Consider helping the story to grow on wattpad,
Masterlist
Aiming for Thursday Updates
Status- Complete!
!!! I very highly suggest reading this before Unseelie as Unseelie may contain spoilers !!!
Consider helping the story to grow on wattpad,
Masterlist
Aiming for Friday/Saturday Updates
Status- ongoing
!!! I suggest reading Macabre first as this story ties into the conclusion of that story !!!
Consider helping the story to grow on wattpad,
Masterlist
Undecided update schedule [ Unseelie will take priority while uni is so busy because I want to finish it ]
Status- ongoing
________________________________________________________________
A Thing of Beauty [Cyberpunk x Eric Draven]
Masterlist coming soon when graphics are organised
________________________________________________________________
The Sideline; pre-production
________________________________________________________________
If I get any new fanfic ideas before these are done you have full permission to bonk me over the head with a stick. or do it anyway i probably need it ngl.
DESCRIPTION; Roman Godfrey and Peter Rumancek, in their travels while searching for the Vargulf, happen upon a strange girl in a cage. Roman Godfrey can't shake the feeling that his very destiny clings to her survival.
CW; Story contains mature themes such as dark folklore, foul language, graphic violence, cannibalism, anthropophagy, kidnapping, captivity, implied torture, cult violence, body horror etc.
chapter TW! partial degloving/sloughing injury
masterlist ask to be tagged! @kikibit , @thedevotchka , @lunaskye999 , @coryoslut , @guaaafiiburg ,
ROMAN GODFREY WAS NOT EXACTLY A STRANGER TO HIS MOTHER'S NARCISSISM, so when he came from school that day to find Olivia Godfrey gingerly nursing a gash at her hairline, he assumedâlike alwaysâthat this was just another desperate grab for his attention.
"Mom. You okay?" he asked, leaning against the door frame to her bedroom at the end of the hall. She'd have never let him walk on by to his room without saying something, so let it be this, he supposed.Â
He watched her dab at her face with an antiseptic wipe. Watched her eyes cringe as drops of red blood seeped into the tissue, watched her pretend like it bothered her, like it hurt.Â
Was it callous to admit that he only cared to ask about her wellbeing because that performative, softly deranged act of hers constantly got on his nerves? That he was a fool every time for falling for it, for enabling her to keep squeezing every drop of sympathy that she could get from out of him? Perhaps yes, perhaps no.Â
He had come to know a select few things about his mother over years spent under her thumb. One, that she never bothered to show any weakness unless she knew it would earn her his attention, to be fussed over, to make sure part of him would always want to know that she was alright. Two, that she was a toxic manipulative cunt that had him wrapped around her finger whether he wanted to admit it or not, and there was just no escaping that fact. And, three, like mother like sonâhe had inherited his ugly, wretched soul from her, and as long as he remained her son, in this life and the next, he would always be her rotten little boy.Â
"Oh hello, darling," she straightened her posture as if on cue, clearing her throat. Pretending she hadn't sensed his presence, hadn't thrived on just being perceived by him. "I'm quite alright, thank you. Just had a small slip out in the garden is all. It's just a small bump on the head, really. Nothing that won't take care of itself."
But his mother never cared to stroll the garden, much less tend to it herself when that was what she paid the groundskeeper for. And for such a small thing, it apparently had her rattled.
When she smiled, it was always a wolfish kind of expression, a glee that never really, truly reached her eyes. Something in those dark depths had been hollowed out and replaced long ago with a certain violent twinkleâthe kind you might expect to see within the gaze of a predator mid-huntâpupils blown wide. Eager for the kill. But tonight something else shone through them, though.
Worry? Panic? Confusion? A strange, distantly related amalgamation of the three? Whatever it was, it seemed as though her priorities, for once, lay elsewhere than to manipulate him as usual. That glint in her eye was gone, and they wandered just a little, barely even looking at him. Looking but not looking, like she could see through him, through the walls, through the world, and could see something that startled her.
Olivia reached out a hand, beckoning with a rapid fluttering hand to reel him in, like it was a matter of urgency, of life and of death. Roman, at his big age, had neverâthough so often he triedâbeen able to resist her summons. Without any particular want or need to, he found himself crossing the room and folding into his mother's arms.
It didn't feel good; it didn't feel safe. Not when her painted nails raked through his soft brown locks, scratching his scalp in an effort that was designed to be soothing, but instead made his bones tickle. He had always felt trapped in these kinds of hugs, by her loving if you could call it that. Always felt like his skin was melting melting melting, like he'd rather it just all slough off because at least then, then he would not have to feel it.Â
He knew, deep down he knew, that she, like he, had never been a normal human being. Something rotting crawled within her, and it crawled inside him too, but worse in her. That same part of him knew exactly what it would take for his mother to simply grab him by the neck and rip him apart with her own bare hands if she wanted to. Right then and there, and she would call it love, and Romanâpoor sweet baby boy Romanâin every lifetime, would let her do it.Â
He managed to worm his way out of her grip with the excuse of having homework to do. She knew he never did his homework, but knew he would sooner go and do it than have to spend a moment more wrapped in her affection. He left her room with a sour taste in his mouth, and threw up in his ensuite when he made it back to his room.
It was an everyday ritual now, wandering down to the lakeside lodge at the back of the estate grounds. Just seeing and being around Gossamer somehow made him feel safe. Made him feel clean. She was a primordial thing, a thing that had come closer to outright killing him than his mother had, but she didn't kill him. That was the thing. She did not kill him. She would have if she wanted to, and could at any moment. She kept the world beneath her, like she were a grander thing than it. Perhaps she was, in every way that mattered.
The lights were off when he slipped through the door, the heavy silence of the lodge settling over him like a burial shroud. A cold spike of panic drove through his chest.Â
She isn't here. The realisation made his lungs seize up, and the still silence of the rooms felt like a trap springing shut on him. He checked the main living area, the hall, the bedroomânothing. Just clean linens, cold wood, and the faint, lingering whisper of her presence.
Then he saw it: the glass doors at the rear of the lodge, leading out to the small attached greenhouse, were fogged completely white from the inside.
He pushed the doors open. The heat was what hit him firstâa dense wall of thick moisture that carried a scent so sweet it felt heavy on his tongue, enough to make him gag. The nausea from his bathroom surged back into his throat, but he swallowed it down and ignored the prickle of sweat that rushed to his face, stepping into the room.
It didn't resemble a simple greenhouse anymore. Giant monstera leaves fanned out in wild layers, and thick, vine-like ropes of deadly nightshade and black briar snaked over the tile floor, their thorns as thick and daggered. They arched overhead in crisscrossed ribs against the glass ceilingâa few upper panes shattered by the sheer force of their upward surge, the bruised indigo twilight sky bleeding in through the canopy. Hanging baskets of spider plants had ruptured, their tendrils cascading down like curtains of raw green silk, while oversized, dark-veined calla lilies bloomed violently in the humidity.
It was a sprawling, choking jungle condensed into a few square feet. Leaves the size of serving platters brushed against his arms, and he flinched as their coarse, stinging hairs bit into his skin like tiny needles. The air vibratedâa low, mechanical hum like a swarm of cicadas or a flyâs wings turned up to maximum volume. It was power that fueled this place. Raw, bleeding, magic.
"Gossamer?" his voice came out barely louder than a rasp, muffled by the dense greenery.
He pushed aside a curtain of heavy, dark leaves, his boots sinking into soft, rich soil that had burst free from shattered terracotta pots. And there, buried in the dark, pulsing heart of the overgrown tangle, he found her.
She sat pressed against the glass wall, completely nude. Her torn, tattered wings were wrapped around her torso like a defensive shell, glistening with a slick sheen of condensation and sap. Her midnight hair was plastered to her temples, framing the dark, slate-grey of her face. Her long pointed ears twitched at the sound of his bootsâone torn near the tip, oozing a slow, dark trickle down her neck.
Her gleaming red eyes were swollen shut, bruised a deep, mottled shade of plum. A fresh, jagged split cut across her lower lip, intersecting the old scar near the corner of her mouth, painting her chin in wet, dripping crimson.
"Leave me be," she spoke, her voice rumbling like stone dragging over stone. The words were wet, weighed down by the heavy moisture in the air that crackled in her lungs with every jagged breath she took.
"You're hurt," he ignored her warning, rushing to crouch by her side.
Grief tore through him in that split second, so powerful it felt like his ribs would snap under the pressure. To see her like thisâbattered, hiding like an animal waiting to bleed out on her ownâoh it didn't just break his heart; it terrified him to his very core.Â
"What happened? Who did this to you?"Â
The words tumbled out of him, his voice cracking on the edges. The sting of hot, unbidden tears prickled at the backs of his eyes, blurring his vision as he reached out with trembling hands. "Goss, look at me. Please."
He didn't care about the mud soaking through his clothes, or the sharp thorns biting into his knees. He was hovering over her, his hands hovering frantically over her shoulders, her face, her collarboneâterrified to touch her for fear of causing more pain, yet utterly unable to pull away.
"Your face... Jesusâ" A stray tear escaped, tracking a hot line down his cheek as he hovered a thumb near her bleeding chin. "Where else? Tell me where else you're bleeding. Let me help you."
Driven by a frantic need to see the full extent of the damage, his shaking fingers reached for the tattered edge of her wing, intending to gently lift the heavy, dark membrane shielding her body.
"Just let me seeâ"
The moment his skin made contact with her wing, her body coiled like a spring, and with a guttural screech, she lunged.
<<>>
She couldn't see himâcouldn't see much more than a blurred, towering shape through the swollen mask of her own bruised fleshâbut she didn't need to. She didn't need eyes to know the look on his face. His whole body reeked of pity, a pathetic, cloying sorrow that made her stomach turn. Yet beneath the pity, shining through like a silver thread, was a delectable note of fear that would have thrilled her had she been in any condition to care.
Around them, the room hummed with a restless, frantic pulse. The plants shivered and twitched, their stems stiffening, their leaves curling inward like closing fists.
They weren't speaking in wordsâflora had no use for human syllables, no need for the clunky cadence of speech. To Gossamer, their language was a chorus of raw, tactile impulses; the sharp thrum-thrum of sap coursing rapidly through expanded veins, the microscopic creak of cell walls stretching, the warm. It was a language of sensation. A collective whisper that she simply just understood.
They felt her agony as if it were a fire scorching their own roots, and they were rising in defence of their mother-thing. Vine tendrils crept over the floor, writhing like blind snakes, winding around Roman's ankles, anchoring themselves to his expensive boots as if preparing to drag him out, throw him from the threshold if they had to.
She didn't need him. She didn't need anyone. She had birthed this jungle from a handful of dormant seeds in a matter of minutes; they would keep her safe and sound, cocoon her in dark moisture, and let her heal in the quiet, away from the prying, suffocating hands of mortals.
"When I tell you to leave me, that means leave me," she snarled, talons biting into the edges of his jaw as she gripped him hard. "I will not tell you again."
She held his gaze for a second longer than intended. Beneath the sharp, defensive fury in her voice, a sudden, small crack opened upâa tiny, betraying sliver of fear that caught in her throat. It wasn't fear of him, but of her own unchecked violent impulse, a fleeting understanding that she might have lashed out too hard at the one person who had actually come to find her. The grip on his jaw faltered for a fraction of a heartbeat, her touch softening just enough to betray the tremor in her hands.
She shoved him back with the last burst of her fading strength and retreated into the thick shadows, pulling her torn wings around herself.
Time lost all meaning inside the glass box. Minutes bled into hours, marked only by the steady, maddening drip-drip-drip of heavy condensation falling from the shattered ceiling onto her skin.
The air had grown impossibly dense, and every time her chest expanded, her lungs rattledâa wet, suffocating heat that felt less like oxygen and more like trying to breathe underwater.
Worse than the air was the hollow, gnawing void in her gut. Her body was trying desperately to knit together her torn flesh and mend her swollen eyes, but it was burning through fuel she didn't have. She was starving. The bloodlust worked its way through her veins like liquid fire, making her limbs shake violently against the damp dirt. If she stayed here in the quiet, wrapped in this sweltering dark, she wouldn't heal. She would simply rot.
Move, her mind commanded, a low, primal snarl. You have to move.
She planted her raw, dirt-caked palms into the mud and dragged her body forward.
But the jungle would not let its mother go so easily. To the plants, her movement felt like panicâa threat to the nest. The flora responded in a frantic wave of instinctual care. Thick leaves bent low to block her path; tendrils of ivy coiled softly around her wrists, trying to pin her back against the cool glass; briars wove around her waist, whispering their silent, smothering command:Â Stay. Safe. Rest. Don't leave.
"No," she gasped, the sound tearing out of her raw throat, wet and pathetic. "Must...feed....must let....go."
She dug her talons into the grout between the tiles, hauling her dead-weight body inch by gruelling inch. Thorns scored lines across her bare calves, not out of malice, but out of a desperate, blind urge to hold her steady and reel her back.
Her hand slammed against the bottom pane of the door, and she threw her shoulder against it, shoving the door open.
The rush of cool, dry air from the lodge hit her like a physical slap, clearing the sticky fog from her throat in a ragged, gasping cough. She dragged her upper half across the threshold, spilling onto the hard, clean floor of the lodge.
Then, a sharp bite of pain locked around her right ankle. A thick coil of thorns had wrapped tight around her leg, anchoring itself to her flesh and pulling her backward into the sweltering dark. Her dead weight protested, and bile threatened to rise alongside her scream as the serrated edges of the vines dug in like a hot knife through butter.
She let out a frustrated, breathless hiss, her strength completely spent.
Before the vine could drag her back into the heat, a pair of warm, strong hands shot down and hooked under her arms.
Roman was there. He hadn't left. He had been standing watch in the dark living room for hours, waiting, unable to bring himself to leave. He hauled her forward with a sudden, desperate burst of strength, pulling her clear of the threshold. Without dropping her, he kicked the heavy glass door forward with his boot and slammed it shut with a violent CRACK, trapping the thick briar vine in the jamb and severing its grip on her leg.
The thorned vines that had hooked into her moisture-logged calf pulled away with a sickening, effortless tear. In her macerated state, her softened skin folded back and slid away like soaked paper, but the agonising pain as exposed flesh hit the open air barely registeredâit was just a distant, cold sting drowned out by the roar of blood in her ears.
Her legs buckled beneath her when she tried to get up.
"I've got you. I've got you, I'm right here," Romanâs voice was frantic, a low, trembling murmur right beside her ear as he took her in his arms, but the sound was already warping away, so far away.
The thump-thump thump-thump of his heartbeat as her ear found his chest was enough to knock her out cold.
omg it wasn't until i finished writing it that i realised the PARALELS between Roman and his mom and Gossamer and the plants in a way. Holy symbolism. Hehe much love i had so much fun writing this and you bet your ass our girlie deserves a tooooooooon of hurt comfort <3
DESCRIPTION; for decades, the flameblood clan has warred brutally with the heretical dragonclaw clanâbattling over sea ports, scarce materials, and deep religious beliefs. when edvar, younger son of the flameblood chief and commander of the firehearts, sees a dangerous but necessary chance to end the slaughter, he is captured in battle by none other than the daughter of dragons herself.
featuring: bill skarsgÄrd as edvar halneresson , alexander skarsgÄrd as tsarund the great & stellan skarsgÄrd as chief halnere of flameblood
ask to be tagged!
@thedevotchka
CW; dark fantasy, violence and warfare, torture of POWs, cult/religious activity/rituals/sacrifices, explicit/sexual content, harm to animals/dragons, and more, 18+ readers only
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
PITCH BLACK WAVES CURLED AROUND THE BOW OF THE SHIP AS IT CUT THROUGH ABYSSAL NIGHT. The whole moon had vanished for three consecutive nights, buried behind a thick wall of swirling dark clouds, laced with intermittent strokes of lightning.Â
He kept a keen eye on the shifting surface of the icy water, tracking any signs of movement. Even if he couldnât see any spiked webbed fins circling in the depths, any long dark hair trailing behind sleek mermaidian bodies, or any eel-like tails slithering about, Edvar knew better than to dare turn his back. These were Zormirâs waters, after all, and only a fool could forget the kind of things that lurked within them.
With the waters of the coast too shallow and ice-locked to safely cruise through, they had been forced to take a wide berth deeper out to sea in order to make it back to their home fjord. The crew had been blessed enough to make it this far into the detour without the leviathan goddess sensing their trespass and tearing them asunder, but her silence could not be taken for permission. Time and her impatience would become their enemy if they did not hurry back to Rikkan.  Â
The wind lashed at his face and tore through his curls as he powered across the deck, whipping tears from his eyes. His thick, heavy greatcoat did little to protect his bones from the shiver that wracked even a burly body like his own. Still, he relished what little warmth managed to seep into the rough skin of his palms through the bowl in his hand, letting a harsh, steaming breath seethe through clenched teeth.
He was Edvar, second son of Chief Halnere. He did not get to fuss about over a little chill, not if he wanted to set any kind of respectable standard for himself.
"Halneresson! Could use another hand over here, if you've got a free one!"
The shout came from the Captain, his face weathered grey by age and the storm, barely audible over the roar of the freezing surf. Edvar didn't argue. He set the bowl down on a nearby barrel, bracing himself against the tilting deck as he rushed to help the crew reel hefty fish nets out of the water, which seemed to hold onto them for dear life. His shoulders burned as he threw his weight into the frozen rope, his boots slipping on the slick timber.
"Reckon youâve got the easy shift tonight," the boss grunted, wiping his hands on his soot-stained canvas trousers. He nodded toward the heavy hatch in the deck, leading below with a grim smirk.
"While we're freezing our arses off out here to keep the ship runnin', you get to go down into the dry and keep the demon company. Just don't let it bite off ya fingers, eh? You got use in you, yet"
A few of the sailors chuckled, a low, nervous sound quickly swallowed by the wind.
"Don't count me so lucky just yet, friend," he muttered, his voice thick with the heavy, rolling cadence of the northern clans. "Gotta survive just being near the thing first."
"Shit, you're right about that. Ah well, good luck to ya. I'll decide whatever the hell I ought to say to your old man when you don't come back up in one bit."
Turning away from the rail, he made for the hatch, eager to get out of the cold as the crew chuckled behind him.
The air down in the prison hold was thin, drafty and drenched in the smell of soggy old timber and stagnant bilge. Edvar descended the narrow ladder, the lantern at his hip wobbling, throwing long, twirling shapes across the low beams overhead. He balanced the bowl of broth that had since chilled in the outside air, the greasy slop clotting and splashing over the rim as the floor rolled in unison with the swell.
He set his lantern down right outside the iron bars, casting a flat line of amber light across the threshold of the cell.
From the dark beyond that line, the silence began to blister. A deep, rattling moan echoed off the metal, a sound that he had at first mistaken for the shifting of the vessel. A glottal clicking followed each heavy breath, a reptilian growl vibrating through the floorboards, driving itself into the marrow of Edvar's very bones.
He sat in the discomfort of it, his skin prickling beneath his thick wool coat, watching the boundary where the light died.
Slowly, Edvar slid the bowl forward, the wood scraping against the grit of the floor, nudging it through the bars and to the edge of the lantern's reach.
"There ya go, witch. Time to eat up," he coughed, scratching at his nose with his thumb, ignoring the instinct in his gut that warned against speaking entirely. It was just trying to scare him with its eerie noises, he was sure.
A spindly hand slid into the light, pale deathly-grey fingers tapering into sharp, blackened claws that caught the edge of the dull flame reflecting through the glass. But it was the index finger that held his gazeâmissing, severed cleanly at the knuckle and replaced by a yellowed, gnarled human finger bone attached with a leather gripping glove. The skeletal prosthetic hooked over the rim of the bowl, the wood sagging beneath the sharp points of her claws as she dragged the offering back into the gloom.
The growl in her throat deepened, and the hairs on Edvar's neck shot up. The darkness of the cell felt too sweeping, too vast, hiding too much. Desperate to see the face of the thing he was feeding, he reached down to lift the lantern, intending to flood the shadows with light.
A sudden, violent lurch of her chains tore through the dark. Edvar flinched, his arm jerking instinctively as the projectile hurtled his way.
The bowl smashed into the iron bars with a clang! Broth splattered, dark grease and chunks of meat spraying across the floorboards. From the blackness, a dry, raspy voice hissed, laced with pure spite.
"You wish to poison me, like a coward, with this bile you dare call food?"
He squinted, frustration splintering through his unease as he looked down at the mess between his boots.
"It ain't poison. It's the same shit me and the men are eating," he shot back. "You're not special. You eat or you go hungry."
The shifting of chain links echoed from the corner as she tilted her head. "You wish me to weaken myself with this slop? Is that why you Flamebloods are so.....breakable? This is what your mothers feed you?"
"I'm afraid, unless you can magically conjure up your own banquet, my lady, that this will just have to suffice," he grunted, bracing his hands on his knees as he glared into the dark. "And now you can either lick up what you've spilled from the floor or go hungry. Choice is yours."
"It is preferable to starve," she hissed.
"Then you can be my fucking guest."
A silence descended on the hold again. Edvar watched the shadow of her hood, expecting another snarl. Instead, she paused.
A low, mocking sound spilled into a dry, raspy laugh, and as the laughter faded, she finally moved, sweeping forward out of the corner and into the light.
Edvarâs breath caught. Up close, the sheer wrongness of her features hit him all at once. Her thick braid was a rope of dark crimson hair dragging through the filth of the deck, coiling like a giant serpent around her bare, dirty feet. The heavy hood had fallen back just enough to expose the long, pointed sweep of her ears, both marked with brutal notches and jagged scars from past battles.
But it was the massive obsidian horns cutting upward from her brow that anchored his gaze. They were monstrous things, rising like twin serrated blades, monoliths on their own. The lantern light caught the wet sheen of the crown, highlighting the dangerous, backward-curving spikes that split off from the main vents of bone. They looked ancient and regal, heavy enough to snap a human neck had they been cursed with such things, yet she bore them with grace, like she could carry the weight a dozen times over.
He could see, undeniably, how his forefathers long ago believed that the Ikar-Drakayith were devils dragged straight from the hells themselves.
âYou amuse me, you know,â she chuckled, teeth gleaming as she smiled. âYou humans have quite the audacity, thinking yourself so brave.â
Her eyes were hidden behind a scrap of rag that had been tied around her head, obscuring her vision, but he knew she didnât need to see him to track his whereabouts. He wouldnât put it past her to be able to see him regardless.
âI donât think myself anything,â he said. âYou on the other hand are far too arrogant for someone in your spot. You got yourself caught, did you not? Makes us humans somewhat capable.â
The edge of her lip twisted into a scowl. âThe dirty, underhanded tricks of humans do not hold up in an equal fight. Surely decades of skirmishes have taught the clans that much? It was a lucky shot that brought me down, nothing more.â
âAnd what a lucky shot it was,â he stepped back, plucking a chunk of mutton from his collar and tossing it back through the bars. âBut lucky shot or not, youâre ours now, and youâll be dealt with soon enough. The world will be better for it.â
âOh it will, Iâm sure,â she smiled.Â
âââ
Celebrations, banquets and drunken chatter soon quelled, an extinguished flame, as the grand doors to the Hall of Fire parted, and the returning warriors stepped inside.
Great hearths lined the centre of the longhouse, sending plumes of smoke up toward the blackened rafters, where banners and tapestries of the clan crest hung heavy and still. The air tasted of roasted boar, chicken and cow, spiced by the smell of mud and dung from the farms billowing in through the open doors.
Edvar kept his head held high, despite the shocked eyes now following him as he continued his march. His boots left wet, icy tracks across the floorboards.Â
Men stopped mid-swallow, horns of ale frozen at their lips, while women pulled their children closer to their wool skirts.
âHeâs home,â they whispered, blinking over and over, wondering if their eyes had deceived them. âHeâs not dead. Heâs not a traitor after all.â
The murmurs rippled through the crowd. For two moons, the village had figured him a coward or a corpse. Whispers had festered that the second prince had fled his duties, deserting the clan after a bitter dispute with the high table. No one in Rikkan had known the truthâthat Edvar had quietly gathered his most loyal vanguard of Firehearts and slipped into the Wolfmaw territories without permission, embarking on a rogue campaign that should have cost him his life.
At the far end of the longhouse, raised upon a massive stone dais, Chief Halnere sat like an old mountain carved into a high seat of dark oak. He was a truly monolithic man, a living god of weathered grandeur that commanded absolute silence without even lifting a finger. His heavy brow knitted over deep-set, calculating eyes that had seen a hundred bloodbaths, and his silver-grey hair feathered thinly around a set jaw, spliced with three deep set scars given to him years ago.
Just a step behind him stood Tsarund, Flamebloodâs golden heir. A thick, intricate blond braid folded over his massive shoulder, resting against a heavy bear fur coat that hung open to reveal a muscular, sun-browned chest. His eyes narrowed, scrutinising his younger brother's approach.Â
âChief,â Edvar knelt, fist pressed hard over his heart.Â
Chief, not Father. He kept his eyes fixed on the stone steps of the dais, refusing to let his exhaustion show.Â
âPlease, I beg your forgiveness of my long absence. My Firehearts and I embarked on a journey south, to Wolfmaw, who wish to restore their standing with us. We return to you now with a gift, a token of their allegiance.â
A low, sharp sneer twisted Tsarundâs striking features.
âVery typical of you, brother, to pull a stunt like this,â he said, steps echoing against the stone as he stood from the table, his towering frame casting a long shadow. âYou take dozens of men, of good, strong men, and you disappear for two months at sea. You dare to strike deals with our enemies when it is not your place to do so, and not only that, you dare to returnââ
âTsarund.â
Halnere rose a hand. A warning, not to stir trouble. It was a single, authoritative gesture that halted his eldest son mid-step, forcing Tsarund to lock his jaw and reluctantly, obediently, return to the high table.
âLet him speak. I wish to hear an explanation,â the old chief commanded, his heavy gaze boring into Edvarâs skull. He knew, always knew, that there was more to be said in the privacy of the council room later, that whatever he truly wanted to say could not be said in front of everyone.
"In exchange for allegiance, they offered us a gift that was impossible to refuse," Edvar said. "One I am sure that, once you see, you will understand why I had to seize it."
He turned, raising a single hand to his men. "Step aside."
The Firehearts parted cleanly, their iron shields shifting to reveal the prisoner at the center of their ranks.
He had to admit, it was satisfying to do this, satisfying to experience the deep chill that rushed through his body as he spoke. As he declared his victory, earned his respect.Â
âI present to you Kharlon,â he went on. âMatron of the Dragonclaw clan."
A collective gasp swept through the longhouse. Several elders sprang from their benches, chairs scraping violently against the floor as the crowd pushed backward, desperate to put distance between themselves and the creature before them.
Even in heavy iron shackles, Kharlon did not sway, nor did she kneel when the warriors tried to kick her knees in. She did not slouch; she did not cower. The Hall of Fire seemed to shrink around her. Even discounting the addition of her horns, even without boots, she still stood almost a full head taller than nearly every warrior in the room. Fire light licked across her face, reflecting in the voids of her pure black eyes. Edvar had not seen them until now, when the blindfold had been removed.
She was enjoying it, he realised, watching that smirk return to her face. She was basking in the fear that swelled in the room, thriving in the slight awe, in the undivided attention.Â
âKharlon.â
Halnere uttered her name like it caught his curiosity, as if she were a peculiarity to be examined.
âYou have been afforded the dignity of standing here before my table, the courtesy of living to see another day within my sight, and yet you do not return the respect of kneeling?â
She smoothed her tongueâsplit into twoâover her teeth, like it pained her not to use them.
âThe day you wield any power over the common dragon, Halnere, will be the day I shall happily kneel for you.â
âI thought your father remained Patron of your clan. You are but a mere princess, if you can even be called such a thing,â he mused, ignoring her comment. An insult loosely disguised as intrigue. It was a dig at Edvar, too, of course it was. Because of course his son could not bring him the true leader of the Ikar Drakayith.
âHe was,â the Dragonclaw answered, staring him down with eyes of shining onyx. âBut no longer. I am the Child of Zormir, and it is by her will that I now lead my clan.â
She uttered the name of the forsaken leviathan like it meant anything to a man who had grown to trust his own intuition, his own eyes, over stories. It was true, as far as the rumours, the legends, went. Millions of years ago, a select group of humans believed that they could come to one day inherit draconic traits and become one with the four leviathan gods, and had set about a crusade of killing and drinking the blood of dragons. Kharlon was believed to be a direct descendant of the very first men to drink the blood of Zormir herself, and in the eyes of her people, it made her the closest thing to divinity alive.
To Halnere, though, she was naught but a petulant demon.
âYour standing with your goddess means nothing to me,â he said. âAt least your father saw sense in leaving our shores alone. You are but a child playing with toys. Youâve been straying too close. Attacking our trading routes. You stir up trouble for no reason, and indeed you are becoming quite the hassle.â
There it wasâa throwaway point, a slight, indirect admission that Edvar was right. That he had been right to journey all that way to get her, because having her in their custody meant saving themselves the pain of pointless loss. Having her meant having power, his father just needed to see it.
âNo decision of mine is made without reason,â Kharlon tilted her head. âIs it simply not enough to enjoy the power one wields?â
âArrogant witch,â Tsarund growled. He left the table once again, brushing off his fatherâs command to stay put, stalking towards her, shoulder clipping Edvarâs as he pushed past him. âMy father is right. Your arrogance is childish. You are not worthy to stand here, and my brother can take you back to where he got you and they can do what they like.âÂ
âOh, dear,â she tutted. âYou speak out of turn. Wouldnât want to get another scalding from daddy, would you?â
In a blur too quick for intervention he reeled back his fist and let it fly. Her head snapped sideways, a spray of crimson shooting from her mouth, but she didnât stagger.Â
Then slowly, so slowly, she turned back. Her eyes glowed faintly, as if embers stirred behind them.
That smirk returned, a feral crescent curving onto torn lips.
âYou see, my friends. The witch is not untouchable. She bleeds the same as us,â Tsarund triumphed, pleased at the sight of her blood on his hands.Â
âThat may well be,â she licked the blood from her lips. âBut now, I suppose we shall have to see if you bleed the same as us.â
The air in the hall trembled, goblets rattling on their tables and clay pitchers shattered. The foundations groaned. Then, with a deafening, catastrophic roar, the world burst into flames.Â
The thatched roof tore away in shreds, collapsing as the hulking form of an enormous, onyx-black dragon smashed it to bits, her entire head blotting out the burning sky above as she parted her maw and unleashed a fire-filled scream.
Helyn the DeathlessâEdvar had seen her from afar only once in battle, had been scared with bedtime stories of her as a child. The oldest dragon alive, having seen and fought through centuries of battle yet no man had come close to killing her. If the Matron had managed to bond with such a beast, there was no telling what other kind of power she wielded.
Kharlon did not move, throwing her head back with pure, incredulous laughter rippling from her throat as the inferno washed over herâbut the witch did not burn. Her clothes did not catch, nor her hair, nor her horns, her skin did not melt, did not char, nor did blister. Instead, the iron cuffs around her arms and legs began to melt, dropping to the floor as the heat stripped them to nothing.
Panic instantaneously devoured the longhouse. Screaming clan folk trampled one another, scrambling blindly toward the choked exits as burning rafters collapsed into the crowd. Edvar was thrown to his knees by the blast of heat, coughing violently through the dense, black smoke.
Through the haze, he saw Kharlon raise a single grey hand toward the gaping sky. She whistledâa sharp, piercing sound that cut cleanly through the chaos. Helyn leaned her massive, scarred head lower into the ruins of the hall, letting out a low growl tremble through the structure.
In a few fluid movements, Kharlon strode forward, scaling the jagged, interlocking spires of the dragon's shoulder plates as if they were stairs. She swung herself into the heavy leather saddle strapped across the beast's neck, settling into the seat with absolute authority.
"Edvar!" a voice barked through the smoke.
It was one of his Firehearts, dragging a weeping mother and two children toward the side doors. Edvar forced his legs to move, years of training wrestling down the sheer terror attempting to freeze him in place. He grabbed a young boy by the tunic and hoisted him up, shouting orders over the roar of the flames as he guided the remaining stragglers out of the collapsing structure.
The moment Edvar burst through the shattered side entrance into the biting night air, his breath caught in his throat.
The night was gone, replaced by a devastating, hellish dawn. Looking down from the high cliffs toward the docks, his heart plummeted. Through the smoke, a dozen more dragons cut through the night, their cultist riders raining pillars of fire down upon the wooden longships and the thatched homes of the village below.
They had been tracked the entire time, he realised. Dragons had elite senses of smell, and were known to be able to track scents from islands away. They had likely been following since the moment they left Wolfmawâs docks at their eastern village. It was his fault. It was his rogue campaign, his desperate grab for glory, that had guided the devils straight to their gates. Zormir really did want to punish them for their trespass after all.
A cry tore from his chest as he sprinted to the edge of the cliff, tracking the hulking shape of her dragon as it surged up, up, up into the night.Â
Kharlon had vanished, and the entire village of Rikkan along with it; consumed by flame that continued to burn for days.
DESCRIPTION; the sun is setting on the time of outlaws as america begins to civilise. eventually, the wild mustang must be caught, and eventually so, it must be tamed. when isa morgan finds herself caught and bound by the deputy sheriff of a town she should not have drifted into, her life falls into the hands of the devil.
CW; gun violence/death, references to suicide and capital punishment/hanging, explicit/sexual content, sexism, harassment/prostitution refs, dubcon/cnc/coersion/, bondage/restrained fmc and more. 18+ content minors DNI
__________________
Made this post so that anyone who wants to be tagged when i post it can lemme know and I'll add em to the list! Please comment so I know you want to be tagged!
It's inspired by Red Dead Redemption II with references to some game characters, but is completely otherwise split off from that storyline so no need to read up!
It will be only one part for now, unless I decide to make more in the future.
A THING OF BEAUTY [ eric draven x cyberpunk 2077 ] 03
DESCRIPTION; Eric finally bites the bullet and decides to ditch mechanic work and small-time smuggling gigs in the desert, making the move to Night City and even scoring a place to pursue his passion for tattoo artistry. His world flips upside down, for better or for worse, when joytoy Kitty Blue helps him settle into the city sceneâbut maybe settle isn't the right word for it.
CW; Story contains mature themes including gang/street violence, drug use, sex work, and referenced industry abuse. Also includes 18+ explicit content, trauma, and themes involving the loss of bodily consent
PAIRING; Bill Skarsgard's Eric Draven x Cyberpunk 2077 oc
Note: Eric's surname will be changed for this story. This is for the purpose of making him fit cleanly into my Cyberpunk OC universe as more of his own character.
this project is just for fun since i am working on my original characters. you dont' have to be familiar with the fandom since it follows an original storyline set in an alternate universe after the events of the game, but characters from the game are present in the story.
Let me know if you need me to explain any terms to you, as I may forget to explain them in the text.
SHE MOVES LIKE SILK, THE GLITTER ON HER SKIN SHIMMERING AS THOUGH SHE IS MADE OF NOTHING BUT DIAMONDS. He watches her spin, draped around the pole with her legs wrapped around the top, as the stage lights caress her form, twisting and swaying to the beat of the song. A song he cannot even hear beyond the rushing of blood in his own ears.
The air in the club is thick with a pleasant, comfortable heat, smelling of spilt expensive liquor, and the distinct, sweet signature sting of cherry-scented perfume that clings to the back of his throat.
Above them, magenta and violet lasers swirl through the fog, painting sharp, glowing lines across the curves of her moving body. She wears nothing, for the most part. Just a skimpy little blue bikini and a bedazzled thong that reveals itself as each layer is peeled off and left on the floor, freeing the joytoy in all of her glory. She is beauty in its rawest form, and she damn well knows it.
Eric sucks in a breath like he's scared she'll take it from him as she crawls in his direction, knees dragging through piles of golden confetti that rains from the ceiling. Pieces of it trickle into her cleavage, and he watches like a starving man before a banquet he is forbidden to dine at, as she plucks it from her breasts and blows it like it's a fucking wish.
She climbs into his lap, and before he knows it she's grinding, her hips dragging over his crotch as she does her dance, arms draping around his shoulders, lips skimming the skin of his neck.
"Well?" she breathes. Her voice is a velvet purr that echoes around inside his skull. "You just gonna sit there? Or come take what you paid for?"
He can feel it like she's there. Can feel the cool, metallic press of her rings digging into the nape of his neck when he arches into her touch, when she's biting and sucking on his skin until heâs growling into her shoulder. He can feel his own hands wandering, feeling her up, the elastic of her panties snapping against her skin as he pulls them back and releases.
When her hand strums his cock through his jeans, the friction shoots a line of pure fire into his body that has him lifting his hips, blindly pushing against her palm as she plays him like an instrument. He can feel her under his hands, feel the soft, impossibly smooth fabric of her thong as he slides it down and drops it on the ground. When his callused fingers push one, two, three inside her, his vision spasms like he's found a heaven worth hoping for.
He praises the sound of herâthe sudden, sharp gasp that hitches in her chest, the way her walls clamp around his fingers, bucking as they try to get him to sink deeper. If she's good, she can have them.
He can feel it like he's really there when he picks her up, bending her over the edge of the stage and kissing her like he's never kissed anyone in his lifeâlike he'll never kiss anyone again.
He can feel it like he's really, completely and totally fucking the ever-loving shit out of her, when he can feel himself throbbing inside her, when he can feel his breath slipping, when he can feel it, feel it all.
It's like he's really there when it's over.
He's dizzy when he exits the braindance, the room spinning and spinning and spinning. He runs, flailing and stumbling like a giraffe on acid, making it to the sink in the bathroom before hurling up his guts. His arms and legs shake, and not just shake but ache.
He realises the mess he has made of himself when he finally looks down, thighs covered in the sticky sheen of his own filth. He reaches up, ejecting the shard from the chipslot behind his ear, and forces himself not to flush it down the drain.
Kitty Blue is real fucking brave, handing him a virtual interactive porno of herself when she still has half a tattoo to let him finish. When she still has business to deal with him. Too brave, he thinks.
Eric wonders, letting the water of the shower burn hot over his shoulders, who the lucky fucker was that really got to be there in that booth with her, whose body he had just been in when they did what they did. If it had really been him, he would have been more gentle, would have taken his time.
Part of him, a big part, wants to burn himself alive for using her like that. Even in virtual space, he feels like a complete and utter piece of shit now that he has time to think about the circumstances behind that BD. The where, and how it was filmed. The way his hand had clasped around her throat, the way it had been him and not him at the same, the way he'd thrown himself at her like some complete and utter animal. The way his violence had felt natural, like it wasn't violent at all.
He knows, of course, he knows, that BDs are all pre-recorded. That it wasn't really him doing it, that he was watching from the eyes, the physical perspective of another client. Yet he cannot shake the feeling that he'd touched minds with that of some sick fuck who had violated her.
After his shower, he does some digging, using his desktop terminal to scan the raw data on the shard. Extrapolating the background noise and glimpses of the signs and booths inside the BD layout, he finally tracks down the digital signature of the venue.
Clouds.
He visits the dollhouse in Japantown later in the evening, and knows as soon as he exits the elevator of the Megabuilding that he's just thrown himself into the deep end.
Unsure what to do, he checks in at the front desk and rents himself an hour with a doll.
The private booth is small, bathed in a hot pink glow. The air is heavily perfumed with a clean, artificial lotus scent, designed to soothe a troubled mind. But Ericâs heart is still hammering against his ribs. He feels entirely exposed, an imposter sitting in a playground for high-end corporate suits and desperate street scum looking to get off.
The doll steps into the room, a perfect specimen of synthetic grace. She sits beside him on the edge of the mattress, the lush velvet dipping slightly under her weight. She leans in close, her eyesâcompletely blacked out with glowing silver rings around the irisesâlocking onto his. Her hand, soft and unnaturally warm, slides onto his thigh, a gentle, practised pressure meant to dissolve his defences.
"You're carrying a lot of weight tonight, Eric," she purrs, her voice a custom-tailored frequency meant to trigger an instant sense of security, of relaxation. She shifts, her body draping over his as she tries to coax him back, her lips brushing his jawline. "Let it go. You don't have to think here. Just let me give you what you've been searching for."
"No," Eric mutters. He catches her wrist, not roughly, but firmly enough to stop her from unbuttoning his shirt. "No, I don't... I don't want that."
The doll pauses, her head tilting with a look of perfect false empathy. Instead of pressing, she smoothly adapts to his resistance, shifting her weight until sheâs just lying beside him, her head resting near his shoulder, her fingers lightly trailing patterns over his chest.
"Then tell me what you need. I'm right here. I'm listening."
Eric stares up at the geometric light fixtures on the ceiling, the guilt from the morning still burning in his throat like a hot coal. He feels pathetic, but the words pour out anyway.
"I came here because I thought I could find someone. A girl. I dunno. Thought she worked here."
"A lot of girls pass through Clouds. And we, I, can be whoever you want us to be," she says softly, her algorithm trying to guide him toward a safe, anonymous fantasy. "Who are you looking for, Eric? Who do you want me to be?"
"Kitty," he says, the name slipping out before he can think to censor himself. "Kitty Blue."
Her hand freezes flat against his chest. Her eyes flicker, a sudden, violent strobe of blue system-logs flashing across her pupils. For a fraction of a second, the soft, warm aura completely vanishes from her face, replaced by a blank, hollow expression. It's like he flashbanged her system with a single name, snapped her out of the noncognitive state she's supposed to be in. Like the doll, the proxy is gone, and the real girl beneath it, the girl who knows, is afraid.
She blinks rapidly, her jaw tightening as if fighting a physical constraint embedded in her programming. She swallows, a shudder running through her shoulders as she forcibly drags herself back into her programming, though her voice remains tightly strained. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't seem to process your request. Can I assist you with anything else?"
It's the only answer he gets. For his sake and for hers, it's the one he should have settled with.
Should have.
<<>>
Rubber burns, a foul sulphiric stench, as wheels spin out across the road, and the Mizutani Shion flips once, twice, and lands on its roof.
Kitty coughs through shards of glass and clouds of debris, her vision swimming as the world hangs upside down. Blood from a shallow cut on her hairline drops onto the shattered roof beneath her. It takes a while to adjust to the ringing in her ears, and she squirms out of her seat, flopping onto her back.
She bites back a scream as her bruised ribs protest, kicking out what's left of the cracked windshield with both boots until it hollows out a space large enough to climb through. She scrambles through the gap, grabbing her pistol from her side holster and going to fucking town.
A few other cars have burst into flaming piles along the bridge, smashed to bits by the rampagers careening into them.
She takes cover behind the smoking rear tyre of a crumpled vehicle, spraying bullets into the fray as Tyger Claws zoom by on motorbikes, their glowing wheels trailing streaks of light through the heavy smog. Katannas flash under the glowing streetlights, and the air lights up with the terrifying pop of smart-gun rounds tracking targets.
The party has begun.
Kitty ducks as a stray burst of gunfire punches a row of clean, jagged holes through the trunk of her cover. She wipes a mix of sweat and blood from her eyes. She had just been driving home from Lizzie's, minding her own goddamn business, when the world decided to erupt.
"Fuckers!" she snarls, popping up to fire three clean shots into the chest of a Tyger who had just leaned off his bike to slice at a Maelstromer. The rider flies off the back, the motorcycle skidding across the asphalt in a shower of brilliant sparks.
But as the bike crashes into the barrier, another one slows his roll, his cybernetic optics zooming in on her position behind the burning sedan. Through the smoke, the glow of his ink catches the light. She has to move before he fires up that sandevistan and makes an evening meal of her.
She squeezes the trigger of her gun, but the slide locks back. A hollow click echoes over the roar of the engines. Empty.
Fuck that noise.
Kitty drops the useless piece of iron. With a mechanical hiss, the chrome plating on her forearms splits wide open from wrist to elbow.
Her mantis blades snap open, long serrated steel arches locking into place with a metallic groan that vibrates right through her bones. She launches herself over the hood and all but flies, fueled up on a cocktail of adrenaline and annoyance. The air whistles past her ears as she closes the gap, right blade crushing down in a brutal, sweeping arc.
The edge cuts clean through the front of the moving motorcycle, severing the metal like butter. The bike digs hard into the asphalt, flipping forward and launching the rider straight toward her. Without enough time to leap out of the way, he collapses right on top of her. Metal meets flesh with a wet rrrrip as her blades impale him right through the abdomen. Blood lashes her face in ribbons as she rolls over and yanks them free, using all of her strength to push the burly corpse off of her.
Before she can even pull her hands back to retract the crimson-dripping alloy, a thick, augmented fist clamps violently into the hair at the back of her head. With a brutal, effortless jerk, sheâs yanked off her feet. Kitty chokes as her neck strains, her boots dangling just inches off the asphalt. Another heavy hand grips her throat from behind, pinning her back against a massive, solid chest that smells heavily of cheap synthetic tobacco and glitter.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," a low, gravelly voice rumbles right against her ear. Itâs an awful, mocking purrâa crooked imitation of an old friend greeting her on the street. "Missed you at the club, you know. All the good times we had. Thought your little ass fucked off out of NC after what's her name kicked it. Madame would love to have you back-"
Through the haze of blood in her eyes, Kitty catches his reflection in the shattered window of a burning truck nearby. The glowing green cyber-optics, the jagged, smirk-shaped scar splitting the left corner of his lip.
He spins her around so she's facing him, watching her struggle like its the best damned thing he's seen all day.
"Fuck you! Let go of me you piece of shit," she wheezes, her fingers clawing uselessly at the iron grip on her throat.
"Nah. No needa be like that" Shanji chuckles, his grip tightening just enough to make her vision sparkle. He turns his head, opening his mouth to yell toward the remaining riders on the bridge. "Hey! Look whoâ"
Kitty doesn't let him finish the sentence.
She throws her weight backwards, reeling her knees tightly into her chest before driving both of her heavy, steel-plated boots directly upward into his jaw. The impact crackles like a gunshot. Shanjiâs head snaps back, his metal-coated teeth biting his own tongue clean off as his grip on her slips.
As she drops like a stone onto the pavement, her hand shoots out, tearing the heavy smart-pistol right out of the tactical holster at his hip.
She hits the ground hard on her back, air sucked from her lungs in a second, but her finger is already squishing the trigger. Before Shanji can even stagger backwards or lift his hands to his bloody face, Kitty aims straight up.
BLAM BLAM BLAM!
The heavy calibre rounds punch clean through his face, blowing his smirk right out the back of his skull. He collapses like a felled tree, his massive body crashing to the road just inches from her boots, optics flickering and twitching before going completely dark.
Kitty sits up, gasping for air, her chest heaving as she forces her trembling forearms to snap shut, the chrome plating locking back over her blood-soaked blades with a sharp click. She wipes them down with her hands, flicking off the gunk with a grimace.
She looks back at the burning husk of her Shion one last time, flips the flaming wreckage a petty, trembling middle finger, and deserts the scene before the rest of the Tygers can circle back.
By the time she stumbles down the familiar concrete steps of Misty's basement, the sky has turned that bruised, polluted purple unique to a Night City dawn.
She pushes open the metal gate, which gives a low, familiar whine. She expects the hum of a busy tattoo needle. She expects to see Eric's broad, anxious set of shoulders hunched over his station, or to see that pencil of his drafting up a new masterpiece. She had spent the last several miles rehearsing how the interaction would go, guessing whether or not he had seen her lovely little gift based on how nervous he would be.
Instead, the basement is completely dead.
The main operating chair sits empty under the harsh fluorescent overhead lights. The tattoo station is pristine, the steel trays wiped down with sterile alcohol, clean and untouched.
"Vik?" she calls out, her voice cracking, barely louder than a whisper.
A heavy pair of boots shuffles near the steps to the loft, and Vik steps down into the light, a lit cigarette dangling from his lip. He takes one look at herâthe blood, the mangled state of her favourite coat, the faint wobble in eyes that struggle to focusâand his face falls into a deep, protective grimace. He doesn't ask questions. He just sighs, dropping his cigarette into a tin can, and reaches for a clean roll of gauze.
"Sit down, kiddo," Vik says softly, gesturing to the main chair. "Let's patch you up."
Kitty lets herself drop into the leather seat, the cold material sending a violent shiver through her spine. She glances past Vikâs shoulder, her eyes involuntarily tracking the dark, empty corner where the apprentice's desk sits.
"Eric's not here," Vik murmurs, noticing her gaze as he snaps on a pair of latex gloves. He dabs a cold, antiseptic swab against the cut on her hairline. "Called out sick. Sounded worse for wear. So do you."
Kitty winces as the alcohol bites into her skin, her fingers tightly clutching the arms of the chair. She lets out a dry, humourless little laugh that turns into a sharp wheeze against ribs that are likely fractured.
"Yeah," she whispers, staring blankly at the sterile white ceiling as Vik goes to work. "Guess we both found trouble today."
A THING OF BEAUTY - [ eric draven x cyberpunk 2077 ] 02
DESCRIPTION; Eric finally bites the bullet and decides to ditch mechanic work and small-time smuggling gigs in the desert, making the move to Night City and even scoring a place to pursue his passion for tattoo artistry. His world flips upside down, for better or for worse, when joytoy Kitty Blue helps him settle into the city sceneâbut maybe settle isn't the right word for it.
CW; Story contains mature themes including gang/street violence, drug use, sex work, and referenced industry abuse. Also includes 18+ explicit content, trauma, and themes involving the loss of bodily consent
PAIRING; Bill Skarsgard's Eric Draven x Cyberpunk 2077 oc
Note: Eric's surname will be changed for this story. This is for the purpose of making him fit cleanly into my Cyberpunk OC universe as more of his own character.
this project is just for fun since i am working on my original characters. you dont' have to be familiar with the fandom since it follows an original storyline set in an alternate universe after the events of the game, but characters from the game are present in the story.
Let me know if you need me to explain any terms to you, as I may forget to explain them in the text.
THERE'S A FLUTTER IN HER CHEST AS SHE STEPS OUT THE BACK DOOR OF MISTY'S ESOTERICA AND INTO THE ALLEY BEHIND, and for a moment she waits at the top of the stairwell to the basement, wondering, for the first time in a long time, if she's about to make a huge mistake.
Kitty Blue doesn't make mistakes. There are only choices to make and the consequences that follow from events pre-destined to happen. Impulse leads to a life lived with passion, a life lived with worth and to its potential. There are easy choices, and there are fun choices. What will be, will be, as they say.
There can only be so many ways to figure something out, and so she decides that tonight, she will figure it out in the way she knows best.
She takes a moment to preen at the lovely fur coat wrapped around her shoulders, reaching into her pocket to swipe her cigarette case. Popping it open, she uses the mirror inside to check herself, adjusting her pigtails and getting a bit of spit on her finger to clean up the edges of her smudged makeup.
There is no need for nerves. Absolutely no need, and yet here they are, chewing away in her stomach. This is the part of courting that is supposed to be fun, supposed to tell you that you're excited. But the last thing she wants is to make a fool of herself, oh no, her ego would not stand it.
With nothing else she could possibly lose, she descends the steps, and enters the clinic.
The basement is quiet, save for the constant buzz of Vik's equipment and monitors and the distant, tinny sound of a boxing match broadcast coming from the upper loft.
Eric is there, just as expected. He hasn't noticed her yetâor heâs too deep in his own head to acknowledge the doorâshoving shipments into the lower cabinets of his designated workspace with a frantic, jerky speed.
She stops, leaning her shoulder against the cold metal doorframe, crossing her arms as she watches him rotate the hardshell cases. Heâs deliberately turning them so the stamped serial numbers face the shadows. Isolation cases. Sleek, matte-black, and climate-controlledâthe exact kind of high-end ordnance boxes used to move volatile street tech.
"You've certainly got balls," a smirk tugs at the edge of her glossed lips, her voice cutting through the quiet like a blade.
Eric spins fast, his wide, pretty green eyes locking onto her. Caught read-handed. His broad shoulders instantly go rigid, and for a second, he looks like heâs trying to figure out if he can block the cabinet before she sees the rest.
She doesn't even need to see it.
"Bringing under-the-table biz into Vik's clinic. Certainly a look," Kitty purrs, taking a slow, deliberate step into his space. Her platform boots clack against the floor, closing the distance until sheâs right in his orbit. She tilts her head, sniffing the air with a lazy, dangerous grin.
"Whatcha serving, huh? S-keef? Glitter? Definitely smells like Glitter. Got that sweet, synthetic twinge in the air. Even a hermetic seal can't keep the scent particles completely locked in. Trust me, I used to huff the stuff for fucking breakfast."
Eric swallows hard.
She watches the muscle in his jaw twitch as he tries to process how a girl in shiny new chrome and bling just materialised in his basement to read his entire side-hustle in three seconds. He rubs the back of his neck, long fingers scratching at his hairline, his gaze dropping before forcing itself back up to her face.
"Everyone's gotta do what they gotta," he mutters, his voice low. Defensive.
"It's just extra eddies. That's all. It's... it's not a big deal."
His audacity is delicious. Hotter than she thought itâd be. The fact that heâs terrified but still trying to play it off like a nonchalant street-kid makes something warm spark right in the centre of her chest.
"Nah. You can do what you gotta do, but you do it elsewhere, in your own home, in your own time," Kitty says softly, tucking her hands into the deep pockets of her coat.
She steps right past him, intentionally brushing her shoulder against his chest just to watch him flinch, and eyes one of the cases.
"You're lucky, you know. Beyond lucky that Vik gave you a shot here in the first place. And your first instinct is to bring trouble to his hard-earned biz? When you only just got here? Wrong fucking move."
"I don't want any trouble," he says, his voice dropping an octave, earnest and frantic. "I promise. It's just here for now till I can get rid of it."
"You can't promise shit, and even if you could, a rookie's word doesn't mean much to me."
She rolls her head back against her collar, letting out a soft, amused laugh at how incredibly naive he is. "Night City doesn't care what you want. The Tyger Claws definitely don't care what you want. You're an outsider, Eric. A total gank. You're brand new. That means you might as well be walking around with a neon target painted on your back that you have no clue what you're into."
"R..right..." He shifts his weight, his eyes tracking the sharp, knowing curve of her mouth. "...So... what are you going to do?"
Kitty bites her lower lip, fighting back a full, triumphant grin as she hooks him on the line. She steps closer, tilting her face up so he has no choice but to look directly into her heart-shaped eyes.
"You clearly need someone to protect you. Someone who actually knows how the gears turn in this city. Rippers, fixers, clients, corpo connections. The whole works. Someone who knows how to turn a very convenient blind eye."
Eric blinks, a flicker of desperate, youthful hope crossing his face before he catches himself. "You'd do that? For me?"
God, those eyes. So sweet, so untouched by the dirt heâs trying to play in.
"Not for free, moron," she winks, reaching out to tap a polished fingernail right against his collarbone, the touch light but commanding. "I'll take a twenty-percent cut of the eddies, of course. Standard street tax. And... you can toss in some free ink as a little signing bonus."
Eric looks down at her finger against his chest, his throat bobbing as he swallows. "Bonus for what, exactly?"
"For saving your life," she purrs, leaning in just close enough for him to catch the scent of expensive smoke and sweet cherries on her skin. "For not letting you completely fuck yourself. And, more importantly... for keeping my mouth shut so Vik doesn't throw your cute little ass out into the rain."
She lets the silence stretch between them, waiting for him to snap under the pressure.
"So, rookie. Do we have a deal?"
Heâs doing the math, and they both know he doesn't have a single card left to play.
A heavy, defeated sort of quiet settles over him. He doesn't say yes, and he doesn't say noâbecause he doesn't have to. Instead, he slowly steps back out of her personal space, turning his back to her as he reaches for a fresh pair of black nitrile gloves on his workstation.
"Jacket off," he says, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that sounds way more confident than he feels. "Sit in the chair."
<<>>
"You're a Tyger Claw?" Eric asks. It's not really a question as much as a statement.
He's scanning the ink on her left shoulder blade, a lunging tiger with a sick oni mask over its face. He's never seen ink so bright, with reds and oranges and pinks, shades that flicker and flash when he scans them with his own budget optic implants. The neon tech laced into her skin pulses against his retinas, a low-grade digital warning hum registering in his HUD. Gang affiliations detected.
"It's complicated, but I used to be," she says casually, adjusting herself in the leather seat.
"Complicated how?"
"Complicated like none of your biz," she scoffed.
Eric doesn't push it. He shifts his stool closer. Now that her heavy coat is draped over the back of the chair, there is entirely too much of her on display.
Sheâs wearing a delicate, baby pink lacey bra that stands out in stark, soft contrast against the concrete reality of the basement. Itâs completely distracting, but as Eric forces his eyes to focus on his work, his hands stall.
Running down the outer edges of her slender forearms are the clean, unmistakable seam-lines of sheathed Mantis Blades.
He knows cyberware. Not intimately, but well enough. He knows the mechanics of how those housings split open, how the chrome plates shift to let the blades spring loose. She looks like a high-rolling party girl now, but underneath the lace and the gloss, sheâs a walking fucking solo.
His eyes trace lower, taking in the rest of her canvas. Sprawling traditional tattoos snake all the way down her stomach and disappear past the waistband of her pants, coiling around her thighs. But what really throws him off is the perfection of it. Everyone in this city has a story written in scar tissue.
Kitty has absolutely none. Her body is a clean surface, a temple to be worshipped at.
He pulls out a fresh wipe, fingers coming down to map out the center of her chest. As he palpates the skin beneath her sternum to lay the stencil flat, the texture under his fingertips gives away the secret. Itâs soft, yes, but it possesses a flawless, uniform elasticity that natural human tissue just doesn't have.
RealSkinn, he realizes, his thumb smoothing over the warm surface. Itâs synthetic skin, the kind that costs a fortune to graft and seamlessly covers any underlying cybernetics or past trauma.
She isn't just a former street claw. She is a highly modified, expensive piece of dangerous tech.
He brings the needle down, the low, steady buzz filling the narrow space between them. "Hold still," he murmurs, and presses the tip into her skin.
Heâs gentle with the line work. Despite the thick, rough calluses on his palms from years of turning wrenches, he moves the machine with a fluid, feather-light precision. He knows exactly how deep to go on the sternum, where the skin is thin and sits right over the bone.
Almost instantly, he catches the shift in her.
Itâs not the sharp flinch of someone in pain. It's a subtle, honey-slow softening of her shoulders. Her chest hitches, a sound that catches in the back of her throat, and her fingers dig just a little deeper into the leather of the armrests. Her synthetic skin goes warm under his hand, flushed and sensitive. She isn't just taking the painâsheâs leaning into it. She likes it.
The realisation hits him like a dose of the drugs he's trading, sending a heavy, sudden ache straight down to his gut. He is hard in seconds, his baggy jeans suddenly feeling entirely too small under the desk.
Eric, though awkward at times, is not afraid to be petty.
To get the angle right for the shading, he has to move her. He doesnât do it timidly. Eric reaches up, his hand broad and heavy as he cups the soft underside of her breast, lifting and anchoring the skin taut. But as he sets his thumb, he deliberately adds a fraction more pressure than necessaryâa firm, slow squeeze that presses her flesh right against his palm.
Itâs a silent, heavy acknowledgment. I know exactly what you're doing, Kitty Blue.
Her breath hitches completely this time, her head snapping back against the headrest, her eyes blown wide. For three solid minutes, the only sound in the basement is the hum of the needle and the ragged, uneven sound of their breathing. He doesn't let go, keeping her held perfectly steady against his hand until the first solid section of the black-work is locked in.
But the heat is getting suffocating, and Eric can feel his own focus slipping. His hands are sweating inside the nitrile gloves. Heâs going to make a mistake if he stays this close to her. When she shivers slightlyâa genuine, overwhelmed reaction to the intensity of itâhe takes the excuse.
He pulls the needle back. The sudden silence in the clinic is deafening.
"That's enough for tonight," Eric says, his voice rough, scraping low out of his throat as he snaps his gloves off. He can't even look at her as he turns to grab the sanitising spray once more.
"The skin is getting too angry. You gotta come back to finish it."
Kitty sits up slowly, looking slightly dazed, her cheeks burning a bright, genuine pink. She looks at her reflection in the clinic glass, then down at the unfinished ink, a frustrated, thwarted pout instantly settling on her lips.
She wraps her luxurious coat back around her shoulders, hiding the pink lace and the bare skin, but she doesn't stand up immediately.
Instead, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small clear case with a chip inside.
She drops it into his tray with a plink.
"Here," Kitty purrs, her voice dropping back into that lazy, teasing purr, though her chest is still heaving. "Your tip. You'll have to let me know if you like it."
He should have known she'd seek vengeance for the way he'd cut tonight short. For the way he'd paused a good thing. But when he's at home, when he slots the shard into the chip slot in his neck and has himself a peek at what she'd given him?
A THING OF BEAUTY - [ eric draven x cyberpunk 2077 ] 01
DESCRIPTION; Eric finally bites the bullet and decides to ditch mechanic work and small-time smuggling gigs in the desert, making the move to Night City and even scoring a place to pursue his passion for tattoo artistry. His world flips upside down, for better or for worse, when joytoy Kitty Blue helps him settle into the city sceneâbut maybe settle isn't the right word for it.
CW; Story contains mature themes including gang/street violence, drug use, sex work, and referenced industry abuse. Also includes 18+ explicit content, trauma, and themes involving the loss of bodily consent
PAIRING; Bill Skarsgard's Eric Draven x Cyberpunk 2077 oc
Note: Eric's surname will be changed for this story. This is for the purpose of making him fit cleanly into my Cyberpunk OC universe as more of his own character.
this project is just for fun since i am working on my original characters. you dont' have to be familiar with the fandom since it follows an original storyline set in an alternate universe after the events of the game, but characters from the game are present in the story.
Let me know if you need me to explain any terms to you, as I may forget to explain them in the text.
ERIC HAS NEVER HAD ANY ISSUES WITH KEEPING HIS GRIP STEADY, BUT TODAY IT'S EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to stop his hand from trembling.
She watches over his shoulder as the pen works the paper, heart-shaped irises practically boring holes into his skin. He had been too nervous to look at her, at least not for too long when she'd first entered the clinic.
He had only uttered a simple "hi, Dr Vektor is out to lunch but he'll be back soon," and she had simply pulled up a seat in the ripperdoc's chair as if she owned the place. She'd been spinning around and around on it for a good while before curiosity got the better, and she'd pushed herself over to his desk to watch him work on his designs.
He's never liked being watched while he works. On real, actual pieces sure, but practicing is different. Low pressure is high pressure and high is low to him. Work is very different from a simple casual sketch that isn't even a fully crystallized idea yet, and this part of his process isn't as clean as the work he can do when ink hits real skin. His sketch is good; it's nice and coherent, and he knows that. However, in this work-in-progress state, all of a sudden it's ugly and messy and makes no sense, and it's not a true example of the things he can do. It makes him nervous that she is perceiving it in this state, and his brain short-circuits while it struggles to figure out what lines go where.
"You can flip through these if you want while you wait for the boss," he says, clearing his throat, pushing a complete sketchbook in front of her in the hopes it would peel her gaze away from what he was doing.
She opens it with no objections, but instead of taking the opportunity to reorient himself and continue working on his sketch, he takes a moment to look up. She's too engrossed in admiring the pages to notice the way he watches her.
She is not the wildest thing he has seen in Night City so far. Salmon-pink hair, tattoos, piercings and facial mods are not unique traits in a city where everyone is colourful. But Eric hasn't been in the city for long, a few months at best, and she is a flavour of interesting that pleases his palate.
The skin has healed in uneven ripples around the metal of her nose bridge and cheeks, like it had been installed in some cheap back-alley clinic ripped straight from the face of some poor, unfortunate gonk. The rest of her? All sunshine and rainbows, all things considered.
A cigarette finds a home between her lips, right between those cute little fang piercings. It's sweet-smelling, laced with something less than legal. He's not sure if she's just like that, or if that's what has her in such a relaxed mood.
"Woah dude. You're like.....mad talented. Remind me to stop by for some ink sometime," she hits him on the shoulder like he's just another one of the bros, like she's known him for yonks, and he's unsure if it puts him at ease.
The way she says it cuts him a little, like he's nothing worth remembering, only something to be reminded of later on. He doesn't take it personally, he doesn't even know her.
Dr Vektor returns to the clinic after another ten minutes and is unsurprised to see her. Eric realizes she's a regular, not even a regular but a friend, when the ripperdoc plucks the cigarette from her mouth with a flick of his sharp mechanical fingers, and puts it out in the nearby tray. Like she's a nuisance, a bother, but a welcome one nonetheless.
"Keep telling you this cheap shit's gonna fry your brain. And all that good chrome I gave you'll go to waste," he tuts, that flesh and bone hand of his on his hip like a disappointed father.
"Awwah Vik. Let a girl live."
"Yeah well. I fear you make it very difficult at times, kiddo."
She kicks her feet up on the table beside Eric, scuffed steel-capped boots barely holding on. His eyesâunable to help themselvesâscan the expanse of her open jacket and the deep maroon bra she wears, no care for a shirt. The artwork on her body is on near complete display in a way he can only admire. Sure, it's the artwork he's gawking at.
She catches his gaze with a smirk, and knows he likes what he sees.
"If she bothers you too much Eric just push her over. It's what I do," Viktor jokes, strolling over to sit at his desk and the various screens that hug the wall.
"I'll keep that in mind," he offers in response, a shiver of satisfaction passing down his spine. Satisfaction that now? Now she knows his name.
"Oh so he's got sass," she grins. "I thought you were just shy. You must not even notice him over here half of the time huh?"
Shy isn't a word Eric would use to describe himself, though he guesses introverted would be a better one. He's spent years drifting across the Badlands, running gigs on his own for the most part. He's learned to appreciate his own company, but he hopes that moving to the city will help stave off the isolation that got to him on the road.
"Oh yeah, it's great not having anyone yapping in my ear all the time. Now, let's talk chrome."
The girl hops up on the chair, and the curtain screeches on the rod as Vik whips them back to give her some privacy. Eric doesn't catch much of the talk, though not for admitted lack of trying. It's none of his business what work she gets done, but it's a lie to say it doesn't intrigue him to know.
He gives her meds, an inhaler of some kind, though not that he wants to pry. She twirls in the doorway, knowing of course that he's watching, and blows him a cheeky little kiss before departing.
Eric takes two more clients, a couple flash designs he's running promotions on, and he's done for the day before he even knows it. The drive to his apartment is like driving through the fiery pits of hell itself, but today he manages to avoid a fresh spray of bullets peppering the other side of his Thorton.
He pulls into the parking lot of what was once a motel but has since become shitty rental apartments. Not shitty in a bad way, not shitty in a way he's ungrateful for. Just the kind of place that's good for sleeping and fuck all else.
The parking lot is a concrete graveyard of cracked, weed-choked pavement and faded lines, spray-painted neon tags bleeding over the walls of the building like a rash. Off to the side, a few locals are sitting around on busted plastic crates and the rusted hood of a stripped-down Archer, their low murmurs becoming one with the Northside traffic. They nod to him as he passes.
A couple of kids shoot hoops into a makeshift basket nailed to a telephone pole, the rhythm of the ball hitting the asphalt a steady, hollow thud. When he looks up, the yellow glow of a streetlamp catches the wispy strands of smoke drifting down from the roof where a few residents are reclining, smoking crap and watching the day fade over the skyline.
The inside of his apartment is an organized mess, the best that one can do with a room the size of a shoebox. Eric is used to living in trailers, caravans and hell even his own car at times. It feels good to have a real place.
He hits the shower, then it's lights out.
<<>>
The first puff of the inhaler is always the worst. Minty, sharp chemical-flavoured air burns in her lungs as it gushes in all at once, stifling an unpleasant, mucky cough from her throat.
It relieves the vague fizzling at the corners of her vision and the powerful throbbing sensation lashing at the metal plates embedded in her face. The world snaps into focusâsharper. Crisper. Better. The new, top-shelf Kiroshi lenses Vik installed don't stutter or drop frames like the cheap, bootleg tech sheâd abused for years. There are no more lines of dead pixels bleeding across her peripheral vision, no more painful lag when she turns her head too fast. Just clean, flawless data streaming directly into her skull.
Things have never looked up for Kitty the way things do now. She has everything a girl could want for herself in Night City; a nice apartment, nice car, nice tech. More importantly, nice connections.
Security at the door doesn't even give her a second look when she crosses the street and heads into Lizzie's Barâshe's not part of the Mox, the gang that runs the joint, but she may as well be at this point. She basically lives here when she's not at home or out to gigs, drinking it up the way her life was meant to be lived.
Tonight the goal is to get smashed, because after the week she's had, she knows she deserves it.
It's a fun time with the girls. The first few drinks are casual with lovebirds V and Judy in the backstage lounge, where the employees hang out, but she finds them too boring to vibe with for too long before they start suggesting she wrap the night up and get some rest. They're much like Vik in that they both think they can tell her what to do under the guise of "elder wisdom". What losers.
Petra and Skyer are always fun. She's known them both since they were kids roaming the streets of Heywood, since the days of nicking simple eddies and taking stolen cars for joy rides. She's known them since before the real world sank in, before they ever had to dance and fuck for scraps. Sky's the perfect netrunner and can crack just about any code you throw her way, and Pet's a sofie at heart underneath her muscle and that shiny chrome jaw.
They spend much of the night hopping from club to club and picking up some new friends. By midnight, the upscale polish of the high-end bars that Kitty can afford gives way to the gritty, back-alley underbelly once they stop caring about class and just go with what's open. Itâs a blur of heavy bass thrumming through dizzy bodies, spilled alcohol over nice jacketsâspliced by the sharp, satisfying crunch of Petraâs metal fist pummelling any bastards getting too handsy.
A brawl breaks out. They fight hard and laugh harder, running when they bite off more than they can chew and hitting the next place. When the clubs start clearing out, and dancing loses its appeal, none of them are ready for the night to end.
On a mutual, drunken whim, Skyer cracks the biometric encryption on a sleek, armoured corporate limo idling outside a Corpo Plaza lounge. Frankieâsome guy they picked up a few bars backâ takes up the driver's seat, leaving the gaggle of girls in the back to enjoy their stolen amenities.
The interior of the ride is a vibrant capsule of pure class, something that not even Kitty could afford. Synthetic leather seats that probably cost more than her apartment are littered with crumpled, grease-stained paper bags from a late-night food stall, the sharp scent of fried sushi and doughnuts mixing with the car's pristine, high-end pine air freshener.
A half-empty bottle of cheap tequila sits loosely in a custom, chilled cup holder meant for premium champagne, sloshing violently every time Frankie hits a curb.
"Holy shit whennn djou get a new tattoo?" one of the girls, a drop-dead gorgeous blonde, crawls across the seat to her violet-haired friend, her pupils blown into wide golden stars as she admires the expanse of sprawling ink crawling up the other girl's thigh.
"The other day. Went to that new guy at the rippers in Little China. He's so fucking hot you won't believe."
That caught Kitty's attention.
"You mean Viktor Vektor's clinic right?" she asks, leaning her head back against the plush headrest, a lazy, genuine smirk breaking through the warm haze she's currently swimming in. The bass from the car's sound system vibrates straight through the soles of her scuffed boots, but her new lenses stay locked on the conversation.
"Yes! Him!" she giggles, spilling a few drops of her drink onto the white carpet. "Total sweetheart. Respectful too but damn, maybe too respectful. I wanted to eat him alive. Or let him rail me in the chair."
Petra lets out a bark of a laugh from the opposite corner of the cabin, neon green hair slipping into bright pink eyes as she shovels a handful of now-cold fries into her mouth. "You'd let him do more than rail you, Senny."
"Vik seems to like him. He seems quiet, level-headed. Interesting," Kitty said, fingers tracing the edge of her own collarbone as if, for a moment, imagining what it would be like for him to mark her with something more than just ink.
Her mind drifts backward, away from the loud, crowded limo and right back into the quiet, dim sanctuary of the clinic. She remembers the way his hands moved and the way the pencil flowed, the way he would fidget under her gaze, and that exact look in his eyes tracking her every delicious move when he thought she wasn't paying attention. The look that told her there were many things he wanted to do. Many things he wasn't game enough to do.
"Oooooh, look at her. Kitâs got a little crush. You're that bored in your penthouse, huh? Need a junkie boyfriend to spark things up?" Skyer teases from the side.
"Shut the fuck up," Kitty laughs, flipping her off without any real bite. She reaches for the tequila, needing something to burn the sudden, unexpected warmth out of her throat.
"Anyways, the guy can't even look me in the eye. You know I like confidence from a man. And this dude I just......dunno if he can pull all this," she gestures to herself.
"Well, maybe you needa give him some confidence?" Senny purrs. "I know I'd be much obliged to help you with that. Get the guy all ballsy, make him want it. I bet he's absolutely feral."
"It could be fun," she agrees, kicking her feet up. "Never even been chased after like that before. Not that I wanna be, cuz I don't have time for that shit."
It's just the way she's wired. Nothing stays in Kitty's orbit if it's too slow to keep up.
"I say go for it," Sky nudges her. "It's been a while since you've had any dick that wasn't just work. Let him do the work while you keep doing your thing."
Kitty takes another slow swig of the tequila, letting the liquid fire burn away the last of her doubts as she considers it. Everything in her life has to move at a million miles an hour, and she doesn't have the patience to wait for a shy boy to find his nerve. But the thought of breaking Eric's quiet composure, of making him completely lose that careful, respectful restraint until he was exactly as feral as Senny predicted?
A slow, dangerous smirk tugs at the corner of her lips. There are many things she can work with, and she cannot wait to make his life hell in the best possible way.
back on my cyberpunk fixation whoooohoooo. my brain needs a break from hemlock grove and i've been yearning to shove eric into my oc world so here we go. i'm trying out the present tense style so if we don't like it i'll switch it to past tense.
Booooooo had a dream where my mum and I were walking a random city and came across Bill in the wild and I didn't wanna bother him and was too shy to ask for a selfie so mum went ahead against my begging her not to (which Bill witnessed and thankfully thought was funny) and asked him and I was like mum noooooođ he was with some friends and I think maybe Valter was there too so then I felt bad for excluding him lmao.
He was so sweet and I kept apologising for taking up his time and blah blah blah then my fuck ass camera app was glitching and dude I was terrified of showing all the stuff on my camera roll đđ and then when I went to take the picture I was too short to hold out my arm and get us both in frame so he had to hold it and what do you know it's literally the best photo that one anyone has ever taken of me and two is the best photo ever taken. Dude was over here striking poses and doing a whole bunch of different pictures trying to get as many good ones as possible as if HE was the one who asked for the selfie. Dude was so friendly I half short circuited but at the same time I kept it cool and actually kind of wasn't nervous? Like idk that this man chats this much but he was taking his time which was great but I suck at small talk so half of it was just making our day plans sound interesting. He found out I'm from Australia and then went on a thing about how he filmed there and what he liked and yada yada and I had to act surprised and ask questions like i hadn't been intensely obsessing over his whereabouts during that time đđđđ mortifying.
Imagine my reaction when I woke up and discovered to my dismay there was indeed nothing to brag to my friends about cuz it wasn't real. Literally JUST woke up too ughhhhh day RUINED
DESCRIPTION; Roman Godfrey and Peter Rumancek, in their travels while searching for the Vargulf, happen upon a strange girl in a cage. Roman Godfrey can't shake the feeling that his very destiny clings to her survival.
CW; Story contains mature themes such as dark folklore, foul language, graphic violence, cannibalism, anthropophagy, kidnapping, captivity, implied torture, cult violence, body horror etc.
masterlist ask to be tagged! @kikibit , @thedevotchka , @lunaskye999 , @coryoslut , @guaaafiiburg ,
ROMAN GODFREY WAS DROWNING, CHOKING ON BITTER BLACK WAVES THAT surged around him, crashing against his broken boy of a body, pulling him far, far beneath the tide.
Before peace came fire. Fire in his lungs as they clawed for air, heat rippling through muscles that burned through the last of the energy it took to keep his head above the surface. It was an ugly, violent agony. The water invaded him, forcing its way down his throat and shattering it like broken glass.Â
His heart hammered a frantic, erratic beat against his ribsâa trapped bird tearing itself to pieces in the dark. The sheer, blinding panic of the life within him being snuffed out was white hot, a singular, agonising realisation that he was entirely small, entirely helpless, and entirely alone against the weight of a world that did not care if he knew how to swim.
Then, the fire died.
The frantic, desperate thrashing of his limbs grew heavy, then slow, until the current finally stopped fighting him and simply took him away. The suffocating pressure in his chest didn't hurt anymore; it expanded, dissolving the wild edges of his panic into something thick, dark, and impossibly quiet.
The black ocean had become a womb, keeping him safe and sound, cradling him the way his mother never had.
A profound weightlessness washed over him as he sank deeper into the stars beneath the waves. The lick of the flames and the bite of the cold vanished, replaced by a creeping, deceptive warmth that bled into his veins like liquid silk. It was an unadulterated euphoriaâthe kind of terrifying bliss that only belonged to the dying. The kind of peace that came after it all ended, and there were no worries in sight.
There were no expectations down here. There was no family legacy, no monstrosity within him, no yearning for a greater destiny tearing at his heart. There was only the soft, creamy density of the dark, holding him so perfectly that he never wanted to break the surface again.
For once in his life he was entirely, beautifully loved by whatever god had granted him such mercy.
And then it burned again. A handâvast, gnarled, and ancient enough to have held the beginning of earth in its palmâbroke through the ceiling of the world. Giant, twisted fingers plunged into the black surf, reaching for him, not to save him, but to scoop him up like a rag doll.
Roman bolted upright, a breathless gasp tearing from his throat.
The silk sheets on his bed were tangled in a heap around his waist, damp with sweat and tears. The familiar, faded grandeur of his bedroom in the estate rushed back to meet him, but the phantom scent of stagnant water still lingered in his nose.Â
He found himself grieving that peace at once.
"Bad dreams, my darling?"
The voiceâher voiceâwas a cruel, precise blade slicing through silk.
Olivia Godfrey sat in the armchair beside his bed, a cigarette perched between two manicured nails, with her other hand carding through the floppy brown locks draped across his forehead.
She hadn't turned on the lights, no, she sat there in the dim, grey morning light watching him. Always fucking watching him with that same stillness as always, the kind that itched at his bones and tore at his skin as if she had found a way beneath it. As if she wanted to crawl inside it, as if she couldn't possibly get any closer to him.
"You've been so busy lately, Roman," she murmured, her nails clicking softly against his collarbone as her hand drifted away from his head, before she finally withdrew her hand and settled it in her lap. "You're pale and, quite frankly, moody. You should spend the day at home with your mother and let me take care of you."
"Mmm. I would rather kill myself," he drawled, forcing himself up and out of the bed, in which he would have loved to remain for another several hours had she not tainted the space with her presence. He didn't feel completely safe going back to sleep, not with her hawk ass watching his every twitch.
Olivia let out a soft, melodic hum, entirely unbothered by his hostility. She tapped the ash from her cigarette into a small crystal dish on his nightstand, her gaze tracking the sharp, tense lines of his shoulders as he reached for his clothes.
"If you say so, darling," she murmured. "The staff tells me youâve been spending your evenings down by the old greenhouse lodge. What's going on there, hmm?"
Roman froze, his fingers stalling on the buttons of his shirt. Gossamer was probably curled up in the sun by the docks out there right now, or swaddled in the blankets he had brought her. His neck still twinged where she'd fed from him before healing it as if nothing had ever happened.Â
"Needed a change of scenery. Fucking chicks in the car was getting kind of old".
Roman forced his features to smooth out, turning over just enough to look her in the eye with the most bored, pathetic expression he could muster.Â
Olivia stared at him for a long, slow beat, searching his face for a different. Finally, her lips curled into a faint expression of supreme disgust. "You wound me with your ludicrousness. Have you no respect for yourself? For this family?"
"I'm shocked that you ever thought I did," Roman muttered. For that, she slapped him.
<<>>
Gossamer knew she had company long before she stepped out of the shower. There was a distinct, sharp interruption in the static of her surroundingsâa shift in the room's frequency that she had learned to pick up on.
She didn't rush. To show haste was to show a certain amount of fear, and Gossamer was not the kind of animal to be startled in her own nest, to be driven from her own comfort.
With deliberate elegance, she went about her routine as if she were entirely alone. She let the freezing water drip from the lengths of her dark hair, tracking the slow path of a droplet as it rolled down the curve of her spine.
She reached for one of the faded, threadbare towels Roman had smuggled down to her, her movements fluid and unbothered as she pressed the cloth to her skin, drying herself with the precision of someone who had all the time in the world.
When she finally dressed and braved the porch of the lodge, she found Roman's mother sitting at the edge of the small pier. Olivia Godfrey was a grand oil painting of high-society leisure, a vision of aristocracy and might lit within a swampy clearing. She was draped in a flowy white dress that pooled around her like milk, damp as her legs dangled over the edge of the wood and swayed about in the water.Â
A wide-brimmed hat shaded her face, catching the pale morning glare and filtering it into a soft, glowing halo. It was her eyes that were devilishâtwo sharp, calculating slits tracking the fog as it drifted over the water, before settling on Gossamer.
Beside her on the weathered wood sat a gorgeous marble charcuterie platter and two wine glasses, each filled with a deep, ruby-red liquid. One glass rested comfortably between her fingers; the other sat a precise distance away, waiting just for her.
"You certainly took your time," Olivia murmured, not bothering to turn around as the ice-thin edge of her voice carried over the lapping water. She lifted her glass, swirling the dark liquid in a slow, hypnotic circle. "But then, I suppose wild things like you never have the need to respect schedules."
Gossamer stopped at the edge of the porch. The contrast was starkâthe upir woman lounging in her ethereal whites, drinking wine at the edge of a swamp, while the fae stood in her towel, all jagged edges and otherworldly eeriness.
"Wild things like me do not spare time for uninvited guests," Gossamer replied, her voice dripping with undisguised venom.Â
"Don't be so rude, darling. You're squatting on my property, are you not? Here, have a glass. I brought enough to share." Olivia gestured lazily to the second glass. "Letâs have a little.....chat about my son," the woman smiled, her crimson lips pulling back over teeth that were far too perfect.Â
At the mention of the boy, Gossamer felt her fangs throb, a sudden, white-hot ache blooming at the roots of her teeth. She didn't move toward the glass, but drew closer, shadow stretching taller.
"Yes", Gossamer whispered. "Let's."
.
_____________________________________________________________
booooooooooooooooooo this chapter and life burned me out so bad I hope it's okay! Just needed to write SOMETHING to move this shit forward.
anyways here's a WIP of Gossamer I'm working on mwah <3
Gaaaah thank you @yes-no-maybe-soo, this is such a beautiful sentiment đ„ș and right back at you!
To all my lovely mooties, whether we've talked for a long time and gotten to know each other, or whether we're just here silently sharing and shitposting, I'm glad you exist and are out there, you make the world better đč
some of you i've known since before 2020 (maybe even before 2017), some of us did art together, or maybe we're just silently cuckoo bananas on dash together even though we've never spoken :))
Ty for the tag @ch404 love you too, bestie đ«¶đ»đ«¶đ»
@vadersangel @kikibit @grimoireskin @kittyflanders @voidofsunlight @222col @kingkat12 @a-differentbrandof-beans @skysgard @thedevotchka @lunaskye999 @bryandanielson-yes and probably many more Iâm forgetting because my brain is soup đ
Thank you all for being the sweetest mutuals a gal could ask for<333
Thank you for the tag @melancuntly you have no idea how much it means đ even if we never talk and just support eachothers work everyone who's here means the world
@bayrtucker @lokisprettygirl @kikibit @coryoslut @macynacym @thedevotchka *im forgetting so many* but thank you for being so supportive đ„čđ„čđ
You guuuuuuuuys I am all warm and fuzzy inside today, thank youuuuu. Never has there ever been such a talented, supportive, cool, fun and obviously very sexy fandom!!! Tagging a few, but missing many: @ch404 @bryandanielson-yes @melancuntly @kikibit @skysgard @starzgard @a-differentbrandof-beans @coryoslut @katherinesdumbstuff @brightnessluvsworld @27reddieforjanuaryembers27 @goosegreenwood @lunaskye999
Y'all are so sweet omgggahhhhhh passing on the love! Some of you I don't know that well or have spoken to in passing but at the end of the day are all hogging my feed and i love to see it!
beep boop whats this? an original fiction inspired by Gossamer and Roman in Unseelie? NAY
Grayling Rost is a scavenger, a flesh-eating parasite living on the Isle of Zyr. To her, the wars of the Human Kingdoms are nothing but a br
If it takes me a little to get chapters out on here its because I desperately needed a big project to put my energy into. One of my assignents from uni is being published in an actual writing journal so I took it as my sign that maybe I CAN do this!
DESCRIPTION; Roman Godfrey and Peter Rumancek, in their travels while searching for the Vargulf, happen upon a strange girl in a cage. Roman Godfrey can't shake the feeling that his very destiny clings to her survival.
CW; Story contains mature themes such as dark folklore, foul language, graphic violence, cannibalism, anthropophagy, kidnapping, captivity, implied torture, cult violence, body horror etc.
masterlist
ask to be tagged! @kikibit , @thedevotchka , @lunaskye999 , @coryoslut , @guaaafiiburg ,
ROMAN GODFREY TRIED TO SCREAM, BUT THE SOUND OF IT SNAGGED IN HIS THROAT.Â
The noise escaped in a short, pained yelp, shoved right back down where it came from by the grey hand clamped firmly over his mouth.
Using all of her weight against him as he bucked under the sharp, searing zap that flashed through his neck, Gossamer held him down against the mattress. His eyes flew shut, the world vanishing behind a veil of hot white heat that rippled through his veins like liquid fire.Â
For a genuine, delirium-induced moment, he assumed that this must be his end.
I let her in, he realised, his fingers twitching against the headboard. I opened the door and I handed her the knife, and now she's using my own life to paint herself back into existence.
Her fangs had ravaged the flesh right at the base of his neck, where the slope of his shoulder met the collarbone, and he could feel his very life force being siphoned out of his body, guzzling straight down her throat. It was a strange tugging sensation created by the suction of her lips, the push and pull of his skin as she downed more and more of it by the second.
His head felt light and his stomach churned, his face hot and beads of sweat dripping down. He felt as though he were about to vomit.Â
But he was drunk on it. The smell of her magic as it flowed back through herâsweet, syrupyâ in all its glory, oh it was intoxicating. It was a heavenly, divine thing to witness. He was giving her that life back, and so he let her take his.
As the ichor left his body, a jagged, frantic arousal spiked in its place. It was a raw, localised thrumming in his gut that made his toes curl against the silk sheets. He was floating adrift in a sea of static, yet every inch of his skin where she pressed against him felt hypersensitized, reactive, alive.
The more she took, the more he wanted to give. He would give it all to her if she asked, because he wanted to. He wanted her to take his life and consume it in every possible way, so that he would always be with her, would always be a part of her. It was a sick, desperate greed; he found himself arching into her, his hips stuttering against hers.
When she finally pulled away, Roman lay sprawled across the silken sheets, his limbs feeling as though they had been hollowed out and the marrow replaced with lead. The room was spinning in slow, nauseating circles, the moonlight through the high windows of the lodge cut silver gashes across the weathered floorboards.
Then, he felt the weight shift.
Gossamer adjusted her seat, straddling his hips with a fluid, silent grace. The silk of her scarlet robe hiked up, the heat she had stolen from his veins radiating through her own skin back into his. The violent tremors that had racked her body in the greenhouse were gone, the desperate begging of the witch was gone, replaced instead by a terrifying, sleek stillnessâthe steady certainty of a predator sizing up a deadly bite.
She started at the base of his throat.
Her tongue was a sudden, sandpaper wetness against his cooling skin. She dragged it from side to side in a slow and deliberate graze, tracing the path where the blood had leaked from the puncture wounds and pooled in the hollow of his collarbone. Roman's breath hitchedâa sharp, jagged sound that echoed in the otherwise empty room.
"You're making a mess," he managed to rasp. His fingers cut into the silky skin of her hips, pulling her down, anchoring himself to the only thing in the room that felt solid, felt warm, felt real.
"Hush. I am cleaning it up, Roman," she murmured against his skin, her breath smelling of salt and iron. "Just relax."
The lapping of her tongue against his jaw was a rhythmic, delicate friction that made his skin crawl in the best possible way. It was a calculated torment, a reminder of how easily she had broken through his defences to get what she wanted.Â
Roman's head fell back into the pillow, his eyes rolling shut. Her fangs grazed the tarnished flesh once again, and he could feel her breath stuttering, as though she were doing her best to refrain from sinking them in and drinking all over again.
Satisfied, or perhaps simply overwhelmed by the sudden influx of power that his blood had restored to her, Gossamer began to shift. She placed her palms against his chest, her muscles coiling as she prepared to unstraddle him and retreat back into the shadows of the room.
"No," Roman rasped, the word tearing out of his throat.
Before she could slide away, his handsâshaking, blood-stained, and desperateâclamped down harder on her thighs, keeping her firmly rooted to the spot.
Gossamer froze, her spine stiffening like a startled cat. She looked down at him, her red eyes blown wide with a mix of surprise and a simmering, newfound heat.Â
"Roman," she warned, her voice a low, dangerous vibration. "You cannot take any more of this. You can barely even breathe."
"You're not done," he growled. The lethargy still pulled at his mind, making the world tilt and blur, but that skin-to-skin contact, that desire, was the only thing keeping him conscious.
He wanted the weight. He wanted the crushing, suffocating pressure of her. He wanted her to feel the frantic, aching pulse she had left him withâthe hard, heavy proof that even as she drained him, she had filled him with a hunger that was far more dangerous than her bloodlust.
"You're not... done," he whispered once more, his eyes finally fluttering open to meet hers. They were dark, clouded with a dizzy, erotic delirium.Â
Gossamer stared at him, her breath coming in short, jagged bursts that mirrored his own. She could hear the frequency of his heart, a loud, thumping rhythm that was practically begging for more. She didn't pull away this time. Instead, she leaned closer, her lips brushing against his ear as she felt the strength return to her limbs, fueled entirely by the man currently refusing to let her go.
"I am done," she murmured, her hand sliding up to grip his chin, forcing him to look at the predator he was trying to cage, "I decide when I am done. Do you understand me?"
"Noooo," he whined, the sound small and pathetic, vibrating against her palm.
The witchling's lip curled. The sound disgusted her as much as it fed her ego. With a sharp, fluid motion, she released his jaw and stood up on the mattress, her movement so sudden it made the room tilt in Roman's vision.
"You are an ant, Roman," she whispered, her wings twitchingâa dry, rustling frequency that made the hair on his arms stand up. "A delicious little ant that I may stomp on when I please. Do not ever think you can tell me what to do. It will not end well."
She let her robe slip from her body as she turned, abandoning the red silk draped over his legs as she stepped down from the bed and onto the floor. He watched the ragged form of her wings flex gently as the evening air caressed them, catching glimpses of the room on the other side through snags and tears ripped open in the leathery material.
He had not yet seen her fly. He wondered if she even could.
<<>>
"Aren't you going to join me?" Gossamer asked, pausing the sponge's gentle glide across her skin.
She had sensed him standing in the bathroom doorway for a fair few minutes now, felt those intense eyes watching her every move as she cleansed herself of him in the tub. He was a mess. A beautiful, ruined mess of a boy who didn't understand that he was currently the most expensive, exquisite meal she had ever eaten.
"You want me to?"
She did not answer with words, and instead shifted to make room in the tub behind her.
Roman took a step forward without further invitation. Then another, and then another. He moved as though he were wading through a dream he hadn't quite distinguished as real. When he finally reached the edge of the clawfoot tub, he didn't hesitate. He shed his clothes and sank into the scalding water, the intense heat a violent shock that made him gasp. He settled behind her, his knees bracketing her hips, arms instinctively coming to envelop her.
Gossamer leaned her head back against his shoulder, her wet hair a dark, heavy curtain draped between them. She felt his hands begin to moveâslow, reverent, and agonisingly gentle. His palms slid over the slick skin of her stomach, then up, tracing the jagged lines of her ribs. She held her breath as his fingers snagged on the edges of her scarsâthe thin, torn ridge of silvered skin near her collarbone, a souvenir from a hunt she barely remembered from centuries ago. The various marks over her stomach, her back. He didn't ask. He just traced them, his touch so light it almost made her shiver.
Then his hands wandered further back, braving the space where her skin met the heavy, leathery base of her torn-up wings. Beneath the water, she felt him touch the scars thereâthe puckered, angry reminders of where the iron had bitten deepest during her time in the cage, where she had been forced to break them in some places just to fit inside the small enclosure.
Romanâs breath skipped, a warm puff of air against her damp skin. He didn't recoil. If anything, he pulled her closer, his forehead dropping against the nape of her neck.
"How did you get in the cage?" The question vibrated against her skin, lips dragging across it. "What...what happened to you? Who hurt you?"
Gossamer did not give him an answer at first. Instead, she seemed to go unnaturally still, her spine aligning with his chest as it straightened up.
She thought about it some, staring at her own twisted reflection in the sheen of the tile.
"I do not wish to speak of this with you."
Romanâs lips stayed pressed against her skin for a heartbeat longer. He didn't recoil, but his grip on her waist tightened.
"But I want to knowâ"
"Do not push meâ" she snarled ",âWhen I am not ready."
Gossamer whipped her head around to face him, the motion so sudden and violent that a spray of water hit the slate wall with a sharp slap. Her wet hair lashed across his chest like a whip, stinging slightly as it hit his skin.
Before he could even blink, she had his face in her hand. Her palm cupped his jaw, her thumb pressing into the soft skin of his cheek with a strength that felt less like a caress and more like a vice. Her red eyes were blown wide, the pupils narrowed to pinpricks of dark, ancient fury. She leaned in until their noses were inches apart.
"You have pushed your luck with me too far today as it is. You are lucky I did not rip out your throat when I had the chance. You are behaving like an insolent, entitled brat."
She expected him to fumble about with a half-assed apologyâ which, admittedly, she wasn't sure why she expected. Instead, a slow, infuriating grin crept across his perfect fucking face.
"You enjoy it," he said, pushing his face closer to hers until the tips of their noses brushed one another. "You like it when I'm a brat. I guess that means I'm your brat, hmm?"
Gossamerâs fingers tightened on his jaw, her claws biting into the skin as she tilted him this way and that. A warning hiss gurgled in the back of her throat, a sound that should have made him recoil, but Roman was too far into this to care.Â
He tilted his head just a fraction, his eyes dark and dilated as they tracked the movement of her lips. Then, with a sudden, sharp daring that made the water in the tub slosh violently, he lunged forward to nip playfully at the split flesh of the scar on her lip.
She should have snapped his neck right then and there. She should have held him under the water until the bubbles stopped rising, just to remind him of his place within her world.Â
Instead, the distance between them vanished before she could talk herself out of it. She crashed her lips back against his, the kiss a collision of two deadly, starving things. It was desperate and messy, tasting of salt and the lingering copper of his blood.
Her grip on him softened, her fingers instead tangling with the wet hair at the nape of his neck to pull him closer, deeper. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to steal that boy away for herself, take him far away into another realm where they could relax and feast for days on end. There would be no worry of sick dogs or lowly humans; there would be faerie wines and all the gardens she could hope to cultivate and all the blissful, passionate sex they could ever hope to have, and maybe the witchling could get a happy ending for once.Â
But she could not. There were greater, more important things in this life to do than indulge the self, and Gossamer would do well to remember what she came here for.
She would do well to remind herself that, try as she may to convince herself otherwise, he was not hers for the taking.
It was a bitter truth to swallow that Roman Godfrey's soul belonged to someone else. She wondered, perhaps with spite and a little rebellion, what would become of her, and all the promises she had made, were she not to swallow it at all.
.
________________________________________________________________
sorry for no update last week! i'm on break at the moment for a few weeks so you'll get some more frequent ones since I tried to time it!
my mental health has been kicking my ass lately with all sorts of things happening irl, i'm okay but i've decided to take a break from uni for at least a few months and live back home with my parents, maybe even find my own place somewhere and rethink what i wanna do with my life.
also maybe gonna revamp the cover for this book cuz me thinks i don't like it anymore its too dark and clashy
