood empty, save one.
At the far end of the table, seated with his back turned, was a man.
The figure wore a long emerald coat, embroidered with golden symbols you didn’t recognise. White and gold shoulder plates rose above the collar, and at his back were black feathers, not wings but something once divine, catching the candlelight like water catches the moonlight. His elegant fingers rested on the arms of a chair carved from the same dark stone as the table.
IV stopped as if halted by some unseen line.
“Vessel,” he said. “I found something.”
The figure turned deliberately, the chair’s legs sliding against stone with the whisper of altar doors opening in a forgotten church.
When Vessel stood, your throat closed.
Your heart stuttered painfully behind your ribs, because he was beautiful. But not in any way you had words for. He was beautiful in the most terrifying sense of the word. He looked like something sculpted by gods who had never seen a human up close. Like something made in worship of a shape they’d only dreamed of. The kind of beauty that made you ache just to witness, like a god pretending to be flesh.
He wore a mask like IV did, but entirely different. It was white, with lines of green and gold that swirled in precise patterns, perfectly clean, so pristine it looked unreal, too perfect, like it had never been touched by dust or decay. But then you saw them. Six vertical slits. Eyes. Six black eyes, no whites, no irises, just glossy pools of darkness, watching you. Each one darker than black, as if they opened into some endless depth where stars had once gone to die. They moved in eerie unison, blinking once, slowly, then not again.
Tears stung again, hot and unwelcome. Your lips parted, your throat dry and tight. There was no air in the room. None that you could breathe. Something inside you recoiled, screamed, at the knowledge that he was nothing like you.
He stepped forward.
His chest was bare beneath the open coat, painted entirely black, the pigment deep and matte like charred obsidian. Gold chains draped across him delicately, shoulders, ribs, collarbones, like ceremonial jewelry placed on the dead. His arms were equally adorned in ink.
His mouth, exposed beneath the mask, curled into a slow, precise smile.
“What a curious thing,” Vessel said, and his voice—
Gods.
His voice was the most alluring sound you’d ever heard, making your knees weak. Rich and warm, deep and smooth, like honey poured over something burning. Every word measured, placed exactly where it belonged. His accent curved each vowel like silk stretched too tight. You didn’t realise your heart was racing until it hurt.
IV stood beside you, ink kissed hands folded behind his back as Vessel abandoned the books he’d been reading and moved into the centre of the room, his black eyes never once leaving you. His golden chains shifted slightly as he moved.
And then he turned, addressing IV over his shoulder.
“Why did you bring it here?” he asked. The softness in his voice didn’t blunt the sharpness of his meaning. “We agreed that we were done with humans.”
IV didn’t blink.
“I thought,” he confessed, “perhaps it was time we tried again.”
Vessel exhaled a breath you could feel, something almost like a laugh. He crossed his arms over his chest, muscles flexing under the black paint and gold chains. Those six eyes blinked again. Not together this time, two at a time, diagonally. It made your stomach twist. He stared at IV in silence, as if considering whether to laugh or scold. Then he did laugh. A delightful sound, that shook the chandelier high above, though nothing moved.
You blinked, rapidly, your eyes burning.
“And you’ll be the one to convince the others, then?” Vessel asked.
IV nodded once. “If you agree.”
Vessel tilted his head, considering. His eyes turned to you again.
“I do,” he said after a moment. “But this time you take responsibility for the outcome.”
“Understood,” IV replied, his voice light. “I’ll fetch the others.”
Then he turned away with the grace of something no longer tethered to human urgency, like a shadow returning to its source.
“Wait—” your voice cracked before you even knew you’d spoken. “Please—”
But IV did not pause.
He vanished into the corridor you’d entered through together. The flickering light behind him danced faintly, then went still. You watched him go until there was nothing but absence and a breath you didn’t know you were holding escaped you.
Reluctantly, you turned back.
Vessel was still watching you.
That same small, knowing smile curved his lips. Too precise to be human. It didn’t warm his face, it wore his face instead, covering it like a veil, a performance he had decided to put on, something donned rather than felt. For a seemingly endless moment, the two of you stared at one another in painful silence. The cold sweat at the nape of your neck bloomed with every ragged breath. You took a step back and Vessel’s smile grew wider.
“Do you remember your name, love?”
The term made your skin crawl. It felt theatrical, it was too soft, too intimate, too practiced. As though he had said it a thousand times before and never meant it once.
Your breathing was fast, erratic. You shook your head frantically, arms folding tightly around yourself as if your own limbs could protect you from what he was.
“What—what are you?”
His eyes, all six, blinked slowly.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned back against the chair he had once occupied, crossing his ankles like this was nothing more than a conversation with a guest. His posture said nothing and everything. Your heart nearly tripped over itself as you began to panic.
“Where am I? What is this place? Why—” Your lips trembled as you pressed further. “—why can’t I remember anything?”
You didn’t mean to sound as desperate as you did.
But it was already too late to pretend.
“There may be another time to talk,” Vessel said, almost kindly. “But not now.”
You swallowed the lump in your throat. “Why?”
“My brothers are coming,” he exhaled through his nose. “And they are not fond of your kind. Especially III. So be still, won’t you? He tends to overreact.”
You tried to ask again, but the sound that left your throat was barely a whisper.
“What do you mean—?”
Vessel raised one elegant hand, index finger pressing to his lips in a gesture of silence.
Then he motioned toward one of the many empty chairs.
“Sit.”
You didn’t obey. You couldn’t. Instead, you took a step back. Just one. But it made your heel clip the wall behind you. The weight of the cathedral pressed down against your shoulders. Every cell in your body told you not to trust him, not to lower your guard.
That’s when you saw them.
One was about your height, built like a statue carved for mourning with terrifying precision. His mask was red and black, with the permanent carved frown of a weeping statue. There was no mouth, no expression, just that eternal grimace and those tired eyes. His piercing blue eyes glowed with frost and fury from behind the slits. The rest of him was all black fabric. A dark hoodie was pulled halfway up beneath a vest, and every movement he made was deliberate, efficient. His approach made no sound. Not one.
He felt like judgment given form.
But then—
The second figure staggered in like a thought unraveling.
He moved like something animated by string, too tall, too angular, his frame unnaturally thin, all sharp elbows and spiderlike knees as though his body had been stretched by cruel hands. The air shifted, turned heavier, as though his fury had a gravity of its own. The slender figure wore a long coat, deep blood red, which swayed behind him like a second spine. His mask, similar in form to IV’s, caught the candlelight and fractured it violently across the room. His white hair hung in wild tufts, falling over the sharp edges of his mask, tangled like thread in a butcher’s hands. His mouth, visible through a jagged tear in the metal, curled in a feral snarl.
And the moment he saw you—
He exploded.
“What the fuck is that?” he spat, finger stabbing the air toward you with such vehemence it felt like a blade aimed at your throat. Jagged lines split the gleaming surface of his mask like veins, as though the mask itself were trying to escape the face beneath.
He did not move like a man.
He paced like a pendulum swung too wide.
“No,” he growled, hands slicing through the air as he turned on Vessel with an accusing glare. “No, no, no. I’m not doing this again. You piece of—I’m not—” he choked on his own fury. “I won’t do this shit. Not after last time.”
“Calm down, III,” Vessel said smoothly. “You’ll frighten our guest.”
“Calm down?” III bellowed. “It’s a human. I can fucking smell it.”
His mask turned sharply to IV.
III took three more steps as if pulled by strings.
“Why is it still breathing, brother?” His accent was harsh, rough around the edges in the way broken glass could be considered art, making you flinch. “We agreed. We fucking agreed to kill every human that shows up. That was the pact and you agreed.”
IV exhaled quietly through his nose, unbothered, standing tall beside Vessel.
“She didn’t come here like the others,” he explained.
“Doesn’t fucking matter!” III was stalking now, circling the obsidian table in uncoordinated strides. His limbs bent too far. His spine curled too deep. Like a puppet dropped in motion and still trying to dance. The coat behind him swept the air like a wing torn from something mythic. “We should eat it,” he hissed, eyes flashing behind the glint of his mask. “Let’s just carve it open and see what’s inside. Flesh always tells the truth.”
You gasped, hands balling into fists so tightly your nails dug moons into your palms. Instinct pulled you back, back, back—
—but the wall was there.
IV rolled his eyes, the motion oddly human.
“You always say that.”
“And one day I will,” III stopped in front of you, abruptly close. His height towered over you now. His head tilted, hair falling sideways, the wild strands sticking to the edge of his mask. You could almost feel his breath through the mouth of the mask. “I should tear it open. Spill it on the floor. Let’s see what’s inside. Let’s see what makes this one worth breaking the rules. So scream for me, yeah? You lot love to scream.”
Tears blurred your vision as you whimpered.
Vessel didn’t look at him. “She’s not yours to dismantle, III.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” III snarled at him like a dog.
“No,” Vessel said softly. “You always fail to listen.”
You shook. Violently. Your heart tried to beat itself to death inside your ribs. And then—
“Enough.”
The voice cut through the rising tension like a blade forged in silence. It belonged to the third arrival, the one who had entered alongside III but not said a word until now.
II.
You hadn’t heard him step next to you. You hadn’t seen him approach. He was simply there and the space he occupied stole the air from your lungs. He regarded you like a problem on a table, a mistake already halfway to being corrected. His eyes, blue glacial lakes, swept over you with the indifference of a doctor examining an open wound that didn’t belong to anyone. His presence chilled the marrow in your bones. Your knees buckled inward slightly as you shrank into the wall, trying to make yourself smaller, make yourself unworthy of notice.
“Bringing another human here was foolish,” II said coolly, turning to IV. “You should’ve left it where you found it.”
You squeezed your eyes shut.
II didn’t speak with disdain or cruelty. He didn’t raise his voice like III or lace it with theater like Vessel. He simply named the truth it was, plain and clinical, and in doing so, reduced you to a thing. A misstep.
A loose thread to be trimmed.
“I—” your voice was a splinter in your throat. “I don’t understand—please—I just want to go home—don’t hurt me, please—”
You peeked through your wet eyelashes, gaze falling upon the man who had just condemned you. But he wasn’t really a man, was he? His clothes smelled like salt and iron and something eerily similar to blood and dust. You wanted to vanish. Evaporate. Be anywhere else. But there was no else. No somewhere else. Just this godless place.
And these creatures craving blood.
A breath hitched in your chest. Then another. Then another. And the tears came, hot and ugly. You couldn’t stop them. They streaked your face in aching lines, washing nothing away. Your mouth opened in a sob, some wounded thing caught between instinct and despair.
III groaned so loud it scraped the air. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, not this again—”
Your sobs earned a tilt of the head from II.
Not sympathy. Not even interest. No. His gaze sharpened with quiet disappointment, as if your reaction confirmed something he’d long suspected. Something unworthy.
“She’s clearly not ready,” he said, voice flat, stripped of emotion.
Vessel, still reclined against the chair like he’d been sculpted there, hummed. A thoughtful sound that curled around the space like smoke. He stepped forward slowly, not with urgency, but with the deliberate grace of something that had already seen this play out.
“None of us were ready,” he murmured. “Yet we were chosen.”
III scoffed violently, as if the words offended the very marrow of his bones. “Don’t start with that chosen bollocks again,” He threw up a hand in disgust, whirling in a circle like the force of his anger couldn’t be contained by stillness. “We all agreed. We are done. This thing is a mistake. That’s all it is. A fucking weakness on IV’s part. A lapse. And I’m telling you right now, I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it permanently. Let me just snap it’s fucking neck.”
II even didn’t bother to look at him.
“What should we do with it?” he turned to Vessel instead.
“Keep her,” Vessel said as though the answer had already been decided.
But II’s head shook immediately, sharply.
“That is not wise.”
“We’ve ignored Sleep’s will to extend the family long enough, and now she’s here. Clearly a warning. Or a message. That means something. ”
“Don’t be a poet,” II muttered.
“Don’t be a coward, then,” Vessel replied, not unkindly. “Some gods inherit children, Sleep creates them and to be chosen is to be consumed. Or have you forgotten, brother?”
IIII groaned, hands rising to tangle in his hair as he turned to face the wall, slamming a palm against the cold stone. “It only means IV is still a sentimental bastard.”
IV’s posture didn’t shift, but his voice cut through the room like a blade.
“Better than being a fucking psycho.”
The word landed like a slap, and III laughed. A loud, guttural sound, cruel and bright like shattered glass in sunlight. “Oh, you wound me, brother.”
The voices swelled like a violent tide, crashing, clashing.
You shrank further into the space behind you, trying to make yourself small, invisible. Your tears carved rivers down your cheeks, uncontrolled, salt on raw skin, and in your horror you realised you were sobbing like a child, hiccuping, curling in on yourself, your body betraying you in every possible way. The tension in the room was a living thing, a monster stalking its own tail, and every time one of them opened their mouth, it sank another claw into your ribs.
III turned on you again, eyes flaring behind his mask.
“Fuck this. I’ll snap her neck. Put her out of her misery.”
Your body seized.
You saw it in your mind. His hands, sudden and precise. The pop of vertebrae. Your eyes wide, unblinking. Death in a cathedral of gods. But before he could move Vessel stepped into III’s path and said, almost lazily, like he was asking someone not to knock over a glass.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t do that.”
III paused.
“Of course you would,” he growled, shoving past him and pacing furiously down the length of the hall. “You’d rather talk. You’d rather hope. You’d rather pretend this ends differently this time. That she’ll be different. She won’t. None of them are.”
And then they all turned. All four of them.
Their eyes on you.
You sobbed again.
The weight of their attention was unbearable. Something primal cracked inside you, and you opened your mouth, voice shaking like a thread caught in wind. “I just want to go home,” you begged. “Please. I don’t remember anything. I don’t— I don’t even know my name—”
II exhaled sharply. Not exasperated. Not kind.
Just done. Tired.
“You were not given a name,” he said flatly.
You blinked. Your vision swam.
“What—” your voice trembled. “What does that mean?”
It was Vessel who answered, not II.
His voice was gentle again. Too gentle.
“It means,” he said, walking slowly toward you, “that you’re in the right place, love.”
You shook your head violently, trying to claw your way back into your own body, burying your face in your hands like you could shut the world out by sheer force of will.
But there was no god to hear you here.
The room seemed to sway around you.
You were suffocating. Drowning even. The air was molasses. The light too sharp.
Everything wrong. Everything wrong.
Everything wrong.
And somewhere above you, high in the vaulted dark where no candle dared shine something began to whisper your name. A name you had not yet learned. But the cathedral knew it. And in that moment, a new kind of fear took root.
Not the fear of death.
But the fear of being kept alive.
“There are some who burn down the temple not to punish the gods, but to feel the warmth of something holy just once.”
This isn’t what I usually write, but I wanted to challenge myself and explore a different fandom for a change.
