fuck it [decomposes]
Peter Solarz
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@st-kitten
fuck it [decomposes]
wait i wanna do this too
merci for tagging me in that!!! @softundermoonlight
rules: go to pinterest and type in the prompts below. whatever image pops up first is your image!
prompts: color, quote, character, hobby, accessory, song lyric, flower
me likey
the last great demented dynasty XVII
titus danforth x y/n
previous part | next part | chapter index
a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: you're a stranger to the world of guns in many ways. would you survive when they're aimed at you?
warnings: SPOILERS:- mention of guns again, gunshot wound, mention of organ trafficking, kissing, pĂŠnĂŠtration (f receiving), gun play, titus be cray cray
latino songs are a fucking bop istg.
the microwave glared at you with its beeping noise and bright lights early in the morning. your head disagreed with every existence around you, responding with a throbbing pain revolving around inside your skull.
you warmed some milk in a cup, watching it waltz on the rotating disc. that's pretty much how you felt waking up after the worst fucking hangover of your life. every drop of that laced beer drained out of your system with a mighty drag of your soul, your senses. you woke up feeling ten kilos heavier.
you had got to stay away from alcohol for the next decade or so.
the danforth kitchens were uncharacteristically peaceful in the mornings. the servants and chefs had their own kitchen within the kitchen. god knows what for, but you guessed that the sight of actual workers in a house like theirs was unwelcome and beneath them. the irony being that without people cooking for them, the twins would likely starve trying to find a fucking pan.
you turned on the induction stovetop, carefully placing a pot of water over the heated surface.
no matter where you were, whether you felt happy, sad, some third worse thing, whether you were in love or in heartbreak, busy or lazy, you always had a companion to take a moment from time and gently place it in your hands.
chai, your beloved chai. the warmest hug in a cup.
you loved the beverage dearly, but you loved making it more. loose tea leaves in water really, but you let it simmer, let it boil. you added some sugar, crushed ginger, cardamoms, cloves, a pinch of cinnamon, and some dried lemongrass that you always carried with you.
then you watched.
the bubbles, the froth, the thick layer of vapour making everything wobbly and distorted.
and when it was ready, strained in a cup, you poured just enough milk, watching it swirl and changes colours again, blending into a rich brown colour.
the familiar smell took you back home, in your mother's arms trying chai for the first time and thus finding the first love of your life.
ursula's footsteps padded behind you.
"morning," you greeted her softly.
she answered with a tired hum. her prada sunglasses were still on despite being indoors.
"want some tea?" you offered.
"anything to get rid of my headache."
you poured her a cup as well, sliding it to her as she took a seat at the kitchen island. this was usually the time when she'd instruct the head chef to prepare the week's meals. always ahead of schedule as she liked all things to be.
"the rajans were found dead..." the words landed on the marble countertop between you. you blew across the surface of your drink.
"so i heard..." you said, lips closed around the rim of your cup as you took a sip of tea.
for a moment, two healthy slurps of chai took up the space, followed by soft identical sighs.
"thanks for the assist," you murmured, taking a seat opposite her.
"don't thank me yet. your plan better work."
you weren't exactly sure if it was going to work, but you had to try. and you just had to survive the games enough to flip the script when the time came.
what would actually happen was perhaps a speculation, out of your control, but it was worth a try. it was the first thing you'd found that resembled hope.
the velvet pair of slippers padded into the kitchen, a rare appearance from the other danforth.
titus entered the kitchen looking like a man who had been assembled incorrectly. his hair pointed in several directions at once. his silk dressing gown hung half-open.
he eyed you both quizzically. you more suspiciously, just in case you and his sister were up to something he did not fucking want to know. he approached cautiously, as though he had discovered two raccoons digging through a dumpster. he slid into the spot next to you, his shoulder bumping yours.
"what are you doing?" he asked a bit too loudly, making you and ursula recoil simultaneously with a wince, a hiss, and a groan.
"oh my god..."
"titus shut up!"
he gave you two sleepy blinks.
you pressed your fingers against your temple, massaging the ache a little.
"why... are you yelling?"
"i'm not yelling."
"you literally are."
titus looked between the two of you. then, with all the confidence of a man who had never been wrong in his life, leaned closer.
"ARE YOU HUNGOVER?"
both you and ursula made sounds of pure suffering, like zombies groaning in a hoard. titus smiled, proud of himself first thing in the morning.
"oh, the rajans are dead, by the way," he said, as casually as saying 'oh, it might rain today'.
you nearly dropped your cup. "wait, what?"
ursula's eyes closed for a brief moment. "yeah, you're next if you don't lower your voice," she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.
titus ignored her completely. his attention settled on you instead, studying the surprise on your face.
"they were found this morning."
you blinked. "dead?"
"that's generally what i mean when i say people are dead, baby."
"what happened to them?" you asked.
titus shrugged, and replied, "overdosed."
you made yourself frown. "that's awful." you cast a pensive look over your face for added effect.
titus looked down at you, at the shock in your eyes, reaching over for your cup of tea, took a whiff, then decided he might as well indulge, and took a sip.
ursula pursed her lips, busying herself with more sips of tea to conceal a bark of laughter.
"anyway," titus continued, entirely oblivious, "good riddance. they lost the game, they got drunk, they got high and they died. that's practically a rajan family tradition."
"still. that's... sad."
"why?"
"because they're dead?"
he considered that. "fair." then immediately ruined it. "less competition, though."
his hand settled between your shoulder blades, thumb moving lazily up and down your spine.
"don't think about it too much," he said quietly. "people like the rajans always end up dead eventually."
you looked down into your tea, listening to him explain why the two men you'd poisoned were not worth worrying about.
the last to arrive in the kitchen was sebastian, ready for another training session, resurfacing in the manor from whataver hellhole he lived in. so naturally, you sprang out of your seat instantaneously.
"good night," you mumbled, leaving the room in four quick strides.
every morning, with the mowed grass smelling like gunpowder, you had been spending a few hours on the estate practising your shooting with titus and sebastian.
but it had become like oil and water, trying to focus on hitting any target when all you wanted was to drive the mouth of your gun up every single one of that man's orifice and exploit the trigger till he was nothing but a charred, porous piece of flesh.
pretty violent, right?
and sure, titus taught you well too; better than well, honestly. he'd shown you how to hold the stock properly, how to brace against the recoil, how to steady your breathing before pulling the trigger. but none of that changed the simple reality.
the el caĂdos were monsters with rifles. every story you'd heard about them ended the same way. they didn't miss. they practically came out of the womb hitting bullseyes.
this wasn't going to be like beer pong where you could bet on the missed shots of your opponents, no one sabotaging themselves. no, if you were to win, you needed a little more than just shooting a target board.
which is why you had turned to ursula. she was pragmatic, practical, charmingly unpretentious at times.
"you're not going to perfect shooting the bullseye with just a handful of lessons from me, you know that right?" she muttered, picking up her rifle, engraved with the danforth initials.
"i know..." you adjusted the ear protection over your head and shifted the rifle against your shoulder, holding it as titus had taught you.
"you have a week before the second game"
"i know."
the was a beat of silence, and then bang! bang! two loud, deafening shots fired at the target boards in the distance. yours landing in the outer ring, hers landing smack in the centre.
"the el caĂdos have been doing this since childhood."
"i know that too..."
the relationship between the two of you had become strangely comfortable over the past few weeks. maybe it started with that little shopping you did before the wedding, maybe it was when you were taking care of chester and updating her regularly on his health, or maybe it was when she learned enough to know you weren't a real threat to them. or maybe it was the kiss. either way, she found you an inch more than tolerable, which in ursula-speak, was the safest status you'd find for yourself.
"so why are you here?" she asked, reloading her gun.
you lowered yours, then looked at her solemnly, preparedly, then you said, very calmly,
"i need you to teach me how to ricochet."
âŹâ.Ë la negrita; latin soul syndicate
ignacio el caĂdo was a name you'd surprisingly heard before you got roped into the games, or the danforth family.
in magazines or plastered on the side of buses, you'd see posters of the most obnoxiously action-packed movies where the hero had too much plot armour, just enough ammunition, and always the sexy latina on his arm who fawned over him in skimpy bikinis, even in peak mid-winter. god, they were ridiculous. but somehow walked the red carpet to awards every time.
but another reason why that name now bothered you was because it was the same man for whom your father had trafficked organs, gotten them across the border to his contact in mexico. you presumed, that must have been the exact point where your father realised he could get away with a lot more if he knew the right people. which is how the murders started.
now you stood on his estate, a villa so... flamboyantly loud, incapable of subtlety that your eyes took a fat moment to adjust as you walked through the festival it had been turned into for the necrofest.
music followed you, from a mariachi band playing along to the reggaeton beats of another. the smell of grilled meat, spices, and cigar smoke lingered everywhere. so infectious...
you could easily imagine spending an evening here under different circumstances, drinking far too much tequila and stealing food from whichever buffet table looked most expensive.
but oh well... maybe afterâifâyou managed to survive and win the game.
once again, you came with the danforths, titus and ursula beside you, his hand over your hip, leaving sebastian to trail behind you like some butler. nice.
"bienvenidos!" ignacio called the moment he spotted the group approaching. the man spread his arms wide as though greeting lifelong friends rather than rivals.
"vengan, vengan. sĂganme."
pretty warm, with the energy of a man hosting a family barbecue, for someone who trafficked organs, smuggled drugs, and buried people alive for fun.
you found yourself looking past him toward the rest of the family.
felipe el caĂdo. couldn't have been older than 14, but would not hesitate even for a second to pick up a shotgun and blow your eyeballs out, side-swept hair and a smoulder on his face. and you guessed it, he starred in almost all of his father's films, some moments where he overshadowed other characters.
and of course, francesca el caĂdo, nothing short of a latina charli xcx; thick hair till her waist, those sunken eyes, which you realised a few days ago, were mourning madhu rajan, her good-for-nothing fling for the summer.
"he should've been here," you heard her say to one of the silcox heirs, who feigned a sad sigh and shook their head in solidarity with the girl.
well, guess she could always try again on el dia de los muertos...buh-jesus. clearly the danforths were a terrible influence on you.
you all were offered drinks, some empanadas, and other ravishing treats you'd never tried before. you nursed your drink, not really feeling like tasting a drop of alcohol. and somewhere beneath the music, the chatter, the carnival-like atmosphere sat the reality of why everyone was here.
the rifles were about to come out. and unlike beer pong, nobody would be getting shitfaced drunk enough to forget about what happened. you had better brought acting skills better than most of hollywood if you were going to fool a director... with a gun.
"are you going to drink that?" someone asked from beside you.
he looked rather tired and out of place, brown suit crinkled in places.
"uh... no," you answered, handing him your glass.
he took it and chugged it down in one gulp.
"you're with the le domases, right?" you asked.
"unfortunately," he mumbled, dragging his palm over his face, wiping the sheet of sweat above his lip.
he looked down at you. "daniel."
"y/n."
"oh, i know. the vacillating prole to this... satanic fuckery."
"you're part of said fuckery."
"we all are. but we're not that competent." daniel leaned in, "we might look invincible, but we're insecure freaks who need daddy le bail to save our rotten faces."
he took a look at you again, and at titus. "make his life hell. he'll love that."
you snorted a laugh. "well, hey, if i don't see you..." you extended your hand to him.
he took it, shaking it with intention. "may you ascend, and may we just... end."
later, you and the other players were led to the grounds behind their estate. apparently everyone's backyards just happened to have space for a shooting range.
thankfully, the target boards were simple. much like the ones you'd practised on. no moving targets, no flying discs, and really, really, really fortunately, no actual living people used with an 'x' marked on their foreheads.
they sat equidistant from each other, and a few feet apart from where the shooters were to be stationed.
the lawyer, prim and proper as ever, went over the rules once. "as you may all know by now, the rajan brothers were found dead in their clubâ"
a heavy sob came from francesca, face buried in her hand, the other clutching her chest as she fell to her knees.
?
"âso, their house has automatically been eliminated from the necrofest. since they did not appoint any future head of the family, their council seat has also been dissolved."
murmurs, some of approval, some indifferent, echoed around you. you tried your damn best to not let a single facial expression other than discomfort show on your face.
"that leaves us with 6 competing teams. today, the second game of the necrofest begins. players, you will find your rifles placed beside your station. in front of you will be your target boards."
your eyes followed to where the lawyer pointed.
"each player, taking turns, must shoot their target board per turn, as well as that of others subsequently. each ring of the target has points, with the lowest being 0 if you miss, and the highest if you hit the centre. the player who scores the most points, shall be considered the winner... let the games begin."
âŹâ.Ë dĂĄkiti; bad bunny, jhayco
you felt the evening breeze grace your cheeks, sift through your hair as you pulled it back into a sorry excuse of a tiny pigtail, strands escaping anyway.
the shooting range stretched across the far end of the el caĂdo estate, positioned away from the music and festivities.
the contrast felt absurd. hundred metres away, people were drinking tequila and dancing. here, a collection of wealthy psychopaths were preparing to compete in a life-or-death shooting contest.
you rolled your shoulders and shook out your arms, trying to loosen the lingering stiffness. the consistent training had taken its toll. the bruise from repeated recoil had finally faded from deep purple into an ugly yellow-green, but the ache remained. you adjusted your stance and looked down the line, standing in the middle.
to your left stood a smug mr le domas, his eye blackened, most likely a gift from his sister after beer pong night, and ignacio el caĂdo himself. to your right stood one of the cheng fus and a member of house silcox.
farther down stood ursula. the sight was oddly reassuring, also planned.
originally, titus had stepped forward when the danforth family name was called. he had taken three confident strides towards the range when ursula grabbed the back of his jacket.
"no."
titus had turned to face her. "what do you mean no?"
"you played in the last games."
"so?"
"so naturally, it's my turn."
"i can shoot," he scoffed.
"and you don't like embarrassing yourself by missing, do you?"
his eyes had narrowed.
"we both know who the better shooter is."
well... poor titus looked wounded, a kicked puppy. his ego took her words straight to the red circle on his heart. for perhaps half a second he had actually poutedâan adult man. nearly six foot something danforth air... pouting.
you'd nearly laughed yourself sick, hurled an empanada out your mouth.
unfortunately for him, everyone present knew ursula was right. including titus. so he had stepped aside graciously, with all the dignity he could salvage, muttering little somethings about betrayal, family disloyalty, spiders on her pillow and what not.
now he stood behind the firing line with the spectators. his gaze found yours. and you caught the small nod he gave you. and it made your heart flutter still, because despite everything, titus had spent hours teaching you, hours happily standing behind you, hands all over your body correcting your already decent grip. hours teaching you how to focus and take the shot. of course, about seventy percent of that time had also involved him finding excuses to touch your waist, but the lessons were useful too.
next to him stood sebastian, arms folded, a drowsy glare on his face as he looked at you.
you forced yourself to look away. he didn't matter. nothing did. except what was ahead of you.
the weight of the rifle felt familiar now, which was more than what you could've said weeks ago. hell, weeks ago you hadn't even seen a rifle in person, and now here you were, about to shoot it.
this was it... everything you had trained for was about to be employed. and standing among families who had been doing this for generations, you suddenly felt very aware of exactly how short a week truly was.
"casa el caĂdo dispara primero, assholes!" ignacio grinned as he picked up his rifle like one picked up a towel before a shower. (idk why this analogy lmao but go with it) (house of el caĂdo shoots first)
he man looked as though he'd been waiting all week for this exact moment. he stepped forward with easy confidence, rifle resting casually against his shoulder. even now, dressed in an expensive embroidered jacket and enough jewellery to finance a small country, he somehow carried himself like an action star walking onto a film set.
he gave every contender a mocking eye contact, his gaze fixing on you the longest, and pressed the trigger, not even looking at the target.
his gold tooth flashed beneat the evening light as he grinned widely.
the shot cracked through the range and before your brain processed the sound, the target jolted. dead fucking centre.
it was perfect.
there were instant cheers from his family, whistles, applause, the band played music louder in the back. ignacio lowered the rifle and spread his arms as though accepting an award.
"de nada..."
fuck.
oone by one, the remaining competitors stepped forward. the cheng fu representative shot next with another loud crack. his target wobbled a little: outer ring.
nothing extraordinary, as respectable as the first shot could get. you released a breath you hadn't realised you were holding.
mr le domas was next, his shot also hit the outer ring. he immediately launched into a lengthy explanation about how chess required more precision than firearms anyway.
"nobody asked, dipshit," titus yelled from the audience.
for days you'd imagined yourself surrounded by supernatural marksmen capable of splitting bullets mid-air. instead, several of them appeared perfectly capable of missing things on their own.
but the real threats were yet to unleash hell: ignacio, ursula. efinitely anyone who had spent their childhood shooting things for entertainment.
when your turn finally came, the chatter around the range quieted into something expectant. but it felt more like vultures waiting for you to die so they could peck at your corpse.
you adjusted your grip on the rifle and afforded yourself one measured gulp of air. the stock settled against the bruised pocket of your shoulder, familiar and uncomfortable all at once.
you could feel titus watching from somewhere behind you. ursula too. you remembered every correction they'd drilled into you.
"don't fight the rifle, baby. let it do its job."
"don't jerk the trigger. take breath and shoot."
the target stood impossibly far away, bright against the evening light. from this distance, the bullseye looked no larger than a coin. and you knew your limitations damn well. you weren't ignacio el caĂdo. you hadn't spent decades shooting. you hadn't grown up with rifles in your hands. trying to beat him directly would be stupidity masquerading as confidence. so instead, you aimed for something achievable, but more importantly, forgettable.
you inhaled slowly through your nose. held it. then exhaled half of your breath.
the world really narrowed before you, voices fading away. there was only the sight picture, the front post, and the circle waiting in the distance.
your finger tightened against the trigger. the rifle cracked.
recoil slammed into your shoulder for what felt like the hundredth time that week. you absorbed it instinctively now, barely flinching as the barrel lifted. remembering titus' instructions, you squeezed through the follow-through rather than immediately relaxing your hand.
a second later, the impact appeared. not the bullseye, god no. not even close. but comfortably within one of the inner scoring rings, which wasmore than good enough actually.
"lucky shot."
"tan terrible pero, no estĂĄ mal." (so terrible, but not bad)
"nowhere near ignacio."
"yeahhh, she's not winning this."
you stepped back, lowering the rifle. the compliments didn't matter. neither did the criticism. what mattered was that nobody looked concerned, or threatened by you. ignacio was already laughing with his son, completely unbothered by your score. the le domases seemed more interested in arguing amongst themselves.
good.
your gaze drifted past him toward ursula. she stood with her rifle resting casually against her shoulder, face unreadable. titus too, gave a little clap.
"what, she's not bad," he defended you against a silcox asshole.
last to step forward was ursula.
unlike the rest of the competitors, she did not seem interested in the crowd watching her. she did not acknowledge the conversations, the wagers quietly exchanged between families, or the dozen pairs of eyes following her every movement.
she simply walked to her position and lifted the rifle.
gosh that was hot.
all those stories about little ursula danforth taking apart hunting rifles before she learned long division, sneaking ammunition into her schoolbag, putting holes through targets that grown men struggled to hit; apparently those stories had circulated far beyond the danforth estate.
the comments drifted through the gathering as ursula sighted down the barrel. if ignacio's shooting felt theatrical, something performed for an audience, ursula's felt private.
the rifle cracked, the shot sliced through the air and a second later, the bullet struck the innermost scoring ring, just shy of the bullseye.
close enough to earn a few heads nodding as ursula lowered the rifle. that was pretty much it. no smugness like ignacio, no curses like the silcoxes who'd missed their bullseye by a few centimetres. she soaked up the murmurs and compliments confidently.
the first round had been simple enough. shoot your own board. prove your competence. but the second round was going to be tough.
each competitor was now required to shoot an opponent's target. the further away a target stood from your assigned position, the sharper the angle became, forcing shooters to compensate for perspective, distance. now it was a test of accuracy and strategy.
and pettiness. loooooots of pettiness.
ignacio stepped forward first. he barely glanced at the available options before settling on yours. why not. the man grinned broadly as he adjusted his rifle.
"te veo en el infierno," he muttered beneath his breath. (see you in hell)
the shot rang out and the bullet crossed the range, striking dead centre of your target. like, geometrically precise centre. the fresh hole sat there like a black pupil staring back at you. fucking freak.
the surrounding crowd let out approving hoots and claps. ignacio lowered his rifle and flashed that infuriating movie-star smile.
"you'll stay an outsider, si?" he called. "there's no place for you here, pequeĂąa."
fair enough man. you weren't exactly under the illusion that any of these people liked you.
"gracias por recordarme," you replied with a cheerful smile that was perhaps a little too bright. (thanks for reminding me)
ignacio barked out a laugh. and behind you, titus looked moments away from committing a homicide.
but the round continued. one by one competitors chose their targets, le domases, cheng fu, and they all happened to be yours. every crack of a rifle seemed destined for your poor target.
you found it really funny. after a while, your board began to resemble a piece of swiss cheese. new holes appeared across nearly every scoring ring. splintered edges spread through the painted surface. fragments of wood occasionally burst from the back whenever another round struck.
you folded your arms and stared at the increasingly abused target.
"wow, thanks guys!" you murmured. "i feel popular."
ursula snorted a laugh.
but you didn't mind it. see, the thing was, people only ganged up on what they believed they could eliminate. nobody wanted to waste shots challenging the competitors they genuinely feared. they were choosing you because they had already decided you were average, weak. and more than that, they'd decided that you were and always would be an outsider, a placeholder till they killed you off.
and that suited you just fine. you watched another bullet punch through your target. good.
keep looking at the board. let them spend the entire game convinced you were the easiest person to beat.
the harder they looked at your target, the less they looked at you.
when your turn finally came around, you made a point of looking considerably less confident than before. you picked up the rifle and immediately fumbled it. the weapon slipped against your palm and nearly dropped altogether before you caught it again.
a round of laughter travelled through the crowd.
"jesus christ," muttered one of the silcoxes.
"need some help holding it, darlin'?" asked mr le domas.
behind you, sebastian's patience evaporated immediately. "get your shit together."
instead, you glanced towards ursula, whose face remained blank. then once at titus, who looked... suspiciously interested. you wondered if he'd figured it out. he knew you well enough by now to recognise when you were acting.
you reloaded slowly, fingers delieberately trembling. then you aimed. the target board belonging to the le domas family sat downrange, perfectly visible.
you kept aiming, and aiming. everyone waited.
"does she think it'll shoot itself?"
"pull the trigger already."
"oh my god, just shoot!" ursula yelled.
you jolted dramatically, the rifle cracked and the bullet spun out.
a collective groan immediately rose from the spectators as it became apparent the shot wasn't travelling anywhere near the centre of the target. it veered much too wide and struck the metal mounting assembly holding the le domas target upright.
the impact produced a sharp metallic crack, with sparks flying as the bullet deflected and for a fraction of a second, nobody understood what had happened.
then the ricochet screamed across the range.
ignacio gasped.
the sound cut through every conversation about how horribile that shot was.
his grin vanished entirely. his rifle slipped from his hands as both his palms moved towards his abdomen. he looked and as did everyone else.
blood coloured his crisp shirt with a dark stain spreading through and through, followed by a screeching pain.
"puta! quĂŠ hiciste?!" he shouted, staggering backwards. (bitch! what did you do?)
the body absorbed the shock first before any agony could resurface. his knees buckled as he collapsed heavily onto one.
"mierda!" (shit!)
the blood squeezed through his fingers as he clutched his stomach.
the mariachi band still playing in the background felt absurd...
you lowered your rifle with trembling hands. "oh, fuck..."
you hurried forward just a step, "i'm so sorry! i didn'tâi..." your voice creaked perfectly. "i c-can help! i can patch you upâ"
"cĂĄllate, puta!" francesca screamed. (shut up, bitch) she was already running towards her father. he rest of the el caĂdos surged forward too, speaking over each other all at once.
the remaining council families watched with varying degrees of concern, amusement, a little entertained even. their madness had normalised a lot of thingd...
the le domas patriarch shook his head, a little glad that you had missed hitting their target. "worst shot i've ever seen."
a few others nodded in agreement. nobody seemed particularly eager to investigate further. after all, accidental ricochets always happened to beginners... averages...
you stood frozen where you were, staring at the blood pooling beneath ignacio's hand, breathing uneven. every inch the frightened amateur who had just committed a disastrous mistake. and as the chaos ensured around ignacio el caĂdo, you quietly lowered your gaze and forced your shoulders to shake.
a guilty woman was expected to tremble. so you trembled.
naturally, ignacio could no longer continue. the lawyer consulted the rules, the rules consulted the lawyer and a brief argument followed regarding eligibility of succession.
ultimately, the result was simple.
ignacio el caĂdo was removed from the game.
sebastian, unfortunately for him, was the only qualified doctor present. before he could protest, several members of the el caĂdo household were already dragging him towards their patriarch.
you watched your father disappear into the commotion without a shred of sympathy.
then ignacio's replacement arrived. francesca stepped forward and picked up her father's rifle. her mascara had begun to smudge. her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. grief sat visibly on her face, tangled together with fury until it became difficult to tell one from the other.
when she looked at you, it felt less like being seen and more like being targeted.
"you're going to pay for that."
your stomach tightened. "i really didn't mean toâ"
the shot rang out before you could finish, wuthout warning. francesca pulled the trigger impulsively and the bullet tore through the air.
it whizzed so close to your head and you flinched at the sound first. the projectile bullet missed your ear by millimeters.
for one horrible moment, all you could think about was wilkinson's hands around your throat and his body dead on the floor. how easily people stopped existing.
before you could react, titus was already moving, one moment amongst the spectators, the next beside you. his hand caught your arm. the other settled firmly against your back as he pulled you away from the line of fire.
"what the fuck?" someone shouted.
"francesca, hermana!"
"have you lost your mind?"
the lawyer descended from his elevated chair with surprising speed. he raised one hand and the rifle was snatched out by an invisible force.
he sighed, "out of turn, miss el caĂdo."
the rifle continued drifting until it hovered several feet away from her.
"and you're meant to shoot the targets. those are the terms of your house games. need i remind you of that?"
for a second, it looked as though she might actually attempt to strangle him. instead, she lowered her gaze.
the lawyer announced a five-minute recess instead. people dispersed almost immediately, cigarettes appeared, drinks were passed around, conversations resumed.
titus turned your face towards him as both hands cupped your cheeks. his eyes searched yours carefully, verifying everything.
"you okay?"
you were trembling for real this time. your pulse hammered against your throat.
"y-yeah," you swallowed. "no..." another breath. "i don't know."
his expression softened immediately. he snapped his fingers and had a servant bring you a bottle of water. you drank half of it without realising.
the game wasn't over. there were still targets standing. and while francesca wasn't ignacio, she was still an el caĂdo, which meant she could absolutely shoot.
so you sauntered towards her, embodying the hunchback of notre dame, approaching her with all the pursuit of someone voluntarily walking into peak traffic.
"i'm... really sorry about your father."
nothing.
"truly."
she didn't spare you a glance. so you made her.
"and madhu..."
her head snapped towards you.
you offered an apologetic smile. "he was such a sweet guy."
the muscle in her jaw twitched.
"really. even when he lost, he was still so affectionate towards me."
oh... sheeeee was pissed the fuck off, carrying a dangerous silence that made animals back away slowly. as did you, slowly retreating back to titus, who already hand one hand outstretched to reel you back into his arms.
francesca's stare followed you the entire time. if hatred could physically manifest, it would've lunged at you carrying a machete. yikes.
by the time the break ended and competitors returned to their positions, her eyes looked bloodshot. she stood where ignacio once had, with his rifle back in her hands, grief in her chest and pure rage in her bloodstream.
you were a firm believer that hell had no fury like a woman scorned, but you also believed in human error. one born out of emotions.
both your theories were proven correct moments later.
francesca raised her rifle at the cheng fu target. she aimed with nothing but fury and impulse, and took the shot...
...which missed completely.
the bullet sailed past the board and disappeared into the treeline behind it, a flock of startled birds erupted from the branches.
the crowd collectively groaned and francesca looked ready to scream you just looked away before she could catch the smile threatening to appear on your face.
the rounds that continued after that went by routinely. like cashing in cheques at the bank. you kept your performance exactly where you wanted it. not spectacular enough to draw suspicion, not poor enough to be dismissed. every shot landed somewhere respectable. the inner ring. sometimes the middle.
the silcoxes fumbled several attempts, much to everyone's amusement. mr le domas suffered through the remainder of the game with the enthusiasm of a man attending his own funeral. after receiving multiple blows to the back of the head from his sister for 'lacking competitive spirit', he eventually stopped caring altogether and simply fired in the general direction of whatever target happened to be in front of him.
mr cheng fu lasted longer than expected.
not by much.
halfway through the match he lowered his rifle, because 'why can't i just punch the board', and withdrew himself from the competition entirely. nobody seemed particularly surprised. even less surprised when he immediately wandered over to his mother and spent the next several minutes hugging her with enough dedication to concern everyone present.
throughout all of it, ursula remained impossible to read. nobody paid attention to a woman who calmly and consistently struck the inner rings over and over again.
well, except titus.
he knew exactly what his sister was capable of. he had watched ursula put bullets through moving targets since they were children. he had seen her split crystal glasses at distances most people considered ridiculous, like those opthalmologist letterboards that got smaller and smaller, farther. hell, he had seen her shoot the same hole twice.
so what the fuck was wrong with her today?
every shot landed close enough to impress, but never close enough to dominate. subtle, but he could tell it was deliberate. and it was beginning to irritate him.
when her final shot struck the innermost ring yet again, ursula lowered the rifle and stepped back without so much as glancing at the scoreboard.
titus was beside her before she'd even fully relaxed her stance, grabbing her arm tightly.
"what are you doing?
ursula looked at him.
"you have eyes. you tell me."
"don't play stupid."
she sighed, removing her ear protection.
"i'm tired, titus."
"bullshit."
"i'm on my period... one of those days," she added with a shrug.
titus narrowed his eyes. that explanation might have worked on literally anyone else. unfortunately, he'd spent his entire life with her.
before he could continue interrogating her, the lawyer cleared his throat. he stood beside the scoreboard with an expression that suggested he was enjoying himself far more than any referee should.
"well," he announced, "this is unexpected. again..." nobody liked the way he said that.
"it appears we have a tie."
a ripple of confusion moved through the crowd.
"between house danforth..." he paused just long enough to be annoying. "...and house l/n."
you felt dozens of eyes turn towards you at once. and you just wanted to disappear. become a tree.
ursula merely folded her arms, looking smugly proud.
titus slowly turned his head towards his sister. the look on his face suggested he had just realised exactly what she'd been doing all afternoon.
she gave him a tiny smile. absolutely full of shit.
"fortunately, ties are easy to resolve," the lawyer clapped his hands together twice and a few servants took all the target boards away, except for one.
"both competitors will take one final shot."
he pointed at the board, and said, "you will shoot the same target board, at the same time. highest score wins."
thus... you and ursula stepped forward together, rifles in hand against your shoulders, one eye closed, staring at the same red dot on the board before you.
you adjusted the rifle against your shoulder and settled your cheek against the stock. the familiar ache in your shoulder immediately made itself known. beside you, ursula mirrored your stance with effortless precision. there was something strangely comforting about standing next to her.
without moving your gaze from the target, you spoke quietly.
"we have a deal, right?"
for a moment, the only answer was the breeze moving through the trees.
then ursula's voice reached you, just for you.
"don't miss and i won't either."
your grip tightened around the rifle.
the lawyer raised a hand, and a pin-drop silence fell on the grounds, everyone on the edges of their seats.
then he dropped it, "shoot"
BANG! BANG!
two shots fired at a near adjacent speed and timing.
a flash of sparks flew between you and the board as ursula's bullet hit yours mid-trajectory⌠making it strike right on the red dot for the first time in the entire game. your bullseye.
the gasp that echoed was so so so beautiful, it ought to be added in an andrew lloyd musical.
everybody on the grounds gawked at the sight, for what they had just witnessed should not have happened, could not have happened. the odds were so absurd that most people wouldn't have believed it if they hadn't seen it themselves.
"thatâŚ" the lawyer stuttered for a moment, having witnessed a 1 in a 600 million chanced event before his eyes. for perhaps the first time in recorded history, the man whose entire personality revolved around rules appeared genuinely speechless. "settles itâŚ"
the corners of his mouth twitched, whether from amusement or horror, nobody could tell.
"house of l/n wins..."
he looked up straight at you. "...again."
a lot of grunts and groans surrounded you like an asteroid belt. but you stood there, the hilt of the rifle digging into the grass as you leaned on it for support, staring at the tiny hole in the centre of the target. the perfect, impossible hole.
as you made your way back towards the danforth limousine, the noise of the estate gradually fading behind you, you rolled your shoulder with a wince.
the joint had been protesting all week. every lesson. every practice session spent hitting the joints and hinges of metal from different angles, watching your bullets gradually land into the mannequins that acted as proxies for ignacio, every rifle kickback made your shoulder feel less and less like your body part. you wished you could just yank it off and toss it away.
ursula walked beside you.
the evening air was cooler now, carrying distant music and laughter from the villa behind you. somebody had already started another party.
eventually you glanced at her.
"congratulations."
ursula looked over.
"thanks."
just a simple acknowledgement before she looked ahead again. that was all, because irrespective of your victory, irrespective of the strategy you'd both agreed upon, irrespective of the increasingly absurd circumstances of your life, there remained one indisputable fact.
ursula danforth was the best markswoman you had ever seen.
you may have had won the game, but the victory was hers. who else, after all, could miss a shot that perfectly?
ahead of you, titus had paused beside the limousine door. he was watching the pair of you with visible suspicion, as though the very act of the two of you getting along was an alfred hitchcock level of mystery.
as you got inside the car, your eyes met daniel's. he just gave you a knowing look, a tiny two-fingered salute that said 'see you soon.'
you took a well-deserved shower after the day you'd had. hot water pounded against your aching shoulder, loosening muscles that had been clenched since morning. it helped, though not by much. you already knew tomorrow was going to hurt.
by the time you stepped back into the bedroom, towel rubbing your hair dry, your mind had finally begun to get ready for bed.
click!
your stomach dropped as you heard the familiar sound, which made you look up.
titus sat at the edge of the bed.
a silver handgun rested in his hand, pointed directly at you.
your body reacted before your mind did. your breath caught. your shoulders stiffened. the towel froze halfway through drying your hair. for a second, all you could think about was how small the room suddenly felt, how little distance existed between you and the barrel. and how quickly a trigger could be pulled.
"titus..." your voice emerged smaller than you intended.
his expression didn't budge. normally there was always something behind his eyes. amusement. arrogance. affection. some irritating comment waiting to happen. right now, there was just a steady focus. for a tiny moment, your mind simply refused to process what your eyes were seeing. it was titus. titus, who slept beside you. titus, who stole your tea. titus, who followed you around the manor like a particularly expensive guard dog. but it was also titus who shot people, killed without blinking, who kept guns in places most people kept, idk, photographs.
"I need you to tell me the truth." his voice was calm. too calm. "about today."
of course, you had expected questions. just not with a loaded gun.
"can you put that down?"
"no."
"titus,please."
he stood up. the movement made your heart kick painfully against your ribs. then he started walking towards you. the gun never lowered. you retreated as he got closer and closer until your back struck the wall; nowhere else to go unless atoms aligned perfectly.
titus stopped in front of you. the barrel lifted and cold metal touched your temple.
you could feel your pulse against the metal, feel your own heartbeat betraying you. a ridiculous thought flashed through your mind then, unwanted and intrusive: he could shoot me.
it reminded you that beneath all the affection and tenderness and ridiculous devotion, titus danforth was still titus danforth. and he killed people when he decided they needed to die. the difference between you and everyone else was that he'd chosen not to point those instincts at you.
"ursula never misses," he murmured.
you let out a shaky breath. "she didn't."
his gaze sharpened. "then why?"
"because i asked her to"
uncertainty crossed his face. as though the answer simply didn't fit with everything he knew about his sister.
"you 'asked' her to..."
"yeah."
titus stared at you for a long moment. you could see the calculations behind his eyes. ursula listened to very few people. in matters involving competition and family reputation, she listened to even fewer. the idea that she'd simply agree to throw away a victory because you'd 'asked nicely' was fucking unbelievable.
he knew it, you knew it.
"don't lie to me, baby."
the pet name did nothing to soften the warning. you closed your eyes briefly. "she missed the shots on purpose."
"and you?"
"i did what you taught me. what... she taught me."
his jaw shifted. "what 'she' taught you?" he squinted at you. he didn't know ursula even talked to you outside context, let alone teach you anything.
you let out a breath. "she taught me how to ricochet."
titus' eyes snapped up at you. "what?"
you carefully reached up and placed your hand over his wrist. not pushing the weapon away. merely touching him. to your relief, he let the gun drift downward. the barrel slid from your temple, tracing the line of your jaw, your throat, your collarbone. it continued lower until it rested against your waist.
"i couldn't beat ignacio," you admitted quietly. "he was always going to outshoot me. so if i couldn't hit the targetâŚ" you paused. "i could learn how to misfire."
you placed your hand on his chest, feeling his pulse quicken. "ursula taught me how to ricochet the bullet."
for a moment, he just looked at you with dazed eyes. you watched the answer land somewhere in his brain, watched him replay the entire game in his head
"you injured him on purpose?"
you nodded slowly. saying it aloud made it sound uglier than it had in your head. for a moment you wondered whether you'd made a mistake telling him even the most minuscule details of your plans, which relied solely on the best of discretions and titus was anything but. you wondered whether he'd look at you differently now. whether this would be the moment he realised you weren't whatever sweet fantasy he'd built around you.
for several moments he simply looked at you. then the corner of his mouth twitched. his forehead dropped against yours.
"kinda hurts me," he murmured, his nose brushing yours. "that you didn't come to me for help."
"you would've made it worse."
"i would've made it spectacular," he said with a pout.
"your takeaway from all this is that you're offended?" you asked with a scoff.
"my takeaway is that my girlfriend apparently orchestrated a ricochet, manipulated every single person on that ground, and never thought to include me."
you groaned. "come on man..."
you saw a flicker of that unmistakable, dangerous dangerous admiration.
"i'm so fucking proud of you, baby." his thumb brushed your cheek. "that's the hottest thing you've done all month...makes my dick hard"
jesus... if this was what made him proud, you half-helped yourself to telling him that you were the one who poisoned the rajans... you wondered what new degree of attraction or arousal he'd invent.
he held the gun in his hand, looking at it, at the engravings on it. it was elegant indeed. long, sleek mouth, a sturdy grip.
"i bought this for you..." he murmured examining it.
"what?"
"as a gift. whether you won or not... i had this made for you."
you blinked. who the fuck gifted a gun?
"you couldn't find a scented candle, an anklet, or anything?"
"you want 'em? i can get those too."
"i don't want 'a gun'."
"it's yours. whether or not you use it."
you didn't know why, but it sent a shiver down your spine. "you use it then."
titus smirked. "yeah?"
âŹâ.Ë one of the girls; the weeknd, jennie, lily-rose depp
his eyes narrowed in a particular way that you had seen before. it was the exact look chomsky got before launching himself at unsuspecting limbs. you wouldn't be surprised if titus wiggled his butt a little before pouncing on you either.
"no."
"yes."
you ducked out of there, near your bed and titus followed with obvious intentions.
"titus."
"yeah, baby?"
"don't."
"okay..."
yeah he did not okay. he kept advancing.
"you're literally still moving."
his grin widened as he cornered you by your bed, gently pushing you down. he leaned in, crawling over you as you scrambled back in the mattress.
titus dragged his tongue up your neck, which was still warm from the shower. he heard you breath heavily. god he loved that. his lips ran over your jaw, your cheek, then the corner of your mouth.
"open your mouth," he whispered against your skin.
you did. and instead of feeling his lips or fingers, you felt the hard metal of the gun resting on your lower lip. you hummed in protest, but titus held your head there, fingers digging through your croppy damp hair.
"you said i can use it, right? so i am..."
his grip tightened just a bit.
"suck."
you gulped, but closed your lips around the barrel. you felt him push it in just a bit more, then pull it out, then push it back in. all the while he straddled your hips, looking down at you, casting a shadow over you.
you tasted metal, not quite fond of that flavour, but the back and forth of it inside your mouth quickly became bearable, almost enjoyable when you saw how aroused titus was. you relaxed against your pillow, hands stretched behind you to supposrt you upright. you looked up at him, hisâyourâgun in your mouth, gave him the same pretty doe eyes you did when you blew him a few days ago.
he smirked.
"cocky girl... you like the gun now huh?"
you rolled your eyes.
"wanna ride it, baby? give it a spin?"
the idea of it should've shocked you, repelled you. made you want to shove him away, have a talk with him and hand him brochures to psych wards.
but it turned you on instead. so you nodded cautiously.
titus pulled the gun out of your mouth, the silver barrel glistening with your saliva.
"yeah? you want that?"
"uh huh..." you said weakly.
he tapped the wet gun against your cheek once. "gotta hear you say it, baby. use your big girl words."
you chuckled against your better judgement, tilting your head looking up at him. "yeah. i wanna try it."
were you a stranger to vibrators? nah. you'd long realised that sometimes your fingers just weren't enough. you'd once experimented with a long mascara tube and that had led you to discover just how badly you needed a toy.
now look at you. watching titus danforth slide a fucking gun down down down between your legs, and watching your hands tug down your shorts and panties so he could... 'take it for a spin'.
at first, he just rubbed the cool metal against your slit, and even that felt awfully good. cold, hard, dangerous, yet so so new, so enthralling. your thighs closed in on their own, force of habit.
"tsk, tsk, tsk, that's now how you do it. keep 'em open, baby."
you whimpered and parted your thighs against. titus pressed down on one with his heavy hand, locking it in place while the other kept sliding the gun's barrel against your cunt. who'd have thought you'd get wet by that...
"up," he ordered and you pushed yourself up and onto his lap, straddling his spread meaty thighs as he sat down on his heels.
he gently pressed the gun against your hole, scanning your face for the first sign of discomfort. but all you had on your face was curiosity. that was fucked up. and he loved it.
he pushed the gun inside just a bit, metallic girth sliding in with a wet squelch. downright obscene, yet it was enchanting watching you get off on the gun he bought you.
you'd gotten bolder. so much bolder; how you went from a reserved, practical woman with wits and philosophy to a manipulator, a strategist, and his dirty, fucking, slut, and he so loved it.
shameâis what you should've felt, gyrating your hips and your pussy over his gun like that, but what could you do. novelty often made you feel good and, well, he did say it was a gift. never said how you could use it.
you felt him slide the gun in deeper, almost the entirety of its barrel. your jaw dropped, breath hitching and falling in short huffs. your hands grabbed his shoulder.
his hand slid around your hip, up and down your back, then hooked aroind your waist.
"you trust me?" he rasped in your ear and you nodded.
"mmmnnhhh... yes."
click!
your eyes locked onto his as you realised he just clicked the safety off.
"titus... whaâ"
"shhhh..." he pressed a few kisses to your lips. "i won't hurt you."
every cell in your body should've tensed, resisted the foreign object invading you, but the man before had your guard dismantled. did you trust him? maybe. did you trust the gun? not at all.
in a way, you loved the humiliating dichotomy of it, of contemplating the gun going off while your pussy clamped around it, wetting it even more.
titus chuckled. "ohhh... you like that?"
you returned it with half a chuckle, mostly a moan, your head falling against his shoulder.
"filthy, filthy girl," he cooed against your ear, slowly fucking you with your gun. oh how he wished his cock could be inside you, but in a way, there was something incredibly arousing about pleasing you with an instrument that could also kill you.
and what was titus danforth if not crazy.
he sped up just a bit and watched your body react instantly, fingers digging into his back, breath fanning his neck, hips draaaaaging themselves up and down on the length of the gun. and that made his cock throb. titus had never ever been turned on by guns, never really felt a particular inkling about possessing them or using them. they got the job done.
but now?
you were riding one and he felt every single reaction on his dick instead, imagining the warmth of your pussy engulfing him instead.
he pressed a few kisses and bites along your neck. you whimpered and quivered a little.
"so soon??? don't tell me the gun's better than my dick..."
you whined. "shut uppp"
"nuh uh," he cooed in your ear.
a jolt of pleasure coursed through you when he angled the gun right once, and the itch it scratched, jesus. you asked for forgiveness from divinity when you came around it.
"fuck, so hot, baby..." he grunted, letting you fall back on the bed as he pulled the wet, soaked gun out, watching how your pussy let it go with a little fight.
"best damn show of my life."
you vibrated with a series of laughter, pulling him in for a kiss. titus turned the safety back on and tossed the gun aside on the bed, letting his lips crash onto yours.
"can't believe it... i'm jealous of a fucking gun," he murmured against your lips, his body melting over yours like weighted blanket.
you pretty much spent majority of the night making out till you both got sleepy.
titus just stayed in your room that night, arm draped over you, his face buried in the crook of your neck.
you stared at the ceiling for a while, feeling heavy and light at the same time. you'd survived, and won two games. you couldn't believe it yourself. if circumstances were any different, you'd be finding ways to disappear, let your wrist get cut and run away.
but a part of youâfucked up, tiredâhad somehow enjoyed the thrill of watching your plan unfold with success. it was surreal.
maybe you'd get to do that again. the next game was only a week away, quite literally built on strategising.
it was just chess, right? what could possibly go wrong?
y/n this episode be like: OUR GIRL IS FUCKING SHIT UP.
now, two things: idk how guns work, i looked up websites. i also don't know how gun play works and im SO SORRY if that made uncomfortable. i just know titus would be down to do that. T_T
if u guys are curious abt my writing process: here's a thing
comme toujours, comments are loved loved loved, reblogs are always welcome, all my ghost readers; u da real gems
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a little on my process of writing
i have always enjoyed writing my thoughts onto paper or typing them on my laptop since i was what, 12?
and i've loved reading. i remember my first ever book, which got me to fall in love with reading was jean webster's epistolary novel: 'daddy long legs' (trust me, that's where my need for journaling also began).
so, today, as a writer (of fanfiction, stories, and poetry), i wanna walk you through some of the things i did and am doing while writing the last great demented dynasty
1. i use my notes app extensively. so, any time i have thoughts, prompts, little scenes or lines in my head that i don't want to miss, i put them in my notes app, or sometimes i text them to myself on whatsapp.
2. worldbuilding on obsidian it's clean, it's organised, and all my thoughts stay in one place. it's easier to form connections, to elaborate, and to always have my characters and their traits before me. as well as plot points. ssly, i forgot that y/n's bound to titus by the sigil, so that shopping scene with ursula, where she gives her the ring, was a last-minute panic-realisation that i turned into a plot point. now the ring is a part of the magic (which is seen being used again when y/n leaves the manor). but sometimes i forget a lot of details i mention in my chapters, so having all these tiny things on a dashboard, connected to the characters, to plots, to more details, helps me a lot.
3. reading literature an underrated part of writing truly. sure, the more you write, the better you get at it. but the more you read, the better you get at imagining. when i write, i'm also trying to direct. like a film director: what do i want in my scene, what emotions do i want to convey, what is the body language of my characters? and the answers to these questions, i find them in other books. so while i'm writing, noting down things, or simply brainstorming ideas, i'm also reading multiple books, underlining things that i like (and make me go 'oooo that's nice, i should do something like that), sometimes articles, or actual 'helping' books (like john truby's book on storytelling), which offer tangible advice on writing a scene (with examples).
these are some of the books i have on my rn that i'm reading. for inspo
sidney sheldon: if tomorrow comes h. j. eysenck: crime and personality (to create some immorality amongst my characters and others) suzanne collins: the hunger games, catching fire (online) john truby: the anatomy of a story
how do i use them?
i'll read through some chapters, underline any lines/descriptions/words or phrases i like. and then i'll try to use them in my writing without plagiarising the entire thing.
for example (if tomorrow comes):
i liked the underlined descriptions. and i wanna use them. so i'll put them on obsidian or in my notes app, and then when i have 10-12 such examples, i'll start writing some paragraphs and insert them wherever they fit. so for this one:
you had been spending a few hours on the estate practising your shooting with titus and sebastian. but it had become like oil and water, trying to focus on hitting any target when all you wanted was to drive the mouth of your gun up every single one of that man's orifice and exploit the trigger till he was nothing but a charred, porous piece of flesh. pretty violent, right? which is why you had turned to ursula. she was pragmatic, practical, charmingly unpretentious at times.
and if i like it, it's going in the chapter. (this one is. i like it)
sometimes, i'll use the word/phrasebank i've created for myself where just like annotations of the book, i'll jot down interesting words/sentences/phrases/idioms/descriptions/hilarious responses etc. and pluck a few to use them while i'm writing.
my personal favourite that i surprisingly haven't used yet: "oh please, he's a wet fucking tissue of a man"
4.goals, goals, goals if i ever have a brilliant idea but no way to structure it into events/characters/incidents, i'll fix the goal first. what outcome do i want of a particular section/chapter? and then i'll work backwards from it T_T
e.g. i wanted y/n to killl someone with an empty syringe. but who? when? how? never thought of that. partially, the founding chapters helped set the scene. then i imagined, the best place to find an empty syringe would be the hospital, but who could y/n kill at a place she works at to do the opposite? to help people? couldn't be any of the core characters. so a side one. the actual movie helped too: who died in a hospital? wilkinson. great, let's killhim T_T why though? why randomly? same reason he died in the actual movie: premature attack on grace (unofficial, since the hunt wasn't announced), so same way here. which is why he's gone, she had her first kill and her first real personality-shifting incident.
i haven't really grasped the concept of editing and re-editing. im autistic, i value order, and in my head, writing has to be chronological for me. i can have scenes planned in my head, this happens after this, that after that, and i'll write it in that order only. i physically cannot being myself to write the last scene first or the first scene last. T_T if u leave me to shoot a film, i'll actually shoot linearly. best i stick to writing.
so i'll write the entire chapter start to finish, and then edit chronologically as well.
anyway, c'est ça.
the last great demented dynasty XVI
titus danforth x y/n
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a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: the first game of the necrofest begins. will you survive? win? lose? or will you make it worse?
warnings: SPOILERS:- mention of guns, LOTS OF ALCOHOL. not kidding. smoking, getting high, drugs, mention of 'daddy' again, being drugged, brief ursula x reader, fingering (f. receiving), mention of cocaine/coke, bathroom sex lfgggg, piv, name calling (whore), mention/description of seizure, implied character death
again, songs are a vibe. immaculate discoveries for you.
ursula liked her solitude.
most days were spent buried beneath ledgers, investment portfolios, and the endless machinery of the family business. every now and then, when the numbers began to blur together and the sound of people became intolerable, she disappeared to the shooting range behind the estate. it was one of the few things she genuinely enjoyed.
heels dug into loose gravel. the afternoon sun glinted off gold jewelry and dark sunglasses. none of it mattered. stilettos, pebbles, uneven groundâshe never missed.
the target downrange was proof enough. a dozen clean holes clustered so tightly around the center that they were beginning to tear through one another.
"i didn't know you could shoot like that."
ursula did not turn immediately. she knew your voice.
she allowed herself a small smile instead, keeping her eyes fixed on the target as she adjusted her grip.
"titus looks good holding a gun," she said pleasantly.
the pistol clicked as she cocked it.
"but i'm the better markswoman."
the report cracked through the afternoon air and a thirteenth hole appeared dead center. only then did she lower the weapon.
you crossed the gravel slowly, hands tucked into your pockets against the heat. she heard the crunch of your footsteps as you stopped beside her. close enough for conversation.
"if you teach me how to shoot like that..."
ursula tilted her head slightly.
"i'll make sure the high seat is yours."
that made her look at you. simply enough to let you know that, for the first time since you'd arrived, you had her full attention. the smile remained on her lips. everything else pretty much disappeared.
you could practically see the calculations happening behind her eyes. trust. motive. risk. opportunity. were you useful? stupid? both?
"and why," she asked, "should i believe a word of that?"
"because i'd like to live."
a short laugh escaped her.
"and because i never wanted your seat in the first place."
"that's a refreshing sentiment."
she turned back toward the target, studying the ruined center as though the conversation were of only passing interest. only it wasn't and you both knew that.
"humour me, then. how exactly do you intend to accomplish this?"
"depends."
"on what?"
ursula arched a brow and the answer finally pulled her eyes back to yours.
a grin tugged at the corner of your mouth. "how good are you at keeping your brother on a leash?"
boy did that smile drop off her face. because that, unlike promises of power or inheritance, was a question with no easy answer.
"oh and... i need another dress," you chirped as you turned and took your leave, leaving ursula with a second long eye contact and a little smile.
âŹâ.Ë millionaire; yo yo honey singh
there was something else about nightclubs whose owners practically lived there. every council family seemed to have turned up early, circling one another beneath the pretence of celebration while waiting for the first game to begin.
loud music blasted through the thousand dollar speakers, heavy bass rattling and bouncing off the walls, red black and blue lights covering every surface like a rainforest. cigarette smoke hung thick in the air. so did the scent of expensive liquor, sweat, and whatever people were passing between themselves in dark corners. everything blurred together beneath the lights and haze, creating the unsettling sensation that you'd stepped into another reality.
and you did, having pulled up to 'club kama' with ursula after another round of shopping your way through half the city. okay maybe you had a guilty pleasure.
it was worth knowing every single person in that room wanted you dead...
and still couldn't take their eyes off you.
how could they?
you wore a gorgeous blood red party dress, hem cut off at your plump thighs, legs for days in the louboutin boots ursula loaned you. a heavy black leather jacket sat on your shoulders, exposing just enough of your collarbone, the shimmering top of your breasts, and a tiny, flashyâlaughably out of placeâsilver cross across your neck, as if to ward off all the satanic devils around you. maybe they'd combust into flames.
you lowkey loved it. the looks, the whispers, the way conversations faltered. it was one of the most satisfying moments to walk through them, past your father who tried to 'greet' you to his side, ignoring his existence.
titus was halfway through a conversation with one of the rajans, one he wasn't listening to when his eyes fell on you. and everything about you caught his attention.
the dress, the boots that made you taller than him tonight, the jacket, the cross...
his eyes traveled down to your boobs before he could stop them. immediately regretting it. immediately doing it again.
because fuck. you looked ridiculous. in a really really bad way for his health. in the sense that nobody should have been allowed to look that good around people other than him.
he forgot about the rajans, the games, your father. forgot the dozens of people downstairs who would happily watch one another die for a ring. all of it vanished beneath the simple fact that you had just walked into the room.
"bro, is that her?" madhu rajan asked, leaning towards titus, cigarette on his breath.
titus blinked.
"what?"
oh he wasn't listening. he knew he wasn't listening. his focus was on you and how everyone's focus was on you. men, women. people who wanted your downfall. the fact that you knew exactly what room you were entering. knew exactly who was present. knew exactly how many people here considered you competition.
all of them noticed exactly what he had. possessiveness settled in his stomach and he hated every second of it.
his drink remained forgotten, sweating in his hand. he watched you walk past your father, neglecting the man even though you were on his family team.
and despite the politics, despite the fact that your existence now complicated his life, his seat, his family's legacyâa grin pulled at the corner of his mouth.
because that was beautiful. absolutely beautiful.
you climbed up to the lounge, where has seated, legs spread, bourbon in his hand. and the second his eyes met yours, he noticed the absoulte lack of fear in you. fuck.
brass balls for that because half the room wanted you dead. and titus had never wanted you more before that.
"careful," said ursula, appearing beside him like an omen, a shark smelling blood, taking a seat next to him.
titus immediately looked away, making her laugh.
"oh that's embarrassing."
"shut up."
"can't keep it in your pants, can you?" she chirped in his ear.
titus looked at his twin sister, a glare forming on his face.
"we had the boutique send us their pieces home today. watched her try on a few dresses..."
she took titus' bourbon and drained it in one gulp.
"...and some lingerie."
oof the silence that followed was louder than the club music. he looked at his sister, deadpan, she stared at him back.
"i'm going to kill you."
"you say that every week."
"why would you tell me that?"
"because i can, titus."
his imagination had already betrayed him, showing him flashes of you, undressed, some lacy bra holding your tits snug, matching panties covering where his hands or mouth or dick should be.
"look at him," she cackled to nobody in particular. "he's having a religious experience." she wasn't entirely wrong.
titus glanced towards you again despite himself. that turned out be such a worthy mistake.
you sat on the circular lounge sofas, one thigh draped over the other, your dress riding up up up till he could almost see if you were wearing anything fancy or not, both your arms resting over the backrest like you were relaxing in a tub. you wore no smile, no frown.
his chest tightened immediately. "for fuck's sake," he muttered, adjusting his trousers.
"hopeless," ursula diagnosed.
titus knew she was right. he was fucking hopeless. years ago, he'd looked at women and seen entertainment. but with you, it felt less like just attraction and more like a terminal condition. he would feel his own attention orbiting around you every time, no matter how hard he resisted.
downstairs, people were preparing for the opening of the games. upstairs, titus danforth was losing a battle far older and far more humiliating.
soon enough, the lawyer had everyone seated by house. the danforth twins occupied one end of the curved lounge sofa, you and your father, whom you sat considerably away from, took the other end, facing titus. to your right were the el caĂdos, then the silcoxes, well, mostly mr and mrs silcox. their next of kin were standing behind them. in the centre of the sofa, was the house team: madhu and viraj rajan. then the le domases, siblings like danforths, with their extended family behind them as well, and next to them the cheng fus, which were really just a mother and her ipad kid, and a bigger man standing behind them, arms crossed.
the lawyer, who was also the judge/the referee/the umpire, ye little jack of all rituals, cleared his throat.
"now that everyone's here, let's sign the contract. remember, signing the contract binds you to the rules of the game. once you've signed, failure to adhere to the rules will result in... grotesque consequences."
with a flick of his wrist, he produced another thick book. it simply existed where there had been empty air a second ago. okay, you had to admit, it was fucking cool seeing apparitions like that.
.apparently it contained several such contacts, for every hunt that had ever been held. its pages were actually, literally, older than you. it was... unbelievably thick. so enormous that two people could probably stand on it.
one by one, the representatives stepped forward. the lawyer presented a silver pen whose nib ended in a vicious little point. each player pressed their thumb against it, a bead of blood surfacing immediately. and then it vanished, the pen clean as new.
then came the signatures. house after house; blood, name, blood name.
your turn arrived and your stomach tightened. you already knew there was no escaping it. you had known that from the moment the games were explained. still, walking forward felt like approaching the guillotine.
the lawyer took your hand. the nib pierced the tip of your right index finger. you watched blood gather for a moment before it rolled down the side of your finger.
"sign here, please."
you signed with your left hand, feeling eyes on you. the tiniest of smirks tugged at your mouth. you didn't even need to look.
the man was seated only a few feet away, watching you with the same concentration a starving dog might dedicate to a juicy steak. you could practically hear the wagging tail and drooling mouth. without thinking much about it, you extended your injured finger towards him.
his reaction was spontaneous.
titus leaned forward from the sofa, summoned.
a collective stillness fell over the lounge, people tried not to blink and miss the scene.
the heir to the danforth family had a hand wrapped around your wrist with complete ease and your finger in his mouth as he sucked your blood once again, till it stopped bleeding.
titus released your finger without shame, tongue lapping up the last of red. it was downright diabolical how far gone that man was for you. the rest of the council members couldn't believe their eyes, watching him behave like a fucking pavlovian doberman.
the le domases and silcoxes looked at titus questioningly. weren't you their rival? mortal enemy?
"got something to say?" he asked.
they looked away and at their laps or drinks or each other.
"thought so."
you pressed your lips together.
the worst part was that titus genuinely had no idea why everyone was staring. to him, the sequence of events had been perfectly logical. you got hurt, you offered him your hand, he accepted. end of story.
and judging by the look on sebastian's face, your father seemed uncertain whether he was more disturbed by titus or by the fact that you appeared entirely accustomed to it.
the game, as it was announced to commence, was set up on another floor overlooking the club. vip floor if you will. a large round table was set up, with multicoloured papercups arranged in a pyramid of 5, one set for each council family. so you stood before purple papercups with beer in them, between the cheng fu family and the le domases, with respective papercups of green and yellow. "the rules are simple. each player takes a turn tossing the balls into 1 cup from each council family. you land, you get a point, and your opponent has to drink. you miss, you don't get a point. first family to clear out the most cups wins. i'll be keeping score," the lawyer explained, backing away and taking a seat in a high chair that oversaw the entire table.
okay. weird rich people. weird cult. weird nightclub. whatever. these were pretty much your thoughts.
the game started.
âŹâ.Ë manali trance; yo yo honey singh, neha kakkar
being the former occupant of the high seat, titus got the first turn. he plucked a ping pong ball, angling it just right and tossed it. it hit the table once, and landed right into viraj rajan's cup.
a celebratory round of applause rippled across the table, mostly since it was the first shot. now everyone could get cut throat.
viraj sighed dramatically, picked up his cup and downed it in one go, tossing the papercup away and spitting the ball out. you probably expected him to voice out irritation or maybe the taste of plastic beer.
instead, he wiped his mouth and blurted out, "i embezzle money out of my non-profits every month."
a few people groaned.
"again bro? i thought you stopped doing that," his own brother sighed.
the el caĂdo council member went, "ah hijo de puta, come on, you can do worse."
he just shrugged and let the game continue.
titus missed most of them, much to a bitter aftertaste of his ego he swallowed. then the last ball landed in the silcox cup.
my silcox drank his beer, coughed a little, groaning at the harsh taste. "i knocked up every maid we had so my wife hired male butlers... I FUCKED THEM TOO!" he barked out a laugh that ended in a belch.
laughter and hysterical cackles echoed all around the table. mrs silcox pinched the bridge of her nose. "seriously, gregory?"
okay...
what was happening?
the man seemed almost as surprised as everyone else. not because of the information itself, but because he'd said it aloud. like the words had simply escaped, like he'd been unable to stop them.
the cheng fus were next, and the tall, broad, hefty man from before took the first shot. guess he was their blood representative instead of the mother. his shot missed a few cups because he was too aggressive.
then his ball landed in titus' cup.
lmao, you thought.
as normal as titus was, he picked up his cup, grumbling a little about the odds of the dimwitted sumo wrestler's shot somehow landing in his cup only.
he drank the beer, spitting out the ball back at the man, whose nose fumed out a smoke of anger.
he set the cup down and damn nearly burped, "y/n called me daddy and i liked it."
you froze. your soul left your body.
the silence was instantaneous.
the lawyer raised his eyebrow, amused. ursula gawked. the younger rajan folded in half, hand pressed to his mouth concealing laughter. your father, who was a few feet behind you, with the rest of the audience, palmed his forehead, avoiding any eye contact with the others who snickered.
your head snapped towards titus.
"what?"
titus blinked, apparently just as surprised as everyone else, like he hadn't intended to say it.
"what?"
"WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?"
"just... playing the game, baby."
you could practically watch him trying to shove the words back into his mouth.
"what do you mean?"
"what do 'you' mean??"
okay what the fuck was happening? was this some bizarre tradition? was everyone suddenly a lightweight?
you looked down at the beer, golden, fizzy. nothing odd. but your mind couldn't sit still. nobody seemed capable of stopping themselves. the moment the cup was emptied, the truth simply came out.
and random, even in-house beer the size of a gulp wouldn't do that.
the lack of hesitation or filter, the absurdity of it all churned in your stomach as your brain tried to find reason.
no way right?
"is this beer laced?" you asked the the older rajan.
he smiled. "in house specialty, 'baby'." a pouty, jealous titus wriggled somewhere in the spot
clinically, there was only one substance strong enough to do whatever the beer was doing.
"is there fucking sodium pentothal in the beer?" you asked the lawyer.
he smiled playfully. "and a bit of mr le bail's cheers."
what the fuck...? the concoction was possibly fatal if consumed in large quantities.
when it was your turn, you decided you needed proof.
not that the evidence wasn't already mounting. people had been confessing to crimes, affairs, fraud, tax evasion, and whatever perverse damage titus had just inflicted upon himself. but the scientist in you wanted confrimation.
you rolled the ping pong ball between your fingers and took a slow breath. more importantly, you absolutely did not want that ball landing in your own cup.
if there truly was some magical equivalent of sodium pentothal in the beer, then every cup on that table was effectively a loaded gun. you didn't even want to imagine what would come out of your mouth if you were forced to drink. your brain contained entirely too many thoughts that were meant to stay inside your brain.
the beer itself looked perfectly normal. golden, carbonated, smelling exactly like beer should. somehow, whatever occult nonsense the rajans had performed had preserved the appearance, taste, and apparently even the drinkability of it while still forcing the drinker into a state of involuntary honesty.
what kind of beer pong was this?
it was horrifying.
you focused on the cups closest to you. the le domases.
and years of university parties suddenly became useful in the worst possible circumstances. your wrist flicked, the ball sailed, bounced once, struck the rim of the cup, spun a little dramatically, and then dropped straight into the cup.
you let out a breath.
across the table, mr le domas looked personally offended by the outcome. he muttered something in french that sounded deeply impolite, snatched up the cup, and emptied it in one go.
for a moment, nothing happened. then his shoulders slumped. his expression soured. and with all the enthusiasm of a man reading his own execution notice, he said, "god, i wish my sister died already."
your head turned towards the woman sitting beside him. said sister looked as though she was calculating prison years.
mr le domas, meanwhile, appeared equally horrified by his own statement. he rubbed a hand over his face and groaned.
"really..." his sister asked.
"i didn't meant to say it."
"but you meant it."
and just like that, the game continued. you stared at the discarded cup sitting on the table.
yep. definitely not normal beer. by the third round, you had stopped questioning whether the beer was cursed. it was.
every successful shot was followed by another confession that should never have seen daylight. the council members had long abandoned any pretence of dignity and instead seemed resigned to whatever fresh humiliation the game decided to drag out of them.
the older rajan patriarch had been forced to admit that he'd been smuggling drugs through three of his own clubs for nearly fifteen years. his wife had reacted by smacking him across the back of the head with a cocktail menu.
a silcox cousin had confessed to paying someone to complete his harvard university degree.
the el caĂdo head laughed out the fact that he just buried one of his tios alive in the dessert in mexico.
you had almost become desensitised to the weird secrets.
then your next throw landed in one of the cheng fu cups. the ball bounced once against the rim before dropping inside.
the room let out a collective groan. hah! suck it losers.
mr cheng fu sighed heavily, picked up the cup, and emptied it. for a moment, he seemed hopeful. then the magic struck.
and against every instinct screaming inside him, he muttered, "sometimes i still ask my mother to breastfeed me."
you felt your soul attempt to evacuate through your ears. your entire face twisted in visible disgust. like, genuine, involuntary disgust. it physically altered your facial features.
every single person's jaw fell agape. the lawyer too, fist covering his mouth, but his shoulders shook. people were choking on drinks.
mr cheng fu immediately buried his face in both hands.
you tossed it one last time, and the ball landed in titus' cup. your stomach immediately dropped. because unlike everyone else's secrets, you had a concerning feeling about his.
because titus was titus. there was no possible outcome here that ended well. and why the fuck were all his confessions about you? hadn't he done something objectively worse that he could spill?
across the table, he looked annoyed before picking up the cup.
he drank, crushed the paper cup, and then sat there with the expression of a man watching a meteor approach earth.
you closed your eyes.
"please don't."
"i have six hundred and twenty-three photos of you sleeping in my bed... and i've jerked off to every single one of them."
you dragged a palm down your face immediately. you genuinely considered just dying at this point. perhaps immediately.
"TITUS."
"that's actually lower than i expected. i thought it'd be in the thousands.," ursula commented.
"URSULA."
titus looked almost offended. "i deleted duplicates."
you made a strangled noise.
for all the laughter the game had produced so far, none of it reached you when a rajan ball finally bounced across the table and dropped neatly into your cup.
the sound was small, just plastic against plastic. yet it seemed louder than anything else in the room.
your stomach immediately sank... because unlike everybody else's secrets, yours actually mattered.
two days ago, hidden away in your room with the dementhund practically opening itself before you, you'd stumbled upon something that changed everything.
an actual legal loophole buried inside centuries of rituals. the kind of discovery that could keep you alive. the kind that abso-fucking-lutely could not be spoken aloud.
you tried desperately to tell yourself half-truths, distorted versions, misreads.
"drink up," viraj called.
every god from every religion suddenly became relevant to you. you prayed to all of them simultaneously.
then you took a sip.
the beer burned slightly as it slid down your throat. not enough to hurt, but enough to remind you that something unnatural had been mixed into it.
for a second, nothing happened. then the familiar dizziness hit. a strange pressure settled behind your eyes, your thoughts felt slippery.
your gaze automatically found titus.
he was watching you with an amused curiosity that instantly made you nervous. the bastard looked excited. of course he did.
then your mouth opened, you felt it happen, felt the words pushing forward, felt your own body betraying you.
"i'mmmm going to win the games... and the seat."
the room quieted. enough for panic to explode inside your chest.
shit. shit. shit.
your head swam like it was in a trance. enough of the truth came out that you immediately scrambled for the nearest explanation. and before anyone could linger on what you'd said, another sentence tumbled out.
"because titus has been training me to beat all of you," you deliberately slurred.
the room collectively groaned.
fucking mercifully.
"knew it."
"seriously, danforth?"
"why didn't we think of it?"
"pussy game that good bro?"
titus ignored all the remarks, though absorbed the seething envy from each of them, a little smug, a little proud.
several people began arguing about whether personal training counted as an unfair advantage. another argued that titus being your coach was basically cheating. that the rules never mentioned alliances could be made...
you sat there trying not to visibly collapse. your pulse slowly settled. the panic began draining from your limbs. like the weight of the truth finally liberated you.
you glanced at ursula, who caught your eyes. and after a tense flicker of concern, she smiled and gave the slightest nod. they bought it. you nodded back.
thank god. your lungs finally decided to function. everyone else had moved on.
everyone except one person.
across the room, the lawyer was watching you. he wasn't smiling. his fingers remained folded over the handle of his cane while his gaze rested steadily on you. you knew that look. you'd seen academics wear it before. it was the look reviewer 2 always had when peer-reviewing your papers.
because unlike everyone else in the room, the lawyer knew exactly how dangerous words could be. and judging by the look in his eyes, he wasn't entirely convinced that "titus has been training me" was the whole truth.
he held your gaze for another moment before finally looking away, which somehow felt much worse.
a few more rounds went by. you were arguable the better player than everyone, and you'd succeeded in wiping out the el caĂdo family. four shots landing in their cups on each turn.
titus took the ball between his fingers, and looked straight at you. ugh. immediately, you knew he was about to be insufferable.
the alcohol had softened the edges of your thoughts. not enough to make you drunk, but enough that the tension in your shoulders had loosened. everyones faces blurred into one obscure shape whenever you looked too quickly between them.
"you ready, baby?" he cooed, before tossing it, and watching it arc flawlessly and flop in your cup. the second time you'd be drinking that awful concoction.
you sighed and did it anyway. the cursed beer waited patiently in the cup. your thoughts felt wrapped in cotton. not gone, just slower. less anxious. for the first time in weeks, the constant pressure sitting on your chest had eased. which was probably why the rajans used this particular game. drunk people cursed themselves into fuck ups.
you knocked back the beer. your throat burned.
the room tilted briefly. then came the familiar sensation of the magic settling over you.
and before you could stop yourselfâ"i killed wilkinson."
silence. utter silence. you closed your eyes. fuck.
across the table, someone blinked. "you what?"
another council member sat upright. "wait."
"wilkinson?"
"i thought he drowned."
"what the hell?"
conversations immediately exploded around the table.
you rubbed your forehead. this was exactly why you'd been terrified of drinking. the truth itself wasn't even the problem. the fucking context was. because now you had a room full of occult aristocrats trying to piece together a homicide.
before the discussion could spiral further, the lawyer cleared his throat, speaking calmly like a waiter checking dinner reservations. "it occurred before the necrofest was formally announced."
his gaze swept across the table. "therefore it falls outside competition jurisdiction."
a few disappointed groans followed. "so it doesn't count?"
"correct."
"shame."
"that's boring."
you, meanwhile, wanted the floor to open beneath you. swallow you whole like sita.
because while most people looked shocked, titus looked like he'd just been handed the greatest gift of his life.
madhu rajan turned towards him slowly.
then looked at you. then back at him.
"bro."
titus didn't look away from you.
"what."
madhu pointed across the table. "she's perfect."
"i know," titus smirked.
there was not an ounce of hesitation in his response. you stared at him all dazed and blurry eyed and he just fawned over you, looking even more pleased than before.
weeks ago, you'd been sobbing over wilkinson's death. barely able to say his name without guilt clawing at your throat. you'd questioned yourself endlessly. replayed the attack over and over in your head. wondered whether defending yourself had somehow made you monstrous.
and now, under the influence of cursed beer and far too many near-death experiences, you'd simply stated the fact. not a fucking apology in your tone.
the pride on titus' face should have been concerning.
and somehow, against every reasonable prediction, every statistical probability, and every attempt made by the universe to ruin your life, you won.
the game had descended into complete chaos somewhere around the halfway mark. people were buzzed, cursed, emotional, oversharing, and increasingly distracted by the secrets being unearthed around the table. by the end, half the council seemed more invested in everyone's scandals than the actual competition.
you had simply kept throwing. throwing and surviving, occasionally drinking, occasionally regretting drinking. and apparently scoring points.
the lawyer sat quietly at the end of the table throughout the entire ordeal, making notes with the concentration of a monk. eventually, after the final ball had been thrown and the final confession extracted from some unfortunate soul, he closed his ledger.
"well," he said.
he looked up. "with twenty-two successful cups..."
his gaze landed on you.
"congratulations, miss l/n."
for a second, you genuinely thought he'd made a mistake. 22? really? your mind rapidly retraced the evening.
huh.
everybody was staring. you hated it immediately. dozens of eyes settled on you from around the table. some looked as though they had just realised you might actually be a problem.
for the last few weeks, you'd been trying very hard not to become important. important people got targeted, got dragged into rituals, hunted through forests and forced into supernatural fuckery.
important people died.
and now every person in the room was looking at you like you'd just announced yourself as a real contender.
so instead, you gave the lawyer a thumbs up.
"cool."
"that's it?" asked one of the rajans.
you shrugged. "what do you want me to do?"
"you just won."
"yeah."
"the first game."
"still got 5 more."
a few people grimaced, which honestly made you feel a little better, because that was the thing nobody seemed to understand. they were treating this like some great victory.
all you'd won was green signal to continue.
there were still guns to shoot, checks to give, horses to survive, combat wrestling to endure and whatever horrifying nonsense the danforths considered hide and seek.
the only person who looked genuinely delighted was titus. he sat there looking entirely too pleased with himself, as though he'd personally won the game.
across the room, behind you, however, your gaze briefly caught another figure.
sebastian.
he watched you with a look you didn't quite understand. the look of a man realising that the piece he'd moved across the board might be more dangerous than he'd initially intended.
everyone had accepted your victory with varying degrees of grace.
the lawyer announced the result, the rajans complained for approximately thirty seconds before shrugging and drinking leftover beer from every other cup. the silcoxes accused everyone of collusion, mr cheng fu family demanded a recount despite not having paid attention to half the game, too busy apologising to mommy, and then, because they were all wealthy degenerates with the attention span of goldfish, they just... moved on.
âŹâ.Ë sooraj dooba hain (from roy); arijit singh, aditi singh sharma
club kama returned to what it did best.
the music grew louder. servers drifted through the lounge carrying trays of drinks. cigars were clipped and lit. somebody produced a silver case that definitely did not contain mints. neat lines of white powder appeared on a mirrored tabletop as naturally as if they had been part of the decor all along. american express cards emerged from designer wallets and began performing their sacred duty.
you had long since decided there was no point questioning any of it. and after the fucking month you had, a nice gimlet seemed downright medicinal.
you sat curled into one corner of a massive couch, nursing the drink and trying not to think about the fact that half the room would probably celebrate your funeral if given the chance.
across from you, titus lounged like he owned oxygen.
one of the younger rajans kept glancing in your direction. he leaned towards his brother and muttered something in hindi.
"iski bandi pata loon? kya kehte ho?" (should i try and steal his girl? what do you think?)
the words barely left his mouth before you lifted your glass and looked him dead in the eye, nodding once at titus
"koshish kar sakte ho. bas iske haath maut aayegi." (you can try. you'll just die at his hands.)
both rajans coughed on their drinks. the younger one looked genuinely startled. neither knew you could speak hindi. then slowly, very slowly, they turned towards titus, who just raised an eyebrow.
the younger rajan immediately lifted both hands.
"my bad, bro."
you took another sip. "smart choice."
the conversation died there mostly because the younger rajan was now staring at you like you'd suddenly grown horns.
"you speak hindi?"
"clearly..."
"that's... scary."
"thank you."
the younger rajan pointed at you, addressing whoever was arund him. "she fucking won, y'all."
a chorus of agreement followed. "she did."
"fair."
"annoyingly."
"still don't know how."
another voice emerged from somewhere near the far end of the table. "winners get prizs, right?"
"yeah."
"do they?"
"what prize?"
the younger rajan grinned. "victory kiss."
you nearly choked on your drink. "absolutely not."
"why?"
"because."
"kiss." the younger rajan stared back. then another joined.
"kiss."
another voice followed.
"kiss."
a third.
"kiss."
what the fuck? grown ass people acting like teenagers in a smash pit. oh, you recognised mob mentality when you saw it. within seconds the chant spread across the lounge.
the rajans were doing it, the younger silcoxes were doing it, one of the cheng fus was doing it while simultaneously scrolling on his ipad. even a few older council members appeared amused enough to participate.
"kiss the danforth."
"kiss the danforth."
"kiss the danforth."
the chant only grew louder. hell, some of the club visitors downstairs also joined in, head banging to the music.
you dragged a hand down your face. children. every last fucking one of them.
your eyes shifted towards titus.
he was enjoying this entirely too much. the bastard was practically glowing. his grin stretched wider with every repetition of the chant. you could witness the exact moment he convinced himself that he was about to be rewarded for existing.
you sighed heavily. then took another sip of gin.
the alcohol warming your bloodstream did not improve your judgement. if anything, it made poor decisions seem funny. slowly, you placed the glass on the armrest. the chanting intensified immediately.
"kiss the danforth."
"kiss the danforth."
"kiss the danforth."
you rolled your eyes. then shrugged off your jacket. and everyone reacted too embarrassingly for their age and criminal records.
half the room erupted into whistles.
"ooooh."
"it's happening."
"look at him."
"he's trying not to smile."
titus was absolutely trying not to smile. and failing miserably.
you leaned forward, slowly getting off your couch, arms planted on the table between you, crawling forward forward forward, across polished wood as you slowly crossed the distance.
titus looked at you hungrily, his gaze following every inch of your approach, at your very obvious, very sexy cleavage. you stopped directly in front of him. close enough to feel his breath. close enough to see the triumph already forming in his eyes.
everyone held their breaths, watching the nat geo show of you, a panthress, crawling to titus, a doberman, with the gorgeous curve of your ass on display.
titus tilted his head slightly, his grin softening. awwww...
your face moved closer.
and closer.
then, at the last second, you turned...
...and kissed the danforth beside him.
for perhaps half a second the lounge malfunctioned.
ursula looked shocked herself, just enough that her eyes widened before a laugh escaped her. but damn if she didn't kiss you back.
her lips were softer than his. much softer. they even tasted like vanilla. you kissed her sweetly, then... just to piss him off, parted your mouth just enough, like you did for him, and ursulaâcunning as she always wasâlet you, planting a wet mouthy kiss on you, tongues gliding against each other playfully.
when you pulled back, you licked your lips, draaaaaging your tongue slowly over yours, as if to taste her one last time. she gave you a pleasant smirk, wiping off her lipstick stain off the corner of your mouth.
the room exploded with screams and laughs and hefty claps on the backs.
lord, sebastian tried not to look at you. he did not want to see is daughter kiss a woman, let alone another fucking danforth.
you pulled away laughing, dimples sinking at your flushed cheeks. ursula was laughing too, biting her lip, seriously entertained.
and titusâwell... you decide.
"that's not the danforthhhhh," the younger rajan groaned.
"that is literally a danforth," you replied.
"you know what i meant."
you turned around to look at the lawyer, batting your eyelashes at the man, giving him a smirk.
"technically," he said after a moment of consideration, "the player successfully... kissed a danforth."
the room erupted again. "no!"
"rigged."
"que paso hermano !!!."
"fucking judicial corruption."
the lawyer shrugged. "i don't make the rules."
"you literally do, jackass."
meanwhile titus sat motionless, only there was a new level of offence mixed in his stare. he looked ready to challenge his own sister to mortal combat.
oh, he was furious. wounded pride and all. one moment titus was seated, glaring at you from across the table while his sister looked entirely too pleased with herself.
the next, he was on his feet.
conversation stalled around him because everybody knew that look. it was the same look titus wore before making extremely poor decisions.
"uh oh," muttered one of the rajans.
you took one look at his face and immediately pointed at him.
"don't."
"come again?" he asked calmly. and that was... not so good. because whenever titus became calm, it usually meant somebody else's day was about to get significantly worse.
you took a cautious step backwards.
"titus."
he took one step forwards.
"baby."
"don't 'baby' me."
"then stop causing problems."
you got approximately three steps before a large hand wrapped around your waist and before you could formulate another argument, the floor vanished. or rather, your feet did.
the entire room tilted violently as you were hauled upwards. you let out a very undignified noise.
"titusss"
he had already thrown you over his shoulder; just picked you up like luggage, like a damn sack of potatoes. your stomach dropped as blood rushed to your head.
"put me down!"
"nope."
"you can't just do that!"
"watch me."
the lounge erupted in cheering once more. grown adults, do you hear that? business owners, cultists, supposedly mature enough people. but no. all of them reacted as though they'd just witnessed the final scoring goal of the fucking world cup.
"there he is!"
"there's the danforth i know."
"fucking finally."
you smacked his back hard. he didn't even react. it was like punching a brick wall. he carried you towards the nearest space away from the lounge, long strides covering distance quickly.
you raised your head, straining your neck enough to plead for help from the spectators, but they were spectators for a reason.
"ursula!" you shouted.
she lifted her glass. "have fun!"
"you're dead to me!"
"love you too!"
you groaned into titus' back. his hand tightened slightly against the back of your thighs.
your protest turned into a gasp when his hand cracked against your ass; a sharp slap that made your flesh jiggle.
you felt his hand soothe your skin a little, drawing little hearts over the globe of your ass before his palm spanked it again. slap!
you whined. "stop thatttt"
your vision blurred and flipped back up as he put you down, and locking the door to the posh, black-lit bathroom in the club, the music still loud inside under the red lights. you wobbled in place for a moment, adjusting to your surroundings. but all you saw was him, slowly take steps towards you.
his hands settled on your hips, grabbing tightly. and he looked at you, up at you, given how taller you were with those boots on. but he still held your gaze authoritatively, you know, that old man sexy glare.
"you... are gonna pay for that."
you sucked in a short breath. "you jealous?"
"i own you," he said too quickly.
"not ursula. not 'david', not your fucking father... me. i do."
oh, he was jealous jealous.
"and you..." titus murmured against your neck, scruffy spots of the stubble on his jaw brushing against your skin. "don't kiss anyone else but me."
you snorted a laugh, placing your arms over his shoulders, hands locked behind his head.
"i'm not joking, baby..." he said lowly, seriously.
"like you're not fantasising about a threesome..." you blurted out in your defence, but he only smiled.
"you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
jesus... you were so glad the game ended before he could admit that out loud.
before you could say anything, titus shoved you against the wall, your back hitting the cold tiles with a soft thud! he buried his nose in your neck, licked the damp sweat on your skin, and sucked on it till it turned blue.
your hands grabbed his curls and he only bit harder.
"bet you'd loveeee fucking the both of us. love the attention... like a fucking whore."
you whacked whatever demon lay in you that shuddered and got wet at his words. any man saying even hello in a wrong tone had you whip out a collapsible baton from your purse, but here you were, holding back a moan at titus danforth calling you a whore.
"you're my whore first..."
and then he kissed you, planted his lips right onto yours, harder, harsher, rougher, as if to erase the trace of his sister's lips off yours.
"she can't give you what i do, baby," he whispered against your lips before sliding his tongue inside, tasting the laced beer off your tongue.
"god i'm so fucking hard for you..." he groaned in your mouth, teeth biting into the silver cross that lay across your neck, tugging at it, making your head jerk closer to his.
he breathed you in, hand snaking down to his back pocket, taking out a tiny sachet.
"i-i'm not..."
"'s f'me. can i do a line off your tits, baby? you owe me that much."
again, what the fuck was wrong with you for loving every single thing he did to you?
"y-yeah go for it."
he pulled the neck of your dress down, and seriously moaned when he sawe the lace of a bra he'd never seen you in. but he'd get to that some other time. if you were going to shop for lingerie with anyone, it was going to be him, not ursula.
he bit and tore the sachet, sprinkling it all over your boobs. and shoved his face right in, nosedeep between the soft, plump flesh of your titus, inhaling your scent, the coke, and the pure euphoria that bloomed out of you. he groaned as he pulled away, absolutely ecstatic.
titus snuck his hand down your dress, and under it, fingers teasing you through your damp panties a few times, just his fingertips moving up and down lightly, then he tugged them off, taking the matching fabric off your legs, and pocketed it.
he slid two fingers of his between your slit, the same way he always did. it was like entering the password to opening the world's most incredible vault.
oh you were so done for. wet, pulsing, needy.
"no one gets you this wet, you hear me?" he growled in your ear as his fingers glossed over your flesh, till it dripped off how much you wanted him.
he pushed his fingers in you, curling them a few times, pulling them out, the pushing back in until all your wetness drooled over his hand, the hilt of his palm brushing against your clit ever so often. you got wet too fast, embarrassingly fast with him.
you panted and whimpered, suddenly very very glad you pulled that stunt out there. if this is what it ended up being...
you were so fucking pretty when you made those noises.
"you can play your games, baby... make 'em laugh, tease me, make 'em forget they're trying to kill you."
he sucked on your lip once.
"but i'm the one you submit to, isn't it? all pretty and whiny..." he punctuated his words with a few quick thrusts of his fingers, enough to drag a few moans out of you.
"yeahhh, just like that..." he ladled out more slick out of your hole, letting it web between his fingers, which he pulled out of you suddenly, leaving you to whine and writhe.
he dug his wet hand through his sticky pants, diving straight down to his dick, pumping it out of the confines of his clothes. proud, swollen inches glistened before you, his hand coating them with your wetness.
he slid long drags of his head down your slit a few times, watching it tear up and cry for more.
"you want it?"
you nodded impatiently, your hands grabbing his bicep, his shoulder.
"then tell me you're mine." he tapped his tip heavily over your pussy. "say it."
you whined, your head falling over his shoulder. "fuckkk... i'm yours... yours... please... fuck me."
"i'm not convinced, baby. you kissed my sister."
"only to make you furious."
"is that so?" he pushed just his tip in, making you almost sigh in relief, before he pulled out, and just let the wet head bump against your inner thigh.
"mmmyessss." you nuzzled your nose against his jaw. "don't you wanna show them who fucks me good?"
"i know i do, baby. do you?"
"show me again just in case i forget..."
he snickered, and slowly pushed in, his dick sliding in you with barely any resistance. he fucking loved that. you'd get so wet that it was just too easy to embed himself in you. and sliding into you raw?
"ohhhh... fuckkk me..."
soon enough, titus crammed his entire length inside you, up up up as you took him in willingly.
he pressed you further against the wall, hooking one of your delicious thighs over his arm, his palm grabbing your ass and then the mad titus simply drove into you, ramming his cock into your pussy.
the thrill of the game, the confessions, his nasty confessions had really undone you. you realised it with every slurp of his cock fucking you, pulling out moans after moans from your hanging mouth.
"fuuuuck, that'sâhckâmy girl. suck me in. take it all."
he was stiff, aching, harder than ever due to the drugs and alcohol in his system, and he took out every single emotion on you, on your cunt as he drilled into you, pressing you against the wall. his hips slapped against yours, the sound bouncing off the walls loudly.
he groaned and grunted and growled against your neck muttering profanities that got worse due to the truth serum, all the things he wanted to do to you.
"should keep you locked up. chained to my bed." thrust! thrust! thrust!
"fuck you every single night... god i need to come inside you so bad..."
your moans sometimes interrupted his trail of words, but he picked right back up.
"but you know what?" his tongue licked off the remnants of the coke off your tits. "you don't deserve my cum."
you whined so loudly.
"not tonight. nope. kissin' my sister in front of everyone like that." thrust! thrust! thrust! plap! plap! plap!
titus pounded into you so so soooo angrily, you fucking loved it. it was better than the drinks. he was hitting your g-spot, a-spot, every fucking alphabet in your pussy hard and rough and you were failing so badly at seeming brave. you just wanted to go limp in his arms, let him rut into you to his heartâcock's content.
he fucked you with the energy of a diesel engine. rusted stamina your ass. for a man in his late forties, he had more strength than any youthful jackass could ever muster. and his cock proved that every single time.
your breath hitched. "nnnggghh titusss.. i'm close... i'm"
"beg"
you groaned. "justâ"
"fucking beg."
you should've trusted that pissing off titus danforth always resulted in self-humiliation, and in your case, the best fucking sex of your life.
"please please please please i need to come. iâi'm yours... just yours... can i please come?"
you body rattled against the walls as titus sped up, fucking you in a frenzy.
"fuckkk... do it, baby... come around daddy's cock," he growled.
you burst like a dam, gluey and warm and sultry, dripping all over his dick, accompanied by a lewd moan, hands tightening in his curls.
titus let you ride out your orgasm before pulling outâanother whine out of youâand pumped his dick till he too came with a groan, ribbons of cum spraying out and splattering all over your thighs. you couldn't help but rub them together, smearing his release all over your skin and giving yourself some more post-coital pleasure.
"so good..." he pressed a kiss to your temple, helping you tug your dress back up, chivalrous hands stuffing your boobs back in.
"uh... can i have my panties back?"
he smiled. and you got your answer.
âŹâ.Ë blood in the wine; aurora
hours later, club kama had begun to sag under the weight of its own excess.
the first game of the necrofest was over. the tension had drained from the room. people lounged wherever they had landed. jackets had been discarded over chair backs, the floor. empty glasses littered everywherew.
some of the families had already left.
sebastian fucked off without much notice. nobody paid him much attention on the way out. he had spent most of the evening watching other people celebrate your victory and, judging by the expression he'd worn all night, had taken every second of it personally.
the lawyer had lasted a little longer.
he had announced that the first game had concluded according to regulation, accepted two drinks he clearly did not need, muttered a distracted goodbye to nobody in particular, and bro dipped.
after that, the night seemed to dissolve.
you found yourself sprawled across one of the oversized sofas, one leg hooked over the other and both feet resting on the edge of the low table before you.
titus occupied the space beside you. for once, the man was quiet. but only because he was out. his head rested against your shoulder, eyes closed, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. every so often his brow would twitch at a distant noise before relaxing again.
the rajans, meanwhile, remained very much awake. being the owners of the club apparently came with an inability to leave it.
madhu and viraj had migrated to another couch opposite yours, continuing their mission of consuming every substance within reach.
"you got any left on you, bro?" madhu asked eventually.
viraj shook his head.
"nothing." he exhaled cigar smoke towards the ceiling.
"tragic."
you watched them for a moment. then tilted your head. "i've got some."
both brothers looked up and their expressions brightened immediately.
you elaborated softly, "nothing fancy. just stuff i got from some phd students."
madhu laughed. "we're cool, right?" he asked after a moment. "with you winning and us kinda wanting you dead earlier?"
your smile was small. "no hard feelings."
"dope. hit us."
"jacket pocket," you said, and madhu whipped around to find your jacket lying on the floor beneat their boots. he dug into the pocket and fished out a sachet of white powder, finely ground.
madhu caught it. "love you."
neither brother wasted time in sorting the flour-y contents into shabby lines, inhaling all of it one by one. more drinks were consumed, more whimsical innovations came out of their mouths, most of which started and ended with a 'bro'.
and you sat exactly where you were, absolutely still.
titus shifted slightly against your shoulder, his curls brushing against your neck. without thinking, your fingers drifted into his hair. the motion was so absent-minded. like petting a cat while watching tv.
only you watched both brothers lay slumped on the couch. viraj's glass slipped from his hand, rolling on the carpet. madhu's breathing changed, shoulder jerking once. viraj's hand clawed weakly at the sofa cushion. madhu folded and curled into the couch.
once, not so long ago, you would have been the first person rushing forwards. you would have been kneeling beside them, checking their airways, pulses, doing something.
now you simply watched.
and what bothered you faintly was not what was happening to the rajans. it was how little movement existed inside your own chest. the horror was still there. the awareness of it all.
the knowledge that two human beings were suffering only metres away. but it felt buried beneath layers of exhaustion, grief, fear and anger accumulated over months and years.
wilkinson had haunted your sleep.
your father had thrown you into a contest where death sat behind every rule.
chester had made you end his life with your own hands slowly, painlessly, invisibly.
people, as you slowly realised, did not become monsters all at once. nope. they arrrived there through gradual justifications, fear, necessities.
and if chester danforth could pass away as he livedâin bed, still sick, still a tyrantâso could everyone else. that much you'd promised the dying man.
so you sat and watched the brothers twitch and stroke, seizing turbulently, frothing at the mouth. typical signs of apple seed cyanide.
then gently closed your eyes, as if you were asleep the whole time, letting time take the reigns off your hands and placing them in those of happenstance, of sorry coincidence.
after all, who'd bother to question why two club owners and substance abusers overdosed after losing a game in their own house?
im thinking, 1 chapter per game so that's 5 in total, and then the danforth hunt hehehehe
also i am really sorry if the last part is triggering for any of you. mostly if you perceived y/n as not someone capable of doing that. but i want the story to go there. because i can't fucking stand cultist billionaires irl T_T as adam brody said and will say in my chapters too: "someone's gotta burn it all down"
a lil mini moodboard for the chapter. y/n really be taking two danforths in one evening like vitamins. đđ
as usual, comments are loved loved loved, reblogs are always welcome, all my ghost readers; u da real gems
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the last great demented dynasty chapter index
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII (coming soon)
the last great demented dynasty XV
titus danforth x y/n
previous part | next part | chapter index
a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: you must either endure the rising tension between your father and you, or find another way out of the games. weirdly, you do both.
warnings: mention of rifles, bullets, 'daddy' (do what u will with it hehe), oral (m receiving) mention of death, titus calling reader 'kitty', UHM SORRY, but physical abuse from s*bastian
âŹâ.Ë ziddi dil; vishal dadlani, gioconda vessichelli, prashant ingole [literally means 'stubborn heart' and girl that's so accurate]
as the danforth estate woke up, cold mist clinging everywhere, so did some really patriotic sentiments amongst the two families you had the misfortune of being entangled with.
and neither was going to let you go out of their sight and grasp.
what your father wanted was preparation, what titus wanted was you. and he had quite the upper hand when it came to keeping you on the danforth estate, thanks to the sigil that still bound you to titus.
sebastianâs response to that had been a long, deeply miserable stare, the sort that made the lines around his mouth sharpen with irritation. honestly, you were beginning to enjoy it. there was something deeply satisfying about watching your father react every single time titus inserted himself into your space.
the first morning in the gym had nearly made sebastian leave outright.
you'd walked in beside titus wearing shorts and a tank top, hair tied messily back, still half-asleep and holding an energy drink in one hand while titus followed carrying absolutely nothing, just because.
titus ignored his presence entirely, reaching over to take your drink from your hand for a sip without asking. sebastianâs eye twitched so violently you nearly laughed.
that became the pattern rather quickly. wherever you went, titus followed.
your father wanted to "assess" your strengths, which was basically his way of saying he wanted to see where you were weak. that transparence was obvious.
the danforth gym was of course, as wealthy a display as the rest of their facilities. crystal chandeliers included. floor length windows. top-notch equipment.
"start light," sebastian said.
you rolled your eyes and picked up a pair of dumbbells. the first set went up without issue. then another, and another. the disappointment on his face was objectively funny. he'd expected you to have to start with 4 or 5kg weights, but no, there you were curling 10s, pressing 15s. your form was great, stable, like you'd been doing it for a long time.
he'd clearly expected frailty, learning anew what your lifestyle was. perhaps a life spent buried beneath books and research papers. perhaps someone who would struggle through beginner weights and require months of conditioning before becoming remotely useful.
instead, you curled the weights steadily, posture upright, elbows controlled. your form was annoyingly good, that of someone seasoned.
when you moved to heavier presses, the surprise became harder to hide. you planted your feet firmly against the floor and drove the weight upward with controlled effort, arms shaking only slightly near the final repetitions. your shoulders worked beneath your tank top. muscle shifted beneath skin. your back tightened as you stabilised the movement.
and where sebastian saw statistics and capability, titus appeared incapable of looking anywhere else. every exercise somehow became his favourite. bicep curls, hot, back rows, hot, lat pull downs, fucking delicious, shoulder press, he never wanted to bite a muscle that bad.
he lingered nearby under increasingly flimsy pretences, watching muscle flex beneath your skin as you worked.
you knew what was going on in his mind. he could disagree vehemently, but you knew.
the most unsettling part wasn't even the strength, it was how you didn't fucking smile after a difficult set, didn't celebrate any personal records, didn't show off. you just lifted, maybe struggled, then dropped the heavy weights and moved on, expression flat with concentration as you moved weight from one place to another like it was just another task on a very long to-do list. even the way you re-racked the weights after use was equally attractive, the veins on your wrists popping with the grip.
that made it so much worse. intimidatingâthat was the only word that came to mind when they saw you. there was something deeply intimidating about a person who exceeded expectations without seeming interested in proving anything.
your life was possibly at stake and your performance directly determined the outcome of the games, and yet you showed no excitement, no desperation. you just did what you were capable of.
and for reasons neither man enjoyed examining too closely, that was far more frightening.
you had barely settled onto the bench for chest presses before your father stepped forward to spot you, only for titus to physically shoulder him aside without even pretending to be polite about it.
"move"
"i know how to spot a chest press," sebastian snapped.
"good for you," titus mumbled, taking his stance behind you.
titus crouched behind the bench anyway, large hands hovering beneath your elbows as you struggled through another rep. his voice dropped lower as he encouraged you, calm and coaxing in a way that was oh so unfair.
"thaaaat's it, push, baby," he murmured. "one more f'me, come on."
your arms shook a little and his palms were right there to support you should you need it. you hated that it worked.
with a strained noise, you forced the final rep up before dropping the weights onto the rubber flooring with a loud thud, lungs burning as you lay there catching your breath.
"good fucking girl," titus said approvingly, patting both your shoulders.
your father looked a millisecond away from an aneurysm. and you felt your father mounting disgust from two machines away. honestly, it improved your mood immediately.
[if u wanna know what a chest press looks like, here's me trying to do it with 12.5kg dumbbells in each hand. only i don't have my titus spotting me. đ also not the guy blocking me T_T this clip is from my yt vlog]
on the treadmills, titus took the machine directly beside yours despite there being at least ten others available. he ran with irritating ease too, barely winded, while you were actively reconsidering every life choice that had led you to jogging before sunrise. you fucking hated running. and that was exactly what was going to save your life if the games turned into hunts.
titus was in no way subtle as he stared at you, dragging his gaze over the sweat dampening your neck and torso, the bounce of your breasts as you jogged, thighs moving too deliciously.
the actual combat training proved far less amusing. unfortunately for your dignity, titus was genuinely terrifying. you learned that very quickly the first time he sparred with you on the matted floor. he moved with frightening precision, every dodge economical, every hit calculated before you'd even fully committed to your own movement. he barely seemed to exert effort while disarming you repeatedly in under thirty seconds.
"again," sebastian ordered from the sidelines.
"oh, fuck you, telling me to get beaten up like you're not a fucking benchwarmer," you grumbled to yourself.
"focus," your father snapped.
you lunged at titus again anyway, only for him to catch your wrist, pivot sharply, and suddenly you were flat on your back against the mat with his weight pinning you down before you could even process what had happened. JESUS. was he holding back in the woods that day?
your breath punched out of you.
titus grinned above you, slightly breathless now, dark grey hair falling across his forehead. one of his hands had your wrists trapped effortlessly above your head while the other pressed against your waist to keep you still.
and frankly, the training stopped feeling particularly educational after that.
"need a break, baby?"
oh that smug piece of shit.
"i hate you," you groaned, one arm draping lightly over his neck.
titus slid his arm under your waist and pulled you up, the other hand holding yours firmly.
most days at the gym went like this and only this. your father made it unbearable and titus just flirted at every chance he got.
[no but the aura of finally reaching heavy 2 digit dumbbells and watching your veins pop out??? unmatched. ladies, do strength training. it'll literally change your life. here's my hand for a visual example ??? T_T.]
and when all was said and done, you'd take a long-awaited shower, dragging the man with you under the hot rain, wet bodies gliding against each other as he fucked you against the wall. all the soreness in your body left you the moment he kissed you senseless.
"nngghhh... fuck..." you moaned, water falling into your open mouth. "you think he can hear us?"
"fucking hope so," titus grunted, thrusting up into you, hands grabbing your ass greedily. the shower made it so much easier to slide in and out of you.
"moan louder f'me, baby... fuck. i wanna hear you more."
on the grounds, your father taught you how to fire a rifle. or well, attempted to.
the shooting range sat farther from the manor, built near the tree line where the noise wouldnât disturb the rest of the estate. empty shells littered the gravel underfoot and the scent of gunpowder clung to the cold air. a row of targets stood in the distance, riddled with old bullet holes.
sebastian, annoyingly enough, was actually good at this. not that you cared.
he handled the rifle with the sort of ease that only came from repetition. you tried not to think about the fact that your father apparently had hobbies beyond medical malpractice.
"keep the stock firm against your shoulder," he said, handing the rifle over. "otherwise the kickback'll bruise you."
you adjusted the weapon awkwardly in your grip. it was heavier than expected, cold metal pressing into your palms as you tried positioning it properly against your shoulder.
"not like that," sebastian stepped closer. "hereâ"
his hand reached for yours and you recoiled at a lightening speed. you stepped sharply backwards and raised the rifle with him directly in your sights.
"don't fucking touch me."
the air went still for a moment. sebastian paused at that, gaze flicking from the barrel pointed at his chest to your face. slowly, he lifted both hands a little away from himself. "you can't shoot yet."
"no," you replied, finger hovering over the trigger. "but i can misfire. hit an eye or something."
a low whistle sounded behind you.
"that spirit will get you anywhere, baby."
titus stepped into your space without hesitation, entirely unbothered by the firearm currently involved in the conversation. one hand settled around your waist while the other slid slowly down your arm until it covered yours against the rifle grip.
sebastian frowned, offended already.
"shoulders too tense," titus murmured beside your ear, completely ignoring the murderous glare directed at him. "relax a little."
"easy for you to say."
"i know, i'm naturally gifted."
you snorted despite yourself. but damn if he didn't turn out to be good at it too. his instructions came quieter than your fatherâs, more patient somehow, guiding your posture without crowding you. he adjusted the angle of the rifle against your shoulder, nudged your elbows into place, pressed lightly against your spine when you leaned too far back.
"donât fight the recoil," he said. "let your body absorb it."
your first shot nearly startled the soul out of you.
the snap-crack-shot split though the air, the recoil slamming back into your shoulder hard enough to make you stumble into titus' chest.
"jesus mary joseph and the camel," you hissed.
titus let out a soft laugh. a rare sound you'd never heard from him before.
the next few attempts weren't much better. one missed entirely. another clipped the outer edge of the target. your shoulder began aching almost immediately.
"you'd succeed if you just let meâ" sebastian tried to butt in.
"didn't fucking ask you, did i?" you retorted instantly, rifle aimed at the man again, the clicks of a reload echoing perfectly in the tense air.
titus simply watched, amused, a small part of him hoping you set the trigger off.
still, after enough tries, something finally clicked. you steadied your breathing, narrowed one eye, squeezed the triggerâthe bullet struck clean into the outer scoring ring of the target.
your face lit up before you could stop it. you turned instinctively to look up at titus, small victorious smile breaking through all the stress and exhaustion of the past week, and the expression that crossed his face in return was almost embarrassingly fond.
"good shot," he said quietly.
something warm fluttered unpleasantly in your chest.
across the range, your father muttered something under his breath. he looked exactly like bitter coaches did whenever any famous actors showed up to charity matches and got more attention than actual athletes.
and just to rub it in his face, sparing an apathetic glance at the man, you put the gun back down, you traced your finger along titus' jaw, adding some loud and clear gratitude, "thank you, daddy."
there were two men on the grounds that morning. and they had two very distinct reactions to hearing you say that.
your father? appalled. mortified, sick to his stomach.
titus danforth? salivating. with the biggest fucking boner known to mankind.
you emerged from titus' bathroom, patting moisturiser on your skin. the mirror had revealed the beginnings of a bruise blooming along your shoulder, an ugly patch of colour courtesy of several hours spent learning that rifles were far less glamorous than films made them seem.
"rifle kickback is a fucking bitch," you muttered, rolling your shoulder experimentally.
titus looked up briefly from his phone. stretched across the bed; he barely seemed to register the complaint.
"better than being the one shot at."
"debatable."
"it really isn't."
you ignored him and continued patting moisturiser into your cheeks.
somewhere over the past week, your belongings had begun migrating into his room with alarming consistency. first it had been a charger. then a spare t-shirt. then your make up and skin care. then everything.
chomsky adapted even faster. the cat was currently draped across titus' armchair like a king, shedding enough fur to knit several replacement chomskies.
titus glanced towards him with visible disdain. "when's he gonna move?"
you followed his gaze. chomsky blinked lazily before rolling onto his side and exposing his stomach.
"yeah, no, he lives there now."
"that's an awfully stubborn cat."
you slowly turned your head towards him. "pot meet kettle."
titus scoffed. "you think i'm stubborn?"
you stared at him. "duh."
"i'm not stubborn."
"you broke into my flat."
"i found you."
"you implanted a tracker in my neck."
"that was resourceful."
"urrrhgggghgh," you groaned.
titus pointed at you triumphantly. "see? you're stubborn."
you let out a long sigh. "how am i the stubborn one?"
"keeping me attached to your hip because it annoys your father," titus pointed oot.
"that's not why."
his eyebrow rose. your silence lasted a second too long. "that's... partially why."
"there you go."
you grabbed your napkin and threw it at him. titus caught it one-handed without looking.
"you also refuse to let him teach you anything."
you sat down on the edge of the bed, rubbing at your shoulder again. the amusement faded from your expression a little.
"can you blame me?"
you stared at the expensive duvet for a moment.
"the man vanished for over a decade. i thought he was gone. then suddenly he turns up in your basement, kills a man, uses me as a loophole to enter some insane cult olympics, and now i'm supposed to what?" you gestured vaguely. "have a heart-to-heart? bond with him? ask him where he's been all these years?"
your laugh came out humourless. "i could actually die because of this."
for a moment, titus simply watched you. watched the way your fingers worried at the sleeve of your shirt, the way exhaustion lingered around your eyes these days. the games had barely begun and already they sat on your shoulders like a weight.
âŹâ.Ë dying for you; charli xcx
"well," he said, setting his phone aside, "you know who you could have a heart-to-heart with."
you immediately groaned. "oh my god..."
"whatttt," he drawled, pulling you in in and into his lap.
"don't."
"i'm just saying," he murmured into your ear, hands travelling up and down your back.
"don't say"
"i happen to be available."
"you are incapable of behaving normally."
"i'm being vulnerable, baby."
"that's... not what itâwhy do i even bother."
titus leaned in to bite your lip once. then again, and again until bites turned into sucking and then he just kissed you. one of his favourite things to do.
you swooned and melted into the kiss. say what you want about titus danforthâpsychopath, killer, utterly corruptâhe was an excellent kisser.
he didn't kiss like those 90s movie stars, with too much chivalry and not enough want, or stoic corporate husbands with little to no affection, nor did he kiss like touch-starved horny teenage boys just wanting female contact.
no, he kissed like he owned you. he had that confidence that comes when one knows they possess something, entirely, irreversibly.
the feel of his lips against yours always felt like intoxication, urging you to will your mouth open every time that man looked at you. and when that kiss travelled down to your neck? everywhere he placed them, wet, hot, rough, and sensual, there you felt ignited, like flames running the trail of gasoline.
his desire for you was the most seductive thing about him.
hsi hands rested on your hips, fingers kneading your curves with the urge to tear at your flesh, the way some people wished they could squeeze a cute little animal out of affection.
you let out the softest of whimpers, which he swallowed with a swipe of his tongue against yours.
"off..." he murmured agiainst your lips. "take 'em off"
you feigned a gasp. "in front of chomsky?"
"i've no problem tossing the cat out. you pick."
you broke his kiss and shoved him back into the headboard. "i'll tolerate whatever bullshit you throw my way, danforth. but you talk about hurting my cat, i swear to god, not even mr le bail could save you from what i'd do to you."
your words only ever had one effect on him and you felt it instantlyâhard, twitching and pressing against you.
he dimmed the lights off with a press of a button on the smartboard.
"cats have night vision, dumbass."
"oh, i know you're not talking back to me like that," he cooed.
"i am."
"yeah, baby? that's how you talk to your daddy?"
it took you less than two seconds to turn red. "shut up, man."
"nope. that's not what you call me tonight."
"i said that to piss him off," you corrected him.
"turned me on instead," he grinned, hands slipping under your shirt to cup the underside of your boobs.
you groaned, rolling your eyes. but you couldn't deny how aroused 'you' were. you should've most certainly thought it through; calling him daddy like that. but fuck it. it was gonna get you fucked good and you were not going to rob yourself of that opportunity.
"so you agree, you're an old man," your idiot mouth blurted out.
his eye twitched once. "i've heard geriatrics is all the rage these days. won't you take care of this old man then, sweetheart?"
you giggled, yep. titus danforth pulled a giggle out of you. he ate that shit up.
"aw... sweet sweet girl. you're gonna make daddy happy, aren't you?"
he was going to exploit the fuck out of your little stunt alright. but you obliged, crawling off his lap with a lazy drag of your hips over his crotch. it was like watching a siren seduce a pirate, watching you on your hands and knees, between his legs.
you pulled his typically costly linen pants down, drawstrings loose, boxers tugged down immediately. you had had your fair share of blowjobs in life and while they were pleasurable for the man, not a single one ever gave you the pleasure of making a man come. it wasn't about the size or the appearance (hygiene? god yes), but the way none of them looked down at you while you blew them, they just looked at the version of themselves in their heads, the one being worshipped, chased, serviced.
but titus? all he did in that moment was keep his eyes on you, hazel turned dark and darker in the dim lights. watched you watch him, his rock-hard erection, his greying curls over the pelvis. watched your eyes rove over him. like he gleaned his pleasure from the observable fact that you wanted him just as much. that you didn't get scared of him, of his desire, of the lengths he'd go to keep you.
as he slowly sprang to life, you leaned in to press a peck on his tip, then gave it a few licks.
"who's a good kitty?" he chirped, his arm stretching forward to give your head a little scratch.
you rolled your eyes, but ykw, it got you dizzy how much you liked getting kinky with him. you could only imagine just how many sadistic kinks the man would have.
you let your jaw relax and slowly took him in, the girth of his shaft sliding into your mouth like candy.
titus hissed, resisting the urge to throw his head back. no, he wanted to keep looking at you in the dim warm lights, wanted to soak you in.
"o-oh... ohhh yeah..."
he fit so perfectly in your mouth, his veins tickling your hard palate, his bulbous tip slowly nudging the back of your throat. you let out a reverberating moan around his dick, bobbing your head slowly, cheeks hollowed out on your way up, then back down, and up, and down, like an architect getting the lay of the land before building the most ingenious creations ever. and you surely built up some great tension, just the perfect pace, perfect wetness, and the most blissful heat of your mouth.
your tongue dragged a stripe up the underside of his length, over the nile-shaped vein.
he was grunting, moaning, letting out sounds that all pointed to a man on cloud nine.
"need you to choke on it, fuck..."
he underlined his words with the press of a heavy hand over your head, fingers digging into your scalp. you cropped hair was rather easy to grab and hold on to, truly like the scruffy fur of a cat.
and oh the sounds you let out, slurps and muffled hitches as you tried to breath around his fat cock in your throat.
"mmmffff," you choked out a sob of discomfort, hands clawing at his thighs.
"nuh uh. no stopping till i let you," he groaned, pushing your head down down and down till you took in all of his length, your nose pressed against his silver hair.
your eyes closed tight, contorted, wet syllables escaping your mouth with drool collecting on the base of his cock.
"mmmfffkkkuuuu" whatever that was.
"that for me? mmm? lovely piece of eloquence, baby. you need daddy to teach you abcs?" he looked down at you, cheeks puffed up, eyes teary, crying over his cock and thought, yep. she belongs there.
"yeah, i'll teach you... every... fuck... fucking thing... nnggghhh," he moaned, his mouth watering at the whirlpool in his core.
you let out shaky breaths through your nose, twirling your tongue around his length, trying to wiggle some space for air in your mouth.
"yeah, oh yeah keep doing that."
and if that wasn't enough, titus planted his feet on his bed and thrusted up into your mouth, your throat, back back back allllll the way back till his tip bruised your gullet.
"fuckkkk, y/n... fuck, i'm gonna come... fuck... take it..." he groaned and panted and grunted and tightened his grip on your hair.
you couldn't tell exactly who went cross-eyed first, just that in a matter of seconds, you felt his cock twitch and pulse in your mouth, and then burst like a dam. warm spurts of his cum spraypainted the back of your throat, slowly dripping down until you had no choice but to swallow.
and god did that turn him on so much. you... swallowing his cum. doing what you were told.
"good girl," he breathed out. "such a good girl... fuckkk."
he dropped his hand off your head, letting you rise up with a pop, and watched you take a million breaths. your lips were coated with the remnants of his cum.
"finish your meal, baby."
eyes locked onto his, you licked your lips clean and then smacked them.
"happy?"
"always."
titus failed to appear one morning.
apparently, the lawyer had cornered him somewhere inside the manor with several folders, a revised copy of chester's will, and enough legal jargon to keep him imprisoned for hours. judging by the murderous text messages you'd received halfway through breakfast, titus was suffering greatly. you almost replied 'who dis'.
which unfortunately left you alone.
with your father.
the realisation sat poorly in your stomach all the way to the training room. the gym felt larger without titus occupying half the available space. quieter too. no sarcastic comments. no wandering hands. no interruptions every ten minutes because he'd decided your water bottle wasn't close enough to his
just you... and fucking sebastian. [everybody say yuck]
exactly what you'd been trying to avoid all week. you sat on one of the benches and began wrapping your hands in silence, threading the fabric carefully between your fingers and around your knuckles. it had become routine now. wrap. tighten. secure the wrist.
across the room, your father adjusted the focus mitts strapped to his hands, eyeing you with more attention today. and you hated how comfortable he looked here.
boxing itself wasn't entirely unfamiliar territory. titus had spent the better part of the week drilling fundamentals into your skull, and before that, university gyms had been full of amateur fighters eager to perform for an audience.
one of your exes had been particularly obsessed with mma. he'd spent months teaching you techniques only to immediately follow them with comments about how weak you were. well, he was an 'ex' for a reason.
âŹâ.Ë blood // water; grandson
you pulled the gloves on. sebastian motioned for you to step forward.
"guard up."
you did so. mostly because punching things sounded therapeutic. the first combination landed sharply against the mitts. left. right. jab. cross. the impacts echoed through the room.
"again"
you repeated it. sebastian shifted his stance.
"the cheng fus are traditionalists."
another punch.
"to them, combat wrestling has structure."
another.
"forms."
another.
"discipline."
he raised his mitt, and you struck it with a sharp jab.
"they train the same techniques until they master them," he said as he followed your movements critically.
"they're rigid."
you exhaled through clenched teeth and threw another combination. left hook.
"surprise them. make them react. make them break their form."
right cross.
"force them to make mistakes."
the entire time, his voice remained level and instructional. every word carried that same assumption you'd always hated: that he knew best. that he had the right to stand here and direct your life. that after disappearing for twelve years and dragging you into a nightmare, he could simply resume speaking and expect to be heard.
you didn't speak a single word to him for twenty minutes.
you had fists for answers.
your silence, however, did not go unnoticed. sebastian watched it in the set of your jaw, in the way your eyes refused to meet his. you hit the mitts when instructed, pivoted when told, ducked beneath swings, but your movements lacked commitment. there was strength behind them, certainly. plenty of it. yet your attention was somewhere else entirely.
his mouth flattened. "get your head in the game, y/n"
he sound of your name coming from him scraped against your nerves. twelve years apart and he still managed to sound irritated by your existence. you threw another punch. a few more.
the fourth landed squarely against the centre of his pad.
"harder."
you hit again.
before you could reset your stance, the padded mitt shot forward and cracked against the side of your head. pain burst across your temple. you swayed sideways a little.
"what the fuâ"
"again."
you stared at him. he simply stood there with the mitts raised. you swallowed the protest and resumed. jab, jab, cross.
another smack. this one landed against your forehead. your vision flashed white for a second.
"what are youâ"
the third hit arrived before you finished that sentence, snapping your head sideways. not enough to seriously injure you but jesus, enouhgh to hurt, to humiliate.
the look in his eyes dragged you right down the trenches.
and for a moment, you were no longer boxing in the danforth gym.
you were twelve again. small and powerless. being told to stop crying, stop asking questions, stop being difficult. your skin crawled at the memories.
sebastian circled you slowly. "what you have with titus is a distraction."
you clenched your fists. "keep his name out of your mouth."
the smile he gave you was ugly. down right malicious. the look people got when they discovered exactly how to hurt someone.
"he doesn't care about anyone."
the mitt slammed your ribs and the air burst from your lungs. you folded instantly, coughing.
"eyes up," he barked. another strike, catching your shoulder, hitting right on the faded bruise from the kickback.
you straightened a little, breathing hard, gloves feeling heavy all of a sudden. as did everything.
"trust me," sebastian continued, pacing around you. "the moment those games begin, he'll remember what he is."
you threw a punch, weak, not at the mitt. at him. and missed.
mostly because he expected it. his arm shot out a grabbed the front of your shirt and before you could react, he hurled you backwards. you hit the mat hard enough to bruise. pain exploded through your spine. for a second you simply lay there, stunned.
then his shadow fell across you. "get up."
you hated him. god, you hated him. not with the childish resentment you'd carried for years anymore. just hatred. pure and uncomplicated hatred. you didn't think you'd ever be capable of hating someone that much.
you pushed yourself upright, still a little bent at the ribs. your elbows were scraped, shoulder ached. something warm trickled from where your lip had split against your teeth. and you looked at his mitt. your blood on the edge of it. he had done that.
and he looked pleased.
"you think people care how you feel?" he asked. "you think your fear matters? your discomfort? nobody cares. certainly not titus."
the padded mitt swung at you again, missing your ear as you ducked.
"he wants to win. the danforths..."
another swing, another dodge.
"... want their seat"
you dodged a second too late and his mitt clipped your cheek.
"and when the choice comes down to you or that ringâ"
another hit, landing cleanly across your jaw and you swore you heard a crack. you nearly lost your balance.
"âyou'll find out exactly how little you're worth."
he words hurt worse than the strike; not because you believed them, but because some horrible part of you feared they might be true.
that was the damage fathers knew how to do, didn't they?. teaching you how to hurt yourself long after they were gone.
you took a shaky breath, standing up a bit straighter. your jaw throbbed, your ribs hurt, your head rang.
sebastian kept talking. you were no longer listening.
perhaps you had stopped listening several minutes ago. somewhere between the bruises and the insults. you could taste blood every time your tongue brushed against the split in your lip.
"you're nothing to him. just a body that keeps his dick warm. trust me, i've seen plenty suffer the same fate. he fucks, he kills, and he discards, just like he'll discâ"
he never finished the sentence.
the right cross struck him directly in the throat, the impact producing a horrible choking sound, making him stagger backwards. good.
the left uppercut clipped his jaw, teeth snapping shut together with an audible crack.
you never gave him the chance to recover.
the nastiest, meanest, bitchiest right hook landed hard against his cheek, knocking him off his feet, making him take a fall on the hard mat.
the only thing he heard through his ringing ears was the velcro of gloves torn off and two gloves falling on the mat before his eyes, blurry figure leaving the gym.
âŹâ.Ë flight; hans zimmer
by the time you reached your room, the anger had nowhere sensible left to go. it sat inside your chest like a swallowed stone. you slammed the door harder than intended and immediately regretted it. the sound echoed through the room before fading into silence.
your hands shook from adrenaline. or rage. you couldn't tell. your wraps were still half hanging from your wrists. sweat cooled against your skin. your shoulder ached. your split lip throbbed every time you breathed through your mouth.
you paced from the door to the window, to the wardrobe to the door, then back again. the room was not large enough for the amount of panic trapped inside your body.
what exactly were you supposed to do? win?
the idea almost made you laugh. win for what? for sebastian? even if you survived every challenge, every game, every family waiting to tear you apart, what then? if he became powerful enough, who was to say he would not simply get rid of you afterwards?
you sat on the edge of your bed, your leg bouncing restlessly, fingers fidgeting against each other. you lowered your face into your palms, hoping to cry.
creak...
subtle, soft, dry.
you looked up, atop the trunk at the foot of your bed, forgotten amidst the busy week.
but it was no longer closed. it happened again, paper against paper. your eyes widened in disbelief. your stomach tightened, heart thumping rapidly. the skin on your arms and neck rose vigilantly.
scrape
crackle
scrape
yellowed parchment shifted with an almost purposeful, arthritic slowness, each movement accompanied by the dry crackle of ageing paper. it reminded you unpleasantly of old bones moving inside old joints.
the dementhund sat facing you, opening itself to you.
a cold sensation crawled across the back of your neck as you watched the scene. nothing abrasive happened, nothing else moved. but you felt it in your bones that you... had somehow caught its attention.
why else would the sentient book open itself to chapters that just so happened to offer a way out...
I REALLY FUCKING HOPE THE MUSIC LANDED ON THE RIGHT PARTS T_T
GRAB UR POPCORN, TISSUES, AND VIBRATORS LADIES THE GAMES BEGIN NEXT CHAPTER.
y/n and titus (interchangeable ngl)
as usual, comments are loved loved loved, reblogs are always welcome, all my ghost readers; u da real gems
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the last great demented dynasty XIV
titus danforth x y/n
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a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: you learn the nature of the necrofest and it's a lot fucking weirder than you thought it'd be. your father tries to 'prepare' you, titus tries to keep you to himself, and you just try to find a way out of this mess.
warnings: sigh, another character death, euthanasia, weird game rules, mention of blood as usual, a little more soft-titus, y/n's piece of shit dad
the dining room was objectively one of the weirdest fucking places you'd been. why?
because you sat at the head of the table, and around you sat titus, your absurdly compatible, newfound love interest, his twin sister ursula, with whom you had a superficial, but tolerable amicability, the lawyer, always a merry addition to trouble, and your fucking father.
morbidly weird indeed.
you'd spent the better half of the day buried beneath the necrofest bylaws so generously provided, papers spread across the dining table since you migrated your work station there for the moment.
the lawyer had agreed to explain the rules of a world you were new to.
the dementhund also had a chair of its own. you figured you'd might as well look for more information about the games in there.
your head hurt so much. every clause branched into three more, every rule had amendments, parameters, footnotes. you had to hand it to mr le bail. dude had some serious gamemaker skills, or just autism.
you rubbed at your eyes for what felt like the hundredth time and forced yourself to keep reading.
you did not have superpowers. or any relationship with mr le bail that would guarantee some safety net for you.
so if the danforths survived this sort of thing through violence and inherited madness, then you were going to 'nerd your way out' alive.
that just became your plan for the moment.
the rules were complicated, but after hours of rereading the documents until the words started blurring together, you managed to isolate the fundamentals.
every family had to compete: the heads of each family, or immediate heirs had to compete and should one die, the other replaced them.
games were held weekly: each one hosted according to the traditions of a particular family house. attendance was mandatory. no exemptions. no refusals. the first game would begin on the next new moon, which thankfully still sat three weeks away. it felt far away and too close both.
participants could not voluntarily withdraw. the only recognised exception involved incapacitation during active gameplay, caused by another competing family. sabotage within family in order to usurp the seat was forbidden to ensure the family that won the seat was whole.
no restrictions on the choice of weapons if needed: weapons, ritualistic tools, environmental manipulation, and âexternal enhancementsâ were all permitted unless specifically prohibited by individual game conditions.
play until one victor family remains
you stared at it long enough for the words to stop looking real. because that was the problem with everything surrounding mr le bail and his council. nothing ever sounded entirely serious until suddenly it was.
but, just as you understood the rules, you also understood the loopholes.
nothing in the rules explicitly required participants to kill anyone. violent outcomes were implied constantly, encouraged even, but never formally mandated. technically speaking, survival and victory were not the same thing.
and perhaps more importantly, nothing prohibited temporary alliances between families so long as the competition itself remained active. cooperation was permitted. betrayal likely expected.
guess mr le bail did not seem like the type to enjoy straightforward games.
your eyes drifted shut briefly as you leaned back against the chair, papers still resting across your lap while your thoughts turned sluggish and heavy.
because beneath all the rules and strategies and loopholes remained one question nobody had properly answered yet.
what happened if you lost a game? even one?
would you and sebastian simply fail to obtain the seat? would life continue normally afterwards, insofar as anything involving this family could ever be called normal again?
or would you still blow up...?
brain fog settled deeper the longer you thought about it, thick and unpleasant, like your mind had started buffering reality to protect itself from overload. every possibility led somewhere worse.
you hadn't eaten anything, barely slept.
ursula placed a stack of papers on the table. except these looked different. thicker cardstock. embossed lettering. black wax seals pressed neatly into the corners like invitations.
"what's that?"
"the official list of house games. dates got assigned by him," she nodded at the lawyer, "so apparently weâre doing this in order."
your eyes scanned the page slowly: house names, dates, locations, more rules.
man...every day introduced some newer, worse revelation before you had even emotionally recovered from the last one.
you read the first entry aloud mostly for your own sake.
"house of rajan." your eyes shifted rightward towards the listed game beneath it, then narrowed. you read it again just to make sure you weren't dyslexic or anything.
"seriously?" you looked at titus, baffled.
he only shrugged, equally unimpressed.
"beer pong?"
"what can i say," he muttered. "they like their alcohol. family owns breweries and clubs."
"they're new money," ursula said in disgust.
beer fucking pong.
you had mentally prepared yourself for sacrifices and knife fights, not... university frat party games. your brain genuinely did not know how seriously to take any of this.
"house of el caĂdo," you read quietly. "rifle shooting... okay, i have never shot a gun in my life."
sebastian leaned back in his chair. "you'll learn."
you ignored your father. not comforting. at all.
"house of le domas..." your brows relaxed a little. "chess."
finally, something normal. "cool."
for one brief stupid moment, relief loosened the knot in your chest. maybe the term games genuinely meant games sometimes. maybe this entire thing wouldnât involve life-threatening insanity every singleâ
then your eyes moved lower.
âhouse of silcoxâŚâ you squinted harder at the words. âblood polo.â
you blinked. "the fuck is a blood polo?" you dared to ask.
ursula smiled immediately. "oh, i almost forgot about that one. they're one of the originals. like us."
that... did not explain anything.
titus sighed beside you, already rubbing at his temple. "armoured horses," he said flatly. "polo."
"...with blood?"
"yes."
"whose blood?"
"depends."
you looked back down at the paper with growing dread. each line somehow managed to feel worse than the previous one, like descending flights of stairs without ever finding the bottom.
"house of cheng fu," you continued weakly. "combat wrestling."
your eyes skimmed lower and lower until they finally landed on the last entry.
house of danforth.
"...hide and seek."
you looked up cautiously towards the twins. both ursula and titus were smiling. and there was nothing remotely polite or fun about it. they looked like children remembering summer holidays.
"why," you asked carefully, "are you both smiling like that?"
ursula kept her smile on intact, "nothing."
you were still staring at the list of games when the lawyer cleared his throat softly.
"there is," he said, turning another page of that floating monstrosity of a book in his lap, "a final matter regarding eligibility."
great. another parameter. titus leaned back in his chair, already annoyed. ursula simply folded her arms, waiting.
"as challenger to the high seat," the lawyer continued, "sebastian l/n is recognised as the official claimant."
you frowned faintly.
"however," he added pleasantly, "claimants are not necessarily required to participate physically."
"what do you mean?"
the lawyer looked delighted to explain.
"during the first necrofest, several founding houses encountered an unfortunate problem. age. illness. injury. some members sought power, but lacked the body to endure the games themselves." he tapped the page lightly. "thus, the role of blood representative was established."
the room felt so warm, so humid, slowly closing its walls onto itself till a cube pressed you into its shape. you already knew, instinctively, that you were not going to enjoy whatever came next.
"a claimant," the lawyer explained, "may appoint a direct blood descendant to compete in their stead. victories earned by the representative belong to the claimantâs house."
your mouth went dry, throat constricted, holding a gulp of sorrow and fear tightly. slowly, carefully, you looked towards your father.
sebastian did not look back at you immediately. he merely adjusted the cuff of his sleeve with calm indifference
"in this case, miss l/n, your father has already invoked the rite."
the words did not register at first. "hm?"
"a blood covenant was signed yesterday evening," he said. "using claimant blood and representative blood."
"wait, what blood?"
"your blood. your father had some on him."
you felt violated. all those blood tests that he'd run on you when you were little, samples preserved, because he simply didn't trust other doctors... and this was how he decided to use them?
"no," you said immediately, shaking your head once. "no. absolutely not."
the lawyer tilted his head sympathetically, though not nearly enough to appear sincere.
"i'm afraid the covenant is binding."
you stood up so abruptly your chair scraped loudly against the floor. "binding?" you repeated.
"i mean," the lawyer answered gently, "that you are now the recognised blood representative of house l/n for the duration of necrofest."
your heart had sunk once, and ever since then, it kept sinking. the heaviness you carried in you never seemed to lighten. it dragged you down like an anchor. you spared another glance at your father, who sat there composed, like all of this was acceptable. that horrible things just had to happen to you, irrespective of your consent.
"you used me?" your voice sounded strange even to yourself. thinner somehow. "you signed me into this without asking me?"
"it was necessary."
"i'm... not some fucking pawn."
"don't be dramatic."
âŹâ.Ë phir se; arijit singh, irshad kamil, shashwat sachdev [it's possibly arijit's last song as a playback singer 𼺠hence a little tribute]
that hurt more than it should have. it had the flavour of casual cruelty, of familiarity. like you'd felt this ages ago and somehow, there was comfort in reliving that pain. because at least your body knew where to feel it. that same dismissive tone from childhood. that same subtle implication that your feelings were inconvenient interruptions to his greater concerns. your throat tightened painfully. all this time, part of you had still been trying to understand why he returned. why he involved you at all. some pathetic stupid part of your brain had wondered whether seeing you again meant something to him beneath all the madness.
he had not come back because he missed you. he came back because he needed something.
"you could've just stayed gone," you said quietly. your voice shook despite your efforts to steady it. "could've pretended i never existed. you managed it pretty well for twelve years."
sebastian's expression shifted just a bit, though not enough to resemble guilt. you hated that this was upsetting you. you were an adult. you already knew he was a terrible person. you knew what he'd done. knew what he was capable of. and yet somehow this still hurt in the most childish part of you.
what kind of father did this?
he had turned you into bait. a body to throw into games he himself was too cowardly to bleed through. you looked down at the papers in your hand again. all those names. all those families who had been raised around this horror for generations.
and then there was you. you who spent your time studying and talking to patients, you who drank vending machine coffee, you who cried after killing a man in self-defence.
what the fuck were you supposed to do against people bred for this?
the whole conversation settled over the room like ash after a fire, light enough to float, heavy enough to choke on.
titus stayed quiet beside you, jaw tight. you looked at him then at ursula, searching their faces desperately for something human. disbelief. protest. disgust. anything. some indication that this was insane even by their standards.
instead, ursula only folded her arms. "it's legal," she said carefully.
you felt a leash on your throat. you pressed the heel of your palm against your sternum as though it might ease the crushing sensation there, but it only made you more aware of your heartbeat stumbling unevenly beneath it.
all this time, youâd thought the worst thing he could do was abandon you.
"can it be undone?"
"no."
the finality of it stripped away a part of you that thought you just had to tolerate enough, see enough, and be out of the mess.
but you were prey now.
not the guest. not the researcher. not titus' favourite little fascination.
prey.
nobody seemed horrified enough. yes, titus looked angry. ursula looked irritated. but beneath all of it sat acceptance. because to them, the games were real. sacred, brutal, yes, but still part of the world they belonged to. they had grown up preparing for this, you hadn't.
you turned your head slightly towards titus. "you're really just okay with this?"
his expression tensed immediately at your tone. "no one's okay with you being dragged into it."
"but you're okay with the games."
his subsequent silence told you enough. of course... he was a danforth after all. this was legacy to him. inheritance. religion.
you couldn't take your eyes off titus. what exactly protected you here anymore? love? affection? promises? he was still heir to a family whose seat your father had threatened. what happened when those loyalties collided?
would he reach for your hand then? or your throat...
titus stood as you stepped backwards. "babyâ"
"don't." your voice cracked softly on the word.
his face changed instantly at the sound, something wounded flashing across it, but you could barely look at him anymore without feeling that horrible uncertainty creeping under your skin. had any of this ever truly been yours?
you shook your head faintly, retreating towards the staircase.
'i wish you'd never found me," you murmured.
you considered packing your bags. not because anyone had told you to leave. nobody had, at least not yet. but the atmosphere of the manor had shifted so violently in the span of hours that you no longer knew where you stood within it. before, you had been useful. maybe because titus took an interest in you.
now you were none of that. you were a rival. an opponent.
the thought sat ugly in your stomach as you folded clothes absentmindedly on the bed beside you, more pretending to pack than actually doing it. your movements lacked purpose. every shirt you touched just reminded you how impossible it would be to simply leave. where exactly were you supposed to go now?
chomsky stirred atop the duvet, blinking lazily as he watched you pace around the room for the fifth time in ten minutes.
then came a knock on your door, followed by ursula's steps inside the room. he shut the door behind her and glanced around the room before her eyes landed briefly on the half-open suitcase near your bed.
"can we talk?"
you still felt raw from downstairs, from everything. your chest ached with the lingering humiliation of it all. but you nodded anyway.
ursula walked further in and sat carefully at the edge of your bed, one hand smoothing over the fabric beside her while chomsky gave her a look before deciding she wasnât worth moving for. for a while, she simply looked at the cat. then at you.
"i wish he'd never found you either."
the words startled you enough that your eyes lifted to her face, but whatever expression she wore wasn't mocking. if anything, it looked tired.
you looked away again quickly, focusing on the patterns woven into the carpet beneath your feet. twisting vines. gold threading. anything easier to process than this conversation.
"you make himâŚ" ursula exhaled softly through her nose, searching for the word. "neurotic."
your brows pinched faintly as you glanced at her again.
"I don't know what's going on between you two exactly," she admitted, "but i can tell he's infatuated with you."
there was no judgement in her voice.
"i know you don't believe he'd be capable of loving anyone. honestly, most days i don't either." a humourless smile flickered across her mouth before fading. "and it's true, in a way. titus doesn't love like normal people do."
her fingers straightened a crease in your duvet absentmindedly.
"but he does love you. the problem isâŚ" she paused briefly. "he loves you the same way he loves power."
your throat tightened slightly.
"completely," ursula continued quietly. "possessively. and i'm afraid he can't separate the two."
silence settled between you after that. the manor carried on breathing around you while your mind struggled to keep pace with the conversation unfolding inside this room.
then ursula's expression changed. serious now. focused.
"when the games begin," she said carefully, "he's not going to be able to watch you get hurt. or killed. and when titus panics, he does reckless things."
you swallowed a lump of nervousness.
"he's going to get us all blown up unlessâŚ" her eyes held yours steadily. "âŚunless we become part of the games too."
confusion crossed your face immediately. "but you're notâ"
"i know," she interrupted gently. "that's where you come in."
your stomach sank. "what do you mean?"
ursula folded her hands together loosely in her lap. for the first time since knowing her, she actually seemed uncertain about how to phrase something.
"father can't compete," she said at last. "he's old, sick, and he knows that."
you frowned. "then how would youâ"
"he needs you to kill him."
your entire body went still. for a moment, you genuinely thought you'd misheard her. the room seemed to lose sound around the edges, every thought inside your skull grinding violently against the next before collapsing into blank static.
"excuse me?"
ursula held your gaze despite the horror rapidly spreading across your face.
"look," she said quietly, "you kept him comfortable. you looked after him better than most people would have. and he appreciates that, truly. but he's dying regardless. he knows he won't outlive any of this."
you stared at her in mute disbelief.
"the high seat has to stay with us," she continued. "if father dies before the games formally begin, titus and i become acting head of house. then both of us can enter under danforth representation."
you held your breath.
"the bylaws for these games forbid family sabotage," ursula explained. "none of us can do it ourselves. not directly."
understanding dawned slowly and horribly. they wanted you to do it because you weren't a danforth.
what. the honest. fuck.
accidents were one thing. self-defence was one thing. even the memory of wilkinson still clawed at your insides every waking hour, but at least there had been fear involved.
this? a 'planned death'? fuckâa request?
"ursulaâŚ" your voice came out thin and strained. "i cant⌠im notâŚ" you genuinely couldn't even finish the sentence.
she leaned forward slightly then, and to your complete alarm, she sounded earnest.
"please." the word hit harder than if she'd shouted. "it's his wish."
"ursula, he's your father."
her face barely showed any sign of realisaition.
"he's a war general," she replied evenly. "that's what he's always been first."
something cold slid down your spine at the detached conviction in her voice.
"you have your history with your father," she continued. "we have ours. and sometimesâŚ" her jaw tightened faintly. "things just need to be done."
love in the danforth family always came hand in hand with sacrifice. and who understood that better than you?
you stood in chester's room once more, the air inside it carrying that same medicinal stillness you remembered from the first day you entered. back then, you had stood beside his bed with a stethoscope around your neck and a clipboard in hand, trying not to stare too obviously at the state of him. how a man could look so corpse-like and yet continue living had genuinely unsettled you.
now, standing before him again, the discomfort had changed its shape.
"oh, don't fuss about it," he muttered, voice roughened by age and sickness alike. "this was always going to be."
titus stood to one side of the bed while ursula occupied the other, both strangely rigid in posture. for once, neither of them looked composed. not upset exactly. danforths rarely seemed capable of expressing grief in recognisable ways.
you wondered briefly whether this was the moment people usually shared final words. confessions. gratitude. apologies.
chester danforth looked about as interested in that as he would be in swallowing glass.
"the le bail ring stays with us," he said firmly, fixing his eyes on titus first, then ursula. "you make sure of it."
you knew exactly what that meant. if the danforths were to retain the high seat, you had to lose.
and you still couldn't bring yourself to think too deeply about what losing truly entailed in this family. every time your mind approached the thought, something inside you recoiled away from it. dead contestants. exploded bodies...
you stayed quiet.
chester shifted slightly against the pillows, face twisting with effort before another fit of coughing interrupted him halfway through his sentence.
"and tell that bastard father of yours he's the biggest piece ofâ" the rest dissolved into wet coughs and irritated grunts.
ursula reached for the glass of water nearby more out of reflex than tenderness, holding it towards him while he swatted her hand away weakly.
"how are you going to do it?" she asked you instead.
your eyes dropped to the vial and syringe in your hand. truthfully, you still didn't know.
a part of you kept circling back to the same horrible possibility: you could refuse. you could walk away right now and leave chester alive. force him into the games himself until nature or brutality finished the job naturally. but then what?
would titus and ursula survive the consequences of that? would you? and worse still, could you live with yourself knowing you had possessed the ability to spare them and chose not to?
there was no morally correct option standing inside this room. there was no lesser evil. not even you, standing there with medical equipment in your hands contemplating the deliberate ending of another person's life. your thumb brushed against the glass vial unconsciously.
you had witnessed euthanasia once during your hospital work. an elderly man with late-stage cancer whose family had gathered around him for hours beforehand, speaking softly through tears while you helped translate his words for grandchildren who barely understood him anymore. you still remembered how peaceful it had looked in the end. no violence. no panic. no machines screaming alarms into the room.
he had full autonomy of his life, his sickness, and his death. very few were fortunate enough to have that choice.
"well," chester snapped impatiently. "get on with it."
"dad... please," titus' voice softened around the word, low and painful enough that it barely sounded like him at all.
crack! the resounding slap of chester's hand echoed in the room, striking across his face. titus' head jerked sideways from the impact.
"didn't i tell you?" he rasped. "be a fucking man, titus."
in the silence that followed, something shifted painfully in your chest as you watched titus straighten again without argument. because no matter how cruel he could be, no matter how terrifying or obsessive or violent titus danforth often became, before his father he became a child. being bedridden was perhaps the only thing keeping chester danforth at bay, away from being a tyrant to his children.
you found titus sitting on the front steps of the manor beneath a sky washed in bruised shades of violet and pink. the evening air felt cool against your skin after the suffocating stillness of chester's room; you could breathe without feeling someone elseâs expectations pressing down your throat.
titus sat with his elbows resting loosely against his knees, staring out across the grounds without seeming to focus on anything in particular. from a distance, he almost looked calm. but closer, you could see it in the tightness around his mouth, the stillness in his posture that befell him when he was trying very hard not to feel something.
you approached quietly and took a seat beside him on the stone staircase.
he turned his head at the sound of you settling down. "is itâŚ" his voice roughened slightly before he corrected himself. "is heâŚ"
"it'll take a while," you answered softly. "for now heâs just sedated."
titus looked away again after that, jaw shifting once beneath the tension sitting there. you studied him for a moment in silence.
the morning's conversation still lingered unpleasantly inside you, leaving traces of bitterness you hadn't entirely worked through yet. part of you still feared him a little now. feared what he might choose when it came down to you or the danforth name.
but grudges had never sat naturally inside you. anger exhausted you too quickly. eventually it always dissolved into understanding, or pity, or just forgiveness.
slowly, you reached for his hand where it rested on his lap. your fingers laced carefully with his. titus immediately held on in return, instinctive and firm, like he'd been waiting for permission to touch you again.
"i'm sorry," you murmured.
"for what."
you looked down at your joined hands. "that he didn't believe in you."
titus turned to look at you once more. you could have apologised for countless things. for chester. for the games. for the way everything between you had become tangled in fear and obligation. you could have blamed him for not protecting you from any of this sooner.
instead, you'd chosen that. to mourn the small wounded part of him still waiting for approval from a father incapable of giving it.
chester danforth's final act towards his son had not been pride, or trust, or even affection, but a fucking slap.
titus swallowed once, gaze lingering on you with an unfamiliar heaviness behind it. he didn't know what to do with tenderness when it came without conditions attached. didn't know how to process someone seeing the ugliest, most childish fractures in him and responding gently instead of exploiting them.
so he said nothing.
but then you shifted closer to him and rested your head on his shoulder. he leaned against you too.
"titus?"
"hm?"
"i'm scared."
he rested his cheek on your head. "i don't plan on hurting you, y'know?"
"you'll want to."
he pressed a kiss to your temple.
"and you'll stop me."
the doors to chester's room opened for the last time.
he lay still in his bed, the last of his breaths and pulse beeping on the monitor. his eyes were closed with the knowledge that he won't open them again.
you stood next to him, hands on the bars of his bed, one on the headrest.
you regarded him conclusively. for all that he was, had been, and would've been, chester danforth did not deserve a moment of peace, let alone a death.
but pain and discomfort were his lifelong companions, they wouldn't succeed in making him suffer.
you leaned in, knowing most patients in medical comas are fully capable of hearing voices.
you murmured what would be the last words chester danforth would hear.
"i'm going to make sure..." you said, your voice low, "your last. great. demented. dynasty. ends here..."
don't i live for the drama bitchessss. next chapters will finally have some action, some smut, more titus x y/n, and ursula x y/n elements to it.
y/n be like:
okay, but i had to do some lorebuilding for this one. i tried to make the rules as convincing as possible for the plot. T_T i'm legit reading the hunger games and catching fire to get a grasp over gamemaking.
once again, comments are loved loved loved, reblogs are always welcome, all my ghost readers; u da real gems
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the last great demented dynasty XIII
titus danforth x y/n
previous part | next part
a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: your father's re-entry into your life brings with it a whole other level of complication. there are more games to play, and more threats to your life than ever. will you do it?
warnings: blood, nightmare, mention of gunshot wound, more cult stuff, MR LE BAIL mentioned lfggg, y/n's dad is itself a warning T_T, but also some soft-ish titus, also age gap clarification (it's big, like his dih, and irl it's sus, gtfo, but we good here)
âŹâ.Ë destiny - mann atkeya; shashwat sachdev, token, vaibhav gupta,, shahzad ali [this song probably works for like the entire chapter smh. i love it sm.]
the only genuinely good thing about being back inside the danforth manor was chomsky.
the cat sat sprawled across your lap with the absolute entitlement of a creature that had never once suffered inconvenience in his entire overfed life, purring loudly beneath your hand while you stroked absentminded fingers through his fur.
every now and then he kneaded one paw against your thigh before settling again, perfectly content despite the atmosphere in the room suggesting somebody was moments away from either committing murder or summoning something ancient.
you sat curled into one end of the armchair, shoulders drawn slightly inward, still wearing the same exhausted expression you'd carried ever since titus uttered those awful words hours ago.
'your father challenged the council seat.'
the sentence had lodged itself somewhere unpleasant in your head ever since, heavy with implications nobody had yet bothered explaining properly.
you hadn't smiled once since hearing it. had barely spoken either.
and now here you were again, back inside the manor you'd sworn not to return to, seated across the usual trio of dysfunction.
titus occupied the sofa opposite you, posture tense despite how deceptively relaxed he tried appearing. one ankle rested over his knee, though his fingers drummed intermittently against the armrest in sharp irregular taps, his eyes locked on you.
ursula stood near the fireplace instead of sitting, trying not to develop a migraine after all the security detail she'd handled last night trying to find out what your father wanted.
and then there was the lawyer, lounging in his chair with infuriating ease. his gaze lifted towards you briefly, amused, as always. you ignored him on principle.
he had that horrible law book open again.
it hovered lazily above his lap without support, pages shifting and turning on their own as though guided by invisible fingers. every so often, several sheets flipped backwards rapidly before correcting themselves again, the paper rustling softly through the room.
you still could not believe everyone else accepted this as normal.
"i haven't opened this section in ages," he murmured almost fondly, like a librarian rediscovering an old favourite.
ursula looked up sharply from where she stood. "well?"
instead of answering immediately, the lawyer smiled. his eyes lit faintly with interest the longer he read, and you suddenly understood something deeply unfortunate about him: the man genuinely enjoyed legal technicalities.
"huh," he said finally.
your patience snapped almost instantly. "oh my god, what the fuck is it?" you asked, knee bouncing restlessly beneath chomsky's considerable weight.
the lawyer glanced towards you.
"since your father performed a ritual from the dementhund," he began smoothly, "it granted him the right to contest for a seat within the council under mr le bail."
you stared at him blankly for a second. "âŚokay," you said slowly. "and?"
"and," he continued, "because he's an outsider, he cannot simply inherit or claim a seat directly. he has to prove himself worthy."
ursula folded her arms tighter. "and exactly how does he intend to do that?"
the lawyer's smiled widened a little more.
"the only way mr le bail has ever particularly enjoyed... games."
titus scoffed immediately. "what, he rolls a die and suddenly joins the council? just like that?"
"not quite." the lawyer leaned back slightly in his chair. "it's only happened once before. centuries ago, when mr le bail first established the council itself and he required protĂŠgĂŠs, followers worthy enough to stand beneath him."
the pages turned.
"so he hosted the first and only... necrofest."
the word settled strangely into the room.
"the what?" ursula asked.
"a series of competitive games, held from one new moon to another," the lawyer explained, entirely too calmly for somebody discussing what sounded like one of those medieval tournament with lances and turkey legs.
"each participant selected challenges suited to their particular strengths. every contestant competed until a victor emerged in each category."
his gaze flicked briefly between the danforth siblings. "that is how mr le bail selected the original council families. some of the current bloodlines are direct descendants of those first winners."
your brain tried desperately to process the sentence logically and failed almost immediately. a short disbelieving sound that escaped entirely on reflex. because what the fuck was this. did none of these people have employment? hobbies? therapy?
"each council family possesses legacy games," the lawyer continued. "f/n l/n will need to compete in all of them and win in order to claim the high seat."
his eyes shifted towards titus. "which currently belongs to your father, chester danforth."
everyone absorbed the information differently. ursula looked calculating already, mind visibly turning through implications and logistics. titus had gone a little stiff.
the lawyer turned another page.
"oh," he added lightly. "and he won't be the only participant."
every single fucking head in the room lifted towards him immediately.
"since the high seat has officially been challenged," he said, "every council family is now eligible to compete for the le bail ring."
his smile sharpened slightly. "i'd start warming up..."
then the lawyer turned towards you specifically. "and y/n?"
something in the way he said your name made your pulse stutter instantly.
"it was your father who proposed the challenge," he said. "which means you'll be competing on behalf of your bloodline..."
your throat tightened.
"with him."
for a moment, the room disappeared around the edges. like your body had stopped processing anything beyond those words. with him.
your appetite vanished so abruptly it almost felt physical, nausea replacing it in one sharp violent sweep. your chest tightened painfully while your thoughts immediately spiralled forward faster than you could control them.
your father. you would have to see him again. speak to him again, be near him again, the same man who murdered your mother. the same man you'd watched standing calmly beside a bleeding body beneath the manor while chanting from your notes.
your pulse hammered so violently it hurt. suddenly every possible future unfolded at once inside your head, each one worse than the last.
what if he touched you again, held your hand like he used to when you were little? what if he spoke to you like nothing happened. what if he already knew things about you he shouldn't?
what if he won?
what if titus got hurt?
what if everyone did?
your fingers tightened unconsciously into chomsky's fur. the cat let out an offended noise before hopping off your lap entirely, disturbed by the sudden tension. you barely noticed. you were too busy wishing you weren't born.
sleep did not come easily that night.
your body lay beneath expensive sheets inside a room too large and too quiet, but your mind refused to follow. every time your eyes closed for longer than a minute, something ugly resurfaced beneath your eyelids.
hospital lights, blood, the sound of you choking.
you turned restlessly beneath the blankets, trying to force yourself into unconsciousness anyway. eventually, exhaustion dragged you under despite yourself.
you stood inside the hospital bathroom again. except this time the mirror reflected something worse: blood covered your hands entirely, thick and dark beneath your fingernails, smeared across your wrists, your arms, soaking through the front of your clothes. more of it dripped steadily from your hairline down your face in slow heavy streaks.
then the reflection moved. not you. him. the dead man stood behind you in the mirror. head tilted strangely to one side.
neck punctured open where the bullet tore through it. blood bubbled wetly down the front of his electric blue blazer while one dead eye remained fixed directly on yours through the reflection.
"whyâd you do that?" he asked. his voice sounded wrong. you spun around instantly.
he stood there physically now, right behind you.
"i didn't mean toâ"
"you killed me."
"no..."
blood spilled from his mouth as he spoke again. "you killed me."
his hands wrapped suddenly around your throat. you tried to breatheâ
and woke with a violent choking gasp. your entire body jerked upright in bed while air tore painfully back into your lungs. sweat drenched the back of your shirt, your heartbeat hammering so hard it physically hurt beneath your ribs.
for one horrible disoriented second, you still expected to see blood on your hands. your wrist throbbed sharply beneath the blankets, the familiar ache pulsing beneath the sigil like a second heartbeat.
you pressed a shaking hand against your face and realised you were crying. because no matter how many times you replayed it in your head, the conclusion remained the same.
you killed someone. he was someone, and then he wasn't. because of you.
you sat there for several long minutes trying unsuccessfully to calm yourself down before finally throwing the blankets aside altogether.
the manor hallway felt freezing outside your room. your bare feet padded quietly against polished floors while you made your way towards titusâ bedroom, arms folded tightly around yourself. once there, though, you hesitated, yur hand hovering uncertainly near the doorknob. suddenly your thoughts turned self-conscious.
what exactly were you expecting here? comfort? from titus danforth? the man had shot a corpse through the neck without blinking just to protect you. death clearly sat differently with him than it did with normal people. hell, maybe this entire conversation would sound ridiculous to him. maybe heâd think you were weak or pathetic.
but you opened the door anywya. the room remained mostly dark except for the faint glow from titus' phone illuminating one side of his face where he rested against the headboard in bed.
his eyes lifted immediately towards the doorway. then softened the second he saw you standing there.
you tried speaking normally. but failed, and instead, a panicked croak escaped your mouth.
titus sat upright immediately. "hey..."
"h-howâŚ" your breath hitched painfully again before you forced the words out. 'how do you do it?"
his brows furrowed slightly. you swallowed hard enough it hurt.
"k-kil-kill someone" your voice quivered. "and live with yourself afterwards?"
for a moment, titus simply looked at you. then, without a word, he pulled one arm away from the blankets and held it out towards you.
that was all the invitation you needed. you crossed the room quickly and climbed into the bed beside him, almost collapsing into his chest from sheer exhaustion. titus pulled you fully onto his lap without effort, one arm wrapping securely around your waist while your forehead pressed shakily against his shoulder.
his hand moved slowly along your back once.
but when he finally answered, there was no softness in the words themselves. no false comfort.
"you just do..."
"butâ"
"you tell yourself it was either you or him," titus said quietly. "and you chose yourself, baby."
your breath faltered as you listened to him. because that was exactly what happened, wasn't it? you chose your own life over his. just like your father had chosen himself over everyone else. over patients he swore an oath to protect. do no harm.
titus tilted his head slightly against yours. "if it makes you feel better," he murmured. "call it self-defence."
"it was self-defence," you said too quickly, wanting it off your chest.
titus smiled against your chest. "there you go, sweetie." his hand rubbed once along your spine again.
"don't villainise yourself over it," he said. "wilkinson was an annoying fucker anyway."
titus' lips brushed briefly against your temple. "you did the world a favour."
long after you'd finally fallen asleep against him, titus remained awake. one arm stayed wrapped around your waist beneath the blankets while the other rested behind his head. the room sat in near-total darkness, lit only by thin strips of moonlight leaking through the curtains.
he looked down at you occasionally. at the dried tear tracks left faintly across your face. at how exhausted your body looked even in sleep, still curled instinctively towards him as though your subconscious had already decided he was safest thing in the room.
and despite the heaviness of the night, despite the council challenge looming over all of them now like an executionerâs axe, titus found his thoughts drifting back towards the hospital instead.
towards wilkinson.
because christ.
you killed him. just like that. creatively, instinctively.
wilkinson had been enormous. built like an ox and coked so thoroughly out of his skull he barely registered pain properly anymore. titus himself had seen the man take a broken bottle to the ribs once and continue fighting like nothing happened.
and youâfrightened, cornered, barely breathing beneath his handsâstill managed to think. you fucking fought back. all it took was an empty syringe and air. air...
titus almost smiled to himself remembering it.
there was something deeply danforth about that kind of violence: not mere brute force or mindless rage. but ingenuity.
and you still had the heart to feel sorry for him. after fighting for your life and winning it back with your own hands, you still dropped to your knees trying to save him. crying over him.
he didn't fucking understand it. but he admired it. your softness existed beside your brutality instead of erasing it. he'd lost his when he gained the other.
his gaze lowered again towards your sleeping face.
"you should wear his death like a crown," he whispered softly.
not because killing made you monstrous. because when somebody tried taking your life, you took theirs first. and selfishly, horrifically, titus felt pride bloom warm and ugly inside his chest every time he thought about it.
you...his woman, had proven yourself capable of ending a man twice her size with nothing but instinct and desperation.
the meadow behind the danforth estate stretched endlessly in your childhood memory. full of flowers.
you couldnât have been older than eight. your knees were caked in mud from repeatedly tripping into the grass and your hair had collected enough twigs and leaves to resemble a birdâs nest.
but none of that mattered. because you had found poppies. bright red ones.
your mother liked poppies. that much you remembered with certainty.
your tiny fist struggled to clutch all the stems together as you hurried back towards the manor, several flowers slipping loose every few steps before you scrambled to gather them again.
the entrance doors felt enormous back then. heavy enough that you had to throw your whole body weight against one just to squeeze yourself through the opening.
you wandered through the hallways until you finally found your father. he stood near one of the sitting rooms checking on chester danforth, speaking quietly with another servant nearby while reviewing something in his hands.
you tugged excitedly at his trousers.
"yeah?" he said distractedly, glancing down.
your face brightened as you chirped. "i got flowers for maman!" you announced proudly, holding them up towards him. "look!"
your fatherâs eyes lowered towards the crushed bouquet in your hands. at least a dozen poppies bent awkwardly in different directions where your fingers squeezed too tightly around the stems.
he sighed, tiredly.
"how many times have i told you, y/n?" he said. "she's not coming back."
your smiled dropped a little.
"she's not gonna want flowers," he continued absentmindedly. "put those away."
that was all he said. he looked back at chester like the conversation already ended and you were invisible. like he hadn't just taken something soft and hopeful inside his child and pressed his thumb directly through it.
you stood frozen for a moment clutching the flowers harder instead.your throat hurt strangely. you didnât fully understand what he meant. because everyone kept saying your mother was gone, but nobody explained where gone actually was.
your dad left too. for work. he left rooms, then came back later, left the house, then came back later. he travelled, slept, and came back later. so, your mother had to come back eventually, right?
your eyes burned hot suddenly, tears collecting faster than you understood why. embarrassed by them, you turned quickly and wandered out into the hallway before anybody noticed.
you ended up sitting on the grand staircase facing the manor doors. still waiting. holding the flowers.
you sat there for god knows how long; but the poppies slowly wilted in your hand, your palm moist and sticky from the sap of the stems. but you sat there, small and ready, in case she came here for a change, so you wanted the flowers ready.
at some point, footsteps echoed across the entrance hall. you looked up.
a much younger titus crossed through the manor, somewhere in his early twenties then, shoulders tense beneath a dark coat. he looked too hollow for someone too young.
you straightened up a little when you saw him. "they're for maman," you said softly, in case he asked you who the flowers were for.
your voice carried that painfully earnest seriousness only children possessed. "she likes... poppies"
titus looked at you briefly. then at the flowers.
"whatever," he muttered with brief indiffernce.
ans then he dragged himself towards his room, mud on his knees as well, from burying yet another animal his father had ordered him to kill.
you paced endlessly through the manor's living room, arms folded tightly across yourself.
titus sat on one of the couches, spread out, also deep in thought.
thankfully, the room was large enough to take legit laps like one a track field. round and round till your socks slid off your heel after a while.
how was any of this real?
seriously, how had your life detailed into this within the span of a few days?
one minute you were chasing grant deadlines and surviving on instant noodles and hospital coffee, and the next you were apparently the unwilling participant in a demonic crisis involving cult games and your estranged serial-killer father.
whatever happened to taxes?
every now and then you squeezed your eyes shut for a second while walking, childish part of your brain still clinging to the stupid hope that maybe if you opened them again, all of this would disappear.
meghana would be yelling at you for forgetting laundry in the machine again.
david would be emailing passive-aggressive reminders about deadlines.
titus danforth would simply not exist.
but no matter what you did, the manor stood firm. destiny apparently had enormous fucking plans for you, didnt' it?
you turned sharply near one of the windows and kept pacing.
living with the danforths alone had already been difficult enough to process. every single member of that family existed somewhere on the spectrum between deeply disturbed and clinically dangerous.
youâd barely adapted to the fact that your...boyfriend? partner? fuck buddy? person of interestâgod, even calling titus anything felt bizarreâsolved most emotional conflicts with violence, manipulation, or threats, or guns.
and now you were expected to accept that there were more families like them.
other estates, other cultist billionaires, other bloodlines.
the idea unsettled you more than the rituals. because titus, for all his issues, had become understandable to you in fragments. you knew his moods now. knew the warning signs in his posture and voice. knew when his rage was real and when it was mostly theatrical. beneath all the damage and cruelty, there was at least some predictability to him.
but the others were strangers. and strangers terrified you. especially strangers raised under the same philosophy as the danforths. or maybe worse. maybe one of those were part of the 'originals' and were even more inhuman, deplorable.
what kind of people participated in something called necrofest willingly? what kind of games were these families even known for?
the room then turned colder⌠temperature dropping like angels falling from the sky on doomsday.
you didnât need to turn around. every muscle in your back locked tight while your jaw clenched hard enough to ache. you tasted salt and iron immediately where youâd bitten the inside of your cheek without realising.
"y/n."
twelve years. you had not heard your name from his mouth for twelve years. the sound crawled beneath your skin like something rotten.
he sounded older now. rougher around the edges. age had dragged his voice lower and coarser, though not enough to erase the familiar detachment threaded through it. there was something corrupted in the sound now too, faintly damp and decayed.
your pulse hammered, mind stopped existing in the present. memories crashed through you all at once, fast and impossible to separate cleanly from each other: his dismissive sighs, harsh scoldings, his neglectful hand waving you away, the unbearable ache of trying endlesslyâballet, drawing, singingâto earn affection from him.
worst of all were his eyes. you remembered them the most. always looking at you with distance instead of warmth. disappointment instead of tenderness.
you stared rigidly out the manor window instead. deep woods stretched beyond the glass, darkening beneath the evening sky. if you focused hard enough on the trees, maybe you wouldnât have to acknowledge the fact that he stood somewhere behind you now breathing the same air again.
titus rose from his seat first, ignoring the man, and crept behind you. his hand settled gently around your elbow, thumb brushing once against your sleeve.
"you okay?"
you couldn't answer. couldn't wet your tongue enough to make a sound. so you simply stood there staring blankly through the window..
behind you, your father observed the room with clinical patience. and then he looked at you properly. it felt odd to look at you, you felt like a soggy, distorted photograph found in water. he recognised pieces of you, certainly. fragments. traces. but they no longer assembled neatly into the child he remembered. it felt like wathcing a stranger and being told they meant everything to you.
you'd grown a lot taller. softer in places, fleshier. and your hair... gone were the long braids he had to make for school. instead, a cropped mop of brown hair lay on your head. nothing like your mother's.
he had always assumed you would eventually resemble her more completely. that time would shape you into some easier continuation of the woman he once lived beside.
but more interesting than your appearance was the man touching you. his eyes stretched towards titus.
he watched the way titus' hand remained fixed carefully against your arm, subtle possessiveness threaded through even the gentlest contact. watched the way his posture angled instinctively between you and everyone else in the room.
huh. chester danforthâs son protecting somebody. how novel. he had known titus for years now and had never once witnessed him display genuine care so openly for another human being. not for ursula. not for his own father. certainly not for anybody outside the family.
yet here he stood touching you like something precious to guard.
"i'd like to speak to my daughter aloneâ"
"no," titus answered, like thunder clapping.
[y'all, i realised halfway that i can't write 'he/him' without confusing between titus and y/n's dad. and f/n sucks. im just gonna give him a random name. let's go with sebastian. đ]
sebastian raised his eyebrow, taking in titus' response.his brows lifted faintly as he turned his attention fully towards titus for the first time since entering the room. he took in the younger manâs posture, the unwavering eye contact, the sheer audacity of interrupting him so bluntly. figured, he was no longer the grim teenager or early-adult sebastian had once known. hell, titus was now almost the same age as him when he worked for chester.
"very well." he said at last, voice smooth despite the faint irritation threading beneath it. "then i'm gonna need her to look at me. i'm not having this conversation unprofessionally."
you scoffed at the word.
unprofessional? seriously?
your jaw tightened immediately. he had the gall to stand there speaking like some disappointed administrator scheduling a parent-teacher meeting instead of a man who murdered your mother and vanished for twelve years.
you finally turned around before your expression could become outright homicidal. the movement felt exhausting; everything did lately.
his face had changed so much. skin sagging as if it wanted to escape his face, as if it hated knowing whose it was. black eyes that somehow turned even darker. the clean-shaven face you remembered was now covered in a beard.
[um. how wild would it be if he looked like noah wyle T_T]
you walked around the sofa slowly and sat down with deliberate composure, crossing one leg over the other while your face settled into something cold and visibly uninterested. your eyes drooped slightly with exhaustion, though the fear underneath still lingered stubbornly around the edges.
sebastian looked at your face, the ease on his falling a little. oh, you had your mother's features. her lips, her nose. but your eyes? bold and unique enough to make him doubt his paternity for a moment.
titus sat beside you a moment later. close enough that his thigh pressed lightly against yours. his hand found your leg almost immediately, fingers resting possessively against your thigh without hesitation.
that did not escape sebastianâs attention. his gaze lingered there for half a second longer than necessary before shifting back towards your face. interesting. clearly you were more than familiar with him. it felt fundamentally unnatural.
"you two?" sebastian said finally, a crooked grin pulling faintly at his mouth. "i donât buy it."
"we're not selling," titus replied immediately. it landed so unexpectedly, your eyes flicked sideways towards him.
because that was yours. you'd said that to him once, the day he showed up in your life. and now here he was using it against your father like he'd pocketed the sentence away specifically for future use.
a tiny flicker of pride sparked briefly somewhere inside you. go titus!
"let's cut to the chase. i'm not leaving without the seat. i'm sure you've been briefed enough." sebastian spoke impatiently.
"if we're going to compete as a team, we need to be on the same page."
team. you hated how that sounded.
the entire situation already felt unreal enough without that added on top of it. twelve years without seeing the man, twelve years of building your life around his absence, only for the universe to drag him back into your orbit and now apparently demand cooperation.
what were you supposed to do? strategise with him? stand beside him? pretend any of this resembled a functional father-daughter relationship?
"or," you said flatly, "you could just give up."
sebastian almost smiled. "and lose the chance to win the high seat?" he asked. "i don't think you understand."
"yep," you answered immediately. "i don't. so leave me out of it."
"if i could do this without you, i would." the honesty in that irritated you more than if he had lied.
"but i can't. refusal to participate violates the terms of the challenge. and trust me when i say mr le bail is very strict with rules."
his gaze shifted briefly between you and titus before returning to you. "you and i would both end up in pieces."
for a second you genuinely thought he was exaggerating for dramatic effect until you glanced sideways at titus. he gave a single small nod.
your stomach dropped clean through your body. what the fuck?
would you actually explode for refusing to 'play'?
"don't you want to see it, y/n?" sebastian asked softly. "how easy life becomes once you earn mr le bail's favour?"
christ. he sounded exactly like them. fuck, not just similar, but exactly like them, cultists.
that same feverish conviction beneath the words. that same dangerous reverence. the same widening look in the eyes of people who had crossed too many moral lines and stopped seeing them as lines at all.
"for years," sebastian continued, leaning back slightly, "i watched chester danforth build and destroy lives whenever it pleased him. wars. businesses. governments. entire industries bent around him because he could afford them to." his mouth twitched in a frenzy.
"only money stops being interesting after a certain point. power doesn't. don't you want to know what that feels like?" he asked. "to become more than this?"
his hand gestured vaguely towards you. "more than an employee? whatever it is that you do. i don't know.â
you stared at him in disbelief. there was a faustian madness in him. he wasnât speaking like a man hoping to regain stability after ruining his life. he sounded hungry.
"imagine the kind of authority i'd have," he murmured. "i could become a doctor again. people would beg me to heal them. they'd pray to me."
suddenly you understood, with horrible clarity, why people sold themselves so willingly to monsters. because people lost faith in their own redemption. they wanted absolution without guilt. power without consequence. greatness. and if some ancient entity promised the coveted to them, they handed themselves over gladly.
the question was... what about your soul?
"won't you do it with me, y/n? i am your father. my blood runs in you."
you didn't hear anything after that. none of his explanations, justifications, 'plans' to make you the perfect player.
you'd made up your mind.
and you were going to see that you fulfilled it.
there she goes, with her worldbuilding. okay but or once, i feel like ik what im doing with the story T_T. i have interesting places to take it to. let the games begin...
also: sorry guys, but i've heard of accounts getting deleted for adding really long taglists and idw that so im so so so sorry but this is it. T_T if u still want update notifs, what i can do, is mention you in my comments. so let me know
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taglist: @taniamiller @generation-zero @goddess-of-spring @1dhoe93 @saigereaper @onyxorbspire @fluffyassbutt @niki128 @darknessofhell666-blog-blog @margaretblue777@emotionalsupportdilf @yiiiikesmish@softundermoonlight @tomnooksbagofbells
the last great demented dynasty XII
titus danforth x y/n
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a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: your life is just a hurricane of unusual and near-fatal experiences. but at least you have titus on your side.
warnings: mention of jellyfish sting, assault, choking, body slamming, threat to life, character death, gun, gunshot, petting, heavy making out, groping, handjob (m. receiving), panty sniffing, reader gets eaten out religiously smh, cunnilingus, fingering, spitting, protected sex (fuck dem kids lmao. jk), piv, edging, manhandling, choking
I AM SO PROUD OF THIS CHAPTER. THE SONGS ARE ON FUCKING POINT. sorry go ahead.
titus stayed with you the entire night.
he stayed when your breathing turned uneven again. stayed when you cried so hard your ribs started hurting. stayed when you went frighteningly quiet afterwards, staring blankly at the wall while your mind tried and failed to absorb the reality of what you'd read.
he held you through half of it.
the other half, he simply remained there beside you, one hand resting against your back or your wrist or your knee. never demanding anything, never forcing you to speak, just grounding you to something solid whenever it looked like you might disappear into yourself entirely.
outside, the city eventually quieted, then suddenly brightened. morning arrived through the dirty apartment windows, pale light creeping across the walls and catching on dust motes suspended in the air.
you blinked awake without having slept, feeling heavy in a conceivable way. your eyes burned, body ached. and emotionally, you genuinely felt like somebody had taken a cheese grater directly to your soul.
for a while, you just sat there silently before finally forcing yourself upright. and next to you, titus looked up. he hadnât slept either, but he certainly didn't look the part.
"where are you going?" he asked.
"uhâŚ" you rubbed tiredly at your face. "bathroom. for now." you stretched slowly, joints protesting the movement.
"then i'm gonna head to the hospital. tell them i wonât be available for a while longer."
titusâ response came immediately. "i'll come with you."
you blinked once.
ââŚto the bathroom?â despite everything, despite the emotional devastation of the previous night, a weak involuntary smirk still escaped you.
titus mirrored it instantly. âany damn time, baby.â
you groaned softly while shoving at his shoulder. unfortunately, jokes aside, you did actually need to keep him nearby given that your life operated under the worldâs most fuckass proximity rule. stay close to titus danforth or risk a wrist amputation in broad daylight.
which, honestly, became significantly funnier once you dragged him onto public transport. titus looked deeply offended by the existence of a bus. like what do you mean we must share a vehicle with everyone.
he stood near the doors at first, staring at the sticky floors and overcrowded seats. his nose wrinkled faintly at a suspicious stain on one of the poles. still, he followed you into the bus without complaint. the second you sat down beside the window, he slid immediately into the seat next to you and spread himself out like an aggressively possessive guard dog. arms crossed. knees angled outward just enough to make himself everyone else's problem.
an older man started towards the empty seat beside you before taking one look at titus' face and immediately reconsidering every decision that had led him there.
you watched the interaction happen in real time.
"dude..."
"i dont' want strangers touching you."
you snorted tiredly and leaned your head back against the window. titus let a moment of silence pass before he shifted slightly closer to you, his hand quietly finding yours against the seat between you. and you let him hold it.
hospitals had always felt vaguely alien to you. too bright. too cold. too full of sounds that never fully stoppedâconstant beeping, scratching, groaning, walking, and the eventual resonance of a flatline.
and yet, no matter how hard you tried resisting it, you always found yourself returning.
everyone in your life had questioned it at some point: why hospitals? why medicine? why stay anywhere near places like this after what your father had done?
truthfully, you never knew how to explain it properly. just that some irrational part of you still walked into every hospital with the same subconscious instinct: to search for him.
to scour crowded corridors and operating wings and emergency wards looking for the outline of his silhouette lurking somewhere unseen, shadow blackening slowly over another unsuspecting body.
you imagined slamming your hand against every alarm button possible. imagined screaming loud enough for the entire building to hear. imagined pointing directly at him before he could hurt another person ever again.
maybe it was stupid. maybe somewhere deep down you still believed that staying here, helping here, could somehow balance the scales against his crimes. you couldnât picture yourself becoming a doctor, no. but maybe you could still become a protector.
and in your own way, you already were.
being multilingual had made you unexpectedly valuable around the hospital. patients who struggled through broken english often relaxed visibly the second you spoke to them in their own language instead. suddenly their symptoms became easier to explain. their fears easier to voice. their pain more honest.
youâd learned quickly that people described suffering differently when they didnât have to translate it first. sometimes all somebody needed was to hear familiar words spoken back to them. because in a country full of strangers, hearing your own language unexpectedly returned to you felt a little like home and home, even ephemerally, always welcomed you with open arms.
the nurses recognised you almost immediately once you entered the building.
âoh my god, there you are.â
âwhere have you been?â
âare you alright?â
one of them grabbed your arm gently while another immediately launched into questions. a few doctors greeted you too as they passed through the corridor, asking about your thesis progress, your research, whether youâd finally managed to finish that paper youâd been suffering over for months. you answered automatically, still tired enough that half the conversation passed in a blur.
beside you, titus remained unusually quiet. something about the entire scene settled like pines beneath his skin. people knew you here. beyond your usefulness. they greeted you warmly. worried when you disappeared. asked about your work because they genuinely cared about the answer.
titus found himself staring at that more than he should have. because all his life, every interaction had come attached to an ulterior motive. people looked at him and saw wealth first, person second. every conversation carried invisible calculations behind it. bblank cheques hidden behind polite smiles. nobody had ever cared whether titus danforth himself was happy.
watching nurses fuss over whether youâd been eating enough while doctors asked excitedly about your research, titus felt something unfamiliar tighten painfully in his chest.
jealousy, maybe. or grief. he honestly couldnât tell the difference anymore.
you slipped on a pair of disposable gloves and, that tiny action alone altered something in you as titus noticed so.
your shoulders straightened a little. your exhaustion tucked itself neatly away behind focus. there was a quiet confidence to you now, something practised and instinctive settling into place the second the gloves snapped against your wrists. like this version of you knew exactly where she belonged.
âiâm just gonna finish a few rounds,â you told him softly. titus nodded once, remaining close behind you as you moved through the ward.
some of the patients recognised you immediately.
especially the two elderly japanese women occupying the same room near the far end of the corridor. both brightened the second you entered. your smile bloomed automatically in return.
âhisashiburi desu ne, hoshina-san, shimada-san,â you greeted warmly. âgenki desu ka?â (long time no see, how are you?)
the women immediately began talking over each other in delighted rapid japanese while you laughed softly and moved closer to them. titus stood quietly nearby watching the interaction unfold with open fascination. the way you chatted with them, listened to them, and then interpreted their words just made the process enriching.
meanwhile, the resident doctor beside you looked halfway between grateful and exhausted.
âshe tried telling me in english that sheâs been on blood thinners for two years,â he said while checking one of the charts. âbut thereâs absolutely no trace of them in her system. her blood clots perfectly. honestly, i think she just lies to confuse me sometimes.â
âwell, it could mean two years ago,â you explained. âitâs an agglutinative language.â
the doctor blinked.
ââŚwhatâs that?â
âso instead of say, just verbs changing form to encode all the information, japanese sometimes takes on external context markers.â you gestured lightly with your gloved hands as you spoke. âlike, structurally, theyâll say something closer to âtwo years, medicine took.â and add a particle to mean 'ago'. context does some of the temporal work.â
the doctor stared at you blankly. "right... is that why she speaks english weirdly?"
âsubstratum effect,â you added casually. âin their case, first language grammar influences syntax in the second language. happens all the time with bilinguals.â
he pointed vaguely at you with his pen. âthank god you speak japanese because i genuinely cannot understand their english half the time.â
titus remained completely still throughout all of it. because this was not the same version of you he knew from the manor. this wasnât the frightened girl hiding in corners or the sharp-tongued woman arguing with him in the basement.
here, you were comfortable and consequently, you became catastrophically chatty.
you changed slightly with every language.
your japanese sounded softer somehow, lilting differently than your english. then moments later you switched into hindi with another patient down the hall, the cadence warmer, quicker. later still, you awkwardly stitched together enough punjabi to help an elderly man explain his symptoms despite repeatedly apologising that you didnât actually speak it fluently. and somehow, every version of you sounded beautiful.
his favourite moments were the little snippets you tossed towards him while moving through the hospital.
you leaned slightly towards titus and murmured: âdid you know punjabiâs actually the only indo-aryan language with phonemic tones?â
he just looked at you, his focus on the way your lips moved.
âand itâs not random. punjabi has a less diverse consonant system, so the language literally grew a compensation over time by developing tones.â
later, you found yourself helping a mauritian surfer with jellyfish stings running viciously across one leg. halfway through the conversation, titus noticed you quietly picking up bits of creole from the man himself and immediately weaving them into your french responses to make communication easier.
like your brain simply refused to let languages stay strangers to each other.
afterwards, while updating the chart, you absently rested a hand against titusâ forearm. he immediately stopped paying attention to literally everything else.
âmost creoles actually started as pidgins,â you explained casually while scribbling notes. âbasically intermediary languages between groups that didnât share a mutual language.â
titus looked down at your hand on his arm. the man was completely doomed.
âso people kinda develop simplified systems to communicate,â you continued, oblivious. âand when those speakers had children whose first language was the pidgin, eventually after a generation of those, that language was used in more domains, so it became a creole.â
you glanced up at him. âand itâs not just one. thereâs haitian creole, korlai portuguese, loads more.â
titus stared at you for a long second. âyou are significantly more chatty here.â
you paused, ââŚam i?â
after finishing your rounds, you dragged titus down to the hospital cafeteria, another insult to humanity. his ass shifted uncomfortably in the plastic chair. titus simply did not approve of anything that wasnât prepared by michelin start chefs. he was appalled when you poured yourself hospital coffee.
people moved around noisily nearby. nurses on break, exhausted interns inhaling sandwiches at concerning speeds, somebody dropping a tray somewhere in the distance.
âwhat exactly is the point of all this?â
you looked up. âwhat do you mean?â
âthis.â he gestured vaguely towards the hospital around you. âyouâre not actually treating anyone. youâre just⌠talking to sick people.â
âand filling in gaps.â
his brows furrowed slightly. âwhat gaps?â
you leaned back in your chair a little, absently rotating the paper cup between your hands while you explained.
ânot everyone here speaks english fluently. and even if they technically do, communicating pain while stressed, frightened, or physically hurting is already difficult enough.â you shrugged lightly. âhaving to translate your symptoms mentally into another language while doing that just adds more cognitive strain.â
titus listened quietly.
âand things get mistranslated constantly,â you continued. âand if that wasnât enough, not all languages encode information the same way english does. thatâs linguistic relativity, or the sapir-whorf hypothesis. the strong version basically argues that language determines perception of the world.â
titus tilted his head slightly.
âmeaning?â
âlike, imagine, if your language didnât have a word for something, youâd find it nearly impossible to even conceptualise that thing. so say, hypothetically a patient who speaks, i donât know guugu yimithirr comes in to the er. heâs not gonna be able to talk about his pain in ego-centric directions as english speakers do.â
you saw his face coiled into confusion, like he was really trying hard to keep up.
âbasically... he wonât be able to conceptualise âpain in the left legâ. itâs gonna be âpain in the south-east legâ. the language uses geographic directions. now imagine how much time would be wasted trying to understand that. but if you had a language policy that kept a multilingual translator or even an actual linguist around, you could clear up nuances like that in seconds. diagnoses would be a bit more accurate. iâm just trying to research how much healthcare reception differs with and without language barriers.â
titus watched you carefully while you spoke, noticing the way your exhaustion disappeared whenever you started discussing language. the way your hands moved unconsciously while explaining things.
"and this⌠research of yours warrants your 'supervisor' showing up at your door with cash?" titus suddenly asked, a little bitterly.
your back straightened. "david came by?"
hearing his name, another fucking man's name on your tongue made him scowl. "came and went."
you squinted at him. "what did you do?"
"why'd you assume i did anything?"
"uh have you met you?"
mmkay⌠titus kinda saw the logic in that. but did he regret threatening david in the hallway? no. absolutely not. he would die proudly on that hill.
"you didn't answer my question. you need money for this?"
"wellâŚ" you hesitated, a little embarrassed. "it's my grant. phd students get monthly stipend."
you watched his eyes narrow with a growing disappointment.
"how much do you want?" he asked.
"the university gives meâ"
"name your price." et voilĂ : the danforth instinct. throw money directly at the situation until the problem solved itself accordingly.
"titus. i'm not taking your money."
"yes you are."
"i don't need to!"
"you're getting it anyway."
you shot him a glare. the worst part was that he sounded genuinely confused about why this was becoming an argument.
you huffed and stood up, tossing your cup into the dustbin, mumbling something like 'insufferable', 'stubborn fucking asshole' under your breath as you turned to leave.
titus sighed and stayed seated for a moment. he didn't understand why you couldn't just accept his offer. he was a fucking billionaire, actually, obscenely wealthy. he could fund your research, your entire life, and more for years. who the hell wouldn't say yes to that?
you only half paid attention to where you were walking.
partly because your brain was exhausted, and partly because titus had somehow managed to occupy every available corner of your thoughts simply by existing near you in the most invasive way possible.
there was being into someone. and then there was whatever the fuck titus danforth was doing. attraction did not usually involve implanted trackers, threatening supervisors, or attempting to finance someoneâs entire existence within forty-eight hours. but with him, the lines blurred disturbingly fast.
you reached absentmindedly for the sanitiser dispenser mounted beside the corridor wall.
and then suddenly two massive hands slammed against your back. you barely managed a startled yelp before you were violently shoved through the door of an empty emergency room.
âŹâ.Ë RUNRUNRUN; dutch melrose
your shoes lost traction immediately against the polished floor. you stumbled forward hard, failed to catch yourself properly, and hit the ground face-first with enough force to rattle your teeth painfully together.
for one disoriented second, you just heard the sound of the door banging shut behind you. then hands grabbed the back of your neck. thick fingers dug painfully into muscle and skin before hauling you upright with much force.
your shoulder smashed into the wall first. pain exploded sharply down your arm as your body collided against the plaster hard enough to make the equipment mounted beside you rattle in sync. your breath stuttered in a stunned gasp.
you staggered sideways, vision swimming briefly before finally focusing on the man standing in front of you.
he was huge. broad enough to block most of the doorway.
electric blue blazer stretched tight over an uncomfortably thick frame. grey hair spiked back messily. bloodshot eyes wide with the sort of erratic instability you only saw in cocaine addicts. you didn't recognise him at all. for one stupid second, your dumbass brain actually tried rationalising it.
escaped patient? drug-induced psychosis?
but before you could fully process anything, the man lunged. you ducked on instinct. his hand barely missed your face as you bolted for the door, adrenaline finally detonating properly through your system.
you almost reached it. then pain ripped across your scalp. his fist tangled in your hair and yanked backward so hard tears sprang instantly to your eyes. you cried out involuntarily as your neck snapped backwards with the motion.
he dragged you away from the door like dead weight.
your hands clawed uselessly at his wrist trying to loosen his grip while he shoved you against one of the hospital beds. metal trays crashed loudly onto the floor beside you. a trolley tipped halfway over from the impact, instruments clattering everywhere.
the man sniffed sharply against the inside of his own wrist. then disturbingly licked the skin there. his eyes locked onto yours with awful manic focus.
âdonât worry, little girl,â he rasped. âiâll be quick.â
his mouth twitched strangely. âyour daddyâs next.â
fear settled properly into your stomach then. this wasnât random. this had something to do with your father. had he killed someone? ruined someoneâs family? botched a surgery? sold blood to the wrong people? you couldnât tell.
âwhââ your throat caught painfully. you coughed once trying to force words out. âwhatever he did, it has nothing to do with meââ
âshut up.â
he hit you again before the sentence finished. not with a fist, but with his weight.
his body crashed into yours while both hands wrapped fully around your throat.
and suddenly you understood something horrifying. you didn't know what strangulation felt like, and it felt nothing like what you'd imagined in movies. it wasnât some vague, blunt pressure. it was a concentrated ring of pain around your trachea, like someone forcing stone directly into your windpipe while your body panicked.
your airway narrowed immediately. you tried sucking in breath and got almost nothing. instinct took over fast.
your hands grabbed at his wrists, nails digging uselessly into skin while your legs kicked against the side of the bed. nothing moved him. your vision blurred frighteningly quickly. heat flooded your face while pressure built behind your eyes. your mouth opened uselessly trying to drag air into lungs that suddenly felt miles away from you.
your hands flew blindly around the overturned tray beside the bed. please please please. anything. metal, glass, plastic, something sharp. maybe a scalpel or scissors. anything.
your palm fell over familiar plastic and you pushed the last of your strength into your hand as you grabbed an empty syringe and plunged it into the manâs neck, pressing the plunger with your thumb.
he jerked sharply. a horrible strangled sound tore from his throat as his grip loosened just enough for a sliver of air to force its way back into your lungs. but not enough to free you.
your vision darkened at the corners and your body weakened rapidly beneath him. maybe this was it. maybe this was genuinely how it ended. on a hospital bed, killed because of your father.
then suddenly the weight disappeared. breath came back to you in tides, drawing your lungs in discomfort as you took in big gasps.
everything came back slowly; sound first, then sensation, and then sight. you looked around. the man lay crumpled beside the bed, on the floor, motionless. completely motionless.
courtesy of an embolism.
for a second your oxygen-starved brain didnât understand what you were seeing. youâd forced air directly into his bloodstream. if it travelled to the brain... the first thought that entered your mind wasnât relief or safety or that titus was still out there.
'i killed him.'
you scrambled off the bed immediately, knees slamming painfully against the floor as you crawled towards him.
âno no noââ your hands fumbled frantically against his neck searching for a pulse. you felt stillness. you tipped his head back and checked for breath. nothing. his skin already looked wrong somehow.
âno...â your hands locked together automatically over the centre of his chest. training took over before emotion could.
one two one two one twoâhard and fast. his ribs shifted unpleasantly beneath your palms as you pressed again and again.
you werenât going to do this. you were NOT going to become your father.
âcome on,â you gasped desperately, tears blurring your vision completely now. âcome on...fuck...â
the manâs head lolled uselessly with every compression. a thin line of saliva and blood leaked slowly from the corner of his mouth onto the floor.
still you kept going, counting desperately beneath your breath and trying to force life back into a body that no longer required it.
the emergency room door swung open hard enough to smack against the stopper behind it. titus stepped halfway inside first, irritation already written across his face, clearly prepared to complain about how long youâd disappeared for over what was supposed to be a five-minute bathroom trip.
then he saw the room; the overturned trays. scattered instruments. the hospital bed shoved halfway across the floor.
saw you, or the state of you. kneeling beside a body with your hands locked over a dead manâs chest, still desperately pumping compressions into him despite the fact that he was very clearly beyond saving.
titus crossed the room immediately. ây/nââ
he dropped to his knees beside you so quickly the impact cracked loudly against the floor.
ây/n.â
his hands reached for your shoulders first, trying to stop the frantic rhythm of your compressions, but you resisted instinctively, shaking your head violently. tears streamed unchecked down your face while words spilled out between panicked breaths so quickly they barely sounded coherent anymore.
âh-he just attacked me andâand there was an empty syringe and iââ your breath hitched painfully around another sob. âi swear i didnât mean to, i justâhe was going toâiââ
your hands kept trying to move back towards the corpse, still refusing to accept what your eyes already knew.
âi killed him,â you choked out. âi canâtâi canât kill him, he has to live, he has tââ
titus caught your wrists firmly and pulled your hands away from the manâs chest.
âheâs gone.â
you shook your head immediately. "no. NO" the denial came out of you like a roar.
titus tightened his hold slightly, forcing your trembling hands to stay still inside his.
you barely did. your gaze kept darting back towards the body sprawled as though you still thought there was time left to fix this somehow if you just willed enough.
titus reached up and turned your face towards him properly. ây/n, look at me.â his voice lowered. steadier now. âheâs gone, baby.â
you whimpered softly at the words, shaking your head.
the manâs skin had already taken on that awful grey undertone that settled after circulation stopped. you were rooted in place beside him anyway, mind refusing to cross the distance between accident and death.
titus understood immediately that if left alone, youâd stay kneeling there indefinitely trying to revive a corpse with sheer guilt alone. but the two of you couldnât remain here. not iin a public hospital for god's sake.
his expression shifted almost imperceptibly, decision settling into place. without letting go of you entirely, titus reached inside his coat with his free hand and pulled a handgun from the holster stitched beneath the lining.
the movement barely registered to you at first. thenâ
gunfire exploded through the room. the sound hit like a physical force in the enclosed space. you flinched hard as the bullet tore through the side of the dead manâs neck at close range. the wet impact was followed by blood.
a heavy spray burst outward across the tiles and nearby wall in thick dark splatters. droplets hit the side of the hospital bed, the overturned tray, titusâ coat sleeve.
and you.
warm flecks landed across your arm and cheek. one streaked slowly down the side of your jaw. the metallic smell intensified instantly, thick enough now to taste at the back of your throat.
titus shoved the gun back into his coat before turning fully towards you again.
âhey.â
his bloodstained hand came up carefully against your face, forcing your focus back onto him.
âeyes on me.â
you blinked at him numbly.
his voice stayed calm, âi killed him. not you.â titus brushed blood away from beneath your eye with his thumb.
âalright?â he said quietly. âi did. me.â he didnât elaborate further. didnât give you time to spiral back into the corpse lying beside you. instead, he rose immediately and steadied you gently to your feet with him, one hand locked tightly around yours as he guided you towards the door.
your legs barely felt stable beneath you. behind you, the body remained sprawled motionless across the floor while blood slowly crept outward between the grout lines of the hospital tiles. titus didnât let you look back.
back inside the apartment, the bathroom light flickered weakly overhead, humming faintly between intervals of brightness. you stood in front of the sink without really seeing it.
your reflection stared back at you from the small spotted mirror above the basin, pale and hollow-eyed, bits of dried blood still caught near your jawline and tangled into the ends of your hair.
behind you, titus turned on the tap. he stayed close without crowding you, positioned beside you like some grim silent sentinel while he soaked a cloth beneath the stream. neither of you spoke at first. there wasnât much to say.
slowly, he reached for your hands. your fingers twitched instinctively at the contact but didnât pull away.
titus guided your palms beneath the running water, his larger hands carefully turning yours over while diluted pink swirled down the drain. blood clung stubbornly around your nails and the creases of your knuckles. he washed it away patiently. then your wrists, forearms, a stain up near your elbow.
afterwards he dampened a napkin and brought it carefully towards your face. you stood motionless while he wiped away the blood sprayed across your cheek. another streak near the corner of your mouth. tiny flecks caught in the strands of hair near your temple. his movements remained unexpectedly gentle throughout all of it. like he understood instinctively that if he moved too quickly right now, something in you might splinter further.
once the blood was mostly gone, titus finally paused to properly look at you. and naturally, it was obvious this had never happened to you before. the shock of it all sat over your face.
but somewhere beneath the concern pressing heavily inside his chest, another uglier thought lingered too. because despite everything, despite your panic and terror afterwards, you had fought back, that too, against a man nearly twice your size.
the syringe may have been accidental. but it was also genius.
in a sick, twisted manner, knowing youâd ended the life of your attackerânever mind that titus knew who it wasâpleased him. recognised him the second he saw him. but that didnât matter.Â
his hand slid slowly up and down your back. âyou want a minute?â
your eyes stayed fixed vaguely somewhere near the sink as you nodded once. and titus accepted that easily enough.
"alright." he stepped away from you without protest and left the bathroom quietly behind him.
the second the door clicked shut, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled ursula.
she answered immediately.
âwhere the hell areââ
âwilkinsonâs dead.â
ââŚwhat?â
titus leaned his hip against the kitchen counter, eyes drifting automatically back towards the closed bathroom door in the unlit, dark apartment of yours.
âfind out what he was doing out here,â he said coldly. âhe tried to kill y/n.â
ursula sounded genuinely thrown off now.
âwhy would he evenââ
âthat,â titus cut in sharply, but kept his voice low, âis for you to figure out, isnât it?â
inside the bathroom, you barely registered the sound of his voice through the door, you were still staring at yourself. the events of the day had already started collapsing strangely in your head, details dulling around the edges except for the parts your brain refused to let go of. you couldnât properly remember the manâs face anymore. or his voice that threatened you.
but you remembered his hand in your hair, your shoulder slamming into the wall. the feeling of not being able to breathe. and the awful certainty that if you hadnât done something, he would have killed you.
outside, titus was still speaking into the phone. âiâll come back when i want to,â he snapped at ursula finally. âdonât call again unless you have answers.â
he hung up just as you emerged from the bathroom. his attention landed on you naturally. how pale and drained you looked, then lower, to the scissors handing loosely from your hand.
and finally to your shabbily cropped hair, hastily hacked away above your shoulders.
you crossed the room slowly and tossed the scissors onto the table with a dull metallic clatter.
âŹâ.Ë insomnia; iamx
titus couldn't take his eyes off you. at all. because you looked ruined. and somehow, devastatingly beautiful.
you poured yourself a glass of water, feeling your throat constrict against every painful gulp.
when you felt his hand touch a lock of your cut hair, you almost recoiled, having had enough of men grab your hair, present company included. but this time, his touch was curious, not commanding.
you let him run his hand through your hair, fingers carding through your locks. in a way, it felt good, a little regulating.
titus stroked your head as gently as he could. he never understood how women could cut off their hair. long hair was a sign of femininity, of beauty. but you trampled over every single standard he'd built for the kind of women he tolerated. then suddenly, you were everything he wanted, craved.
he watched your eyes close as his fingers massaged your scalp. he didn't think twice before slowly pulling you into his arms, burying your face against his chest. he secured his arm around your waist protectively and let the other run through your hair tenderly.
he smiled to himself, just himself, when he felt your arms circle his body, wrapping around his waist. against his usual roughness, he pressed a kiss to your head. then to your temple, your forehead.
when you pulled away a little, he searched for any sign of discomfort in you. but your mind was elsewhere. too extraterrestrial to think about anything rational, logical.
so you did the only thing you could to quiet your mind. curled your hand around his neck and brought him down to your lips, pressing yours against his deeply, taking a generous breath. it was owed to you.
titus responded without a speck of hesitation, his hands tightening arond you. the hand that was in your hair held your head firmly as his mouth moved against yours.
noses pressed against each other, you still pulled him in further, going for a longer, more intimate kiss. more than that, it was completely unhurried, full of intention. your hands travelled across his broad shoulders, over his chest as you unbuttoned his shirt, feeling his oddly cold skin under your fingers.
titus nipped at your lower lip once, wanting those melodious sounds from you, but you were a little more resilient than that it seemed. so he bit once more, a bit more firmly. but that earned a hard shove to his chest and he staggered backwards a little.
his eyes met yours, and seeing that unimpressed, mildly enraged glint on your face made him smirk. you were pissed off. and he loved you pissed off.
you shoved at him again, pushing him towards the wall. titus could be an immovable object if we wanted to be.
"harder, baby. i know you can do it," he murmured.
and you did. shoved him right into the wall where his back landed with a heavy thud!.
"thaaat's it. c'mere," he grabbed your wrist and pulled you into him, crashing his lips onto yours again.
your bodies moved in friction with each other, not entirely easing into the motion, but you kissed him fiercely, sucking in the breath he let out in short inhales. you didn't want to stop. you wanted your breathlessness in your control.
and titus was just the perfect person to kiss, to consume. fuck, he did kiss you like an old man, expertly, with unabashed certainty that he wanted you unravelled under his hands. he played with your anticipation every time, his tongue flicking at your lips, dragging a frustrated groan out of you. he held your head tightly, damn nearly embossing you onto his face.
"you holdin' back on me, baby?"
he pressed soft kisses to your nose, your cheek, his hands cupping your face now, tilting your head to meet him.
"do you ever shut up?" you let out a breath, your hand clamping his mouth shut, before he could continue whatever deeply unnecessary commentary was about to leave it.
titus, naturally, responded in the worst way possible. his eyes stayed fixed on yours while his tongue dragged slowly across the centre of your palm, rough warmth sliding deliberately against the creases of your skin.
a tired, bitter laugh escaped you despite yourself. "fucking child."
you found you didn't mind really. it was a new feeling, and not entirely unpleasant. and you couldn't help but push it further. two could play a game.
your hand snaked down his torso, down his abdomen, over the slight fat on his body, which you quickly realised was without a doubt, severely attractive. your fingertips only brushed over his pelvis, over his crotch, making his body ripple once.
he hummed against your palm, so you held it there, disconnecting him from your lips for the moment. but you leaned in and kissed his neck, leaving languid wet kisses on the freckles over his skin. down to his collarbone, to his pecs, everywhere your lips touched, he just felt soft, aged. and you ravished it.
you palmed him over his trousers, feeling him twitch and writhe inside the clothing. he hissed against your palm, eyes closing for a moment and bucked his hips a little.
you'd only meant to tease him, but now the feeling of your hand over his crotch was the singular thing running in his mind. he placed his hand over yours, pressing it over his erection, grinding his hips against the pressure.
you let out a short laugh. "i'm surprised you can still get it up, old man."
titus bit into your palm in response, finally grabbing your wrist and twisting your hand off his mouth.
"you talk to your elders like that, baby?" he cooed, now guiding your palm over his clothed dick to rub against it, up and down.
he grabbed your jaw tightly. "go on... touch me."
you hated being told what to do. hated the feeling of being controlled, but you found yourself listening to him anyway. maybe because you wanted it too, wanted him.
you unzipped his trousers, tugging them down haphazardly. your hand dug into his boxers, the hilt of your palm running down the greying hair of his happy trail. you couldn't remember the last time the mere feel of a man's cock made your head spin, but titus was hot, soft and hard alike, damp in his boxers when your hand stroked his length.
you felt the soft wrinkles on his skin slowly stretch and tighten as he grew harder with every touch.
titus tipped his head back against the wall, eyes locked on you, on your lips, then on your hand in his pants. he couldn't believe this was actually happening. weeks he'd spend jerking himself off to the thoughts of you, of having you all to himself and now he did. man, he had to get his shit together.
he dropped his trousers down, kicking them away, and slid his boxers down too. he watched your eyes take him in and it was simply the most rewarding self-validation he'd ever received.
you looked hungry, like a starving beast standing before a meal realising all of it was yours to take. your fingers moved against his shaft, thumb brushing over his tip once and watching it glisten immediately. all it took were a few pumps to get him worked up. titus was always sensitive, he just compensated for it with his psychotic eyes and filthy mouth.
and then he was moaning, jaw-slacked, mandible jutting out as he panted. "nnnhh."
who were you to deny yourself that pleasure. for once, titus was coming undone, by your hands, your touch.
"i like you like this... fucking quiet for once," you murmured, your fist speeding up against his length, the sound of weak wet squelches taking up the space in the room.
he was just so thick, so creamy, you'd need a bigger hand to maximise the potential of a good handjob. so you twisted your grip once, tightening it and loosening it as you stroked him and he let out the sluttiest, most pathetic whimpers a man could. you'd never seen one moan and whine like that before. the men you had in your life always pretended to be stronger than they were, held back their noises and forced their needy whines into stoic grunts, but titus didn't seem to care. all he wanted was you.
so when he let out another whimper, you muffled the sound with your lips locked on to his, swallowing that needy noise into your own mouth. you chased his lips with sloppy kisses, spit collecting in the corner of your mouths.
your palm squeezed his girthy shaft, giving it a few tugs as you kept your ministrations. his coral head was leaking shamelessly, just begging you to make him cum.
"fuck...fuck... fuuuck," he groaned against your lips, hips bucking into your hand in mismatched beats, the dissonant rhythm only adding to his pleasure.
you gave his dick another tug before he tensed, quivered and spilled in your palm, warm cum coating your hand, between your fingers. oh, but the moans he let out in your mouth, against your tongue, turned you on too much to ignore.
"fuck, baby..." he panted, eyes finding yours in that half-lidded manner; so dreamy. "not bad..."
you took it all back. nothing could ever cure the smugness out of titus danforth.
you stepped back, head tilted, taking him in. then, with your cum-slicked hand, you struck his cheek, letting a wet slap echo across the room. not bad your ass.
titus grinned, boldly. "only makes me harder when you do that, sweetie."
he licked his own cum off the corner of his mouth, proud of its taste. of course he would. the man loved everything about himself. you wondered if he ever tasted himself clean after he masturbated.
his gaze roved over you. he grabbed the hem of your shirt and pulled it up,and over your head, taking it off.
you shimmied out of your pants and pulled down your panties, jokingly tossing them at his face, but oh lord did he take the longest fucking breath he could, inhaling your scent off the flimsy fabric. he wiped his cum off his face with your panties, relishing the sensation.
you could only watch with your throat dry and mouth agape. what a filthy fucking man.
"my turn," he growled as he advanced, large hands cupping your bare ass and lifting you up, slamming you down on your small dining table for one.
you rested on your elbows, forearms planted on the wood. titus parted your thighs, slotting himself between them. two greedy fingers of his gently ran up your slit, watching your pussy salivate as he slowly lowered himself, bending down to give it the hottest eye contact ever.
he licked a long stripe over your flesh, humming at the first taste. then puckering his lips, titus spat a wad directly onto your cunt, and stuffed his face right between your legs. it truly did feel like coming home. the familiar warmth and dampness of your inner thighs muffled his ears, cushioned his jaw as his tongue lapped at your pussy like a wild cat lapping up water at the stream.
"so... fucking" his lips smacked against your slimy flesh. "sweet."
he snuck in his thumb to rub over your clit slowly as his tongue worked you into a mess. every gluttonous swipe of his tongue rendered you wetter and desperate.
"hckâfuck..." your breath hitched, soft moans spilling out the way your wetness spilled out over his tongue.
he licked at your clit, sucking on the small nub while his middle and ring finger found their way down down down your slit and in your hole, which welcomed them both too easily, engulfing the thickness of his fingers, and the cold metal of a ring on one. they had you open so smoothly; your eyes rolled back and your head tipped down.
breathy moans surrounded the air around you and titus listened to each of them, continuing to gnaw and nibble at your clit, his nose stuffed in too deep to breathe. he was pretty sure he inhaled some of your juices, but who cared. he'd swallow you whole if it were possible.
his kissing skills clearly extended to your other lips. how he made you tremble, whimper, and how he made you want to be devoured by the man.
"one of these days..." he mumbled against your pussy. "you gotta sit on my face, baby."
he was gone. utterly overwhelmed by your warmth, moisture, the musky scent of your arousal.
"shhhitttt, im close. i'm close iâ"
"give it to me, baby."
the way he french-kissed your cunt had it gush out squelches after squelches, making the pit of your stomach coil into that familiar feeling, much like a whirlpool of his tongue, his fingers, his moans into your pussy, and his breath against your clit all push you further and further to the edge, practically aggravating your bundle of nerves, every touch of his stretching you, plunging into you, rubbing against you, a buffet of sensations until your penultimate breath escaped you with a gasping moan, leaving you in bliss and leaving him soaked in cum.
[holy shit that was one sentence]
still leaning on your elbows, you took a better look at him having had the time of his life between your legs, your cum sticking to his lips like cobwebs.
he pulled you straight up, letting you hop off the table, legs sticky and damp, but pussy still eager and open for business like a damn brothel.
he cupped your face, slowly waltzing back. "you got another f'me, sweet girl? need you coming on my cock. i'm not ending the night without fucking you."
oh he always did make you feel wanted, didn't he?
you smiled and tapped your fingertips across his bare chest and shoved him down one last time till he fell on your mattress with a grunt.
"ugh."
your smile turned into a smirk as you knelt down, legs on either side of his, straddling him. your wet cunt rolled on his lap all too well, his cock twitching with impatience already.
"am i... about to take your mattress virginity, danforth?"
he rolled his eyes, but his hands planted on your fleshy hips, giving them a possessive squeeze.
you grabbed his jaw, holding it tight so he'd keep his eyes on you. "you ever fucked on a dirty mattress before?"
"you ever been fucked by a real man before, sweetheart? hm?" he rose just enough to hoist himself by his arm, the other wrapping around your waist.
"last i remember, you looked bored outta your mind in those photos... guess you've never really been... what is it you young ones say? 'dicked down' before..."
you pushed him back down till his head lay on your crumpled make-shift pillows. then slowly leaning over him, bare breasts pressing and squishing over his pecs, you dug through the seams of your bed linen, snaking a hand between the sheets and the mattress.
"what are you doing?" he asked.
"we need a condom."
his arm roped around your waist tighter as you pulled out a foil square.
titus spared a sorry glance at the wrapped. "'s too small."
"shut up and wear it."
well, he didnât protest further. just leaned in and bit into the wrapper you held, tearing it and plucking the rubber out, which wasn't that small. he just had an inflated ego.
"you just keep it there huh?"
"uh huh"
"you fuck a lot of guys on this?"
"maybe."
titus' gaze darkened a little. "you ever fuck 'david' on this?"
okay, you confessed to yourself a little. jealous titus turned you on. big time. seeing him get all mopey and pouty but also sinister and possessive made your pussy clench around itself.
"nah"
"good," he said too quickly as he rolled the condom on with no particular fondness. he'd rather just fuck you raw, but that was for another day.
he could do a little of what you wanted, and most of what he wanted; his thoughts as he flipped the two of you around and pinned you down to your mattress. he watched your boobs jiggle at the impact and boy did his eyes sparkle like a 777 on a casino.
he leaned in to capture one in his mouth, squeezing it before sucking on your nipple.
as he feasted on your breasts, he pinned your legs apart with his meaty thighs, and rubbed his globular head over your pussy, nudging your entrance teasingly.
your patience always wore thin around him, a hiss slipping out of your mouth. "just fucking put it in."
titus smirked, letting go of your breast with a pop and looked down at you. "let's play a game."
you groaned loudly.
"come onnnnn, you know this one," he drawled, looking down at you with a pitiful expression.
"it's called, 'he fucks me...'" he marked his words with a gentle thrust of just his tip inside you, then pulled out "...'he fucks me not'"
the pathetic whine you let out after that was opera to his ears. he edged you for a long time, putting his tip in, then pulling it out and simply letting the weight of his cock rest on your cunt, watching you writhe and attempt to clamp your thighs together. he caught your hand trying to sneak its way down to do the work yourself.
"ah ah ah. rule no. 1. bad girls don't get my cock," he cooed, grabbing your wrist and bringing your hand to his mouth. he sucked on two of your fingers for fun.
another slip and slide in and out of you, watching your pussy clench around nothing, whines spilling out of your like a bitch in heat.
"i will seriously get up and put my clothes back on, titus."
"no you won't."
no you won't. you were right where you wanted to be. so then it came. faint, feather light, adorable.
"please..."
his eyes darkened, a rattle of shivers running down his spine.
"please... titus..." it really came out softly, with the lightest of sobs. "i need it. i need to feel it... anything..."
titus danforth loved games.
he loved the chase of them, the imbalance of them, the way people unfolded under pressure when he pushed the correct buttons in the correct order. especially women. especially pretty ones with enough sense to challenge him back a little before eventually giving in. even more so when he was fucking them.
but tonight was not a game, was it? not really.
because the past three days had hollowed you out piece by piece in ways even titus couldnât joke away. your father had resurfaced like something dragged from a grave. youâd learned the truth about your mother's death. youâd nearly died on a hospital floor with somebodyâs hands crushing your throat while your body fought desperately for air.
and human beings, at their core, were simple creatures when pushed far enough. eventually the brain stopped searching for meaning and started searching only for relief. something softer than panic. something warmer than grief.
really, anything that didn't hurt. of course you wanted that now.
for all his cruelty and theatrics and pathological need for control, there were rare moments where something in him sharpened into absolute sincerity. moments where the performance dropped away entirely and whatever remained beneath it became frighteningly real.
moments when titus danforth was completely, honestly, religiously serious about something. and tonight, it was you.
he leaned in a pressed a promising kiss to your lips, and finally pushed in, past any restraint, into your depths.
your eyes closed in relief, arms coming up to drape around his neck as you pulled him in. his head dropped into the crook of your neck, his lips placing more kisses to your skin.
the first few inches of his cock eased into you, filling in and taking the shape of your channel, a key fit into a lock.
titus thrusted into you, pushing further with every ram, every probe, till he bottomed out.
"ahhh, fuckkk... fuck... baby..." he groaned aloud, every cell in him nourished now that he was finally inside you, sheathed deep.
even through the rubber layer, you could feel his veins gliding in and out, embellishing his thrusts with so much more information.
your moans wafted into his ears like smoke from a cigarette. his cock dug its way into the maze of your cunt, hitting the finish line with every thrust, his happy trail scratching your pelvis.
your hands dug through his grey hair, tugging it hard as his hips slapped against yours. and the only moans that came out of you all sounded like his name. over and over. never once missing a syllable.
"titusângh, fuck..." you whimpered against his neck, feeling every minuscule brush of his cock inside you.
he rocked inside you slowly at first, then all at once, battering his way into your walls trying to outrace god knows what. to reach your g-spot first, to make you cum first, to get you first.
his cock swabbed your insides, scooping out as much arousal on its way out, then slammed it back inside. with every thrust, soft whimpers escaped your mouth, only for him. just for him.
"f-feels good? yeah?"
he felt you nod, your cheek moving up and down against his ear. he hoisted himself up on one arm, so he could look at you, study your face as it contorted, eased, as your jaw fell agape when you moaned sweetly.
"that's my girl... that's" thrust! "myângh" thrust! "f-fucking" thrust! "girl."
every jackhammering thrust of his sent you up up and up, your head nearly bumping the wall.
for the briefest millisecond, titus pulled out of you, scoring a long, needy whine from you.
"i know, i know, baby." he cooed softly as he roped his thick, muscular arms around you and flipped you over. just you. till you were on your stomach. he reeled you in, away from the wall and back under him, his chest melting into you back.
he lined his cock back with your hole and pushed in, watching your cunt swallow his length. god, what a sight.
his thighs now flat against the back of yours, he fucked into you, reckless and lustfully. there was no other way to describe it. he was beyond attraction. he couldn't think. he couldn't remember the last time he wanted someone this much, this bad. wanted someone close, beneath him, with him, inside every corner of his life until there no longer existed a version of the world untouched by you. it was downright sinful how much he wanted to consume you, devour you. not merely in the physical sense, though god knew his mind supplied enough of those thoughts to fill entire confessions.
no no no, this was holier. his cock buried in you was sacrilege.
devotion had been drilled so deeply into him it had long since become instinctive. but now within the privacy of his vile mind, he imagined worshipping you instead of mr le bail, kneel before the altar that was you.
you seated upon some impossible throne while he ruined himself willingly at your feet, reverent hands learning you like liturgy. it disgusted him sometimes, the depth of it. how easily he would abandon his and everyone's dignity for you.
how naturally his mind turned your existence into religion.
and perhaps the most dangerous part of all was that he did not resent you for it. if anything, he wanted to sink deeper into it.
to become willingly damned by it.
"i love you," he sputtered out, voice raspy and wrecked, but he did. "i love you. iâfuckâneed you."
he didn't wait to hear you say it back, he didn't even care if you didn't feel it back. he just wanted the world to know he was yours. he need you to know that.
he felt you pulse around him, a sign that always meant you wanted him more than ever. titus dug his hand under you, and wrapped his arm around your neck, holding you to him in a headlock.
"ngghhâti-titus don't.... please," you let out a helpless cry, hands clawing at his veiny forearm. no... no no no. not again. you didn't want to relive the feeling of being choked. not afterâ
"shhh... there's pleasure in pain... don't give him your fear. give it to me." he murmured low in your ear, hips rocking against your ass, cock plunging in and in and in until it kissed your cervix.
"you're safe," he grunted against your temple, thrusting into you once more. "you're safe with me. so let go."
exhaustion, shock, arousal, everything in your muscles and bones shuddered in you at the same time. the tension holding your spine rigid loosened first, your shoulders sagging beneath the weight of a breath that left you unevenly. then another followed. and another. your lungs started pulling air hastily, deeper and shakier, like your body was relearning how to breathe.
the first sob barely sounded like crying at all, more like fractured breathing. but once it started, your body stopped fighting it, fighting him.
everything came out at once after that.
your hand fisted the sheets, the other gripping his forearm keeping you in a chokehold, as the sobs tore through you harder now, like floodwater, no longer restrained or swallowed down.
guttural sobs, inelegant crying, your face pressed against his skin, your neck welcomed the pressure once again.
your body shook with the force of it, muscles finally exhausting themselves after remaining braced for disaster.
your cries and moans came out synonymously, so did your pain and pleasure.
it was hypnotic, how he fucked you.
the terror drained from your system, wrung out through every cry and shaking whimper as you let out a mewling moan, clenching hard around his cock and spasming till you came hard. your release gushed around his length, which kept thrusting inside you, letting you ride the waves of your climax.
that's what titus orgasmed hard to: your catharsis.
two cups of tea sat between you on the mattress, balanced precariously atop some thick hardcover book neither of you had bothered moving. steam curled faintly from the surface still, though titus hadnât touched his once.
he likely wouldnât.
right now, his entire attention remained fixed on you, his raison d'ĂŞtre. on the aftermath of you.
the flushed softness still lingering beneath your skin, the looseness in your posture that hadnât existed before tonight, the way you no longer looked like somebody seconds away from bolting at the slightest sound.
his fingers moved lazily against your ankle where it rested near his thigh, tracing slow absentminded circles against your skin while you sat opposite him with one knee tucked beneath your chin.
âthat was fucking embarrassing,â you muttered eventually, staring into your tea.
"that was beautiful," he murmured. "you're beautiful."
"i think i forgot how to think." you truly had, given how he fucked you into oblivion.
âthat mustâve been peaceful for you.â
you snorted softly. âfuck you.â
"i'm ready to," he said with a smirk.
titus leaned back slightly against the wall behind him, eyes never leaving your face. "did it help?"
you considered it properly before answering.
ââŚyeah,â you admitted quietly.
his phone buzzed once against the mattress. then again. then several times in rapid succession.
titus frowned faintly, clearly irritated by the interruption as he reached over and picked the device up from beside him. at first, his expression barely shifted while he skimmed through the notifications.
but then his annoyance disappeared and he stilled into morbid shock.
you watched the subtle shift happen in real timeâthe tightening around his mouth, the way his eyes sharpened as they moved across the screen a second time, slower now.
âwhatâs wrong?â you asked quietly, straightening a little where you sat.
he didnât answer immediately.
but he looked at you with an intensity that made something uncomfortable coil low in your stomach, almost like he was trying to memorise your face before something changed irreversibly.
âtitus,â you said again, more carefully this time. âwhatâs wrong?â
he held your gaze for another long second before finally exhaling through his nose.
âthe council seatâs been challenged.â
âwhat does that meaââ
âby your father.â
HUZZAH! they did it. they did the woohoo.
ssly, it took me two days to plan this chapter, write it, read it and throw up, then rewrite it. i deadass read my literary criticism notes to go over my own writing T_T.
the plot thus thickens.
soha when she was writing this chapter:
comments are loved loved loved, reblogs are always welcome, all my ghost readers; u da real gems
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the last great demented dynasty XI
titus danforth x y/n
previous part | next part
a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: now that you're out of the danforth manor, you try to keep your life from falling apart. new information comes to light. titus, on the other hand, grows more and more certain of his feelings for you, so it's a little antithetical that you're not there for him to confess to you...but that won't stop him from finding you
warnings: dark themes; mentions of blood trade, organ trade, death by blood loss, mention of tracking, but we got more soft titus, jealous titus
the police station smelled like burnt coffee and wet boots. that was the part you remembered the most.
not your father being dragged away in handcuffs, his voice hoarse as he tried to talk to you. not the neighbours staring from behind half-open doors. not even the flashing red and blue lights glowing around you.
you sat in a plastic chair too big for you, clutching a faded unicorn plushie tightly against your chest while your backpack rested by your dangling feet. mrs hayes from next door had packed it for you when the police took you with them. just two shirts, your pants, a toothbrush, mismatched socks, and a cereal bar from her own stash already crushed at the bottom.
you were twelve. and everything after that night felt like a rushed fever dream.
people kept you moving from precinct to precinct, room to room, chair to chair. like, nobody knew where children were supposed to go when their parent suddenly became felons.
everyone spoke around you about you, instead of to you.
"foster system"
"custody arrangements"
"CPS has already been informed"
every single sentence sounded procedural and detached. you sat there silently swinging your feet above the floor. they couldn't touch it fully.
a younger police officer eventually sat down beside you. he looked barely old enough to be there himself, a rookie perhaps.
"hey," he said gently.
he glanced at the unicorn in your arms. "you want a juice box or something? sandwich maybe?"
you stared ahead blankly. your father's voice still rang inside your skull in throbbing echoes. you hadn't cried yet, whihc seemed to concern everyone.
the officer shifted in his seat, fumbling for the right thing to say, being put on 'kid duty'.
"it's gonna be okay," he told you carefully, barely convinced himself. "a nice lady's gonna be here soon. she's gonna take you somewhere better."
better.
you remembered hating that word immediately. because nobody said where better was. just that you weren't going home anymore.
the world spun and stuttered violently before settling back into place. your stomach absolutely disagreed with the transition.
you stumbled forward against nothing with a strangled noise, your hand finding the lawyer's arm. nausea rolled through you like marbles. guess teleportationâor whatever the fuck just happenedâwas not a smooth ride for first timers.
beside you, the lawyer adjusted his gloves calmly, unaffected of course.
your old apartment stood almost empty around you. most of the furniture remained. but your belongings were gone, they were at the manor.
yuck, it smelled stale. exactly like a place that had spent too long waiting for someone who never came back.
for a moment, neither of you spoke. it was raining in hartford too. just as heavily. you swallowed hard, still dizzy, before finally glancing over your shoulder at him.
"did you know my father?"
the lawyer looked up mildly.
you pressed on before you could lose your nerve. "not just know him. i mean⌠what he did."
his little smile unfortunately, answered the question before he even opened his mouth. of course he knew. the man practically crawled out of the fine print of curses and sacrifices.
"information," he said smoothly, "is something i possess in abundance, miss l/n."
he straightened the sleeve of his coat with precise elegance.
"but giving it away for free would put me out of business, wouldnât it?"
you stared at him with wide eyes. "seriously?"
he only smiled politely.
"havenât i earned enough?" you snapped. "i"m not exactly being paid for any of this."
"and yet," he replied pleasantly, "you enjoy the ambience it comes with."
you wanted to throw something at him. preferably a brick. instead, you folded your arms tightly across yourself, exhaustion suddenly settling into your bones like lead.
the lawyer glanced towards the window briefly before reaching for the handle of his umbrella once more.
âsorry,â he said lightly. ânot sorry. my work here is done.â
you hated the way he said things like that. like he genuinely found himself charming.
before you could argue again, he added: "do rememberâthe ring's effects will only persist while you remain away from mr danforth. should you encounter him again, the ring will cease to be of use."
your stomach twisted unpleasantly. but truth be told, for now, that sounded preferable to facing titus again. preferable to stepping foot back in that manor again, or ever.
you'd almost forgotten what trains felt like.
after weeks of limousines and yachts and chandeliers, the train felt so human. it was messy and crowded and so alive.
people sat slouched in their seats with their takeaway coffees and overstuffed bags. people leaned against doors they weren't supposed to, stood on the little junction plate that shifted every time the train turned. somebody argued over the phone. teenagers and junkies slept against each other with their mouths open. some mother scolding her child for the millionth time to sit still.
normal people fucking finally.
youâd missed that more than you realised and under different circumstances, you mightâve even enjoyed being back amongst it. except your father was apparently alive and well, hiding beneath the danforth manor like a secret.
a man you hadnât seen in twelve years. a man youâd watched vanish from your life in handcuffs.
you swallowed hard against the bile rising in your throat.
heâd been a doctor to the danforths. just a doctor. did he know about the rituals? had he also been a part of it? how else would he know what to do.
the thought made your skin prick against itself so hard,, you shoved it away before it could fully form.
you stepped off the train quickly once it reached the station, burying yourself in movement before your thoughts could catch up again. cold air slapped against your face as you made your way through the crowd and down familiar streets towards somewhere you hadnât realised you missed quite this much.
the university building looked exactly the same. depressing. full of people pretending academia wasnât just organised sleep deprivation with citations.
youâd barely stepped inside the department when david spotted you.
"where the hell have you been?"
and that was your welcome back.
he strode towards you immediately, looking halfway between furious and relieved. "i called you, you never answered. i went by your apartment, your landlord said you packed up and left?" his brows furrowed sharply. "y/nâŚ"
"i... know." pathetic answer.
but genuinely, what else could you say?
'sorry, i got kidnapped into a billionaire death cult and accidentally uncovered my father participating in ritual sacrifice beneath a manor house?'
there truly was not a socially acceptable way to explain a danforth to normal people.
david exhaled hard through his nose before pulling you suddenly into a hug.
"christ," he muttered. "glad youâre okay."
you stiffened slightly from surprise.
"come on," he said, stepping back. "i'll get you a coffee. weâll talk in my office."
when youâd first met david, you genuinely hadnât thought the two of you would get along. heâd seemed too informal to be taken seriously as a supervisor. turns out, he was alright. too alright sometimes. there was very little professionalism between the two of you anymore, which youâd quietly exploited on multiple occasions whenever deadlines started approaching like biblical plagues.
"where have you been?" he asked again once the door shut behind you. "you just disappeared."
you rubbed tiredly at your face. "here and there."
"that is not an answer."
"look," you sighed, "i canât really tell you anything right now. and i still donât know if i can come back full-time."
david stared at you carefully while you pushed forward.
"i can probably do remote work for now. butâŚ" your voice faltered slightly. "i'll be honest, i really need my grant money this month."
the look he gave you bordered on disbelief.
"y/n," he said slowly, "you missed classes. an whole paper submission. and now youâre asking me for money?"
"yes" you said without hesitation. "i wouldnât ask if i wasnât desperate. you swallowed. "i canât use my cards right now, so⌠cash would actually help."
he scoffed softly, leaning back in his chair. "this is completely unacceptable."
normally, youâd have had the patience to deal with this conversation properly. normally, youâd joke your way through it. normally, youâd explain things carefully. but something inside you had eroded over the last few days, stripped raw by the constant feeling that something terrible was approaching faster than you could outrun it.
"then give me half," you snapped quietly. "please. i donât have another option."
davidâs expression shifted instantly. concern replaced irritation almost immediately as he stood from behind the desk and moved to sit beside you instead.
"hey," he said softly. his hand settled against your thigh without hesitation.
"are you in trouble? is someone hurting you?"
he wouldâve made a good confidant. reliable. patient. kind in the way the most ideal people were. the kind of person who answered phone calls at two in the morning and actually meant it when they said let me know if you need anything. you shouldâve felt relieved. safe even. instead, all your attention locked onto his hand on your thigh, which should have felt comforting really. someone cares, someone is a normal person. but it didn't.
because david's thumb stayed still, not like titus...
your stomach dropped.
oh god.
titus wouldâve woken up by now.
he wouldâve found your room empty.
the entire family was probably searching already, spreading through the manor halls like bloodhounds preparing for a hunt for you. or part of your hand.
and if they found you?
your thoughts spiralled violently from there, each possibility worse than the last. punishment. anger. retaliation. something ritualistic and horrifying. something strangely personal. nothing made sense. all you felt was confusion and dissociation, and dread. an awful wrongness about the world. as if the earth was spinning in the other direction suddenly.
before davidâs hand could move any further, you stood abruptly.
"i'm gonna go."
"what?" he blinked at you. "you literally just got here. and you still need to talk to the universityâyou canât disappear again like that."
you felt that nausea toss and turn inside you all over. you shook your head immediately. "look, iâll call you later," you muttered. "right now i just⌠i canât do this. i really canât."
"y/nâ"
you were already halfway out the door before he could finish. not bothering to listen to his calls out to you as you left the way you came in.
the danforth manor woke to a different kind of chaos that morning. not the usual servants rushing to cater to the family's whims. a little sharper.
like hearing the beating heart under the floorboards and calling everyone to tear them apart.
what began with ursula reviewing the manorâs camera feeds quickly unravelled into the horrifying discovery that the family apparently knew alarmingly little about their own home. or what crawled through it. she stood silently before the monitor wall while footage flickered from screen to screen: hallways, staircases, the west wing, the basement corridors, frames frozen as she followed the intruder.
the man moved through the grainy footage with an uneven gait, shoulders hunched beneath an old coat. his beard had grown thick and unkempt over the years, his hair longer now, streaked with grey. there was a slight limp in the way he walked.
but the recognition was immediate. f/n l/n. your father.
the very man the family had originally been searching for before accidentally collecting you instead.
and there he was wandering freely through the manor like an infestation. the footage showed him moving through the halls, slipping into your room, disappearing towards the basement. ursulaâs expression darkened further with every second, along with her frown.
and unfortunately for everyone involved, that was the exact moment titus walked in.
"what happened?"
ursula looked over slowly. "we found the intruder."
titus frowned immediately, stepping closer to the screens. the second his eyes landed on the footage, his entire posture sharpened.
then, instantly: "does she know?"
ursula said nothing. titus turned towards her fully, his stare turning lethal. "tell me," he said coldly. "does she know?"
ursula pressed her lips together briefly before exhaling through her nose. "âŚsheâs not here."
titus blinked once. "what do you mean sheâs not here?"
"she left. left the house."
his expression hardened immediately into disbelief. "she canât leave," he snapped. "she has to remain near me at all times."
"that," ursula replied dryly, pointing across the room, "would be his fault."
sitting comfortably in the corner like an on-vacation 'gone fishing' man waiting for theatre to begin, the lawyer lounged in an armchair with perfect composure. a servant stood beside him holding a silver tray while he leisurely plucked grapes from the arrangement.
titus looked between him and ursula once.
"what's he doing here?"
"if y/n's father has anything to do with the missing translations, we need to get rid of him. those rituals can't get out of the council. so i had him bring us those files. and he was the one who told me y/n won't be back for a while..."
titus leapt like a leopard.
one second the lawyer was seated peacefully. the next, titus had him slammed upright by the collar.
"what did you do?"
the lawyer merely raised an eyebrow, which roughly translated into 'who exactly do you think you are to threaten me?'
titus' grip tightened viciously.
"she came to me," the lawyer answered smoothly.
"whose side are you on?" titus growled. "who are you loyal to, hm?"
"mr le bail," he replied without hesitation. "before any of you."
that nearly earned him a direct burial six feet beneath the ground. titus lurched forward violently enough that two nearby servants scattered instantly while ursula grabbed his arm before the situation escalated into an actual homicide.
"she left last night," ursula said quickly. "the cameras showed her running from the manor."
her gaze flickered briefly towards the basement footage. "âŚi'm assuming she knows."
and just like that, titus stilled. enough for the fury to settle into something else. it made sense. youâd discovered your father beneath the manor. alive. after twelve years of believing him gone. of course you ran. of course the first instinct would be escape.
to him, however? it felt like betrayal and heartbreak. because you hadnât gone to him. you hadnât asked for help. youâd just disappeared. did you really trust him that little? the thought landed harder than he cared to admit.
a cocktail of emotions ran through his stream: anger, fury, confusion, frustration, longing... to see you again. to find you. to have you back in his arms, where he couldâwouldâprotect you.
without another word, he grabbed his coat from the nearby chair.
ursula watched him already knowing exactly what came next. "where are you going?"
titus didnât bother answering. he was already halfway out the room. honestly, none of them needed the explanation anyway. he was going to find his way back to you.
youâd met meghana during your bachelorâs degree.
two exhausted teenagers bonded initially by shared academic suffering and mutual hatred for seven a.m. lectures. somewhere along the way, the friendship had simply⌠stuck. both of you essentially being immigrants of sorts, you simply got each other really well.
even after graduation, even when life scattered both of you into different schedules and responsibilities, you always found your way back to each other eventually. sometimes weeks passed without seeing one another. sometimes months. didn't matter. whenever things went catastrophically wrong, the other inevitably appeared.
which was exactly how you ended up sitting on the rooftop of her apartment building at nearly midnight, passing a joint back and forth while the city glittered below.
well... she passed it back and forth. you mostly just inhaled incorrectly and coughed fucks out of your lungs because you never understood how to smoke one.
"jesus christ," meghana laughed while you hacked your lungs out beside her. "you smoke like youâre being attacked."
"i am being attacked," you wheezed. "by a fucking plant."
she rolled her eyes fondly before taking the joint back from you.
for a while, the two of you just sat there in silence, legs dangling over the ledge while distant traffic hummed below.
then: "you didnât talk to him?"
you immediately snorted.
"fuck no." your voice came out sharper than intended. "that man is dead to me."
the words settled heavily between you. and then, "also," you added after a pause, "it wasnât exactly a situation where i could casually go over and have a chat."
you hesitated briefly, carefully choosing what not to say. youâd already told meghana the basicsâthat some obscenely wealthy family connected to your own had dragged you into helping them with⌠something.
ritualistic billionaire nonsense.
close enough. the less she knew, the safer she stayed.
âhe didnât hurt you, did he?â she asked quietly. you shook your head immediately.
"no. i donât think he even saw me." your stomach tightened faintly. "or heard me. maybe he knows now, butâŚ" you exhaled slowly. "i'd rather not think about that."
meghana studied you for a moment before gently nudging your shoulder with hers. âhow are you doing though?â
you laughed once, a genuinely miserable sound.
âiâm fucked.â you looked over at her, your feet swinging idly over the edge of the building.
"i need money, megs. enough for food and maybe a shirt or two." you rubbed tiredly at your face. "when i ran, i kinda left everything behind."
"wait,â she blinked. "even chomsky?"
your entire expression crumpled instantly. "âŚyeah."
god. you missed that cat.
"i want him back," you muttered. "but that place is absolutely not for me right now. and honestly? heâs probably safer there."
a pause. "also heâs getting fucking fatter. they feed him expensive tuna."
meghana burst out laughing. "yeah, that tracks. chomsky loves being pampered."
"he was born for luxury," you sighed mournfully. "heâs spiritually unemployed."
she grinned before nudging your knee lightly. "i've got, like⌠a grand in cash right now, maybe? if you need more, give me a little time. i can sort something out."
you immediately shook your head. "no, no. oneâs enough." you sighed. "i'm gonna try my supervisor again. see if i can get the grant money released."
"how is david?" she asked casually. "he seemed genuinely panicked when you disappeared."
you groaned softly. "david is⌠david."
which somehow answered absolutely nothing and everything simultaneously. meghana gave you a knowing look. then, carefully: "âŚand the other man?"
your breath caught faintly. because unfortunately your traitorous brain chose that exact moment to replay every lingering touch, every heated glance, every kiss that still burned beneath your skin like a bruise you kept pressing just to see if it hurt.
flammable.
that was the only word for him. you looked away quickly.
"âŚwhat man?"
when titus found your apartment sometime in the following afternoon, after climbing up endless flights of stairs much to the discomfort of his bow-legged knees, he didn't expect to be greeted by the world's worst fucking place of residence. or whatever was left of it.
he stood in the doorway staring at your flat with genuine disbelief.
this was where you lived? this?
the walls were covered in taylor swift posters strategically placed over visible cracks in the paint. a string of fairy lights hung sadly across one corner of the room, entirely nonfunctional. old pens and papers occupied nearly every surface available.
pots and pans collecting dust and grime in the sink.
and then there was the bed. or rather, the mattress thrown directly onto the floor with what appeared to be a folded towel serving as a pillow.
titus stared at it in silence, horrified. he would sooner perish publicly than willingly surround himself with conditions like these.
the bathroom door stood slightly ajar nearby and, judging by the suspicious water stains creeping beneath it, he already knew entering would psychologically damage him forever.
and yet you had lived here. you had been here. so, naturally, he was here too.
because when it came to you, titus had long since stopped pretending his behaviour followed any rational logic whatsoever. heâd just begun debating whether he was emotionally prepared to inspect the bathroom when a knock sounded at the door.
titus frowned immediately. who the hellâ
he opened it to find a man standing outside, dressed neatly enough to suggest academia or finance. dark coat, tired eyes, annoyingly approachable face. and irritatingly familiar.
"âŚand who are you?"
the man blinked once upon seeing him.
"who are you?" he replied coldly. "whereâs y/n?"
titusâ expression flattened instantly.
"not here," titus answered before the man could push further. "who are you?"
the guy hesitated briefly. "david norton. i'm her supervisor."
ah. that's who it was. recognition clicked instantly into place. from your photographs, tagged department events online, standing beside you in pictures where you looked comfortable enough.
"i'm here to see y/n."
titusâ gaze dropped immediately to the envelope in the manâs hand. his eyes narrowed. there was a strange kind of tension that appeared almost instantly between them, sharp and territorial on titusâ part.
david looked him over once, suspicion settling into his posture. "and you are?"
titus smiled, which was never a good sign.
"someone significantly more patient than iâm about to become if you continue standing there."
davidâs brows furrowed. "right. okay, listen, i donât know who you are, but if y/nâs here, i need to talk to her."
"need?"
"yeah."
"interesting choice of wording," titus commented.
david exhaled slowly, already visibly regretting this interaction.
"look, mateâ"
"donât call me mate."
"fine. whoever the hell you areâ"
titus snatched the envelope clean out of his hand before he could finish.
"what the fuckâ"
the door slammed directly in davidâs face. titus tore the envelope open immediately. cash, a thick stack of it.
and suddenly there it was again; that same ugly feeling clawing through him from the inside out because you hadnât come to him. you needed help, needed money, needed somewhere safe to land after fleeing the manor, and instead of turning to him, you went to another man.
some man who clearly thought he had the right to show up at your apartment holding cash like he was swooping in to save you.
"you don't need her. i need her. i need her..." he mumbled to himself, pocketing the cash in his coat.
jealousy was an ugly emotion and titus danforth wore it exceptionally well.
"yeah... i need her," words with heavy breaths.
before he could stop himself, he yanked the door back open again. david was still standing there in the hallway, phone pressed to his ear while it rang unanswered. he barely had time to react before titus grabbed him aggressively by the collar and slammed him back against the wall.
"donât fucking come here again," titus snarled.
david shoved hard against his grip instantly. "get your hands off meâ"
"go stalk some other student," titus hissed, tightening his hold. "leave my y/n alone."
then he shoved david away hard enough to stagger him backwards before slamming the door shut for the second time.
titus dragged a wooden chair inside your apartment and planted it right before the door, and sat down, lets spread, arms crossed. if he was to camp out here all day, he would. because you were going to come back to him and only him.
âŹâ.Ë malena; ennio morricone, academia musica italiana
when the apartment door finally unlocked, titus straightened immediately in the chair. he had just been sitting there, waiting patiently, which frankly, was concerningly out of character for him.
his eyes stayed fixed on the door as it opened, and despite himself, despite the anger that simmered in him, something in his heart fluttered at the sight of you again.
it had only been a day. one fucking day away from you. and yet seeing you standing there felt almost unfamiliar now, like he was relearning you all over again.
you stumbled inside carrying two paper bags filled almost entirely with instant noodles and other aggressively depressing food options that confirmed every terrible opinion he already had about your living conditions.
you shut the door behind you. turned around... and nearly walked straight back into it. because he was just there. the bags in your arms almost slipped from your hands. a quiet, suspended second went by.
for a moment, you didnât know what to do or say. hell, you were grateful you knew how to breathe because the way titus was looking at you made it genuinely unclear whether heâd wanted to say hello or just strangle you.
"titus..." his name falling out of your mouth was enough.
he rose from the chair immediately and crossed the room towards you in slow deliberate steps. without a word, he took the bags from your hands and dropped them carelessly onto the floor beside him. then he looked at you.
just that. he didn't say anything immediately, though the words were rattling the cages of his teeth.
his hands came up slowly to cradle your face. warm palms cupping your skin. his thumbs brushed softly across your cheeks in small absent-minded strokes while his eyes searched for the world in yours, for reasons. questions crowded behind his stare.
why didnât you come to me?
did your wrist hurt while you were away?
had you eaten anything proper?
had you slept at all?
were you alone?
were you still his?
"you left," his voice came out quieter than expected.
you gulped. "i know."
"you couldve come to me."
"i wasn't thinkingâ"
"i would've kept you safe." the interruption came instantly. titusâ brows drew together slightly as though the very idea shouldâve been obvious.
"i wanted to." his throat tightened faintly. "you⌠ursula⌠my father⌠i know all of you think i'm incapable of caring."
his thumbs slowed against your skin.
"and maybe i am. maybe i do it wrong." a humourless breath left him. "but i do care. in my own way, i care about you. for you."
the words sounded almost unfamiliar coming from him, fragile in a way titus danforth simply wasnât supposed to be. his voice cracked slightly around the next breath.
"i need you to know that." his gaze locked onto yours completely. "i need you to know me."
you had no idea how to receive gentleness from a man like titus. it felt more dangerous than his threats somehow. your eyes dropped briefly, avoiding the intensity of his stare.
"âŚhow did you even find me this fast?"
titus answered immediately. "the first time i drugged you and brought you to the manor, i put a tracker in you."
you blinked and wore a question mark on your face. "huh"?
his hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, fingers pressing lightly against the faintest scar hidden near your nape.
"it's implantable."
you stared at him in disbelief. "you're insane."
titus tilted his head slightly. "about you?" he murmured. "yeah."
the worst part was that you wanted to be horrified. you really did. and normal people would probably scream or call the police, most certainly develop survival instincts. instead, some deeply broken part of your brain went, honestly? fair fucking enough. because realistically, if you kidnapped a stranger into a horrifying billionaire cult situation, youâd probably keep tabs on them too.
your hand came up slowly to rest over his forearm. the movement drew both your attentions downwardâtowards the gold ring still sitting on your finger.
the metal had begun to darken. soft smoke curled faintly from its surface as the enchantment dissolved now that titus stood in front of you again.
his expression shifted immediately. "you okay?"
"iâŚ" your voice faltered. "i donât know how to answer that."
finally, titus lowered his hands from your face, though he still kept hold of youâfingers sliding down your arms until they settled carefully around your wrists, gently holding your hands like he was afraid you might vanish again if he loosened his grip.
his jaw tightened slightly.
"we need to talk."
âŹâ.Ë still life with glass of absinthe and a carafe; clint mansell
somehow, the two of you managed to settle into the apartment.
you stood in the tiny kitchenette making instant coffee with water from a kettle that looked one electrical spark away from exploding, while titus sat nearby watching you with the sort of focus usually reserved for bomb defusal. he accepted the chipped mug you handed him without a single complaint, which honestly said more about his state of mind than any dramatic declaration ever could.
normally, titus danforth would rather die elegantly than consume instant coffee.
but now that he'd found you again, the last thing he cared about was quality of life.
for a while, the room stayed quiet except for distant traffic outside and the occasional hiss of your radiator.
then titus mentioned your father. it was subtle, the way your body reacted: a small wince, your shoulders tensing, your fingers tightening too hard around the mug until your knuckles paled.
"did you find the other basement?" you asked quietly after a moment. your voice caught slightly halfway through the sentence. "that's where i saâ"
"yes," the answer came in directly.
"and the other man?"
"dead. found the body yesterday morning."
your stomach dropped so suddenly it felt physical. "and him?"
titus shook his head once. "haven't seen him since. but he's somewhere."
your response was primal and immediate. "i'm not going back. not while he's out there. i can't."
titus had expected that. how could he not? after what youâd seen, there was no realistic way he could force you back into the manor without breaking something essential in you. and beyond that, the family still had no idea what exactly your father wanted or what heâd been doing beneath the house all this time.
for now, you were safer here. even if titus hated every single thing about this apartment.
he stayed quiet for a long moment before finally speaking again. "thereâs something else you need to know."
his hand disappeared into the inside pocket of his coat before pulling out a thin file folder.
your brows furrowed immediately. "whatâs that?"
titus looked down briefly at the papers in his hands. "things your father did."
you recoiled instantly. "i don't wanna know. i've heard enough already."
titus exhaled slowly through his nose. then, softly spoke. "sweetheart."
the word made you look up. he didn't look angry or stubborn. maybe a little careful, and serious.
"if it comes to that," he said gently, "we wonât hesitate to kill him."
the honesty of it landed brutally between you. titus moved a little closer before continuing. "and i can't risk you finding out the truth later and trying to stop us because you hoped there was still something redeemable left. some last minute sympathy for him."
his voice lowered further.
"i'm sorry." genuinely sorry. "but you need to see this."
your hands felt strangely numb as you accepted the file from him. for a second, you just stared at it. then you opened it. now some things inside, you already knew: the illegal blood selling. using patients to draw extra litres of blood during procedures and quietly selling them off for profit. you remembered whispers of investigation surrounding the clinic years ago. rumours nobody had fully explained to you at the time.
but the deeper you read, the worse it became.
organ trafficking. only a handful of cases, as though that somehow improved anything. your stomach churned with sickness. you paused for a moment, eyes unfocusing from the page while your mind struggled to reconcile the image of your father with the crimes listed neatly before you.
doctor.
father.
criminal.
murderer.
the words refused to fit together properly. still, you kept reading. and that was perhaps a mistake you couldn't undo.
because further down the page sat reports that had never reached legal prosecution. incidents quietly buried before authorities ever touched them.
and amongst the statements sat a name you recognised instantly.
your motherâs. the world seemed to stop. you read the paragraph once. then again, and again, but the words never changed.
'b-ve blood group, high value, repeated extraction, excessive siphoning resulting in fatal blood loss'
it smoothed into one sentence: your father drained the life out of your mother and had her killed.
no, not accidentally, or indirectly, but professionally.
your lungs locked completely. the air refused to leave your chest. your hands released the file so suddenly it scattered across the floor like something infected. you stood abruptly, backing away from the papers with visible panic, as though physical distance might somehow make the information less morbid. less real even.
titus rose immediately, watching helplessly as you retreated towards the corner of the room. you folded into yourself between the meeting point of two walls, shoulders hunched tight while your face disappeared into shadow.
he remembered it too. you used to do this.
every time you became overwhelmed or frightened or anxious, youâd instinctively hide your eyes from the world somehow. against walls. against cushions. against your own arms.
if you couldnât see the world, maybe the world couldnât fully reach you either.
slowly, titus approached.
he placed one careful hand against your shoulder and immediately felt the violent shaking running through your body as sobs finally tore loose from somewhere deep inside you. at first, you shoved his hand away weakly and he let it fall. but he gently placed it back again.
his other arm slid carefully around your waist, pulling you backwards against his chest with enough caution to make it clear he expected rejection at any second. bit when it didn't come, he held you there. both arms wrapped tightly around you while you cried soundlessly into the corner of the room like an animal cornered and terrified.
titus lowered his head slowly until his lips rested against your hair, bearing witness to every broken sound you let out.
a/n: the themes here are dark. and disturbing. so i understand if you're not comfortable reading this, or you want to stop altogether and abandon the story. that's okay. again, my intention is not to terrorise you; i am a writer and i write to be truthful. if writing or art doesn't make you feel anything (yes, even disgusted), then it is not art yet.
a/n 2: for those wondering what a 'meghana' is, she really is one of my closest friends from grad college, and i miss her so much. i hope i get to see her again. just shoving her in my book because i miss her
a/n 3: also, for anyone wondering how i write stories. i've been going through this book called The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. my mom used it during her screenwriting days and honestly, it's really helpful. also my own degree lmao, has given me a lot of metalinguistic data on how to linguistically encode certain things (like emotions for example. i don't always have to say 'she's angry'. i can describe it through body language, breath, colours, entities which can carry polysemy and metaphor and make a reader actually point out where that emotion can be felt, how it looks, how it smells, etc.)
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the last great demented dynasty X
titus danforth x y/n
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a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: on one hand, you're slowly starting to understand titus, on the other, you want to fight the attraction. but most of all, you want to escape the hellhole the danforth manor is becoming. and there's perhaps one unusual person who can help with it.
warnings: again, kissing, titus really loves kissing us y'all, mean chester, mentions of child abuse (psychological), mentions of animal abuse (though i strictly condemn it), blood, rituals, cruelty
chester danforth on his own was a frightening man.
chester danforth angry, however, was a calamity.
you spent the better part of twenty minutes standing inside his recovery room alongside titus and ursula, enduring the storm rolling off him in waves. even bedridden, weak with illness, tubes and medicine lining the room, he was eerie.
âhas this family stooped so low,â chester said slowly, voice sharp with disbelief, âthat we cannot even protect sheets of paper?â
nobody answered.
his glare moved between his children with quiet disgust.
âarenât you handling security?â
ursula straightened instinctively beneath the accusation. âwe do have security, father. no one gets in or out of the manor without ourââ
âclearly,â chester interrupted coldly, âsomeone did.â
that shut her up immediately.
you stood near the back with your arms folded tightly, trying very hard to look invisible despite being the entire reason this disaster mattered in the first place.
chesterâs breathing rasped slightly before his eyes shifted toward titus.
âand you.â his tone lowered dangerously. âyouâre incompetent, that much i know. but this was your responsibility.â
titusâ jaw flexed once.
he still didnât look at his father directly.
âdad, i juââ
the crack of chesterâs palm across his cheek split through the room so sharply it made you flinch. titusâ head snapped slightly to the side from the force of it. not dramatic. not enough to stagger him. but enough.
chesterâs breathing turned heavier with fury.
âbe a man, titus,â he spat. âfind whoever did this. and do not show your face until you do.â
for once, titus danforth had nothing clever to say. no smirk, no sarcastic remark. nothing. he just stood there very still, cheek slowly reddening beneath the dim light. and to your own annoyance, something inside your chest twisted painfully at the sight.
because beneath all the money and arrogance and violence and monstrousness, you saw only one thing: hurt.
maybe not from the slap. titus looked like the kind of man who could take a beating without blinking. but the disappointment and humiliation of having his father look at him like he was failure personified.
you saw the tiny twitch in his jaw before he swallowed hard enough for his throat to bob. and suddenly he didnât look untouchable anymore. just a cruel man's son.
you kinda hated that you felt bad for him.
on your way out of the room, ursula intercepted both you and titus before either of you could make it past the corridor. you felt an interrogation coming.
âyou were here when it happened,â she said sharply.
âafter it happened,â titus corrected flatly.
ursula ignored him completely, eyes fixed on you instead.
âmy room wasnât searched. neither was titusâ. just yours.â her expression hardened. âthat is awfully suspicious.â
you narrowed your eyes at her immediately.
âright. because i was obviously in two places at once.â
âand why should we believe you?â ursula shot back. âyou spend more time in that basement than any of us. you could easily steal whatever you want from there.â her voice dripped with accusation. âshare family secrets. sell them to bidders.â
wow. the allegations just kept getting creative.
you crossed your arms tightly over yourself, trying very hard not to snap in a hallway right outside chesterâs room.
âmaybe,â ursula continued coldly, âyou got a taste of our wealth and decided you wanted more than you could bite.â
you stared at her in disbelief. honestly, insulting you was one thing. acting like you wanted to be them somehow felt worse.
âmaybe you thought you could strike a deal with mr le bail behind our backs.â
âthis is absurd.â
âno,â ursula said icily. âyou are. i never trusted you.â
âyou donât have to.â
her jaw tightened. âwe have methods to make you speak, y/n.â
ah yes. casual torture mention. classic danforth family communication style.
you lifted your hands slightly in exhausted disbelief. âyou people are fucking unbelievable, you know that?â
neither sibling interrupted you.
âyou drag me away from my life, make me illegally look after your father â fine. iâm doing that.â your voice rose with every sentence. âthen you rope me into your demonic little translation project? iâm doing that too. you make me attend that nightmare wedding, parade around beside you on camera all night, and i didnât fucking protest.â
your laugh came out humourless.
âand now you wanna accuse me of stealing my own work? while i wasnât even in the house?â
ursulaâs face remained stony, but you could see irritation flashing beneath it. good. you stepped closer toward her, towering over the shorter woman.
âyou know,â you said sharply, âaccusations usually require merit. proof. evidence. you have none.â
beside you, titus stayed silent. watching. always fucking watching.
âno amount of generational wealth is gonna change the fact that your family mishandled its own security.â your voice cut cleaner now. calmer. meaner. âberate me all you want, ursula. fact remains, i was with your brother the entire time.â
you pointed once toward the hallway cameras.
âso maybe,â you continued, âinstead of attacking whateverâs closest to you, take a fucking second and use your fucking head.â
silence rang between all three of you like the gong of a bell.
âdonât come crawling back to me when you find somebody entirely different than me on those recordings.â
ursula huffed sharply through her nose, shoulders stiff with fury. then she turned and stormed off down the hallway, heels clicking violently against marble like gunfire. the moment she disappeared around the corner, silence settled again. you exhaled hard and rubbed your temple.
you turned to titus, mildly fuming.
âand you. grow a spine. youâre all chatty and handsy when you wanna touch me, but now you just stand there silent? what, you think iâm behind this too?â
titus shot you a look, deeply offended in the most theatrical way possible. âi didnât say that.â
âyou didnât say anything,â you snapped. âyou just stood there like a fucking column.â
his jaw twitched. âwhat did you expect me tââ
âback me up a little? was i not with you the entire time?â
âyes, you were.â
âthen maybe mention that the next time your sister decides to accuse me of utterly impossible shit?â
âdoes it matter what i say?â titus exhaled, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. âshe canât prove itâs you.â
âthatâs because it ISN'T ME. my god.â
your voice bounced sharply off the stone corridor walls. somewhere deeper in the manor, thunder rolled low outside, rattling faintly through the windows. fitting. everything in this cursed house seemed to demand ambience.
âokay, okayâŚâ titus caught your wrists before you could start gesturing wildly again, fingers closing firmly around your hands. âi know. it wasnât you.â
you tried tugging free once out of pure principle, but he only held on tighter.
âyou people are insane,â you muttered, breath uneven with frustration. âdo you hear yourselves? âperhaps she struck a deal with mr le bail behind our backsââwhat does that even mean? what am i supposed to do, email satan?â
despite everything, titusâ mouth twitched.
that only irritated you further.
âdonât fucking smile at me.â
âiâm trying not to.â
âtry harder.â
his thumb absently brushed against the inside of your wrist, right over the cursed sigil. the touch was almost thoughtless. familiar now. that somehow annoyed you more than if heâd done it deliberately.
titus watched you quietly for a moment then, the amusement fading just slightly around the edges. your hair was a mess from the night. your makeup long gone. and somehow, even furious and sleep deprived, you still looked unbearably beautiful to him.
âhey,â he said softer this time.
you looked at him suspiciously. âwhat.â
âi said i know it wasnât you.â his hand slid from your wrist to your elbow, steadying, grounding. âand iâll deal with ursula.â
you scoffed lightly. âsure you will.â
âi will.â
the day was turning out to be pathetic. first, the whole burglary. then chester danforth scolding everyone like a school's headmaster. then ursula blaming you for it. titus? you didn't know where to put him.
he wasnât exactly defending you like some knight in shining armourâwhich, thank god, because that wouldâve been unbearableâbut he also wasnât frothing at the mouth accusing you of espionage and insider trading.
you supposed that counted for something.
upstairs, you stood beneath the shower far longer than necessary, forehead resting against cool tile as water streamed over your shoulders. your body ached with that strange hollow fatigue that came after too much adrenaline. like your bones themselves had stayed awake too long.
by the time you stepped out, the manor outside your bathroom windows had sunk into a dull grey afternoon. rain threatened in the distance.
dressed now in loose pants, an old t-shirt, a jacket on, damp hair bundled into a towel, you stared at the state of your room with unease. it looked mostly normal again. drawers had been shoved back in. closet doors closed. books restacked. one of the maids had already replaced your crumpled sheets with fresh linen that smelled faintly of lavender. you bent down slowly, gathering scattered papers from beside your desk, smoothing creases from them with your palm before placing them back into neat piles, aligned your pens, adjusted a crooked frame.
small acts of repair, useless attempts at reclaiming god knows what. because the violation throbbed anyway.
like being a patient after surgery. stitched back together, technically fine, organs returned where they belongedâbut still carrying the nauseating awareness that somebody had cut you open and dug inside.
your eyes drifted toward the wardrobe. then the desk. then the balcony doors.
you kept imagining unfamiliar hands touching your things. rifling through your books. opening your drawers. reading your notes. standing where you stood.
chomsky jumped onto the bed with a soft thud, circled twice atop the fresh sheets, then flopped down like none of this concerned him in the slightest.
lucky bastard.
you sat beside him, towel still wrapped around your hair, and exhaled shakily into the quiet room.
rain tapped steadily against the tall windows of chester danforthâs recovery room, turning the manor grey and muted, something very 19th century.
chester sat near the fireplace in a dark robe, one blanket spread over his legs while he skimmed through financial papers with a pair of glasses low on his nose. every few minutes, he coughed into a handkerchief with visible irritation.
you stood beside him, preparing the medicines to give him. the man had just about everything under the sun; diabetes, hypertension, bronchitis, joint pain, and the newfound arrhythmia. you handed him a glass of water along with his medication.
you busied yourself adjusting some things around the room, mostly because your mind kept drifting back to the basement. to the missing pages. to your room turned inside out. eventually, guilt won over.
âiâm sorry,â you murmured quietly.
chester looked up from his papers.
âfor what?â
âthe notes. i shouldâve secured them better.â
he stared at you for a moment, then scoffed softly through his nose.
âif a danforth manor cannot protect paper from thieves, that is hardly the fault of a guest.â
guest.
that was generous considering you were essentially a magically tethered hostage with healthcare duties. a stay-at-home medic.
chester folded one paper neatly atop another. âmy children are simply incompetent.â
you leaned against the table slightly, arms folding loosely. âthatâs⌠one way to put it.â
âursula has discipline,â he admitted after a moment. âmore than titus ever had. she resembles her mother in temperament.â
there was something quieter in his tone then. not softness exactly. memory.
âyour wife?â you asked carefully.
chester gave a single nod.
evelyn was meticulous. composed. people mistook her elegance for gentleness. they often realised too late that she possessed neither patience nor mercy.â there was almost pride in his voice. âa woman of character.â
you could absolutely picture ursula descending from someone terrifyingly beautiful and emotionally lethal.
âursula inherited that presence,â chester continued. âshe commands attention naturally. people listen when she enters a room.â
you remembered the boutique staff nearly developing cardiac arrest upon realising who ursula was.
âbut,â he sighed, âshe enjoys admiration too much.â
that surprised you slightly.
âshe likes the performance of power,â he clarified. âthe credit. the spectacle. she wishes to be seen as exceptional.â his expression hardened faintly. âpeople like that become careless. they grow distracted chasing the next thing that will satisfy them.â
âand titus?â you asked before you could stop yourself.
chester went still for half a second.
then he leaned back slowly in his chair.
âtitus,â he repeated flatly. âis a disaster.â
well. that answered that.
ânever listened. never obeyed unless it suited him. even as a child, he had thisâŚâ chester searched for the word with visible annoyance. âdefiance.â
rain crackled softly outside.
âyoung boys respond well to structure. discipline. pressure.â his eyes returned to the fire. âtitus responded by becoming worse.â
something about the way chester spoke didnât feel like a father discussing a son.
âi corrected that behaviour early,â he continued. âor attempted to.â
your stomach tightened slightly at the wording.
âhe was soft as a child. sentimental. attached to things.â disgust flickered briefly across his face. âanimals especially.â
oh no.
âi had servants bring him injured birds once. rabbits too. strays.â he spoke with horrifying calmness. âi told him if he wished to be a man worthy of inheriting this family, he would learn not to hesitate.â
âthe first time, he cried.â
chester looked at the rain beyond the windows.
âthe second time, he refused.â a pause. âthe third time, he learned.â
you stared at him quietly.
suddenly certain you did not want to know what âlearnedâ meant in a danforth household.
chester coughed roughly into his fist before continuing. âcompassion is expensive in families like ours. empathy makes people weak. predictable. easy to manipulate.â
you thought of titus smiling while watching a man get hunted across a mansion.
then of him carefully taking your heels off at four in the morning because your feet hurt.
the contradiction made your head and heart ache.
âdid it work?â you asked quietly before thinking better of it.
chesterâs gaze shifted toward you slowly, uncertain, which was rare. ânot entirely.â
evening settled over the estate like dark ink poured slowly into water.
the rain hadnât stopped all day. it only changed intensity. sometimes a drizzle against the windows, sometimes violent translucent streaks against the glass.
you returned to chesterâs room with fresh medication and a cup of tea balanced carefully on a tray. the hallway lights were dimmed low by now. most of the manor had gone quiet in that eerie way old wealthy houses did.
you pushed open the bedroom door gently. chester had fallen asleep.
for a moment, all you noticed was the low amber glow from the fireplace, the rise and fall of blankets over his chest, the sound of rain outside.
then your eyes adjusted.
titus sat beside the bed. far too still.
one elbow rested on the arm of the chair, knuckles pressed lightly against his mouth while he stared at his father sleeping.
your gaze drifted unconsciously toward the pillow beside chesterâs head. and for one brief, horrible second, you genuinely thought titus might pick it up and press it down until the old man stopped breathing.
you quietly placed the tray down on a side table.
titus didnât move. didnât even look at you.
âhey,â you said softly.
nothing.
you stepped closer cautiously. âtitus.â
his eyes finally flickered toward you. there was something ugly sitting behind them tonight.
you glanced once toward the sleeping chester before looking back at him.
âcome on,â you murmured gently.
to your surprise, he listened.
you touched his shoulder lightly first, half expecting resistance, but he stood slowly beneath your hand. obedient in a way youâd never seen him before. you led him out of the room carefully, easing the door shut behind you until only the hallway remained.
he still looked wound too tightly, like if left alone too long, he might genuinely put his fist through a wall. or somebodyâs throat.
you led him to the kitchen, was mostly empty this late at night. only a few low hanging lights remained on above the marble counters, casting warm pools of gold through the otherwise dark room. the tall windows caught every heavy raindrop that pelted against the glass.
you immediately started opening cabinets and rummaging through them with the confidence of someone who had spent enough accidental time around rich people kitchens to know where basics were hidden.
you took our a jar of cocoa powder and grabbed milk from the refrigerator next.
âhot chocolate?â he sounded deeply unconvinced.
âyes.â
âthatâs your great intervention?â
âyouâd be surprised what warm beverages can do.â
you poured milk into a saucepan and turned on the polished induction stove top. soft red lights flickered beneath it immediately, circling the utensil. for a while, only the quiet kitchen sounds filled the room. spoon against metal. cabinet doors closing. rain outside.
âcanât remember the last time i was in the kitchen.â
you glanced over your shoulder.
titus stood near the island counter, hands shoved into the pockets of grey sweats that sat low on his hips, plain black t-shirt slightly wrinkled from wear.
the sight genuinely startled you a little.
dude looked... middle class. (XD sorry im cackling at this as im writing it)
you leaned back lightly against the counter, arms folding as the milk slowly heated behind you.
âdo i need to ask what you were thinking of doing in there?â you asked quietly.
titus looked down briefly, tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek. there was no performance in his expression. no teasing. no flirtation. no smugness. just exhaustion.
âi donât know,â he admitted after a moment. âi hate him sometimes,â he said flatly, but a laced with a little shame.
he looked down briefly, rubbing at his jaw before speaking again.
âyou know what the funny part is?â his voice stayed calm. âhe actually thinks he made me better.â
you remembered chester speaking earlier. discipline. structure. correction. birds. rabbits.
âall those years,â titus murmured, eyes distant now, âhe kept saying fear was more useful than love. that respect comes after fear.â
he scoffed softly.
âproblem is⌠fearâs easy.â his gaze shifted toward the closed bedroom doors. âyou hurt people enough, theyâll fear you eventually.â
you watched him carefully.
âbut respect?â he laughed once under his breath. âthat bastard never taught me that part.â
âursula got the polished version,â he continued. âthe poised heir. the charismatic one. motherâs daughter.â bitterness edged his voice lightly. âi got turned into the family dog.â
your brows furrowed slightly.
âattack when told. intimidate when needed. make people nervous enough and they stop questioning you.â his eyes met yours then. sharp, dark, exhausted. âyou know what people do when they fear someone?â
you stayed quiet.
âthey obey,â he answered for himself. âbut they never love them. and they sure as fuck donât respect them.â
you heard him out in silence, slowly turning the stove off and pouring the hot chocolate into two porcelain cups.
âhave you tried therapy?â you winched at your untimely reaction.
titus barked out a real laugh at that. rough and sudden.
âbaby, if i told a therapist half the shit my family does, iâd end up sedated in a government facility.â
âfair.â
you slid one cup to him.
âwhat if itâs poisoned?â he asked jokingly.
âthen i finally get peace and quiet.â
you let a moment of silence pass by. the hot chocolate tasted really good. it wasn't the watery shitâno, this was good. thick, dark, sweet.
âwhat do you do when youâre upset?â
you looked up slowly.
ââŚwhat?â
titus didnât look embarrassed asking it, which somehow made it stranger.
âwhen something bothers you,â he repeated. âwhat do you do?â
you narrowed your eyes immediately. âwhy.â
âhumour me.â
you stared at him over the rim of your mug suspiciously.
âare you developing empathy?â
âdonât insult me.â
âthen why do you care?â
titus swirled the hot chocolate lazily in his glass. âmaybe iâm curious.â
that should not have made your stomach flip the way it did. you looked back down into your drink instead.
what did you do?
it had been a long time since youâd dealt with something intense enough to need comfort beyond sleeping it off or ranting to a friend over coffee. before all this, your life had been manageable. stressful sometimes, sure. deadlines, academia, finances. but manageable.
you thought quietly for a moment.
and strangely, the answer that surfaced wasnât adult you. it came from a much smaller, much softer eleven year old you
âi did ballet,â you admitted. the words slipped out so earnestly they startled even you.
titus raised an eyebrow slightly.
he remembered.
not vividly at first. more like fragments returning through fog.
chester visiting your father years ago. long business dinners. black cars waiting outside buildings. once or twice, his fatherâs driver being instructed to pick up âdoctor l/nâs daughterâ on the way back.
and there had been you.
small. carrying a dance bag almost your own size. hair pulled back tightly. little ballet shoes dangling from your fingers.
ââŚdid?â he asked.
you cleared your throat softly, suddenly embarrassed by how childish it sounded out loud.
âyeah. i⌠left it. a long time ago.â
âwhy?â
you shrugged lightly against the chair. âlife, i guess.â which was both true and not.
titus watched you over the rim of his cup.
trying, involuntarily, to imagine it properly. you at eleven: pink tights. white slippers. spinning around some mirrored studio with your chin lifted stubbornly high.
he remembered ursula trying ballet once when they were children.
god, she fucking sucked.
chester enrolled her because âyoung ladies should cultivate refinement,â only for ursula to spend most classes falling over violently and threatening other children who corrected her posture.
titus snorted faintly at the memory.
you looked up. âwhat?â
âursula did ballet for about three weeks.â
you already started laughing.
âshe was terrible.â
âno,â you buried a grin into your mug.
âshe bit another girl once.â
your eyes widened. âwhat?â
âthe girl called her sloppy.â
âoh my god.â
âcriticism builds character. apparently so does rabies.â
you laughed properly then, dimples sinking in. titus couldnât stop staring at you. at your warmth, at that strange lightness you carried everywhere with you. yoou laughed like somebody who had once been loved gently. he wondered what kind of world couldâve produced a girl who soothed herself with ballet instead of drugs, or liquor, or violence.
âŹâ.Ë goodbye mr. blue!; father john misty
it took him all of two seconds to decide. he set the mug down beside him, the hot chocolate still steaming, half-finished and forgotten. then his hand closed around your wrist, firm and certain, hauling you out of your chair before you could even process the movement.
you opened your mouth to protest, but the look he gave you, a slight tilt of his head, sharp with warning and amusement all at once, shut you up instantly.
titus strode ahead without another word, dragging you behind him through the halls while you stumbled to keep pace. you recognised the door before he even pushed it open.
âthe hell are you doing?â
he ignored the question entirely.
the ballroom greeted you in darkness until titus flicked on a single gold light overhead. warm lught spilled across polished floors and towering mirrors engraved with curling filigree work. your reflection multiplied instantlyâtoo many angles, too much of yourself staring back at you at onceâand you fought the sudden urge to fold your arms over your chest.
âanytime now,â you muttered.
âyou know exactly what weâre doing here,â titus said casually. he still hadnât let go of your wrist. with his free hand, he unlocked his phone and scrolled through something.
you stared at him. âyou cannot be serious.â
âwhatâs the harm?â he asked. âsee if youâve got it.â
âiâm notâi donât even haveâtitus, what the fuck?â
your protests barely registered to him. he just kept tapping at his phone until music drifted through the ballroom speakersâsoft indie music, obscure enough that you genuinely didnât believe he listened to it willingly. who the fuck introduced titus to father john misty?
you blinked at him. âoh, absolutely not. not with you watching.â
titus finally looked up, slow and amused. âitâs either me, or i arrange a proper show tomorrow and invite everybody.â
you shoved hard at his chest. âasshole.â
he only grinned. âdance for me, baby,â he cooed mockingly.
still holding your wrist, he lifted your arm overhead and spun you beneath it in one smooth motion. the sudden twirl pulled a startled laugh out of you before you could stop it, your body betraying you immediately as he guided you effortlessly under his arm.
âiâm not dressed for it. i canât just do ballet in pants and a t-shirt.â
it was your attempt at a logical argument. genuinely, you tried your best.
âthen take them off.â
for one fleeting moment, you wondered whether the meteor youâd wished at that dinner might finally decide to hit earth out of pity.
you rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt.
âwhaattt,â he drawled lazily. âyou gettin' all shy on me now? didn't i stuff my face in your pussy last night?â
your face went red as a tomato. âoh my god shut the fuck up. okay!â
âjesus why do i even bother,â you muttered to yourself. purely for the laugh of it, you complied.
you shoved your pants down your legs until you were left standing there in your underwear, tossing your shirt somewhere behind you while keeping the jacket hanging loose and unzipped over your shoulders.
titus stared at you for exactly one second before letting out a sharp, disbelieving laugh.
âwhat on earth are those?â
âtheyâre comfortable. shut up.â you were not about to apologise for owning the most comfortable granny panties known to mankind.
but oh how his eyes were locked onto your fleshy thighs. memories of his face muffled between them flashed before his eyes merrily.
under the ballroom lights, you rose onto your toes a few times, paddling, alternating feet to loosen your ankles and calves. then came the familiar ritualârolling your ankles clockwise, then the other way; stretching your arms, your back, your legs with small absent-minded movements that felt embarrassingly instinctive after all these years.
the music spilling from titusâ phone had a decent enough rhythm to follow. still, your stomach twisted faintly. christ, you barely remembered where to begin. how to start. how to build choreography out of nothing. ten years was a long time to abandon something.
but your body remembered before your mind did.
you moved cautiously at first, taking a few idle steps across the floor like someone testing water before diving in. a slight sway here, a shift of weight there. your hands lifted unconsciously, fingers slipping into positions you didnât even realise were as perfect as the day you learned them.
then muscle memory reached out and took over gently.
a tendu.
a rond de jambe.
another movement unfolding after it with quiet certainty, one step bleeding naturally into the next until suddenly you werenât thinking anymore.
you turned and spun on your toes softly.
your feet barely kissed the floor before lifting again, gliding across the ballroom smooth as silk pulled through fingers. the mirrors caught you from every angle; flashes of limbs, blurred motion, the sharp lines of movements your body still knew by heart despite everything. ten years into letting your art go, it still felt easy.
you leapt before you could second-guess it, legs splitting cleanly through the air with startling flexibility, and landed just as softly as you would have at sixteen.
titus watched in complete silence. entranced.
and though he was not nearly soft-hearted enough to truly empathise with you, for one brief, strange moment, he could almost see it instead... the eleven-year-old version of you dancing in front of him.
titus took a few steps towards you, not minding that your mighty legs doing degagĂŠs might hit smack his balls. he just held your hand, letting you spin once more before puling you into him and kissing you for the millionth time. he would never get used to it and never want to.
his lips moved against yours, hands finding their way down your back to your waist, to your ass, greedy palms smacking it once before squeezing the flesh. maybe granny panties weren't so bad.
heat coiled in your body almost instantly. the contrast between you hating his lifestyle, everything he represented, got away with, and your craving his touch, his lips on yours, tongue in your mouth sat like a heavy rock on your heart. there were better places to be than in a cultist billionaire's manor, and better people to kiss than titus danforth.
not one of those points stopped you from grabbing his face, thumb running over his gruff stubble, and kissing him back harder.
he let out a soft moan against your mouth, âbeautiful... you're so beautifulâ
being called hot, sexy, cute, had its effect in bed or at a bar when you were trying to score free drinks. being called beautiful by someone ruinous like him? it was a drug.
which is why you pulled away, finding an excuse to breathe, but really just to reorient yourself. too much of anything only created problems. and you didn't not want to get attached to titus fucking danforth.
âmmm... stop...â you said softly, lips still ghosting over his.
âwhat...â he panted.
âit's... been a stressful day. let's just... take some time off.â
âi don't need time off... not from you,â he murmured, planting kisses over your jaw, your neck.
âbelieve me, i'm flattered... but... i'm a little tired too.â
titus regarded you for a second.
but let you go. âyeah... yeah okayâ
you nodded and pat his shoulder.
âŹâ.Ë house; charlie xcx, john cale
you left things that way, parting ways so he could go into his room. but you didn't go into yours. putting on your clothes, you stepped out into the hallway.
you had meant to do it earlier in the day, take your notes from the basement and put them in your bedroom, somewhere closer to you where they could remain concealed. even that wretched dementhund. you'd find a way to stuff it in some drawer or use it as a step stool in the bathroom or something.
anything was better than leaving it downstairs.
but the moment you entered the basement again, something felt⌠wrong. hell, warmer. a faint current of humid air drifted across your skin. you stopped mid-step. there should not have been wind in the basement.
unless the entire foundation of the manor had somehow shifted one storey above ground, there was absolutely no reason for warm air to be moving down here.
slowly, you moved deeper into the aisles, bare feet silent against the freezing stone floor. the draft tugged gently against your clothes, guiding you further back into sections of the basement you hadnât explored yet.
then, tucked beside a shelf half-swallowed in shadow, you finally found the source: a metal grate. it had been partially dragged aside, revealing a narrow staircase descending even further below. you stared at it blankly.
âyou have got to be kidding me,â you whispered under your breath.
another fucking basement. one wasn't enough for these people???
curiosity won anyway. it always did. you were an extension of your cat.
you grabbed one of the old candelabras mounted nearby and started down the stairs carefully, one hand against the damp wall for balance. humidity clung heavily to the space below. the stone steps were slick beneath your feet.
for a moment, you tried convincing yourself it was something ordinary. old pipes, maybe. or boilers for laundry. furnaces.
then you heard voices, making you freeze.
at first, you thought it mightâve been servants or groundskeepers talking somewhere below, but the deeper you crept down the staircase, the stranger it sounded.
one man speaking softly and another humming.
you reached the bottom carefully and leaned towards the wall separating the stairwell from the room beyond.
then you looked.
and your breath caught so violently it hurt.
a man sat restrained to a chair at the centre of the room, wrists bound so tightly the rope bit into torn skin. his head lolled weakly to one side, muffled whimpers slipping through the gag in his mouth while blood streamed steadily down his arms and chest.
the blood dripped directly into a metal cauldron suspended over an open flame. the smell alone nearly made you recoil.
except you recognised the scene instantly. youâd spent enough nights reading through the dementhund to know exactly what you were looking at.
a ritual.
your stomach dropped. but even that wasnât what truly paralysed you, made your blood run cold and heart hammer against your ribs. it was the man standing beside the fire. chanting quietly while reading from a stack of papers held in his hand. your papers, your notes.
your mind barely registered that part at all, because the second he spoke again, something inside you turned to ice. you'd know it deaf, by the air around it. who wouldn'tâŚ
nobody, no matter how hard they tried, ever really forgot the sound of their fatherâs voice.
you forced yourself to blink. to not make a noise. slowly, carefully, you let the breath trapped in your throat escape through clenched teeth. your fingernails dug vicious crescents into your palm, grounding yourself in the sharp sting long enough to take one shaky step backwards. and then you ran.
at a speed that made you a blur, you tore up the stairs so fast your feet barely seemed to touch them, fleeing through the hidden basement and then the first one above it without ever once looking behind you. panic hollowed your chest into something raw and animalistic. you didn't stop to look behind you, didn't knock on anyone's doors or ask for help, you just dashed through the manor halls, through the front entrance, out into the freezing rain where your feet nearly slipped across the slick cobblestones before you stumbled into the muddy grass beyond.
panic and terror and fear and inexplicable sadness saturated inside you like a tumour.
the sigil on your wrist throbbed and flared with excruciating pain, your voice finally cracking into an ugly, guttural cry. but you didn't stop, you kept running till your foot caught in the soaked ground and you dropped hard onto your knees. rain drenched you to the bone within seconds.
âI KNOW YOU'RE THERE!!! I KNOW YOU ARE!!!â you screamed into the storm, voice ragged with panic. âplease... please i'm fucking begging you.â
thunder rolled above you as you looked around through the slants of the rain, looking for the familiar distinguished figure.
âi know you can hear me. please...â you clutched your wrist, hoping to numb the pain by hurting it further. the sound of rain doubled as a stretch of silence for a minute.
âiâll have you know,â his smooth voice drawled behind you, âiâm not particularly fond of house calls. especially in the rain.â
you spun so fast you nearly slipped again. then you were on your feet, stumbling towards him through the mud with a broken sob clawing its way out of your chest.
the lawyer stood beneath a black umbrella, immaculate as ever. not a single raindrop touched him.
âi need a ring,â you blurted out desperately. âi need to get out of here.â
he regarded you with mild interest. âthat is not the pact, miss l/n.â
âi know,â you said immediately, voice shaking violently. âand iâmâiâm fucking willing to lose my wrist if you say no, but i canât stay here. i canât.â
your breath hitched painfully.
âplease. iâve done enough work on the text. you can take the notes. just⌠please.â
the lawyer regarded you with an amused tilt in his head. then, after a moment, let out a sigh. "only because i'm curious to see how this ends."
from seemingly nowhere, another gold signet ring appeared between his fingers. this one differed slightly from the first. you snatched it from him and shoved it onto your finger before he could even finish speaking.
for a second, you just stared at him. he was deeply unsettling. objectively creepy, actually. a man capable of occult magic. and yet strangely, something about his demeanour felt... trustworthy. or maybe you were simply out of better options.
âiâŚâ you swallowed hard. âi also need you to drop me somewhere.â
the lawyer laughed quietly. âiâm an attorney, not a chauffeur.â
âreally?â you snapped. âyou got 250$ for taxi fare all the way to hartford? because youâre about to disappear again, so you might as well taââ
the rest of the sentence dissolved into empty air.
in a single sharp blip, both of you vanished from the manor grounds entirely.
the rain continued undisturbed. the mud settled. the night carried on as though neither of you had ever been there at all.
previous part | next part
MUHEHEHEHEHEH im gonna disturb the fuck out of yall in the subsequent chapters
LMAO I accidentally clicked on post instead of save as draft and three people liked the shitty half assed version that got posted and i kept wondering where tf my draft went T_T my bad. had to rewrite it again from my notes the gif at the top is from 2013 bollywood movie called 'abcd' (anybody can dance). cool movie. amazing dances.
taglist: @taniamiller @generation-zero @goddess-of-spring @1dhoe93 @saigereaper @onyxorbspire @fluffyassbutt @niki128 @darknessofhell666-blog-blog @margaretblue777
the last great demented dynasty IX
titus danforth x y/n
previous part | next part
a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
summary: your perspective on things is being challenged every moment you spend with the danforths and their twisted sense of sportsmanship. on one hand, you're growing attracted to titus, on the other, you're not sure you'll survive it
warnings: more kissing. you will never not find kissing in my fanfics, making out, hunt, being darted (???), a little marxism critique if you squint
âŹâ.Ë heathens; twenty one pilots
you toasted to your naĂŻvetĂŠ as you sat stiffly on the patio with everyone else, trapped neatly between titus and ursula like an unwilling garnish on a very expensive plate. before you, mounted against the stone wall, a massive flatscreen displayed multiple camera feeds from inside the georgian house.
what had begun as a normal wedding had, unsurprisingly, curdled into another hunt.
the newlywed, patrick stephens, still dressed in ceremonial white, was sprinting through the halls in sheer panic, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds as his in-laws materialised from corridors and servant passages like bloodthirsty cockroaches, flinging darts at him with alarming enthusiasm.
when heâd pulled out the card for âdartsâ, he thought thereâd be a the bullseye, maybe some shots, a few rounds and cheers and then a cosy night in with his wife. well... in a way, yes. he just miscalculated the fact that heâd be the dartboard.Â
you couldnât look at the screen for too long without your stomach folding in on itself. disturbance was not unfamiliar to you. youâd known it in quieter forms before; in unanswered can we talks, in departmental deadlines, in hearing your supervisor say âinterestingâ in that particular tone. but this was different. this settled beneath the ribs.
every now and then, little gasps and delighted murmurs fluttered through the patio whenever patrick narrowly avoided getting skewered and stumbled into another room instead, crashing over furniture while the danforth guests laughed into crystal glasses.
someone actually applauded when a dart embedded itself into the wall inches from his head.
you looked sideways at titus.
of course he was already looking at you.
not casually, either. not in passing. his gaze sat on you the way a blade rested against skin; light at first, until you realised it could press deeper whenever it pleased. as if he were trying to imagine how long youâd last.
because a chase through the woods was one thing. titus had already had his fun with that. but a hunt? a real one? god, he thought about it more often than he shouldâve.
youâd probably try to negotiate first. you were annoyingly logical like that. maybe youâd attempt to reason with whoever cornered you, buy time with wit sharp enough to cut through panic. and if that failed? youâd fight. he knew you would. there was too much pride in you not to.
but titus wondered what would happen once fear truly entered your bloodstream.
real fear.
the kind that made the body betray itself. would you still stand your ground if you were bleeding? if your ankle gave out? if you realised every exit had already been locked before you even started running?
or would you freeze?
his jaw tightened faintly around the thought. he wanted to taste that fear on your tongue.
wanted to watch your throat bob as the understanding finally settled in; that there was nowhere left to go. he imagined sweat cooling against your skin, panic diluting your voice until it cracked apart at the edges. would you beg him to spare you? or would you be too furious for that too?
would you spit in his face first?
god, he almost hoped you would. the mere thought of it gave him a hard-on.
he imagined you on your knees, breathing hard, eyes glossy not from weakness but rage, still trying to appeal to whatever humanity he had left in him.
the terrifying part was that titus genuinely did not know if he possessed enough humanity to let you go.
âwhen does this⌠get over?â he heard you ask quietly.
âtill dawn.â
he saw you check his watch. a simple, negligible action really, but it made him smugly happy. to be needed by you. for as little as checking the time.Â
âhasnât he had enough?â you murmured, staring at the screen again. âheâs got, like, seven darts stuck in him.â
titus leaned further into the leather sofa, settling comfortably as another burst of laughter erupted from the patio when patrick nearly tripped over a side table.
âevery member of the family owns six darts,â he said lazily. âall six have to be used. until then, he keeps running.â
you went still for a second. then let out a short, disbelieving laugh. âtitus⌠this is a family of twelve.â
slowly, deliberately, he smiled. âjust sixty-five darts left then.â
your expression tightened instantly.
âtitus, he could die.â your voice lowered now, more horrified than angry. âif even one of those hits an artery, or his eye, or his tracheaââ you stopped mid-sentence, because one look at his face told you everything.
he knew. he knew exactly what the risks were. exactly how much blood a body could lose before shock set in. exactly how long panic kept someone moving before the legs gave out beneath them. that was the point.
âis he supposed to fucking die?â you asked, staring at him now.
titus only shrugged lightly, one ankle crossing over his knee.
âif heâs smart, heâll live.â he swirled the amber liquor in his glass. âif not, thatâs on him for not taking his life more seriously.â
you looked genuinely appalled. âwhat the fuck is wrong with you?â
âbaby,â he drawled, turning towards you fully now, âhe married into that family knowing it was gonna cost him something. what that cost ended up being?â another shrug. âgame of chance. he pulled the card. statistically speaking, heâs responsible for his own odds.â
you stared at him like heâd just crawled out of the ocean.
âyouâre talking about someoneâs life like itâs a fucking casino.â
âit is a game.â titus sounded almost amused by your outrage. âour families run on games. always have. tradition survives because people obey it.â
âand you genuinely donât see a moral problem with this?â
that made something flicker in his expression. not guilt, worse. curiosity. as if morality itself was a strange little object youâd brought for show.
titus shifted closer to you on the sofa until his thigh brushed yours. one heavy hand settled onto your leg, thumb dragging slowly over the fabric of your dress.
âpeople sacrifice animals,â he murmured. âpeople sacrifice people. theyâve done it for centuries. for harvests. for rain. for wars. for gods. humans love feeding things blood when they want favours badly enough.â
âyeah, centuries ago,â you snapped. âbefore law was the baseline. before human rights. âoff with their headsâ doesnât exactly hold up under constitutional review.â
âand yet,â he said softly, âpeople still disappear every day.â
you opened your mouth to argue again, but he cut in smoothly.
âmedical malpractice is illegal too.â his eyes slid lazily toward you. âdidnât exactly stop your daddy from doing it, did it?â
the slap landed before even you realised youâd moved. sharp. clean.
his face turned slightly with the force of it. silence snapped between you both.
ursula glanced over once from the opposite end of the patio, utterly unsurprised, before returning to her cigarette.
slowly, titus looked back at you and smiled, not mockingly, just pleased. your own hand stung from the impact.
âconstitution,â he murmured, tasting the word like wine, âhas consequences for people like us. but until someone brave enough knocks on our door and drags us away to law-law landâŚâ his smile deepened faintly. âall of this gets to keep happening.â
he leaned closer. one arm stretched along the backrest behind you, caging you in without fully touching. his fingers brushed lightly against the side of your neck, tracing downward slowly enough to make your spine tense.
âyou categorise us into these neat little boxes like you can actually tell the difference,â titus murmured. âweâre evil. we ruin people. we exploit.â
his thumb dragged lazily against your neck as another burst of laughter erupted from somewhere farther down the patio.
âtell me something, sweetheart.â his voice stayed maddeningly calm. âdo you hand money to every homeless man you pass on the street?â
you frowned instantly. âwhat?â
âdo you?â he pressed. âor do you keep walking because youâve got somewhere to be?â
you opened your mouth, but he continued before you could answer.
âyou put yourself through college, didnât you? picked the better courses. chased the better opportunities. negotiated for higher pay.â his gaze held yours steadily. âyou didnât lower your standards in 'solidarity' for the underdog.â
âthose are nowhere near the same thing as whatever the fuck this is.â you gestured sharply toward the screen, where patrick was limping through another corridor with blood soaking through his shirt. âwanting better for yourselfââ
ââalways comes at someone elseâs expense.â
you scoffed in disbelief.
âyou got the university spot,â titus continued smoothly. âsomeone else didnât. you got the scholarship, someone else lost it. you so much as take a seat on a bus, someone else stands. thereâs always someone beneath the ladder youâre climbing, sweetie. you will never truly want equality.â
âyou endanger lives,â you snapped. âfor what? money? profit? pleasing some invisible entity you people call god? how is that remotely comparable to buying the last fucking tomato at a grocery store?â
titus tilted his head slightly.
âwhy?â he asked softly. âyou donât think someone else needed that tomato more?â
you stared at him.
âthat couldâve been someoneâs only meal for the day,â he went on. âand you took it because you got there first.â
you let out a short, incredulous laugh.
âdonât fake empathy to prove your point. buying produce and hunting a man through a mansion are two wildly different levels of cruelty.â
titus exhaled through his nose, almost amused by your frustration.
âheâs still alive.â
âyeah,â you muttered, glancing back at the screen, âfor now.â
his eyes lingered on you.
âyou think heâll die?â
you looked at him sharply.
âyou donât believe in him?â titus asked.
âi believe,â you said slowly, âthat you people are relentless.â
your voice had gone quieter now. heavier. âdeep down, you want him dead. not because heâs evil. not because heâs hurt you. you justâŚâ your mouth twisted faintly in disgust. âyou enjoy it.â
titus listened without interruption, without offence. if anything, he looked almost patient with you. indulgent.
âdonât tell me youâre one of those âiâm on the side of whoever wins, both did goodâ." he said. âyou know exactly who you root for. one person wins. the other loses.â
"not when someone's life's at stake!"
âwhat do you actually know about him?â
that made you pause. titus watched the hesitation flicker over your face. âyou think heâs innocent?â he murmured. âyou think the silcoxes found some saint wandering barefoot in a meadow and dragged him into the family?â
you didnât answer because the truth was, you knew nothing about patrick stephens beyond the fact that he was currently bleeding on a flatscreen.
he couldâve been just like them: liar. exploiter. cruel. maybe worse.
âorâŚâ titus said softly, leaning closer still, âis it that deep down, youâre rooting for him because youâre scared itâll be you someday?â
his fingers brushed against your cheek from behind, featherlight.
âif he survives,â he murmured, âthen maybe you can too.â
your stomach tightened.
âand if he diesâŚâ his gaze darkened faintly, âthen it proves everything you already want to believe about us.â
his thumb traced your jaw slowly.
âthat weâre monsters. murderers. cultists.â
you looked at him dead in the eye. âarenât you?â
and titusâman. he just smiled. not sheepishly, or defensively... openly.
âabsolutely.â
the ease with which he admitted it made your skin prickle. there was something infinitely more terrifying about a monster who didn't bothered hiding its teeth.
âand youâre just⌠okay with it?â your voice came out quieter now. less angry. almost disbelieving. titus looked at you as though the question amused him.
âas opposed to what, baby?â he drawled. âasking me whether iâm âokayâ with being who i am implies thereâs another version of me somewhere. some gentler titus. some moral one.â his mouth curved faintly. âbut iâm right here. this is the real one.â
you hated how calmly he said it.
âwhat if someone did that to you?â you asked suddenly, pointing toward the screen.
patrick was halfway up a staircase now, limping badly, one hand pressed against his side while blood smeared along the bannister behind him.
titus barely spared the screen a glance. âthey can try.â the arrogance in his voice was almost artistic.
âwait,â you said slowly. âso youâre genuinely willing to accept the possibility of being both the hunter and the hunted?â
âif thatâs what mr le bail wants.â
âiâm not asking what your spooky monopoly-man wants,â you snapped. âiâm asking what you want.â
âyou really think,â he said softly, âiâd ever let myself be hunted?â
you smiled, though there was no humour in it. âexactly.â
your eyes flickered back toward the screen before returning to him. "when youâre at the benefit, you have the privilege of a choice. what happens when you draw a card and the odds decide hey, why not pelt titus danforth with i donât know⌠dry ice? would you still defend your tradition?â
titus barked out a laugh. âdry ice, huh?â he mused. âcreative.â
âanswer the question.â
he leaned back against the sofa, one finger tapping lazily against the rim of his glass while he considered it.
then titus looked at you again. âno,â he said simply and your brows furrowed.
his tone stayed maddeningly calm. âyou know why?â
he leaned closer. âbecause thatâs never gonna happen.â
there it was again. that certainty. that terrifying, inherited confidence only old money and old evil could produce.
âmy family runs the council,â he murmured. âwe are the thing people fear. we make the rules.â
you folded your arms tighter across yourself. âso your logic only works as long as youâre the one in power.â
titus didnât answer immediately.
âsay someone stronger comes along,â you continued. âsomeone who takes that title from you. takes your family down. starts running things instead.â your gaze sharpened. âwould you just go along with it then?â
titus smiled. ânot gonna happen, baby.â he said it like a fact.
"no one's that good." he leaned in and pressed a kiss against your cheek.
on the screen, patrick yanked two darts out of his sleeve with a strangled hiss and hurled them toward the far end of the corridor. the metal clattered loudly against the marble. you watched several members of the family immediately rush toward the sound while patrick slipped the other way, stumbling into a service hallway before squeezing himself into a dumbwaiter barely large enough to hold him.
desperate, but smart. you leaned forward slightly despite yourself.
the tiny camera feed showed him crouched awkwardly inside the cramped compartment, chest heaving, blood staining the collar of his shirt while muffled footsteps thundered outside. his in-laws searched the hallway like hounds.
âwhat happens if he makes it through?â you asked quietly.
titus swirled the whiskey in his glass once before answering, âthen heâs family permanently.â
you looked at him.
âpart of the council,â he continued. âshareholder to the wealth. the properties. the favours.â
his eyes flickered briefly toward the screen briefly before landing on you again. âmr le bail tends to reward survivors.â
something cold slithered slowly down your spine.
âwhy are you telling me all this just like that?â you asked.
titus looked at you, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. âwhy do you think?â
you narrowed your eyes immediately. âiâm not next, am i?â
that made him laugh softly under his breath. âmostly not.â
âmostly?â
âunless,â he murmured, leaning closer with a lazy wink, âyou wanna marry me.â
you gave him the flattest look imaginable.
before you could ask anything else, screams erupted from the flatscreen. the dumbwaiter suddenly jolted violently.
patrick shouted in panic as the compartment began rattling downward through the walls with terrifying speed, chains screeching loud enough to make several guests on the patio cheer.
âoh my god,â you breathed.
inside the feed, patrick scrambled out just before the lift dropped fully, crashing hard onto the hallway floor before bolting again.
the cameras followed him shakily as he limped toward the second floor, one arm wrapped around his bleeding side.
every door he tried was locked. every window sealed shut. you watched him panic harder with each failed attempt before he finally dove into a bedroom and slid beneath the bed, flattening himself against the floorboards while trying to steady his breathing.
silence settled briefly across the patio. then titus sighed.
âsee,â he drawled, taking another sip of whiskey, âthatâs what i wouldnât do.â
you glanced at him.
âjust laying there like an omelette.â he shook his head faintly in disappointment. âweak.â
âheâs hiding.â
âexactly.â
titus gestured lazily toward the screen with his glass.
âfear makes people small. predictable. everyone folds themselves into corners hoping danger wonât notice them.â his eyes slid toward you slowly, like he wasnât talking about patrick anymore. âbad strategy.â
you took the bait. âso what would you do?â
titus smiled slowly, lazily, before finishing the last sip of whiskey in his glass. amber caught against the crystal for a second before disappearing down his throat.
ânothing says i canât hunt them back.â
you stared at him. he so meant that. not in the exaggerated, macho way men puffed their chests and talked about hypotheticals, 'iâd totally outrun a gorrila' kind of way. like actually. in a 'grab the nearest sharp object and march after them' kinda way.
you looked back at the screen. patrick was scrambling under the bed, breathing hard enough for the microphone to pick it up in sharp bursts.
then you looked back at titus.
his posture remained loose against the leather sofa, one arm stretched behind you, fingers idly tapping against your thigh, loosened tie. emoty whiskey glass hanging from his hand. every inch of him looked polished, composed. but his eyes were ablaze. stimulated.
you suddenly understood something retrospectively obvious about titus danforth that made your stomach tighten.
he did not fear violence. he liked it like a child did a mcdonald's burger.
maybe not pain. maybe not defeat. but the chase? the adrenaline? the challenge of proving heâd come out on top? oh, heâd sink his teeth into that gladly.
âthat is such a deeply concerning thing to say out loud,â you muttered.
titus only grinned. âyou think too morally.â
âthatâs exactly what evil people say.â
his smile widened at that. not offended. if anything, pleased. your skin crawled. you looked around the patio. all these obscenely rich people sat draped in silk and diamonds, nursing cocktails while watching a man run for his life like it was a fucking football match. you felt sick to your stomach.
titus noticed immediately. he noticed everything about you.
âyou wanna leave?â he asked quietly.
the softness of it almost threw you off more than the violence had, because it sounded genuine.
you looked at him suspiciously. âyouâd let me?â
âcome on... i'm bored anyway."
in which world was somebody bored of watching life-threatening footage, you genuinely could not comprehend. but if it meant being exempted from witnessing somebodyâs probable death, and worse, becoming complicit in it by sitting there silently while rich psychopaths applauded, then honestly, you were ready to jog back to the estate on water if needed.
titus quite literally whisked you away.
within minutes, heâd led you down the private dock and onto the yacht youâd arrived on earlier, dismissing staff with nothing more than a glance. the engine purred to life beneath your feet, low and smooth, and soon the georgian nightmare behind you began shrinking into the distance.
you stood near the helm, arms folded tightly against yourself as the salt wind swept past.
watching the glowing house slowly fade against the dark coastline felt oddly unreal. like waking up from a fever dream in stages. the music became fainter. the lights smaller. the noise softer.
good.
âhere.â
you startled slightly when titus stepped behind you and gently grabbed your forearm, guiding your hand toward the wheel.
âwhat?â
âtry it.â
you blinked at him. âiâm not... steering a yacht.â
âyouâre not. we are,â he replied smoothly.
right, of course. he stood directly behind you while saying it too. his chest hovered close enough for you to feel warmth through the thin fabric of your dress. his hands rested over yours on the wheel, large and steady, rings cool against your skin.
when had this man ever missed an opportunity to invade your personal space?
âis this so i donât escape or something?â you muttered. âjump off, swim to shore, find a police station and report you people?â
titus smiled against your shoulder, resting his chin there with infuriating ease.
âgo ahead,â he murmured. âbeen a while since we called them over for drinks.â
again, you should've known better than to assume these people didn't have law enforcement on their payroll. or worse, on evil santa's favour-roll.
the yacht cut cleanly through the black water beneath you, city lights flickering far in the distance like scattered stars. for a moment, neither of you spoke. there was only wind, only sea, only the faint creak of wood beneath your feet.
you hated how peaceful it felt. hated how your body slowly unclenched in his proximity despite every rational instinct screaming that titus danforth was fundamentally dangerous.
he tightened his hold over your hands unconsciously when the yacht shifted slightly with the waves.
âcareful,â he murmured.
âi thought you loved danger.â
âcontrolled danger.â
you glanced sideways at him then. âthat might be the most honest thing youâve ever said.â
his mouth twitched. because maybe it was true. the danforths loved risk only when they remained the ones controlling the outcome. controlling the money. the rules. the game. but you... you were the first uncontrolled thing that had entered titus danforthâs life in a very long time.
and god, was he becoming addicted to it.
you climbed the familiar steps of the danforth estate with the kind of exhaustion that settled deep into bone. your feet ached viciously, every step reminding you that whoever designed luxury heels had never once cared about the structural integrity of the human body. seriously, the sandals were gorgeous. they were just industrially fucked up.
one hand slid along the banister as you climbed. with the other, you awkwardly hooked a finger beneath the strap of your heel, trying to tug it loose without faceplanting down the staircase.
before you could manage it, a larger hand closed gently over yours. titus stepped down one stair beneath you, effectively lowering himself, and took over the task like it was the most natural thing in the world.
you blinked a litttle. that was unsettling. you did not take titus danforth for a remotely decent person, let alone the sort of man who helped women out of their shoes at four in the morning.
âwhat are you doing?â
âwhat does it look like?â he asked simply.
his attention stayed fixed on the delicate straps around your ankle. one hand steadied your foot carefully while the other slowly loosened the buckle.
the absurdity of the situation nearly made you laugh.
this same man had watched a human hunt like it was sunday entertainment.
and now he was kneeling at your feet undoing your shoes.
âuh...â you narrowed your eyes suspiciously. âwhatâs your agenda?â
that made him smirk. he looked up grilling like a devil at you from where he stood lower on the staircase, dark eyes half-lidded with amusement. yup.
that visual did absolutely nothing to reassure you.
the first sandal finally slipped free from your foot. titus held it loosely by the strap before moving onto the other one without complaint.
god. this felt dangerously domestic. you hated it instantly.
the second shoe came off easier. relief shot through your feet the moment they touched the cool marble floor properly.
he rose to his full height again, your heels now dangling from two fingers effortlessly. meanwhile you flexed your toes against the floor in visible relief.
the estate was almost silent when you stepped inside. most of the lights had been dimmed low for the night, leaving the manor bathed in amber shadows. somewhere deep in the halls, an old clock chimed faintly.
without speaking, you started toward the staircase again, barefoot this time, dress skimming softly against your legs as you climbed.
and, naturally, titus followed. like some oversized watchdog.
you glanced back once midway up the stairs and found him there exactly as expectedâone hand in his pocket, your shoes hanging from the other, tie loosened slightly from the evening, gaze fixed lazily on you.
you sighed. âwhy are you following me?â
âwhy not.â
âi'm just gonna go sleep.â
behind you, titus watched the slight wobble in your exhausted steps, the way your bare feet padded softly against polished wood now that those awful heels were gone.
something warm and strange settled unpleasantly in his chest. because he liked this version of the night far too much.not the wedding or the hunt. not the endless performance of wealth and cruelty.
this. you half-asleep and grumpy beside him. barefoot in his familyâs halls. complaining under your breath while he carried your shoes for you. like you belonged there. a dangerous thought.
he articulated it by curling his hand around your neck when you reached the hallway, pulling you into a kiss. he dropped your shoes down and brought his hand to your waist.
you let yourself be surprised for maybe a moment and a half before giving in.
he hummed against your mouth, waltzing towards your room with you, alternative between looking at the way and kissing you, the latter eventually taking full precedence as your back hit the door.
"need me to tuck you in, baby?" he murmured against your lips and you let out a soft involuntary chuckle.
fuck.
that sound alone undid something in titus a little. not the laugh itself, but the ease of it. the fact that it came from you at all. relaxed. sleepy. amused. like for one dangerous second youâd forgotten he was supposed to terrify you.
the handle to your door twisted as you both stumbled in. he was already ravenous for you, ready to just tear the dress off you, get you naked and under him, make you see stars.
but your foot collided against something and you lurched forward with a startled noise, balance slipping instantly in those exhausted limbs of yours. titus caught you before you could fall properly, arm locking around your waist.
âcarefulââ
you looked down and spotted one of your moving cardboard boxes half crushed, its contents scattered across the floor.
your brows pulled together slowly.
ââŚwhat the fuck?â
the haze disappeared from your body in seconds. you straightened immediately from against him and flicked on the lights. the room lit up and your stomach dropped. everything was wrong, messy. the kind you saw when your belongings were raided, searched through.
drawers yanked open. clothes half hanging out like gutted insides. closet doors wide open. books displaced from shelves. your bedsheets twisted and crumpled. the bathroom door ajar with cabinets left open inside.
someone had gone through your room carefully enough to know where to look and carelessly enough not to hide it. your cat, chomsky, sat atop a pile of fallen books with the deeply unhelpful expression cats always wore during emergencies, one paw rested over a bent page.
even titus went still beside you. his hand closed around your elbow before you could step further into the room.
âbutââ
âbasement. now.â
did he mean it as a safe space? like a panic room or a bunker? you crouched quickly, patting your thigh for chomsky. the cat hopped down without complaint, surprisingly cooperative for once, and you gathered him against your chest before following titus back into the corridor.
his eyes scanned every hallway as you descended the stairs together, footsteps echoing too loudly through the sleeping estate.
the basement door opened and whatever fragile hope youâd clung to dissolved instantly because it was worse. papers littered the floor, books displaced, chairs knocked slightly askew.
you and titus both stopped just inside the doorway, eyes sweeping across the room. then your gaze landed on the table. on your notes.
you crossed the room quickly, setting chomsky down carefully onto a chair before flipping through the papers with growing panic.
no no noâpages missing. you knew immediately.
because you knew these notes intimately now. every correction. every ink blot. every margin scribble written at three in the morning while surviving off tea and spite.
someone had taken specific sections. specific translations.
behind you, titus went deathly still for he knew it too. this wasnât a random burglary.
someone had entered the basement knowing exactly what they were looking for. and they took it.
previous part | next part
now that exams have ended, i technically do have time to update better. ik i also started a jack abbot fanfic, but idk where to take it. im just so invested in this one T_T I ALSO WANNA WRITE AN ANDREW CODY FANFIC I HAVE SUCH AN AMAZING IMMERSIVE IDEA FOR IT KSKSKSKSKSKSKS.
anyway. in this chapter, i wanted to kinda explore the philosophy behind why these people do what they do. my intention is not to justify it, but in a way, yeah. explain how they justify it. because to function normally in a world where such cultists exist, is to expose yourself to the same discomfort till it desensitises you. so, morally, you're still against it, but as you see it happen, you don't cringe at its existence every time. much like today's world where we see bombings, genocides, injustice, rapes daily, and even though we know we're against them, that they shouldn't exist, we live with it and sigh when we read another headline. the whole 'disappointed but not surprised' thing. we coexist with the system, within the system.
dividers by: @diviniyae @rmstitanics
taglist: @taniamiller @generation-zero @goddess-of-spring @1dhoe93 @saigereaper @onyxorbspire @fluffyassbutt @niki128 @darknessofhell666-blog-blog @margaretblue777
pls pls pls do not feed my writing and ESPECIALLY MY PHOTOS to ai T_T
comments are loved, reblogs are appreciated, even if you're just ghost reading this, ilysm, thank yew!
the last great demented dynasty VIII
titus danforth x y/n
previous part | next part
a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
also, i was bonedeep inspired to write this after reading this incredible story by @thatcorporategirlie you have to read it. mr le bail'd be pissed if you didn't
summary: now, preparing for the upcoming wedding, ursula and you have a little moment that did not resemble resentment. you lips hadn't forgotten what titus felt like. but no reason why you couldn't just do it again. and it seems titus had the same idea.
warnings: more kissing yay, making out, groping, f. receiving, cunnilingus, undressing ish? not really. p slapping, TITUS GREEDY, titus literally down bad, swearing, spanking (once)
"i don't understand why you're fussing about it. if he's not willing to listen, don't ask him. toss him a cheque for an apology later," ursula snapped on the phone, marching across the marble floors of the manor, the doors to chester's recovery room swinging open.
you were in the middle of drawing some blood for tests when she stormed in, switching from a frown into a smile.
"hello, father."
chester gave her an acknowledging nod. ursula gave you a brief smile.
"everything okay here?"
"yup," you responded, collecting chester's blood in a vial, and sealing it shut. you grabbed a marker and wrote down the metadata. you placed the vials into a box and handed them to pernilla, who'd be taking them to the pathologist.
"great. then, i need you to come with me," she said, making you raise an eyebrow.
"me?"
ursula all but rolled her eyes. "of course, you."
"for...what?"
now she rolled her eyes. "less talking, more following."
you looked at chester who simply shrugged and let you go. you tossed your rubber gloves in the dustbin and sanitised your hands before following ursula.
you went straight to the foyer where the driver pulled up with the family limousine. "woah, i can't leave the estate without your brother. you know that right?" "put this on," ursula said, handing you a golden signet ring. "i had the lawyer enchant it. your wrist won't hurt while you're wearing this." where had this divine blessing been all this time? "seriously?" "one time use only." great.
after a ride primarily spent in silence, you halted before what appeared to be the times square, but for the ultra rich to shop as they pleased.
"i'm sorry, did you... bring me out to hold your bags or something?"
"or something."
what was it with the danforths and their cryptic manner of answering crystal clear questions?
ursula walked into a boutique, and was already greeted with flutes of champagne, antipasti, and a generously flexible bow from the manager who snapped his fingers and summoned a dozen dresses from each corner.
you had zero clue what to do, so you just followed her lead, taking an occasional sip of champagne.
"as you must know, the silcoxes have a wedding today. the danforths have helped that family build itself from nothing but a small xerox machine to the publication empire that they are now," ursula narrated as she ran her hand through the dresses, feeling the fabric.
"it is more than a wedding. it's tradition, and the danforths are expected to be nothing less than perfection. we are, after all, funding them very... ceremoniously."
you took a noiseless sip and just nodded your head. great. cool. love that. why were you here.
"now... you," ursula turned to face you, eyeing you up and down. "you're not family, but you're with us. you've already made enough noise in the council to gain attention. so how you present yourself at the wedding has to meet the danforth standard."
"i could just... not go, you know?"
ursula smiled venomously, "titus will be there. so unless you want to spend the whole day rotting in the basement, possibly the nights afterwards, you're coming."
any other fucking day, being left alone in peace would've been an effortless 'yes', but you really did not want to be caged in the basement. not after what you and titus did there. you didn't need reminders. you didn't need the fucking dementhund smirking back.
"fine."
"great. pick a dress."
"i have clothes."
"you have excuses for clothes. you're not showing up with us in 'thrifted' garbage," ursula sneered as she pushed you into a few dresses.
you cursed whatever deeds you'd done in your life for you to end here, shopping with ursula danforth.
"don't tell me it has to be black again or something," you asked her.
"we're not heathens, y/n."
"what are you wearing?"
"not your business."
"you really want me to 'accidentally' wear the same colour as you?"
her eye twitched. "a mikado."
what the honest fuck was that. you shook your head and looked at the dresses.
some of them were obnoxious as fuck. either too bright, too gaudy, or too muted that you'd be considered furniture. some were elegant enough, but you weren't a fan of the patterns. some were just too exposing in their necklines midriffs.
you looked at her again over your shoulder, contemplating a plea for help. "take your time," she mouthed.
yep. you were gonna be here forever.
not thinking much, you just snatched a dress and gave her a snicker, stepping into the changing room. of course the fitting room was larger than your old apartment bathroom. there was a cream velvet couch tucked into the corner, mirrors rimmed with warm lights that could apparently simulate different times of day, and some absurd little crystal tray holding bottled water no one had probably ever touched.
as you stepped out of your clothes and into the dress, you saw yourself in the mirror. rather, at the persistent marks on your torso, your breasts, somehow even your waist? courtesy of titus danforth.
just how hard did that fucker bite you?
you slipped the dress on and looked up. oh... well. it fit.
that was usually your only requirement when buying clothes. comfort. something breathable, something you wouldnât spend the entire evening adjusting like a hostage trapped in polyester.
but this... this looked unfairly good on you.
the dress was a fairly beautiful olive green, rich enough that you immediately prayed ursula hadnât chosen the same shade for whatever occult billionaire wedding this was bound to be. the fabric settled against your skin like soft moss, cool and pliable instead of stiff with over-design. it hugged your waist and hips gently, not squeezing, not pinching, simply following the shape of you. your breasts sat well enough to be mostly concealed, but the top of them swelled a little. not that it was going to be a problem. there'd be someone at the wedding wearing metaphorically nothing to overshadow you.
you turned slightly toward the mirror to inspect the back and nearly blinked at the lack of it.
completely backless.
your brows rose.
âwell. first... time for e-everything.â
you gathered your hair over one shoulder to look properly. one of the fading lovebites near your shoulder blade showed plainly beneath the open back, a reddish purple ghost left behind from danforth junior.
strangely enough, you didn't mind it.
you stepped out of the dressing room at last, straightening any creases on your hips.
ursula glanced up from where she sat flipping through some lookbook.
for a moment, something softer crossed her face. not warmth exactly. but close enough to make you suspicious.
âlooks good,â she admitted.
one of the boutique assistants appeared almost instantly at your side.
âindeed,â the woman smiled. âespecially with the scandinavian scarf.â
before you could react, she draped a long matching fabric around your shoulders, letting it fall elegantly down your back.
you stared at her. then snorted.
âscandiâ you mean a dupatta?â
the woman blinked, visibly displeased already. âthis is actually a specialty of scandaââ
âthe fuck it is,â you cut in immediately. âitâs a dupatta. itâs indian. older than your entire tax bracket.â
the assistantâs smile tightened so hard it couldâve cut glass. ah. lovely. mutual hatred.
you looked toward ursula innocently.
âisnât that right, miss danforth?â
the shift was immediate. the poor woman practically short-circuited.
âm-miss danforthâ oh! i didnât realiseâ of course, yes, indian, absolutelyââ
ursula pressed her lips together, clearly fighting a smile now.
you, meanwhile, stood there feeling spiritually healed.
by the end of it all, the boutique staff had assembled an entire arrangement around the dress. matching sandals. a tiny purse worth more than your first car probably wouldâve been. jewellery displayed on velvet like scalpels on a surgeons tray.
ursula approved everything with frightening efficiency.
she barely even touched her wallet. people simply nodded at her face and scurried away to package things. or as the youth said, she paid with the face card. retail therapy probably worked phenomenally when capitalism trembled before your surname.
walking out of the boutique with several pristine bags held behind you by the chauffeur, you finally looked at her.
âyou know i cannot afford any of this, right?â
âitâs just gucci,â ursula replied smoothly behind her sunglasses. âyouâll survive.â
you stopped walking for half a second. âyouâre just... giving me a six thousand dollar dress?â
ursula turned her head slowly toward you as though the number itself meant nothing.
âconsider it a token of gratitude for what youâre doing for father.â
you stared at her in complete deadpan silence. she remained equally serious.
âyouâre free to throw it away after use,â she added.
that finally earned a disbelieving laugh out of you. not because it was funny, lol. because she genuinely meant it.
it was almost a little sad.
how little things seemed to mean to ursula when she could acquire ten more of them before breakfast and still have enough money left over to grow bored of all ten by lunch.
what did anything feel like to people like that? shopping, as you remembered it, had once been fun. loud. stupidly personal.
it had meant dragging your friends through crowded malls with barely enough money in your account to justify being there in the first place. it meant standing in front of store displays rating outfits you could never afford with the confidence of fashion critics. trying on clothes purely for the joy of seeing yourself in them before putting them neatly back on the rack. mirror selfies under terrible fluorescent lighting. sharing fries at the food court because nobody wanted to pay for their own portion. cheap ice cream after six hours of walking till your legs hurt.
there had been joy in the limitation of it. in wanting things. in choosing them.
this, meanwhile, felt horribly inanimate.
private boutiques with locked glass doors and women who looked at price tags the way priests looked at scripture. silence so polished it bordered on threatening. no music too loud, no children running around, no groups of teenagers laughing in corners.
luxury had managed to remove every last embarrassing human aspect from shopping.
ursula was just about to step into the waiting car when the thought escaped your mouth before you could stop it.
âdo you wanna get ice cream?â
she turned toward you slowly. exactly like one of those haunted porcelain dolls from horror films that moved only when nobody was supposed to notice.
âexcuse me?â
âice cream,â you repeated. âitâs... kind of part of the experience.â
she stared as you gestured vaguely with the shopping bags.
âyou go shopping with your friends, buy stuff, then hit the food court for ice cream after. thatâs just how malls work.â
one perfectly shaped eyebrow lifted above her sunglasses.
âwhat,â you muttered. âyouâve never been to a food court?â
the moment the words left your mouth, you realised how ridiculous the question was. of course she hadnât. this woman probably emerged from the womb into a chauffeured bentley. still, you pressed on.
âwe should go,â you decided firmly. âweâve done your rich people shopping thing, so now we do my thing.â
ursula continued staring at you like she was trying to determine whether you were clinically serious.
âthe mall?â she repeated carefully, as though the word itself sounded mildly contagious.
you rolled your eyes. âjust tolerate it. for me. i came here with you, so now itâs only fair you come with me.â
she hesitated long enough that you thought sheâd refuse outright. the chauffeur stood silently by the car, pretending not to hear any of this. finally ursula exhaled through her nose and glanced toward him.
âfine,â she said at last.
that was how you found yourself inside an actual mall for the first time since arriving at the manor.
a normal, regular mall.
far from the old-money streets and silent boutiques with locked doors.
this place was alive, crowded, loud, overlit to a point of blindness. but so so colourful.
there was a massive fountain in the centre of the atrium, water rushing beneath artificial palm trees that stretched all the way toward the glass ceiling several floors above. storefronts lined the walkways one after another in bursts of colour and neon, like sweets packed too tightly together in a confectionery display. music bled from every direction at once. someone somewhere was absolutely burning cinnamon pretzels.
you loved it instantly. ursula, meanwhile, looked like sheâd been dropped into a hostile ecosystem.
you could practically see her fighting the urge to recoil every time someone brushed past too closely.
for once, though, it was her following your lead.
you dragged her toward the escalators with complete confidence.
âwe can take the lift,â she said immediately.
âboring.â
before stepping onto the escalator, ursula pulled a pristine handkerchief from her purse and laid it carefully over the rubber railing before touching it. you stared at her, a question yearning to escape your mouth. she just ignored you with all the dignity of a woman refusing to acknowledge peasantry.
the food court was somehow even more chaotic than the rest of the mall.
plastic tables in every possible violent colour. families packed shoulder to shoulder. children sprinting around with helium balloons and toy swords. the air smelled like fries, sugar, coffee, grease, and artificial strawberry syrup all at once.
ursula slowed beside you like a deer entering traffic.
âwhich one do you want?â you asked, standing before the glowing menu boards of an ice cream parlour.
âi donât care,â she replied.
âyes you do.â
she gave you a flat look as she took off her sunglasses. you could almost see the calculation happening in her head, probably calibrating the least disappointing option.
âchocolate,â she decided at last. âthat should be acceptable.â
âwith waffles?â
she blinked once.
âwhat?â
âwith waffles it is.â
within two minutes, you had a cone of belgian chocolate waffle bite and banana softie in your hands.
ursula eyed it with visible suspicion.
still, after a moment, she took the smallest bite from her own cone.
then another.
her brows shifted ever so slightly.
ânot bad,â she admitted.
âwanna try mine?â
âdo i want diarrhoea... let me think.â
you laughed into your ice cream.
âcome on. letâs walk.â
and just like that, ursula danforthâbillionaire heiress, occult aristocrat, woman probably capable of ordering assassinations before bedâended up wandering through a suburban mall beside you while eating ice cream from a waffle cone.
honestly, you considered that your greatest accomplishment yet.
you drifted past storefronts slowly, peering into display cases as people streamed around you, teaching her the art of window shopping.
âi could buy this entire store, y/n,â ursula muttered eventually.
âthatâs not the point,â you replied immediately. âyouâre supposed to enjoy wanting things.â
âthat sounds impractical.â
âitâs fun. huge difference.â
you pointed toward one display window dramatically.
âokay. if you had to dress your nemesis in the worst outfit possible, what would you pick?â
ursula actually paused to consider it.
seriously.
you watched her lips purse as her eyes narrowed thoughtfully at the mannequins.
âfrancine montgomery,â she said at last, almost venomously. âshe insists sheâs ageing naturally, but i know for a fact her surgeon botched her fillers.â
you nearly choked on your ice cream.
ursula continued coolly, âshe avoids public appearances claiming sheâs busy with philanthropy, but really her upper lip tore during a procedure.â
there was something deeply satisfying about the calmness with which she delivered this information.
then she pointed.
âthat one.â
you followed her finger toward a violently orange dress with crisscross strings hanging from a thigh slit like unravelled shoelaces.
you burst into laughter instantly.
âoh my god, yeah. thatâd ruin someoneâs life.â
âwith those shoes,â ursula added without hesitation.
she pointed toward a pair of chunky white sneakers with rainbow disco lights flashing along the soles.
you physically doubled over laughing.
âyeah, okay, youâre evil.â
âi know.â
you straightened eventually, wiping tears from your eyes.
âyou know what you should do?â you said between laughs. âsend her the outfit anonymously. make it seem like some charity organisation chose her as the face of their event and sent complimentary styling.â
ursula looked at you slowly.
the grin that spread across her face after that was genuinely terrifying.
âi might,â she said softly.
you were making your way back when you spotted the unmistakable cuboid shrine of every craft girl's dreams; a photobooth.
"let's take a picture," you said, turning to ursula with alarming enthusiasm.
"without a professional photograâ"
"we are the photographers. come on."
before she could object further, you had already grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards the booth. somewhere in the back of your mind, there was still that quiet awareness that ursula danforth was not your friend. she tolerated you at best. endured you at worst. but beneath the veils and diamonds and terrifying composure, you suspected there was a deeply deprived little girl in there somewhere. one who'd never had enough chances to simply be stupid and young.
inside, the booth was cramped, smelling faintly of dust and overheated plastic. ursula sat stiffly beneath the mild glow, sunglasses back on like armour. beside her, you smiled at the tiny screen while adjusting your position.
1... 2... 3... flash
in the first photo, you smiled brightly while ursula stared ahead like a widow at a state funeral.
flash.
in the second, you leaned closer into frame while ursula's expression remained so perfectly unchanged it bordered on supernatural.
flash.
by the third, your dimples had sunk in from laughing while ursula looked moments away from suing the machine.
flash.
the final one caught you mid-laugh, head slightly tilted towards her. and though ursula still looked painfully composed, there was the faintest twitch near her mouth. not quite a smile. more like the ghost of one threatening mutiny.
the strips printed out with a mechanical sputter.
you snatched them up immediately. "perfect. here," you said, handing her one strip. "your copy."
she stared at it for a second too long before taking it between two fingers like it was mildly contaminated.
the ride back to the estate was quieter. outside the tinted windows, the city slowly gave way to the long winding roads and iron gates of danforth land again. the mall disappeared behind you like something imagined. you looked out the window absentmindedly, one leg tucked beneath you against the leather seat. across from you, ursula sat poised as ever. but for one brief moment, before she slipped the strip carefully into her purse, you caught her looking at the photographs again.
âŹâ.Ë CANCELLED!; taylor swift (pls tolerate the awful girlboss lyric sorry)
the danforths had their private yacht cut through the water on its way to martha's vineyard. you hadn't been out at sea in ages. you'd forgotten what seabreeze felt like when it wasn't filtered through city buildings and exhaust fumes.
you leaned against the railing with your eyes closed, letting the salt-heavy wind brush against your skin, cool and damp and alive. beneath you, the yacht glided so smoothly it barely felt real. rich people really did hate the concept of inconvenience.
the journey itself hardly lasted before you reached the docks. almost immediately, you were ushered off the yacht and into a waiting car, escorted to the georgian estate before you could properly take in the coastline.
this was exactly why you sometimes hated travelling with wealthy people. no stopping to admire anything. no wandering. no feeling the grass, the dirt, whatever rapunzel was onto. just teleportation.
you'd arrived alongside ursula in herâas you now unfortunately knew the term for itâmikado yellow dress, which still made her resemble an extraordinarily expensive egg yolk. and kip, who had miraculously shown up in proper clothes for once, though you spotted another silk lounge robe peeking out of the bag his servant carried behind him. naturally.
chester, due to his condition, hadn't made the trip. but he'd apparently sent his regards in the form of compensation.
said compensation sat parked near the entrance looking suspiciously like a rolls royce with a tiny black bow tied to it.
titus, meanwhile, was already there.
you understood that immediately the moment you stepped onto the grounds and the ring around your finger dissolved into thin air and the sigil on your wrist shone with visibility again, your wrist throbbing faintly beneath the skin as though reminding you to stay within acceptable haunting distance of your assigned danforth.
all around you drifted millionaires and billionaires wrapped in couture and old money perfumes, balancing crystal glasses between their fingers while ignoring waiters offering hors d'oeuvres that probably cost more than your monthly grocery bill.
the wealth on display was genuinely suffocating. the polished laughter. the shallow conversations disguised as intellect. the backhanded compliments sharpened into social sport. and over it all, threaded through every conversation like incense smoke, was the mutual worship for mr le bail.
that guy sure had fans.
thank fucking god ursula forcing you into that boutique had paid off. your dress blended seamlessly into the crowd. no awkward stares. no obvious outsider status. you weren't particularly interested in impressing wealthy people, but you did enjoy not being perceived, and for one blessed moment, you looked exactly like another pompous heiress attending a summer gathering by the sea.
that privilege lasted all of sixty seconds.
from across the venue, you spotted titus already looking directly at you.
worse.
he was walking towards you, dressed in what was obviously some ridiculously expensive suit, expensive tie, expensive family cufflinks, expensive shoes, probably socks too, expensive underwearâwhy⌠were you thinking of his underwear.
you immediately grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and downed it in one gulp. a little liquid courage for the evening's greatest test of endurance that was titus danforth.
he stopped in front of you, and for the briefest moment, something on his face twitched. the heels.
your sandals had added just enough height to place you nearly eye-level with him. maybe even slightly taller if he relaxed his posture.
titus immediately straightened, chin lifted, shoulders squared, posture correcting itself.
you bit the inside of your cheek to stop the smirk threatening to surface. heh. shorty.
his gaze travelled over you slowly after that, taking in the dress properly now. the rich green fabric, your breasts snug inside, your collarbone tattoo doing a better job than any necklace would, the scarf cascading down your shoulders. such a violent contrast from your usual wardrobe of oversized shirts, cotton pants, and whatever cardigan happened to be within reach.
you watched the approval settle quietly into his expression. not subtle enough to miss.
neither of you mentioned the basement. or the absinthe. or paradise lost.
or the way he'd looked at you between those endless shelves of books like he'd stumbled upon religion for the first time. but you knew titus well enough by now to understand one thing... if that conversation ever resurfaced, he would absolutely be the first to bring it up.
he extended an arm toward you, polished cufflink catching the golden light. you stared at it for a second before sighing through your nose and slipping your arm through his.
immediately, you felt it. the shift; heads turning and eyes lingering on you. conversations quieting for just a second too long as you passed by.
titus danforth walking around with a woman on his arm was apparently an event worthy of social documentation. and unfortunately for you, tonight you looked the part well enough to invite attention instead of avoid it.
fuck, you missed your pyjamas.
the wedding was... surprisingly normal.
or at least, as normal as anything involving rich people would be. there were no blood rituals. no chanting.
just flowers, candlelight, ocean breeze, and an obscenely wealthy couple exchanging vows beneath a canopy overlooking the water.
the bride looked genuinely happy. so did the groom. that, more than anything, unsettled you a little. because somewhere along the line, you'd started expecting every rich person tied to mr le bail to be fundamentally haunted.
but these two smiled at each other softly. lovingly. the kind of love that existed in small gestures; trembling hands, watery eyes, nervous laughter breaking through rehearsed vows. their promises were sweet too. painfully so. the sort of vows that made people in the audience sigh quietly and squeeze each other's hands.
you sat beside titus through all of it, posture rigidly composed while he, meanwhile, spent an alarming amount of the ceremony looking at you instead of the couple.
you could feel it without even turning. his gaze sat heavy against your skin, completely uninterested in hiding itself.
you kept your eyes fixed firmly ahead at the officiant like your life depended on it. because frankly, one glance to your right and you feared your face might betray something catastrophic.
you still hadn't recovered from that night.
a day and a half had passed since you'd kissed him in the basement, absinthe warm in your veins and milton somewhere between you like a shared sin, and the humiliation still arrived in waves whenever you remembered it.
you wanted to hurl yourself directly into the atlantic. preferably weighted down with one of the danforth anchors. never be recovered.
for much of the celebration after the ceremony, you lingered beside titus. partly because it seemed expected of you now. partly because every time you drifted too far, your wrist reminded you with a slow burn beneath the skin.
he did most of the talking, the smirking, the gloating.
you simply hovered nearby with a champagne flute in hand, nodding occasionally while wondering whether the suspiciously rare meat balanced on your hors d'oeuvre was truly dead or not.
"titus," one particularly slick-looking man drawled, swirling amber liquor in his glass, "aren't you going to introduce your... woman to us?"
you nearly choked on your drink. titus didn't even look at him.
"no."
that was it. just flat and immediate. final. and strangely enough, nobody pushed further.
well. that was unexpectedly pleasant. who knew titus danforth had the ability to be antisocial on someone else's behalf.
not that you were complaining. if anything, relief loosened your shoulders slightly. you had no desire to stand there pretending you belonged among them, smiling politely while rich strangers evaluated you like a newly acquired painting.
the evening stretched on as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, staining the sky in bruised purples and deep blue. music drifted through the estate grounds while laughter grew louder, looser.
and of course, the real festivities only seemed to begin after dark.
by now the cigars were out. so were the drugs, passed around with the same casual ease as mushroom caps. honestly, these people partied like roman emperors with offshore accounts.
you wanted absolutely no part in it.
crowds of more than three already made your skin itch on a good day. but those of wealthy occultists operating on substances? hard pass. quietly, you slipped away from titus with some vague excuse about the ladies' room before anyone could stop you. instead, you wandered toward the docks.
close enough to the venue that the music still reached you faintly across the water. far enough that you could finally breathe. your wrist throbbed mildly from the distance, the sigil beneath your skin pulsing warm in warning, but you ignored it for once.
the sea stretched dark and endless before you, rippling beneath scattered lights from the docks and anchored yachts. every small wave caught the glow and shattered it into fragments of gold.
you rested your arms against the railing and stared. you'd always wondered if that was why humans loved jewels so much.
because light on water looked precious. except you could never hold it.
the yachts looked beautiful too, lined along the docks like luxury cars abandoned beside the sea. you found yourself slowing beside each one just to read the names painted across their hulls. humans really did love naming the things they owned.
"mulberry," you read softly beneath your breath, smiling a little. "cute."
then your eyes landed on one painted in elegant navy lettering.
andiamo.
you snorted softly.
"well. points for italian."
curiosity got the better of you, and before you could overthink it, you stepped carefully onto the yacht. honestly, you weren't entirely sure whether one was allowed to casually board strangers' multi-million dollar boats like this. but then again, tonight you were apparently one of them. rich people probably wandered onto each other's yachts all the time. like cats.
âŹâ.Ë fishtail; lana del rey
the deck shifted faintly beneath your feet as you walked further in, heels clicking softly against polished wood. here, the sea stretched properly beneath you. you crossed your arms atop the bannister and leaned slightly forward, looking out over the water. across the distance, cliffs rose against the horizon, scattered with tiny lights glowing from faraway docks and coastal homes.
god, it was beautiful.
you didn't realise that your wrist had suddenly stopped hurting. only when a pair of heavy footsteps tapped behind you did you drop your head against your arm with resignation.
the footsteps stopped a few feet away.
behind you, titus stood with one hand slipped into his pocket, the other loose at his side, watching you leaned against the edge of the yacht like you'd been painted there for decoration.
his gaze travelled lower before he could stop it.
the open back of your dress revealed more skin than he'd been prepared for up close. moonlight and distant dock lights brushed across the curve of your spine, soft against the deep green fabric.
he noticed the bruise. faint now, reddening slightly beneath the skin just below your shoulder blade. he swallowed the groan he was about to let out. something about seeing evidence of himself left behind on your skin made his throat tighten strangely. his bruise. the one he gave you. and you wore it like that.
"you left," he spoke.
your eyes remained fixed on the water. "i went for a walk, titus. not a pilgrimage."
he stepped closer anyway, shoes sounding dull against the deck. the yacht rocked faintly beneath the added weight.
titus picked up the flimsy fabric hung over your shoulder, rubbing it between his fingers.
"you've been avoiding me."
you let out a scoff against your arm. a grown man being fussy about not having attention on him. wow. "you mad?"
"i am."
that finally made you turn your head slightly, enough to send him a dry look over your shoulder. "remember when you chased me through the woods like a rabid doberman my second week here? who wouldn't avoid that."
"remember when you kissed me two nights ago."
your expression immediately flattened. you knew he'd bring it up first. you looked back toward the water. "the absinthe kissed you."
"hm. funny. i remember it being your mouth."
you pressed your lips together hard enough to hurt. titus stepped closer, enough for his front to cage you against the deck.
"you think you're embarrassed..." he murmured against you ear, "but i know you enjoyed every... moment... of it."
you hated how calmly he said it. like he'd already examined the truth and laid it out neatly between you. you crossed your arms tighter against the railing. "i was drunk."
"not that drunk."
"whatever, i don't remember."
you glanced at him then, finally, and instantly regretted it. god, he looked insufferably good tonight. silver curls slicked back just enough to expose more of his face. suit dark beneath the dock lights. eyes fixed entirely on you with that same unbearable attention he'd had ever since he'd first met you.
"you sure you even remember that night?" you asked cautiously.
his mouth tilted slightly.
"every second."
horrible. absolutely horrible news.
you groaned softly and dropped your face into your hands.
he gave the faintest chuckle at that. low. pleased. "you quoted milton at me."
"stop."
"molière in french too."
"titus."
"you grabbed my tie."
your eyes widened in genuine alarm. "i did not. i grabbed your waistcoâ"
"mm." he leaned further you now, forearms resting against your sides the railing. "you do remember."
flashes of that night danced before your eyes. the basement. the absinthe. his hand around yours between those shelves. the way he'd looked at you while you read aloud like the words mattered less than hearing them from your mouth, which he devoured minutes later.
you exhaled slowly through your nose. "can we collectively decide that never happened."
"absolutely not."
you shut your eyes.
"see, that's the problem with you," titus continued softly. "you keep trying to flee things after you feel them."
"you keep trying to trap things once you do," you answered back, looking at how he'd literally trapped you against him.
"you liked it. you wanted it," he let his lips whisper against your warm cheek. "craved it like air."
you shook your head, words unable to form in you. christ, you weren't even tipsy right now and all you wanted was to feel his lips on yours again.
"good girls don't lie, do they, sweetheart...?"
man, you didn't know if you wanted to punch his face or eat it. his words went straight to your pussy, where else were they supposed to go.
"shut up..." you managed to say.
"only one way to make me..." he purred against your lips.
"in your dreams..." you words died on your mouth as you felt his lips kiss yours.
and you're not sure whether you want to push him off or just pull him into you. but you didn't exactly stop him; your lips chase his like they did that night in the basement and you realised that drunk or not, you kissed him back the same, wanted it the same.
then he's moaning into your mouth, eliciting a gasp from you, sliding his tongue inside. his hand cups the back of your neck and he moulds you into his kiss once more. he laps at your mouth, sucking on your lower lip, then pressing impatient, sloppy wet kisses all over you.
he let his other hand snake around your waist, down to the flesh on your hips, giving it a few good squeezes that fucking hurt and aroused you alike.
your grip on the railing slipped miserably and before you could find another place for your hands, titus grabbed one and pinned it to the metal bar pressing against your back. he took one end of that scarf around you and tied your wrist to the metal, tight, the other end finding its away coiled around your other wrist too.
you scoffed, your lips pink and swollen, his covered in your lipstick. you tried and tug your wrists out of the knots but he kissed you enough to make you lose control over your body.
he lethis tongue slip inside your mouth again, heavy groans being fed to you for free. his hands were really doing god's work as they dragged themselves over your body, kneading your hips, your ass, fingers digging into your flesh like it'd disappear if he didn't hold it tightly.
his lips trailed down your mouth, licking at the saliva that dripped down your chin, a mix of yours and his. he pressed wet kisses to your throat, feeling you gulp under his lips. he bit into your neck again, on the same spot where he did last time, painting the bruise anew, maybe make it last permanent. he left his hot kisses over your breasts, burying his nose in again, like coming home from war.
he straightened up, and looked at you intensely. he was not done.
his hand travelled down from your neck to your chest, to your navel, and rested right above your pelvis, thick layer of fabric keeping him from you. his knuckles pressed in slightly, and you sucked in your breath.
he brought his fingers up to you, parting your lips as he pushed them in and your lips closed around them instantly. he pushed and pulled, in and out, wetting them against your tongue while his eyes scanned yours.
he pulled them out once, and bent down just enough to slide his hand under your dress, letting the fabric fold over his forearm. his hand found the damp warmth of your panties as he rubbed his fingers over the spot a few times, causing your breath to hitch.
he slid them to the side, the pads of his fingers slowly slithering against your other pair of lips, smearing the wetness that had gathered up and down.
titus hissed at the feeling of your softness, how easily his fingers slid between your folds. "feel that? mm?" he looked into your eyes, pupils dark. "that's what i do to you."
you bit your lip, concealing any sound that dared to make it past your throat.
"i... get you..." titus moved his fingers in slow circles over your clit, "this wet. me. you're wet for me."
your head dropped as you let out a shaky breath.
"say it. say you're wet for me," titus murmured against your neck. "say it and i'll give you what you want."
you hated the part of you that desperately wanted it. whatever he was willing to give. you hated how good his fingers felt just rubbing you like that. you hated him. and you hated how gullible how... wet you really were for him.
you were a second too late in answering him before thwack! his hand smacked your pussy. the way you whined and squirmed against him was hilarious to him.
"say it, baby... say it and i'll make you come," he kissed your cheek to emphasise his words. "i promise."
you groaned, your head dropped on his shoulder. "can't you just do it anyway?"
titus smirked and not a second later, thwack! another slap. and another helpless whine out of you.
"fuck.. fine! i'm fucking wet for you and i hate it so just fucking do something about it," you rambled.
titus couldn't have been happier. "that's my girl."
two steady fingers moved against your pussy as if they had all the time in the world to explore. for someone who was capable of chasing you like a leopard, his pace was agonisingly slow, thick fingers rubbing your folds, and letting out the nastiest squelches out in the sea. they felt so full without so much as entering you. you didn't think you even wanted it. that right there, languid strokes of his fingers in your cunt, were perfect.
and it seemed like he knew that. he didn't poke and prod, or shove his fingers into you like most men did. your clit pulsed every time his fingers ran over it.
your lips found his in the middle of it, nose bumping into his. everything titus did to you started and ended at a game of guessing. guessing what he was going to do, where he'd do it, how fast or slow he'd do it. and you could never predict it.
inching closer to him only made him get creative. he sped up once, prompting a broken moan out of you, the sound better than anything he'd heard.
"don't be shy. let me hear you, baby" he whispered to you, his middle and ring fingers working their magic on you.
you were bewitched. utterly. you almost didn't want to come so he could keep doing that. edge you till you ripped your wrists out of the knot and shoved his hand inside you yourself.
titus understood every single reaction of you. learned the ins and outs of what made you tick in the mere minutes his hand had spent between your legs. but he wanted more, wanted to give more.
a soft thud! rocked the yacht. you looked down and there he was, titus, sunken to his knees, looking up at you like the penitent thief begging god to either forgive him or end him.
he bunched up your dress, and bowed under it. the absence of his fingers only made you wince and curse, but his breath of between your thighs undid whatever complaints you had.
titus didn't even bother to spread your legs. he just buried his nose in your cunt, tongue replacing his fingers, his jaw right where your slit ended.
you let out a beseeching moan, hands just itching to grab him, his head and bury him further.
titus returned your moan with one of his. "nnnnhhhh fuckkkk"
he grabbed your thighs, letting them muffle his ears. oh, how he'd imagined being in this exact place from that moment you'd tackled him in the woods.
"fucking perfect," his voice vibrated against your wetness.
he munched on your pussy greedily, pushing his head deeper in craving more. his lips were plastered to your folds, superglued if you could call it, unwilling to part. his tongue gave little licks to your clit, which made your thighs clench around him even harder. titus could feel his ears ring, but that was nothing compared to the five start meal he was getting, tasting whatever you leaked onto his mouth. the tip of his tongue swirled where your nerves felt the most alive.
he heard you whimper, moan, gasp, and whine. he felt you grow wetter, more restless, just aching to let go. he didn't care if he could hardly breathe, or that his jaw hurt. he just lapped at the beads of slick that oozed out of you.
"fucking delicious..." he groaned and it came out muffled to you, blending in with the sea water crashing against the yacht. fully leaning on the railing, you let your head fall back, and one thigh drape over his shoulder. titus grabbed it faster than you could take the next breath. he only used it to burrow himself deeper into you.
"mmhhh!! fuhâfuck," you were trembling trying to support yourself on one good leg.
you may have been holding yourself back, but titus wasn't planning to. his maw ground against your pussy, like he could take a bite out of you if he just tried harder.
he settled for a quick bite at your clit, and you groaned. "fucker"
titus grinned against your hole, snaking one hand to tease his finger against it. he ate you out like you ate your soft ice cream that morning, two of his fingers now effortlessly sliding into your hole, dragging out more moans and whimpers from you.
on god, he was fighting battles between your legs. stroking you, slurping you up, fingers scooping out more of your slick from inside your gummy walls. to have titus' fingers fill you, even if it was just a bit, and to have his mouth gobble you upâthe ensemble was ecstatic.
you were so fucking glad neither of you was drunk. being anything but present, inebriate on the feeling of his tongue licking your cunt and fingers fucking you slowly, would be an insult to the art of intimacy.
titus could feel you quiver, your pussy fluttering around his fingers.
"you close, baby?"
how on earth was he supposed to see you nod like how a dog wags its tail from under your dress.
"need your words, darling, moan it out."
and you did. "nghâplease... make me come... please"
those soft 'pleases' coming out from your mouth had their own taste as he lapped at your cunt, lick after lick. and before you know it, you tensed around his mouth and gushed down all over him.
you heard himâyep, heardâdrink it up like one would suck an oyster.
he wasn't letting anything go to waste. everything dripped down his chin, trickled down his neck, but he did not care. he ate it all. lips smacking lewdly against your pussy, his palm almost cupping so he could collect your dew and take it like a shot of elixir.
titus ducked down from under your dress and came back out into fresh air, your thigh still on his shoulder. he looked up at you and you met his eyes.
jesus, he looked... euphoric.
he licked his lips and sucked his fingers clean before standing up, back to facing you at eye level.
"you gonna avoid me again tomorrow?" he asked, his voice smoother now that your juices had cleansed him from within.
you shook your head.
eyes fixed on you, titus slowly undid the knots around your bound wrists, taking the scarf off you and instead, draped it around himself.
he stepped aside to let you walk ahead of him, and off the yacht. you could feel the ghost of his lips between your legs with every step you took.
titus gave your ass a slap (for no reason in particular), then, like the gentleman he wasn't, held out his hand to you, fingers closing around yours as you placed it in his, and you walked back to a party neither of you cared about.
no sooner than you reached the venue did a scream and a shout echo in your face, coming from none other than the groom, the cake knife in his trembling hand, eyes widened in fear, darts stuck all over his body.
"YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY."
HOO-HAH. they did something. idk if titus would be someone to focus on the woman's pleasure exclusively more, but ykw, why not. he's an enigma. bro will either be a dom hunter predator or a kicked whimpering puppy denied attention.
anyway, this is the dress i imagined, just a bit more backless. image from x.imanexx on ig. she's so gorgeous.
ALSO U GUYSSSS I FINISHED MY EXAMS AND SUBMITTED MY DISSERTATION!!!!!! ur girl is now a jack of all trades, and a master one one đ
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dividers by: @diviniyae @rmstitanics
taglist: @taniamiller @generation-zero @goddess-of-spring @1dhoe93 @saigereaper @onyxorbspire @fluffyassbutt @niki128 @darknessofhell666-blog-blog
pls pls pls do not feed my writing and ESPECIALLY MY PHOTOS to ai T_T
comments are loved, reblogs are appreciated, even if you're just ghost reading this, ilysm, thank yew!
the last great demented dynasty VII
titus danforth x y/n
previous part | next part
a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
also, i was bonedeep inspired to write this after reading this incredible story by @thatcorporategirlie you have to read it. mr le bail'd be pissed if you didn't
summary: all those translations have you feeling exhausted, and titus has just the perfect cure for it: him
warnings: first kiss!!!!! LFG, making out, groping, lil naked-ish time, licking sweat (T_T), titus down bad fr fr, drinking, alcohol abuse if you squint
âŹâ.Ë dynasty; rina sawayama
give or take a few days, your work became almost mechanical. not easy by any fucking stretch, but just familiar.
once you'd figured out the structure behind the language patterns, the process was less like crawling in mud digging for seashells, and more like holding a sift in water. suffixes began carrying recognisable grammatical functions. the text, though still monstrous, slowly surrendered pieces of itself to you.
it's the new words that still demanded hours from you.
but you did twenty whole pages. you almost felt proud of yourself. that feeling curdled a little when you handed chester the translated pages.
the old man sat there in his chair, frail hands turning page after page with unsettling attentiveness, through his crescent shaped spectacles. his eyes moved quicker than you expected for someone whose heart occasionally forgot its own pace. every now and then, his mouth twitched faintly upward, though you didn't know if he was pleased wiht you or stimulated by the grotesque descriptions. ugh, that should have been as unsettling as it was.
to you, this was like a fun assignment. intellectual crossword. to the danforths? probably a recipe for disaster. the family gathered around those translations the way starving people gathered around food.
and you still could not fully bring yourself to believe in any of it.
mr le bail sounded ridiculous.
some ancient benefactor slash demon slash whatever-the-fuck overseeing generations of aristocratic lunatics from the shadows? please. that belonged in gothic novels written by men with tuberculosis and unresolved maternal issues.
the only thing that truly rattled you was the lawyer. because unfortunately, you had watched him levitate books and conjure nightmare reptiles from thin air and bind curses into blood. hard to rationalise your way around that one.
still, you maintained some stubborn little corner of disbelief. maybe because fully accepting all of this would mean admitting the world was far stranger than you could bear.
so when the family began preparing for one of the rituals you had translated, you mostly regarded it with exhausted amusement. seriously? all this over instructions involving blood, fire, and salt?
the ritual itself sounded absurd even by occult standards. something about burning the blood of those who had wronged you so their fortune would âreturn to rightful hands.â
cryptic. dramatic. vaguely homicidal. veeeryyyyy on brand for the dementhund.
you watched servants move strange apparatus through the manor halls. bowls of salt. iron stands. candles black as coal wax. everyone treated it with grave reverence. nonense nonetheless.
only not a day went by and the family came into fortune; gold, literal fucking gold. chains, medallions, bars under velvet wraps.
you stared at the displays as they were hauled into probably some vault by their butler, with your eyebrows slowly pulling together while the family murmured their thanks to mr le bail beneath their breath.
honestly, it was giving 'money laundering'. or theft. or tax evasion. what the fuck else was it supposed to be?
but then you overheard the servants.
they whispered while polishing silverware, clutching tiny gifted trinkets of their own. apparently the wealth had belonged to some businessman who had crossed chester danforth months ago. something involving a failed deal to cooperate, involving financing some war overseas.
like. isn't that good? 'not' starting a war?
but then the man, according to evening news, had died a night ago. tragically, on his yacht. you watched the report from the sitting room television while one of the maids dusted nearby. body not recovered yet.
your stomach tightened for one ugly little second. because somewhere in your mind, against your will, you remembered the ritual. "burn the saline blood of those who scorn you and so shall fortune return."
you looked toward the hallway where distant laughter from the danforth family echoed softly through the manor. then back toward the screen. the dead man smiled pleasantly from his photograph beside the anchorwoman.
this had to be a fucking coincidence, right? rich people always profited when someone died. that was practically a hobby for them.
but jesus the way the danforths celebrated when they got... what, richer than they already were? insane.
liquor flowed like running water. cigars perfumed the air thick enough to choke on. somewhere, hidden between the velvet curtains and gold trimmed corridors, people openly did lines off silver trays. everyone carried themselves with the same peculiar arrogance wealth seemed to breed. the kind that made people forget volume control, empathy, and occasionally basic human dignity.
you stood near the ballroom entrance for a while, arms folded tightly across yourself, trying not to look as deeply uncomfortable as you felt.
of course they had a ballroom.
gold light spilled across polished marble floors while an orchestra played somewhere overhead from a hidden gallery. the ceiling rose impossibly high above the dancers, and suspended from its centre hung a monstrous chandelier glittering like something stolen from a cathedral.
you stared at it for a concerning amount of time wondering whether the candles were real.
if they were, who the fuck had time to light them all individually?
around you, the celebration resembled wilderness more than civility.
children no older than ten darted between adults carrying hunting knives twice the size of their forearms. one little boy waved an unloaded revolver around with the casualness of a toy airplane while his mother continued sipping champagne without so much as glancing at him. another child puffed proudly on the end of his fatherâs cigar until he started coughing hard enough to turn purple.
nobody cared.
somewhere to your right, two men argued passionately over horse breeding while one openly bled through his bandaged palm from whatever ritualistic nonsense they had participated in earlier.
normal people went to bars.
normal people got tipsy and overshared in bathroom queues and cried over exes to strangers smoking outside.
you missed normal people.
a woman draped in emerald silk suddenly laughed too loudly nearby, jeweled fingers reaching toward your arm.
you slipped away before she could corner you into conversation or worse, gratitude.
because that was another thing now. they looked at you differently, not quite like you were family. certainly not equal god no, but useful. the clever little outsider who had helped crack open their cursed little gospel.
yeahhh, nope.
you escaped the ballroom before someone shoved a crystal flute into your hand. the music dulled behind you as you crossed deeper into the manor halls. the farther you walked, the quieter it became. your flats slapped softly against marble. outside, through the towering windows, you could see movement near the grounds.
the celebration was spreading, of course it was.
perhaps they would move onto the yachts afterward. perhaps some private island. mykonos, monaco, the amalfi coast, wherever their lack of limits took them.
you had no interest in finding out.
more importantly, you did not want your wrist flaring alive because titus decided to vanish halfway across the estate while drunk and euphoric.
so you descended the staircase toward the basement.
âŹâ.Ë september song (bonus track) ; agnes obel
down there, the air cooled immediately. the sounds of the party faded into distant muffled vibrations overhead until they resembled thunder buried beneath earth. ironically, the basement had become the safest place in the entire danforth manor.
which truly said horrifying things about the rest of the house.
down in the basement, you sank into an old armchair tucked in some corner, one leg folded over the other. the leather groaned whenever you shifted.
idk something like this, but on a wider two-seater?
you'd picked up a book on your way down, one you'd left unread. your earphones hummed softly with piano, low enough not to drown out the occasional creaks of the basement around you. the music blurred pleasantly into the atmosphere. notes drifting through kerosene light and stacks of ancient texts. for once, nobody was speaking to you.
god, you needed that quiet. you needed your mind silenced.
you turned a page slowly, eyes skimming lines without urgency for the first time in days. maybe weeks. time had started dissolving strangely inside the manor. without sunlight in the basement, without schedules that belonged to normal society, everything bled together into one long stretch of dim hours and flickering lamps.
you wondered when all this would finally end. when chesterâs condition would stabilise enough for them to stop hovering over you like vultures around a carcass.
when the dementhund would stop vomiting cryptic horrors into your lap.
or when the sigil on your wrist would disappear.
when youâd be able to go back to your old life.
the thought made you scoff under your breath almost immediately. old life. you stared blankly at the book for a moment, as if you'd accepted that this one was your new life. and you belonged here about as much as a rabbit belonged in a wolf den.
still, denial only stretched so far when every morning began beneath the same ceilings, beside the same cursed people, with the same sigil circling your wrist like a collar.
halfway through your book, in the trenches of the armchair and piano, you almost forgot a whole manor existed above your head that you didn't hear footsteps coming your way. your book was plucked cleanly from your grasp. you jolted hard enough for one earphone to fall loose.
there he was. the chronic pain in your ass himself.
titus stood before you, tall and towering, lazily flipping the little paperback over in his hand. his suit jacket was gone, the sleeves of his shirt folded to his veiny forearms, the top buttons left undone, all signs of someone who'd been occupied with a party. cigar smoke clung to him, maybe some whiskey and his signature cologne.
"ways of seeing," he read aloud from the cover, one eyebrow lifted. "seeing what?"
you remained slumped in the couch like a rag doll.
"seeing if you leave me alone in this century."
the corner of his mouth twitched upward. he set the book back down beside you, gracious that he didn't throw it away somewhere. that counted as growth ngl.
"not a fan of parties?"
"i'd rather sleep with goats."
titus looked at you strangely for a second, thoughtful enough to make you instantly regret the sentence. with this family, one could never tell what might accidentally become reality.
âwell,â he drawled after a pause, eyeing the exhausted slump of your posture, âyou look like shit.â
you smiled thinly. âthanks.â
he wandered through the basement while you watched him from beneath half-lidded eyes. unlike you, he did not seem oppressed by the atmosphere down there. he moved comfortably between shelves and columns as though heâd spent half his childhood haunting them.
which, honestly, he probably had.
he tossed the coat he'd been carrying in his arm onto another armchair before stopping beside one of the old paintings mounted against a stone column. titus ran his fingers across the frame absently until something clicked.
ugh...
âwellâŚâ titus reached inside casually. âi can bring the party down to you.â
his voice had gone rough around the edges from cigars and liquor. lower than usual. he emerged holding a bottle and two glasses. your eyebrow lifted slowly. since when did grown men hide alcohol? since when did a danforth need to?
âursula and i used to come down here and steal fatherâs alcohol,â he said while setting the glasses atop the table. âwe stashed some here years ago.â
the sentence startled you a little, not because of what he said but because it sounded genuine. no flirtation, no mockery, none of those little verbal games he liked to play with you. just... a memory. you watched him a moment longer than necessary. then your gaze dropped toward the bottle.
and then widened slightly when he produced an entire absinthe setup from various hidden drawers like some deranged magician.
âwhat are you doing?â
âmaking you a drink.â
âi didnât ask for one.â
âdonât care.â he glanced at you briefly while arranging the glasses. âyou look like you need it.â
well. unfortunately, he was correct. you watched him work with suspicious attention. the bottle alone told you enough.
âabsinthe?â you asked flatly. âseriously?â
titus looked borderline offended.
âitâs tessellis absinthe,â he corrected. âdonât insult me like that.â
he moved with surprising precision while preparing it. practiced hands and measured pours. the little perforated spoon balanced over the rim of the glass. sugar cube placed atop it carefully before he flicked open a lighter. the flame glowed beautifully against the dim, greenish basement.
you watched the sugar caramelize slowly while the green liquor beneath shimmered almost unnaturally beneath kerosene light. it looked poisonous. appropriate for the manor. once the cube softened enough, he dissolved it into the drink, watching the vibrant emerald slowly cloud pale and milky like watered pistachio cream. very danforth of him.
you had never actually tried absinthe before. mostly because every story involving it ended with somebody hallucinating god or losing an ear. but you were exhausted enough that resistance felt heavier than surrender.
titus slid one glass toward you. your fingers curled around the stem cautiously.
"Ă la fĂŠe verte..." you toasted.
titus smirked softly, head tilted, watching you take a sip. your eyes narrowed almost immediately; not in disgust perse. he noticed every tiny shift in your expression now. it had become involuntary.
âdonât like it?â
you smacked your lips thoughtfully once, considering the flavour. the tiny gesture alone captured his attention so completely it was almost humiliating.
âtastes a lot like ricard pastisâŚâ
that earned a quiet huff of amusement from him. you settled deeper into the armchair afterward, looking uncharacteristically relaxed for someone currently imprisoned in a satanic mansion. one of your legs hung lazily over the armrest. your ballet flats had slipped half off your heels at some point, dangling precariously from your toes. your book lay abandoned beside you.
the kerosene lamps softened everything, your skin, your hair. the shadows gathered beneath your lashes whenever you blinked slowly from exhaustion.
titus watched you quietly over the rim of his glass. he had never seen you like this before; unguarded. and not irritated or tense. not glaring at him like you were moments away from committing manslaughter with a grammar textbook. hell, you looked safe.
that was the strange part. despite the manor, the curse, the blood rituals and creeping horrors and all the absurdities the danforth family had dragged you into, there was still some untouched softness in you that refused to rot. and it fascinated him in ways he did not fully understand.
so he said nothing. because every time he opened his mouth around you lately, he either irritated you into threatening violence or found himself strangely unwilling to break whatever fragile peace had settled over you.
though admittedly, the mouthing off had its charms too. either way, he won.
âyou must have so many books here...â you murmured softly, the absinthe beginning to sand down the sharper edges of your thoughts.
titus nodded once.
âif i had a basement full of books, iâd never leave.â
âyou donât have to,â he answered quietly.
the words settled strangely between you. then he stepped closer and held out his hand.
you stared at it for a second too long before letting out a sigh through your nose and placing your hand in his. his fingers closed around yours immediately, warm and firm, pulling you gently out of the armchair. you nearly stumbled when your flats bent awkwardly beneath your feet, but he steadied you before you could complain about it.
glass of absinthe still in hand, you followed him through the narrow aisles, or rather alleys, between the towering bookshelves.
watching you down here felt exactly like taking a child shopping for toys.
one hand still clutched by his, your other traced the spines of thick, hardbound books with the back of your fingers, still holding your glass of absinthe, soft titles spilling out of your mouth.
"oedipus rexâŚ" you snorted a laugh. "andromaque⌠tartuffe."
the gasp left you so genuinely delighted that titus physically felt something tighten in his chest. he absolutely ate that sound up.
âparadise lost,â you breathed. "i love milton..."
you instinctively tried to free your hand from his grip so you could pull the book down properly, but he only tightened his hold slightly, refusing to let go.
you shot him a look. he ignored it completely.
with a small scoff, you took another sip of the absinthe instead, then balanced the glass carefully between two thick books before reaching up with your free hand to tug the volume loose.
dust drifted through the warm lamplight as you placed the book atop one of the reading desks scattered through the aisle.
the cover was worn smooth with age. the pages yellowed beautifully at the edges.
you opened it carefully, almost instinctively gentler with it than with most people.
âout of our evil seek to bring forth good,â you read softly, eyes moving across the page. âour labour must be to pervert that end, and out of good still to find means of evil.â
he was too occupied staring at you.
you looked different when you read. softer somehow. less guarded. like every cynical little defence mechanism inside you loosened its grip for a while. your lashes lowered against your cheeks as your eyes moved across the text, and every now and then your lips mouthed words silently ahead of what you spoke aloud.
you looked up eventually, eyes bright with that same quiet excitement.
âcan i read it?â you asked. âlike... take it up to my room?â
god. the man had denied people their lives with less ease than it took him to answer you.
âkeep it,â he said immediately. âitâs yours.â
your eyebrows lifted slightly.
âseriously?â
âmhm.â
you looked back down at the book again, smoothing your fingers lightly over the page. and titusâridiculously enoughâfelt rewarded for it.
from there it only got worse. or better.
you wandered deeper through the shelves with growing enthusiasm, pausing every few steps whenever another title caught your eye. eventually you stopped even pretending to walk normally. you simply drifted from shelf to shelf, still tethered to him by the hand like some mildly intoxicated toddler at the scholastic fair.
each time you found something interesting, youâd pull it free and stack it onto the nearest desk.
titus said nothing about the growing piles. heâd simply have someone carry them upstairs later.
âman,â you muttered at one shelf, squinting at the spines. âyou people really love your molière.â
the french 'r' rolled off your tongue effortlessly. titus felt his jaw tense slightly. he wanted more. and you delivered unasked for. you pulled it out and flipped it open lazily.
âvalère, chacun tient les mĂŞmes discoursâŚâ you read aloud, your voice slipping naturally into the language. âtous les hommes sont semblables par les paroles ; et ce n'est que les actions, qui les dĂŠcouvrent diffĂŠrents.â
you nodded to yourself solemnly. "so true... men have like... literally not evolved."
fuck... if titus could capture that sound in a jar, he'd live off of it forever.
the absinthe had left a faint warmth in your cheeks now, softened the edges of your usual sharp vigilance. not enough to make you sloppy. just enough that you no longer seemed constantly prepared to flee the manor at any second. you wandered to another shelf, still talking absentmindedly.
"oh, henry fielding... i swear, if you have any more neoclassical literature, i'm gonna start building the babel tower out of your first editions."
"be my guest."
you looked back at him then, mildly suspicious.
âwho are you and what have you done with the real titus danforth?â
his mouth twitched, âheâs taking a night off.â
"may he never come back," you mumbled, walking ahead, while he stayed rooted to the spot. that stopped you from going any further, you arm yanked back.
like a lasso pulling back a mare, he pulled you back towards him.
âŹâ.Ë still don't know my name; labrinth
"you don't like him?" he asked, breath fanning your face, smelling like the absinthe you'd been drinking.
"i didn't say that..."
"no? so you like him?" there he was. forever the gentle brute he could switch into.
his nose brushed againts your cheek, and you felt warmer than you already were. you hummed.
"words, sweetheart."
you chuckled bitterly. "he's alright... if you take away the silver spoon in his mouth."
titus' lips curled into a smile. "yeah? what else..." he asked, slowly swaying you back into a shelf.
"obnoxious... he's smug as shit. moody, a petulant child," you rambled on, all but cussing like a drunken sailor.
for a man who paraded himself like a king, on the threshold of owning half the danforth estate and inheritance, he took every word out of your mouth personally.
"i think he enjoys seeing me suffer..."
did he?
"he does..." titus leaned in, towering over you, tilting your chin up to meet his gaze. "he really does..."
god, the absinthe had fogged your mind, you swore you saw the green fairy twirl around titus's head like a halo. titus... it registered to you that you were with titus. a flash of silver amidst the electric green you'd started to see, or maybe it was a hallucination. and he wasn't really there.
but he felt so real, heavy, hot against your skin as the hand that was holding yours trailed down your chest and held your waist, backing you up into the shelf fully.
"but you like it..." he murmured in your ear.
did you?
you turned your head to the side, but your vision lagged a little. the shelves blurred together into brown and green, the lamplight felt like it bore holes in your eyes. you blinked your eyes shut to refocus. one of your hands found his chest, even if it was to steady your stationary self. beneath your palm, you could feel the firm warmth of him even through the layers of his shirt and waistcoat, the slow rise and fall of his breathing impossibly steady compared to the faint spin in your own.
titus pressed himself even further, his gaze dropping immediately.
the basement air had always been thick; warm from old stone, kerosene smoke, paper left to age for decades underground. now, with the absinthe burning through your bloodstream, heat clung visibly to your skin.
a fine sheen of sweat glimmered along your forehead and collarbone. one bead rolled down your neck, and into the neckline of your dress, disappearing between your breasts.
his eyes followed, fully meaning to. unable to resist, he leaned in and licked another bead of sweat, letting his tongue drag a stripe up your neck. the same rough tongue that had sucked the blood off your finger.
your breathing got heavier, your hold on his lapel harder.
salt, he tasted, warm, musky salt. it was nirvana.
titus groaned into your neck, sucking on the skin there, causing you to let out the softest of whimpers. such a helpless sound coming from you, bold and smart, was as good as a victor's crown for him.
"you want this?" he asked, his breath ghosting over your lips. "say yes..." he murmured.
you gulped, eyes focusing on his lips, a feeble attempt to reorient your vision, but titus took it as an open door to barge in, crashing his lips onto yours.
it was alchemy; kissing you. a celebration of senses far better than thhe party upstairs. star anise lining your lips, he could drown in that taste. he moved his lips against yours, pressing into you routinely. if he could merge with you, he wouldâhe really would.
he pulled away for a second, breathless. he'd rendered you speechless, but he was no fool. he saw how you chased his lips for a brief moment. did he wish you were fully sober and kissing him back? yes. but was he going to let this chance go? heavens no.
he took the last gulp of his absinthe, and crashed his lips back onto yours, tongue slicing through your parted lips. that spirit flowing from his mouth to yours sent shivers down your spine. you swallowed, feeling a sting down your gullet, some dripping down your lips, which he licked and lapped at.
"open your mouth," he murmured against your lips and you did.
tossing the glass away, letting it shatter into pieces, he grabbed your face tightly, thumbs digging into your cheek and devoured you like a man starved. wet, open mouthed kisses taking your breath away and resurrecting you at the same time.
utterly enchanted by the way he kissed you, you draped your arms around his neck, locking them behind it. you tasted the absinthe on his tongue, the cigar in his breath, and the hunger in his voice as he moaned into your mouth.
"should've done this long ago," he poured his words into your mouth.
he let his hand drop from your face and let it slither behind you, one on your waist pulling you into him, the other finding the zip of your dress on your back. he tugged it down in one stroke. then pulled half your sleeve off your shoulder.
titus left nips alonng the crook of your neck, and shoulder, biting into your soft skin. you winced, but didn't stop him. instead, your hand just travelled into his hair, tugging at his silver curls.
"harder," he panted and you tightened your grip.
his lips pressed against your skin, over the tattoo you had on your collarbone, down to the top of your breasts. he cupped one over your bra, squeezing it so it fluffed right under his lips. oh, he could stay buried between your tits forever, succumb to death if it meant he'd get to be embedded between them. he groped you wherever he could. breasts, waist, ass, face, arms... his hands left indents on your skin, kneading your flesh in a frenzy. you'd never been touched with this much intensity before.
your breaths came out in staccatos. you ripped the buttons off his waistcoat, hearing them fall to the ground like droplets. titus didn't care. he just loved that you were just as into it as he was.
truly unwilling to part from you, from your skin, your lips, your gasps, he reluctantly pulled away for a moment, to shed off his vest and the shirt underneath.
your hands clawed at his torso as you pulled him back into a feverish kiss, and who the fuck was he to refuse. he kissed you back fiercely, teeth clashing, tongues coating each other in a mess of saliva and absinthe.
you arched your back into him as he tugged off the other sleeve, leaving you topless, in your bra. he slammed you back in the shelf, hands curling around your throat, lips bruising yours passionately.
the impact was so strong, one of the books on the top shelf came down, hitting your head with a hefty thump.
'the holy bible: the old testament and the new'
titus and you glanced at the book and then at each other, before grinning and pulling each other back into kisses. his tongue slid right back into your mouth. this was a dream come true. the thought of you was sinfully seductive anyway, but actually touching you? kissing you? now that, titus decided, was luxury worth every penny.
eventually, you waltzed back towards the armchair. you kicked your flats away and titus flopped down into the couch, thighs spread, pants clearly tented. he hooked his finger into the crumpled neckline of your half-done dress and pulled you onto him. you straddled his lap, his mouth back on yours.
titus grabbed your hair, the one he'd come to be obsessed with. he twisted its wavy locks around his fist, and tightened his hold on you. his other hand snaked aroind your waist, down to your hips, and ultimately cupping your ass, pressing you over his crotch.
outside, you could hear the faint sound of fireworks. but they paled in comparison to the heat between you. you kissed him, he devoured you back, both of you mildly under hallucinations, but vigilant enough to seek each other through the blurry vision and ringing ears...
it wasn't until the next morning that you finally came to your senses, eyes waking up, not realising they'd closed in the first place.
you looked around, slowly seeing the darkness of the basement. you were folded painfully in the armchair, your neck taking the worst of it. but then you felt a heavy weight over your chest, rippled arm resting just under your boobs.
titus.
last night came rushing into your memory like a flood through the dam. you'd kissed him. drunk or not, you kissed him and... you liked it.
you peeled his arm off you, zipping your dress up. you looked at him once. he was stuck to the backrest of the couch like a lizard. had you fallen asleep against his chest?
your eyes fell on the marks you'd left on him. red blots along his neck, his jaw. a faint cloud of blue on the crook of his neck. blood rushed to your cheeks as you recalled damn nearly every kiss you shared. how you remembered after a strong drink was a scientific mystery, but... a part of you was glad you didn't forget. after all, it had been one of the best fucking make-outs you'd had in a long time.
who knew titus danforth could be such a... phenomenal kisser.
you let him lie there, and trudged up to your bedroom, the light in the hallways making your eyes sting. you stood before the bathroom mirror, gawking at just how many hickeys he'd fucking left on your skin. if no one was the wiser, you'd be asked to file an assault report to the police. but these were... bites of passion, of lust, of... want.
fuck... you'd kissed titus. or he'd kissed you and you let it happen, you did it back, you did it all night.
you didn't know how you were going to face him sober. would he remember? knowing him, and the copious amounts of alcohol he's used to, he would. and that made you want to bash your head against the basin.
you could just stay in your room. pretend to be sick. tell him you were severely, incurably hungover. you didn't exactly 'have' to see his face or be near him.
you stepped out, having showered, and drank a glass of water. you looked at your bed lovingly, eager to spend a few days in there.
but life had other plans for you. plans shaped like a neat, gold-lined card sitting in a tray on the table, shiny letters winking at you.
"in union with family, blessed by divinity, modesty silcox and patrick stephens request the pleasure of your company at the celebration of their marriage. 20th may, 2026, georgian house, martha's vineyard, dukes county, massachusetts"
fuck.
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dividers by: @diviniyae @rmstitanics
taglist: @taniamiller @generation-zero @goddess-of-spring @1dhoe93 @saigereaper @onyxorbspire @fluffyassbutt @niki128
absinthe is such a sexy drink istg. i wanna try it someday.
so to be honest, I normally don't super like fanfiction in general. but your ready or not 2 story is just STUNNING, you've got me looking into fanfiction again, even though i haven't engaged in fandom/fanworks in literal years. The writing is amazing your additional worldbuilding enriches the world, the commitment to research is admirable, thank you for your service, seriously.
omg im so moved đđ thank you so much for reading!! i've actually never done worldbuilding before, so this is relatively new for me. hence the research. but i'm so glad that it's working!!!
the last great demented dynasty VI
titus danforth x y/n
previous part | next part
a/n: throughout the chapters, certain songs will be mentioned at the beginning or after a partition. the music is chosen mostly for the vibes and the melody. if the lyrics align, yay. if not, play along. but i highly recommend listening to the songs on loop for its section if you're a 'take-your-time' reader. idk, the music just adds some oomf to it.
also, i was bonedeep inspired to write this after reading this incredible story by @thatcorporategirlie you have to read it. mr le bail'd be pissed if you didn't
summary: the work you're doing for the danforths just so happens to be within your niche, and you can't help but enjoy it. and titus can't help but enjoy you, slowly getting infatuated
warnings: LONG CHAPTER SORRY. mentions of sacrifice and blood, titus DOWN BAD FR, male masturbation, titus being sapiosexual lmao, linguistic terminologies and multilingual examples, brief mention of titus' childhood trauma
âŹâ.Ë happy with me; holychild
ever since the lawyer clasped that cursed thing around your wrist and tethered you to titus danforth like some medieval punishment, you had dedicated a frankly impressive amount of energy toward finding loopholes.
there had to be one. there was always one. you refused to believe your life had genuinely devolved into magical probation.
the first discovery came accidentally.
the basement levelsâor rather, the sprawling subterranean labyrinth the danforths casually referred to as the basementâseemed untouched by the bondâs effects. apparently the lower halls were protected by some kind of sealing spell, which was a sentence you still could not process without feeling faintly ridiculous.
what do you mean 'magic' actually existed? in newport. fucking newport, rhode island of all godforsaken places.
still, the moment you crossed below the manorâs lower thresholds, the burning in your wrist ceased entirely. no matter how far titus wandered underground, the sigil remained dormant, faint against your skin like sleeping embers. figured, since you were 'tasked' (again) with literary work.
but naturally, you began experimenting 'scientifically' (spitefully).
ten feet apart? nothing.
opposite ends of a corridor? mild irritation, tolerable, you had period cramps worse than that.
separate rooms? unpleasant sting, like someone was squeezing your wrist with a nylon thread, or a guitar string.
but any farther than that became simply unbearable. once, while checking chesterâs blood pressure in the old manâs absurdly luxurious recovery suite, you felt the first warning pulse beneath the sigil. heat bloomed suddenly around your wrist, sharp enough to break your concentration mid-sentence.
you looked down immediately. the mark glowed faint red beneath your skin.
âproblem?â chester asked without looking up from the newspaper in his hands.
âjust your son,â you muttered darkly, already rising from your chair.
sure enough, titus had wandered off again. you found him halfway down the west corridor, leaning leisurely against a doorway as though he had not just triggered mystical nerve damage from across the manor.
the moment you stepped closer, the pain eased. titus smiled instantly.
"there she is."
you hated him. viscerally. because after discovering the limits of the bond, titus had transformed the entire ordeal into (drumroll) a game.
sometimes he would drift casually out of rooms while you worked, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed, waiting for the precise moment the sigil began burning beneath your skin.
twenty feet seemed to be the danger point. at twenty feet, the mark turned vicious. heat would curl aroind your wrist, as if your hand was held under hot water. pain crawled up your arm and numbed your fingers like molten metal poured over skin.
and every single time, you'd be forced to find him. which delighted him endlessly.
âyou know,â he mused once, slowly backing farther down the corridor while you glared murderously at him, âmost girls usually invent excuses to stay close to me.â
âmost girls,â you hissed through clenched teeth, stalking after him while cradling your burning wrist, âhave not been magically handcuffed to satanâs favourite nepo baby.â
that got a laugh out of him. worse still, he had begun testing your limits too.
you would be halfway through sorting chesterâs medications only to realise titus was retreating down the hallway one measured step at a time. the bastard watched for the exact second your expression changed. the exact second discomfort sharpened into pain. then he would smile and wave.
and because the sigil punished distance with horrifying efficiency, you inevitably ended up following after him with your increasingly wounded dignity trailing behind. sometimes quickly, sometimes reluctantly. once, in only one sock.
âthat's it, come to daddy,â titus drawled with a smirk as you approached him again with an absolutely murderous expression, stomping your way towards him. âoof, that little frown. adorable.â
âi am going to kill you.â
âyouâve said that six times today.â
âand i mean it more every hour.â
the heat beneath your wrist finally subsided once you stood close enough again. you exhaled sharply through your nose, glaring at him while he looked entirely too pleased with himself. you were afraid of watching this turn into psychological nicotine. distraught and in danger when you weren't near him, safe and painless next to him.
but the worst part of it all was sleep.
dear sleep, lovely sleep, which had already abandoned you long before the blood sigil shit. the danforth manor itself was enough to ruin a nervous system permanently. between the corridors that groaned at night like something trapped inside the walls, the servants who hunted each other for 'fun', and the knowledge that somewhere beneath the house sat an ancient floating law book deciding human fate, restful sleep had become more theory than reality. the sigil merely perfected your misery.
your room sat far enough from titusâ chambers that the bond never truly settled while you slept. it lingered beneath your skin constantly, not vicious enough to incapacitate you, but persistent enough to deny you comfort, a ceaseless heat circling your wrist.
some nights it throbbed faintly beneath the skin. you would wake in the middle of the night with numb fingers and an aching forearm, your skin reddened where the sigil curled beneath it like inflamed veins. more than once, you sat awake at three in the morning holding an ice pack against your wrist while chomsky stared at you with the grave concern of a disappointed therapist.
ointment was fuckass. modern medicine, it seemed, had very little to say about occult blood contracts.
eventually, after four nights of miserable half-sleep and one particularly humiliating moment where you nearly cried because your wrist hurt too much to hold a pen properly, you reached your limit. if proximity soothed the pain, then proximity it would be.
you gathered your pillow beneath one arm, your duvet beneath the other, and scooped up chomskyâwho tolerated the relocation with the heavy sigh of a man drafted into war against his will. then you marched through the corridor toward titusâ room wearing slippers, an oversized shirt, and the expression of someone moments away from committing a felony.
the manor staff watched you pass in complete silence. one of the maids actually lowered her eyes to hide a smile. you chose not to acknowledge it for the preservation of your remaining dignity. outside titusâ room sat one of the long ornamental coffee tables lining the salon wall. absurdly polished. carved legs. probably older than democracy itself. you dragged it across the floor with enough irritation to wake the dead (good).
once the table sat against the wall beside titusâ door, you arranged your pillow and blanket atop it. and lord, it was terrible. the table was too narrow for proper sleep and too short for your height, leaving your legs dangling awkwardly over the edge. every time you shifted, the hard wood dug into your spine.
chomsky though, was on cloud nine. the traitor immediately stretched himself across the polished surface and began happily scratching one corner of the antique table with his claws.
âgood,â you muttered darkly while trying to adjust your hip against the wood. âdestroy their generational wealth.â
you had almost managed to drift into uncomfortable unconsciousness when a door creaked open above your head.
titus stood there, one hand resting against the doorway, dressed in a black shirt that hugged his huge arms tightly, yet somehow still looked offensively expensive. his gaze travelled slowly from you⌠to the table⌠to the cat vandalising seventeenth-century furniture. then back to you.
back to your cute little self curled onto the table under the blanket like one of those fuzzy worms.
he asked, voice roughened with sleep and amusement alike, ââŚwhat exactly am i looking at?â
you pulled the blanket higher over yourself without shame. "nothing."
his mouth twitched instantly. the asshole actually looked pleased. he leaned one shoulder against the doorway, gaze lingering lazily over your makeshift arrangement.
"you decided to become corridor decor, is that it?"
"feng shui," you muttered.
he watched you attemptâand failâto shift into a comfortable position atop the wooden surface. your back cracked audibly, three little clicks.
titus was, unsurprisingly, more than delighted by your predicament.
âyou could just sleep in my bed,â he drawled lazily, one shoulder still resting against the doorway. âall you gotta do is ask.â
his eyes flicked meaningfully over your expression.
âor beg. i prefer the latter.â
you stared at him flatly. "i'd rather blow up."
his grin only widened.
âyou really wanna be out here on game night?â
that did it. the transformation was instantaneous. one second you were stubbornly arranged atop the coffee table like an indignant dickensonian orphan; the next, you were upright at alarming speed, blanket collapsing around your ankles while pure survival instinct overtook dignity entirely. your expression alone belonged in a gothic oil painting, grim, mortified.
titus looked unbearably smug. ââs what i thought.â
he stepped aside at last, allowing you entry with all the satisfaction of a man winning an argument he had engineered himself. chomsky followed immediately, trotting behind your, tail raised high out of curiosity.
titusâ bedroom, unfortunately, was exactly the sort of room you imagined titus danforth would inhabit if given unchecked wealth and absolutely no supervision.
the bed was enormous, well, less a bed, more a crater in the earth, facing towering windows draped in dark fabric heavy enough to smother someone. a fireplace crackled low beneath a mounted flatscreen television. some expensive surround sound system.
you stopped short beside the bar tucked against one wall. of course.
but there were books too. entire shelves lined with old hardcovers, leather-bound volumes with worn spines and gilded lettering softened by age. first editions, if your instincts were correct. some looked genuinely antique. your fingers ran over their spine instinctively.
beside the shelves hung several guns displayed with almost artistic precision, along with medieval axes that looked pretty authentic.
behind you, titus wandered toward the bar with leisurely ease, pouring whiskey from one of the crystal decanters.
âpaid some good money for those,â he said, nodding toward the books.
you glanced over your shoulder.
âyou didnât.â
he took a sip.
âi didnât,â he admitted smoothly. âiâm just that persuasive.â
âiâd be too if satan personally sponsored me," you scoffed.
meanwhile your attention drifted helplessly back toward the shelves. despite yourself, your fingers traced slowly over the leather bindings, feeling the grooves pressed into them by age.
titus watched you quietly over the rim of his glass. his gaze travelled with a patience that felt almost physical. over the loose waves of your hair clipped up carelessly atop your head. over the thin straps of your tank top and the faint outline of your bra beneath the fabric. over the cotton pants pooling around your bare ankles, hips doing god's work. your toenails were painted white. he had noticed that days ago. you walked around the manor barefoot constantly, despite every polished floor and priceless rug beneath your feet.
initially he had found it mildly barbaric. now he found himself unbothered. his eyes lingered perhaps a second too long before he finally spoke again.
âhowâs the translation going?â
there it was. the actual reason you remained trapped in this architectural nightmare. the dementhund. you looked back at him over your shoulder, unimpressed.
âwould be going a lot better if my laptop actually functioned in valhalla downstairs.â
titus smirked into his whiskey. âso read.â
âexcuse me?â
âthatâs how we studied when i was your age.â
you blinked slowly. âwas that in the eighteen hundreds?â
titus shot you an unimpressed look, one that pled âIâm not that old, but yes, we didnât have led lights.'
over the next several days, your occupation of the manor began taking on quieter, stranger shapes.
books started appearing everywhere. at first it had only been the few you brought from your own room, annotated paperbacks swollen with sticky notes and tabs, their margins crowded by years of irritated academic commentary. then came the printed pages. articles downloaded from obscure linguistic archives, chapters scanned from university databases, manuscripts you spent entire evenings formatting and binding together by hand because the internet connection beneath the manor behaved like it feared enlightenment.
eventually, even titusâ room began resembling the study space of a sleep-deprived doctoral candidate possessed by something ancient and caffeinated.
stacks of papers occupied his desk, your notes spread across his coffee table, sticky tabs clung to bookshelves and the mirror. one of your highlighters had somehow ended up in his whiskey decanter.
he complained exactly once. after that, he merely watched the infestation spread.
unfortunately, some of the texts you needed could not simply be printed. certain manuscripts existed only in old university collections or private archives, while others had long since vanished out of circulation entirely. you spent hours searching catalogues, cross-checking publication records, digging through citations referenced by scholars who were probably dead now.
which was precisely how you found yourself balancing a phone between your shoulder and ear while grinding herbs into a mortar beside chesterâs bed.
âuh huh,â you muttered distractedly, pressing the pestle down with slow irritation. âcan you check with routledge or cambridge again? maybe another distributor?â
a pause crackled through the line. you sighed heavily. âseriously? fine. alright. let me know the second you hear anything.â
you ended the call with considerably more force than necessary. behind you, newspaper pages rustled softly.
âsomething the matter?â chester asked at last. you glanced toward him briefly.
by now, you had largely accepted the fact that the danforth family functioned somewhere between aristocracy and organised occultism. the revelation had settled into your nervous system with surprising efficiency. provided no one attempted another blood ritual or summoned amphibious legal advisors from hell, you found it easier not to question things too deeply.
also, quite frankly, you had absolutely zero desire to discover what additional curses the lawyer kept available in his repertoire. being magically tethered to titus was already hell enough.
âi need a book,â you admitted, returning your attention to the mortar. âfor the translation work. apparently every publisher on earth has decided it no longer deserves to exist.â
the old man stared at you as though mildly offended.
âmy dear,â he scoffed at last, âyou insult me. you truly believe the danforths are incapable of acquiring a book?â
you blinked once. fair point. chester coughed lightly into a handkerchief before turning his head toward pernilla, âcall titus.â
dread descended upon you immediately. the air grew heavier. crops withered somewhere in the distance. a church bell probably cracked in half.
titus arrived several minutes later, dark-clad as always, carrying the faint scent of smoke and expensive cologne into the room with him.
chester did not waste time. âmiss l/n requires a particular book,â he announced gravely, as though assigning a military campaign. âit is now your responsibility to acquire it. do not fail, lest you befall the wrath of mr le bail.â
titus barely reacted. if anything, he looked moments away from rolling his eyes. instead, his gaze drifted lazily toward you.
âa book,â he repeated.
âterrifying concept, i know," you mumbled, already annoyed.
"does it have a name or is that up to me to discover too?"
you shot him a glare. "historical linguistics, lyle campbell"
titus mentally noted down the name.
you reached for the small silver tray beside you and lifted a spoonful of thick liquid toward chester and the old man frowned instantly.
âwhat on earth is this?â
âmedicine.â
âi do not recall seeing this prescribed.â
a smile tugged faintly at your mouth. âoh, this came from the finest apothecary known to mankind.â
chester narrowed his eyes suspiciously. you held the spoon patiently before him.
âthe kitchen,â you clarified. âhoney, basil, clover. antioxidants, anti-inflammatory compounds, throat coating. less painful than forcing pills down every few hours.â
chester regarded the spoon with immense distrust. buttttt the old man swallowed carefully, grumbling beneath his breath the entire time like a child being subjected to vegetables.
âŹâ.Ë clara?; murray gold
later that evening, when the manor had softened beneath the last stretch of sunlight and the western halls glowed amber like the inside of a cathedral, you settled yourself out on the balcony attached to your room.
for once, your wrist did not ache. which meant titus was somewhere nearby. good. excellent. wonderful. may he remain geographically tolerable for the next several hours.
you intended to make full use of the occasion while it lasted. one leg crossed loosely over the other, feet propped against the balcony railing, you sank deeper into the chair with a book in your hands and the cool evening air brushing softly against your skin. this one had nothing to do with proto-indo-european roots or blood rituals or ancient manuscripts scribbled by lunatics.
it was yours. something read purely for pleasure. the reading that asked nothing of you in return.
hours slipped strangely when you read like this. time ceased feeling linear. the manor, the danforths, the basement, the sigil around your wrist, all of it receded somewhere beyond the edges of thought until there remained only paper, sunlight, and silence.
you never heard titus enter the room behind you.
he stopped just beyond the open balcony doors and stared; for a long while, he did nothing else. you were only reading and that was the absurdity of it. people read constantly. he read. chester practically lived buried beneath books and papers. ursula treated knowledge like currency. there was nothing remarkable about the act itself.
and yet there you sat, curled carelessly into the fading gold of evening light as though the manor had not swallowed your freedom whole weeks ago.
your hair had been tied up loosely at some point, though strands had escaped around your face and neck, softened further by the sunlight touching your skin. the crook of your neck caught some soft hairs and left him wanting an inhale. the black night slip clung lazily against your frame where you sat half-folded into the chair, bare legs stretched comfortably against the railing.
your toes flexed absentmindedly every few pages. your fingers moved delicately when you turned them. ridiculously small things. but titus found himself noticing all of them, hell worse, he found himself unwilling to look away.
women in his world had always been loud in one way or another. if not in voice, then in spectacle. wealth announced itself constantly within danforth circlesâdiamonds at throats, designer heels against marble floors, hobbies cultivated solely because they were expensive enough to impress someone else, always to prove.
but you just existed. you read because you wanted to read, you jogged through foggy forests because you liked the air. you drank tea perched sideways in the armchair in his room like some overgrown cat because it felt nice. you spoke to servants like they were people knowing how crazy they could be. you let your cat leave fur all over you because he had the right to do so. and somehow, impossibly, you remained untouched by the crushing need to prove yourself to anyone in this house.
titus danforth possessed money vast enough to buy estates, judges, politicians, entire bloodlines if he wished.
yet standing there in the quiet of his room, watching you disappear peacefully into a book while sunset gilded your skin, he realised with sudden irritation that you possessed the one thing he had never once managed to obtain honestly.
peace.
you had no mother. no siblings. a disgraced father hidden somewhere beneath the earth like a rumour people spoke around in whispers. your life before the manor had consisted largely of books, work, a tiny apartment, and one fat, aggressively judgemental cat.
and yet there was something deeply whole about you. titus slowly took a step forward and wondered what it might feel like to be looked at by you the way you looked at those pages.
he cleared his throat at last, the sound quiet against the hush of evening.
standing there in the doorway, hands folded neatly behind his back, titus looked almost absurdly formal. he looked more like a prison warden arriving to escort an inmate back into confinement.
you looked up from your book. your eyes met his. and god...the sunlight struck them directly.
your eyes had always been dark. rich brown, deep enough to seem almost black indoors, like polished wood or strong coffee left untouched in porcelain. but beneath the dying gold of sunset, they transformed entirely. amber unfurled through them. the light gathered inside your irises until they looked less like eyes and more like pools of liquid gold lit from beneath.
fuck.
titus swallowed before he could stop himself. for one humiliating second, he simply stared. this felt unfair somehow. he had never seen eyes alter themselves so completely beneath sunlight. worse still, he had certainly never had eyes like that look directly at him.
he stiffened almost immediately after, jaw flexing slightly before he rolled his neck once, subtle and sharp, as though physically forcing himself back into his own skin.
then he stepped forward at last and held something out toward you: a book case.
you blinked once and then twice. "no way..."
you gently took it from him, afraid it might vanish. you opened it and immediately sat upright, legs dropping from the railing. inside, wrapped securely beneath layers of parchment paper blotting any dust or moisture, rested a worn-out, pristine copy of historical linguistics: an introduction by lyle campbell.
your breath caught. then came the laugh. a small, disbelieving (genuinely delighted) laught. the sound startled him more than it should have.
âyou actually found it,â you murmured, already turning the pages with visible reverence. âholy shitâŚâ your fingers skimmed lightly across annotations and chapter headers like someone reuniting with an old friend after years apart.
for the next several minutes, you forgot him entirely. and titus, well he simply stood there watching you admire a book.
a fucking book.
three full minutes passed while you examined the binding, flipped through the chapters, checked the publication page, all with a kind of earnest happiness he rarely witnessed in anyone anymore.
he found, rather annoyingly, that he liked being the cause of it. eventually, he cleared his throat again.
âback to the basement then.â
the moment the words left his mouth, regret followed immediately. mental self-inflicted violence ensued. what the fuck was wrong with him? look at you. the sunlight adored you. you belonged here, half-draped across a balcony chair with gold caught in your eyes and wind brushing through your hair. not underground among dust and rotting parchment and whatever infernal cobwebs lurked beneath the manor.
not in the basement. for a fleeting instant, titus wondered what might happen if he simply let the translation rot unfinished. if he told ursula to wait. if he kept you here instead, untouched by darkness for one more evening. unfortunately, when you looked back up at him with that softened expression still lingering on your face, clutching the book against your chest like treasure, the feeling only worsened.
âŹâ.Ë teardrop; massive attack, elizabeth frazer
your days and nights had begun to resemble one another so thoroughly that you no longer trusted your own sense of time. the basement permitted no sunlight, no windows, no evidence that a world existed beyond the stone and dust of the manor. morning and midnight dissolved into the same stale dimness. the only lights allowed down there came from kerosene lamps whose flames trembled against the walls like nervous spirits. electrical wiring, apparently, refused to function beneath the manor. of course it did. the d in danforth stood for deficiency.
at first, the place smelled aggressively of turpentine and old varnish, like someone kept dipping you in it like an oil paint brush. beneath that lingered the scent of damp paper, candle soot, oxidised metal, and old leather bindings swollen with age. eventually, however, your senses adjusted. the smell stopped clawing at your throat and instead settled into the background, becoming merely another feature of the underworld you had unwillingly inherited.
you would have preferred to work slowly. carefully. methodically. this was not the sort of text one rushed through unless one wished to accidentally summon a plague or wake some antediluvian god with anger issues. unfortunately, the family had reminded youâfar too cheerfullyâthat the full moon was approaching, and if the dementhund contained any rituals relevant to it, advance translation would be âideal for preparations.â
you had decided not to ask what those preparations entailed. preserving your sanity required at least some boundaries. still, against your better judgment, the work drew you in.
it was impossible not to be fascinated. the basement was a graveyard of languages. texts older than nations rested there in stacks and shelves and locked cabinets. manuscripts annotated by hands long dead. marginalia written in inks that had browned with centuries. fragments of liturgies, glosses, grammatical notes, diagrams, astronomical observations, ritual transcriptions, all layered atop one another like geological sediment made of human obsession.
and in the middle of it all stood the enormous desk, broad enough to pass for a dining table. naturally, you reorganised it within the first two days. each side had a chair so you could shift positions whenever your spine threatened mutiny.
the wider end of the table became your reference station. descriptive grammars of latin, greek, and sanskrit towered there in uneven stacks alongside dictionaries and reconstructed phonological charts. beside them sat texts on daughter languages in their earlier formsâold occitan, old french, old italian, old high german, archaic english. titles in fading gold foil stared back at you like solemn judges.
opposite that was your work station.
because your laptop became little more than an expensive slab of useless metal once its battery died, everything had to be done manually. every note. every observation. every reconstructed root and semantic drift had to be written by hand across thick cream paper embossed at the top with the danforth crest.
they had also provided you with a typewriter. that, annoyingly, delighted you. the thing was fucking gorgeous. heavy black enamel body, brass-rimmed keys, crisp striking arms. it clacked with authority, each sentence sounding important the moment it hit paper. sometimes, when the basement fell silent except for the clicking of keys and the turning of pages, you almost forgot about the world.
to your left sat towers of printouts and annotated research papers on paleolinguistics, comparative philology, contact studies, semantic reconstruction. your copy of lyle campbell rested there too, increasingly filled with sticky notes and irritated scribbles in the margins.
to your right, however, existed the only corner resembling humanity.
a small tray. a carafe of water. a tea kettle. occasionally coffee if you anticipated a long night. fruit stolen from the kitchens. once, even a little dish with camphor pellets you had with you. made the area smell better.
and at the very centre of the table. heavy. monstrous. bound in some dark material that might once have been leather and now resembled something older, tougher, less willing to disclose its origins. iron locks clasped its sides shut, blackened with age, engraved with symbols that looked less carved and more wounded into the metal. even lying dormant, the thing radiated presence: the dementhund
you fucking swore the book was haunted.
sometimes, while working, you would feel it before looking at itâthe uncanny sensation of being observed. not by a person exactly, but by something aware. something patient. your eyes would slowly lift from your notes only to find the dementhund sitting precisely where it had been all along, silent and immovable beneath the lamp glow, yet somehow... attentive.
you had never once worried about your phone spying on you.
this book, however? this book absolutely looked capable of reading your thoughts, judging your ancestry, and reporting your browser history directly to satan.
the worst part was the way it behaved. or rather, the way it occasionally misbehaved.
pages shifted when there was no draft. metal clasps clicked softly at odd hours. once, while you were halfway through comparing a reconstructed verbal root across old occitan and ecclesiastical latin, the book had simply opened three inches on its own.
you had nearly flung your tea across the basement.
another time, you could have sworn the engravings along its spine moved beneath your fingertips like muscle twitching under skin. you had withdrawn your hand so quickly the chair screeched against the stone floor.
titus, naturally, found this hilarious.
âit likes you,â he had said once, lounging in the chair opposite yours with a whiskey glass in hand.
âthat sentence has never preceded anything good in the history of mankind.â
âyouâre spending more time with it than anyone else has in decades.â
âwonderful. if it starts asking me personal questions, iâm setting it on fire.â
titus had smirked into his drink then, eyes flicking toward the dementhund.
âi wouldnât.â
the strategic absence of titus was one of the positive aspects of this task. as long as you remained below, titus could wander wherever he pleased without your skin threatening to combust. he could have flown to spain, climbed the pyrenees, and done nude goat yoga in the countryside for all you cared.
so you arranged your schedule carefully.
if he intended to stay within the manor, you emerged upstairs. if he planned to leave, you buried yourself in the basement for hours at a time, avoiding the humiliating reality of having to trail after him because of magical proximity restrictions.
you told yourself this arrangement was practical.
you did not acknowledge that titus had started lingering downstairs anyway.
it had started wiith brief visits. titus called it 'checking in', though the man contributed nithing useful to the actual work. he would descened the stairs, cringe at the dust, complain about the smell, eat most of whatever tea cake had been brought down for you, and then proceeded to circle the table pointlessly.
sometimes he would stop behind your chair and glance at the books. sometimes he'd turn your books upside down just to piss you off.
and most of the times, he'd lean over placing his chin on your shoulder so suddenly that you'd nearly jam the typewriter keys throigh your fingers.
"do you mind?" you muttered once after his shadow swallowed half your notes.
"not particularly."
"i meant... the hovering."
"nah."
you shot him a flat look before resuming working and he helped himself ot another slice of cake.
eventually, however, the visits grew longer.
on nights when you failed to appear for dinner, titus would come downstairs himself accompanied by some poor servant balancing a silver tray loaded with food. apparently the family had concluded that if you were left unsupervised with old manuscripts long enough, you simply forgot civilisation existed.
which, honestly, was not entirely inaccurate. he would usually find you in one of two states.
either seated at the typewriter, shoulders hunched slightly forward, lamp glow spilling across your face while the machine clattered relentlessly beneath your fingers...
or darting from one end of the table to the other with increasing irritation because a single cursed word refused to cooperate across three different language branches. you muttered to yourself, flipping through latin notes before lunging toward a sanskrit grammar half a metre away.
titus paused midway through pouring himself a drink.
you had skewered pencils into your hair at some point. ink smudged the side of your hand. your hair kept slipping down your ear every time you moved, forcing you to push it back absentmindedly.
he watched you move around the table again, muttering linguistic obscenities under your breath. the thing was, titus had expected boredom from this arrangement. irritation, certainly. resistance too. but not this.
you changed when you worked.
the exhaustion remained, of course. he saw it in the slight rubbing of your eyes after hours bent over texts, in the way you stretched your neck with quiet little winces when your back began aching. but beneath that was something brighter. sharper.
you became absorbed.
completely and frighteningly absorbed.
one word could occupy you for an hour. one fragment could send you sprinting across stacks of books with sudden excitement. sometimes he would enter the basement to find entire pages covered in arrows, roots, phonetic shifts, reconstructed stems, semantic notes running into margins.
after some contextual research to establish a foundation, you finally opened some chapters of the dementhund.
based on the imagery alone, you had begun distinguishing which pages likely described rituals and which merely documented events, beliefs, or observations. the ritualistic pages always possessed a certain theatricality to them. dramatic illustrations. exaggerated figures. too many knives for comfort.
titus sat beside you while you carefully turned another page of the dementhund. the parchment crackled softly beneath your fingertips.
âew,â you muttered immediately.
the illustration was awful.
(my bad guys i can't use canva that well. the reconstructed language has deliberate spelling mistakes hinting at a latter documentation of older sound. bear with me T_T)
time had eaten away at most of the page with stains, ink bleeds, and bookworm bites, but the scene was still horribly decipherable. two figures stood over what appeared to be a supine body. there were strokes of faded colour around the victimâs torso that might once have depicted blood or organs or both. frankly, you were not interested in finding out.
titus leaned slightly closer. then, with complete seriousness, he sniffed in judgement.
âthe bloodâs pink.â
you looked at him flatly over the magnifying glass.
âyeah, because the pigment faded over time. they didnât exactly have winsor and newton back then.â
âshame. really ruins the ambience.â
ânothing says ambience like disembowelment.â
he hummed thoughtfully as though considering your point.
ignoring him, you adjusted the magnifying glass over the page and leaned closer to the text. the ink had browned with age, the calligraphy excessively ornamental in the way old scribes always seemed to believe readability was for peasants. some of the letters had bled into the parchment fibres entirely.
you took notes steadily on a loose sheet beside you, your left hand moving in quick flowing strokes while your right anchored the page in place.
titusâ gaze drifted downward. he had noticed it before, of course. the left-handedness. but something about it tonight held his attention longer than usual.
your handwriting curled elegantly across the paper, smooth loops and narrow slants threading into one another with effortless rhythm. it suited you.
far more than the ugly cramped scrawl littering most of the family archives.
his mind wandered before he could stop it. chester had hated left-handedness.
he remembered being very smallâthree, perhaps fourâseated at an enormous desk while his father loomed over him with clinical disappointment. titus had stubbornly reached for the pencil with his left hand again and again until chester finally ordered a servant to strap the offending limb into a little leather gauntlet that pinned his wrist uselessly to his side.
âagain,â his father had said coldly while little titus struggled to shape crooked alphabets with his right hand.
he remembered the frustration more than the pain. the humiliation of ink blotches. the ruler striking the desk whenever he reverted instinctively to the other hand. by the end of the month he could write with his right well enough to satisfy chester, though his penmanship never recovered from the forced correction.
even now, as an adult, his handwriting remained sharp, hurried, vaguely aggressive. meanwhile yours flowed across the page like black ribbon.
âŹâ.Ë angel (radio edit); massive attack, horace andy
you read and reread and analysed the same miserable little page for so long that titus eventually began wondering whether you had fallen asleep standing upright.
the text itself was barely half a page. a few faded lines. cramped script, legit dried blood stains on the page, yet you had been hovering over it for nearly an hour now, shifting between books, muttering to yourself, scribbling notes only to cross them out again.
finally, titus nudged the side of your foot with the tip of his boot.
âwhat,â you asked absently, without even looking at him.
âyou seem to be doing an awful lot of nothing for someone with this much apparatus,â he remarked, glancing across the chaos consuming the table. books lay open spine-up in precarious stacks. loose papers were scattered everywhere. your typewriter sat abandoned for the moment beneath pages filled with frantic annotations and phonetic arrows. one kerosene lamp burned low beside your elbow while another illuminated the dementhund itself beneath the magnifying glass.
âi am working.â
âsure you are.â
you sighed softly through your nose and leaned back from the magnifying lens, sliding it aside with ink-stained fingers. your eyes remained fixed on the page. for a few moments you said nothing at all, though your lips continued moving faintly, muttering syllables beneath your breath as if testing how they tasted.
then you flipped through your notes again.
titus watched your brow furrow.
âi canât tell whether youâre serious orââ
apparently deciding that thinking privately had become impossible with him lingering there, you began voicing your thoughts aloud instead. not necessarily to him. more like throwing them into the air so your mind could catch them properly.
âdyus is obviously deus, so... god,â you murmured, tracing the word lightly with your pencil. âphter corresponds to pater in latin... also greek... pitra in sanskrit...â your eyes flicked sideways toward another book. âthatâs father. so. god, father. probably god symbolised as a father. father of what...â you frowned. âpeople? father of a clan?â
your fingers tapped lightly against the table before moving lower down the page.
âkrwh, thatâs blood, we saw that already. gentis...â you squinted slightly. âgenetics? genealogy maybe. family.â
you reached for another grammar, flipping through pages rapidly.
âokay... okay.â
more scribbling.
âdukturâthatâs not doctor,â you muttered immediately. âno. no, start with core vocabulary first. swadesh hundred if needed...â your pencil hovered above the page. âif the previous word is family, this could be kinship too...â'
you flipped through greek.
âthygater... yeah, fine, plosives become fricatives all the time...â another page turn. âdottor... doktar... tochter...â your expression shifted instantly. âdaughter. of course. my bad.â
titus blinked once.
you had not looked at him a single time throughout this entire process.
âhen pevwr...â you continued quietly. âthat has to be in fire. or on fire. upon maybe.â
another word.
âdo...â your eyes narrowed. âif iâm right...â you grabbed a loose page from another pile. âsanskrit has dadÄti or dÄnam. old persian has dadatuv. greek...â you snapped your fingers once. âdidomi. latin is dare.â
more frantic notes.
âiâm guessing this means to give.â
the scratching of your pencil filled the basement.
âamrtos...â you muttered next. âatmosphere? no. amare? to like? love? maybe...â your mouth twisted thoughtfully before you abruptly lunged for the old greek grammar again. âorâorââ
pages flipped rapidly beneath your fingers.
âamartos...â you whispered.
then you reached for archaic english cognates.myour eyes widened.
âoh. oh. oh.â
you looked up from the page like someone who had just seen lightning strike.
âambrosia,â you breathed. âoffering to the gods.â
you wrote it down so quickly the pen nearly tore through paper.
âpro sigi...â you murmured next. âpro could mean for. sigi...â your head tilted faintly, eyes crinkled, your fingers massaging your forehead. âsiege? victory? triumph. something along those lines.â
for the next several minutes the basement became nothing but your voice, turning roots and cognates over like bones in your hands, tracing semantic shifts across centuries, repairing broken sounds through instinct and comparison.
and all the while, slowly, that grin appeared.
it began subtly at one corner of your mouth before spreading across your face altogether, brightening you with something feverish and triumphant. you looked completely immersed in your own mind, delighted by patterns only you could see.
god, that grin did unholy things to titus. it was ridiculous how much he began waiting for it. you looked possessed by thought itself.
finally, after nearly seven uninterrupted minutes of muttering, scribbling, cross-referencing and reconstructing, you leaned back slightly and read the tentative translation aloud.
âblood. family. daughter. on fire. give. ambrosia. for victory.â
you sighed at the page. then slowly rearranged it.
âgive the blood of the family daughter to the gods as ambrosia... for siege.â
an exhausted breath left you after the ramble. sweat clung faintly to your collarbone and the neckline of your tank top from hours spent bent beneath the heat of the lamps, fabric sticking lightly against your skin.
only then did you finally look at titus. he stared at you in complete silence.
knowing languages was one thing. he knew two himself. the danforths valued education almost as much as they valued cruelty.
but this? this was sorcery of its own. you had just dismantled fragments of dead language families, tracked sound shifts across centuries, reconstructed meanings from roots that no longer properly existed, and somehow stitched together an intelligible sentence from a manuscript his family had failed to decipher for generations. alone. through instinct, comparison, pattern recognition, and sheer terrifying intellect.
titus danforth was many thingsâsmug, vain, indulgent, impossibleâbut he recognised brilliance when it stood in front of him.
and you, sitting there beneath flickering lamplight with ink on your fingers and victory glowing across your face, looked brilliant enough to ruin him.
he didnât say anything after that. not immediately. but something in him had gone strangely still. his throat felt dry, his spine drawn taut, every hair along the back of his neck standing sharp as pine needles.
it unsettled him.
not because he thought you dangerous. no, danger he understood. danger was simple. it carried knives and axes and bloodied smiles. danger announced itself in growls and gunshots and the kind of laughter that echoed down corridors during game night.
but this? this was something else entirely.
you had looked at nonsense scribbled into a centuries-old text and pulled meaning out of it with your bare hands.
he watched you for another minute before finally stepping away from the table. you barely noticed him leave.
a/n: images 1, 2, 4, and 5 are from pinterest. the middle one is a quick sample reconstruction/phonemic inventory of PIE vowls that i did for the sake of this story T_T it's real. not made up. (the whole page is uploaded at the end if you're curious) moving on
and later that night, after allowing you the rare mercy of rest, titus sat alone in his room with a drink untouched beside him and his laptop open. he looked you up properly this time. not the surveillance files the family kept. not photographs taken from a distance. not the shallow summaries of where you lived or what job you worked. he wanted to know you. and apparently, you had left your mind scattered all over the internet in pieces. he started at the beginning.
bachelorâs degree in english literature with honours. alongside it, employment records from language institutes. french tutor. he almost scoffed at that. you, standing before a classroom, trying to teach conjugations to inattentive idiots. but hearing you speak french would be... titillating, he thought. he felt his pants tighten, and he shifted himself from the bar and into the bed.
then came your masterâs in linguistics.
and there it was.
the rot spread beautifully from there. (me to myself knowing i finish my masters exams in 3 days, dissertation due in 5 hehehehe)
comparative philology. contact linguistics. syntax. prosodic analysis. neurolinguistics. cognitive linguistics. papers dense enough to make his temples hurt after three paragraphs. but he did. he read them not caring if they were out of his league. he just wanted to know your mind.
he learned that you spoke seven languages fluently.
english. french. hindi. urdu. farsi. italian. japanese.
titus leaned back against the headboard of his bed at that point, staring at the screen in silence for a while.
seven. he only spoke english and french himself, having been tutored with ursula back in the day. suddenly the accomplishment felt embarrassingly small. but in no way did he feel lesser than you. if anything, he hoped you'd learn five more. just so you could speak to him in them, whisper words he wouldn't understand in his ears, but fuck it. he just needed the breath of your mouth on him.
he kept reading anyway.
another masterâs degree. policy this time. but of course you had somehow tied that back into language too; language policy. he opened your research proposal and skimmed through the abstract first, only for skimming to turn into reading, then rereading.
you wanted to study how language barriers in medical institutions affected patient outcomes. how linguistic inequity could compromise informed consent and patient autonomy. how people who could not properly communicate symptoms, pain, fear, confusion, often lost agency over their own treatment.
even your academic interests sounded painfully like you. he groaned a little, hand slowly travelling down to his crotch, when he pieced it with how you took care of is father. that imbecile did not deserve your care, your compassion.
eventually, he found your instagram too.
private. adorable. yeah, that did not stop him for even a second.
there were barely forty followers. most women. the men sprinkled between them looked harmless enough, though titus still inspected each profile with the scrutiny of a someone evaluating pests. none seemed close to you romantically. good.
he scrolled all the way back to your earliest posts.
he watched your face change over the years. softer in some places. sharper in others. he saw gym selfies where you looked disproportionately proud of finally hitting 10kg bicep curls. videos of your cat sprawled across papers while you tried to work. badly lit photographs of homemade meals. sketches. paintings. stacks of annotated books. he watched your highlights too. every single one of them. he learned that you liked watching ballet recitals and performances, or the orchestra, plays, sometimes concertos.
some of the slang you used was unfamiliar to him, but it suited you nonetheless. (and of course he'd look up whatever 'unc peepaw people's princess oomf' meant. if it was that important to you, he'd take a diploma in it).
his jaw, however, tightened a little when he found your doctoral supervisorâs profile tagged in a group photo.
male. older than you. the irritation arrived instantly and irrationally.
some man out there had watched you think. had listened to you ramble exactly the way you did downstairs over the dementhund. had probably watched that grin spread across your face whenever an idea clicked into place.
"he's not me. he'll never be me. he can't give you the things i can," titus muttered to no one as he slowly palmed himself over his pants.
the thought bothered him more than it should have.
so naturally, he hacked the university server, your application records, archived submissions, published conference abstracts, researhc posters with tiny fucking print he could barely read. he found all of it. even there, he read everything. if some random man could know all that, he could do. he had to.
he read your graduate dissertation, more of your research papers, your op-eds, your smaller articles tucked away in obscure journals no sane person would voluntarily open, your critique of policies put forth blatantly.
then somehow, worse than all of that, he found your substack. that did him in completely. because academic writing was one thing. polished and restrained and structured.
but this? this was you loose. articles critiquing things you'd seen online just because it was fun. and you were witty. morbid. irritated with the world in little excerpts.
1 "And donât even get me started on red meat sermons. Nutritionally contentious, you never fucking know if youâve cooked it, burnt it to a crisp, or left it rawer than planned pregnancies. It is also environmentally disastrous, yet still put on a pedestal as protein gospel."
"whoo..." titus let out a hushed breath, tugging at the drawstrings of his pants as he clicked on another article.
2 "There is something profoundly disturbing about the idea that a childâbarely sentient of their elbows, let alone their epidermis, jesusâshould be made to feel insecure about their developing skin. Enter Shayâs entrepreneurial, tone-deaf launch: âRINIâ, a line of childrenâs face masks. Yes. Ya read it right."
"fuck..." titus chuckled, his hand now fully inside his pants, beyond his boxers, stroking his cock out of their confines, while shamelessly feeding on your witty comments. they were the hottest fucking thing he'd read in a while.
he let out grunts as he continued reading, utterly turned on by your words.
2 "And look at the lark, packaging âaloe vera gel maskâ in a nice cover with pandas and unicorns on them. Hereâs a thought, Shay: just use aloe vera? This resilient bastard of a plant grows anywhere, all year, with the bare minimum sip of water and sunlight. Nature literally handed you the cure to sunburns, and you let capitalism sell it back in a cuter font. I hope not to see a âRiniâ child grow up to have horribly sensitive skin because mommy couldnât resist consumerism."
2 Little girls are already navigating a minefield of bullying, body-shaming, and predatory attention. Theyâre on the threshold of measuring their worth in mirror reflections when they should be smiling and laughing and doing silly childish things. Then we have a global influencer/actor/idk what you even are, telling them, âHere, cleanse, cope.â Do not. Tell. Kids. To. Scrub. Their. Innocence.
"ugh, fuck yeah, tell 'em, baby..." he groaned as you popped off in your article. it took brass balls to stand up against things, he knew that. he and others like him knew the common people would never question the system, the elite.
but there you were, with your little essays and degrees, and your fucking words, just... dealing blows left and right, unafraid to leave that internet footprint. thank god for that.
titus had never been more hard in his life and with every witty remark of yours, he only got harder, wetter, more pathetic as he let out near-sobs, palm running up and down his shaft, thumb brushing over his slit, smearing his pre-cum anywhere and everywhere.
but oh he kept on reading. and what a lovely thing coincidence was. you had an article on sex!
3 "There comes a time in everyoneâs life where theyâre confronted by the bare truth that they are gonna have sex someday, with someone. That thereâs going to be a person who sees you naked, skin and self, stripped off of feeble shields that have never guarded your depth within, only the vessel. There comes that divine moment where your mind and body, possibly your soul, are ablaze with sensory fireworks or better, a total blackout of doubt, leaving behind a sultry mess of pure bliss and a certainty that youâre never going to be the same again."
"god... nnnghhh," he groaned. simply your description of it made him want to march straight into your room and show you that divine moment, to undress you, caress that body he'd come to love, whisper every singly filthy thing he wanted to do to you right into your ears, let his hands wander where you needed them the most. oh how he'd love to make you the sultry mess you were writing about. he'd do that. gladly. fuck you till dawn, till you were limp in his arms, wet, sweaty, breathless, and utterly his.
titus sped up, both his hands as they pumped his dick and his eyes as they read the concluding paragraph.
3 "I urge women to look deeper into their sexuality, not by virtue of being born a woman, not because they might need to âuseâ it to their benefit, but because there comes a time when you have to brace the truth that you donât want to have sex with someone. That the word that starts with a C and ends with a T is not just bodily profanity, a symbol of shame nor a mere emblem of femininity, but birth-fucking-right in its most sacred syllable, and all men should carve it in their ribs. That she who enjoys sex has the right to employ it, she who never has, can unabashedly clutch it, and man, who canât help but sexualise it all, repeat after me: Consent."
"fuckkkk," titus grunted in absolution as he spilled all over his palm, panting and heaving. he didn't know what did him undone. thoughts of you? thoughts of a naked you? thoughts of you being his? or the fact that you just brought him down with nothing but your words... about consent. something you never gave him or his family, before they interrupted your life and whisked you away from it.
but titus did not feel sorry about it, not one ounce of regret in his body. you'd turned out to be a goldmine, and he was the biggest gold digger there was.
as he sat there with his dick slowly softening in his palm, phone in hand, he made a vow to himself: you... were going to be his. and he'd be yours. it was just a matter of time.
i referred to Fox, Anthony (1995). Linguistic Reconstruction: An Introduction to Theory and Method. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198700012.
and whatever i remember from lyle campbell's historical linguistics (very much a real book and one of my favourites. it is ofc, widely available in pdfs and prints, but for the sake of the story, i wrote otherwise)
dividers by: @diviniyae @rmstitanics
taglist: @taniamiller @generation-zero @goddess-of-spring @1dhoe93 @saigereaper @onyxorbspire @fluffyassbutt
also, thank you so much for reading this series!! comments are always appreciated, reblogs too. just don't give my writing or art or real photographs i add to ai. pretty please.