“How to describe hell? Disemboweled landscape busy with suffering, incessant heat, permanent scarlet twilight, a swirling snowfall of ash, the stink of pain and the din of...if only.
Hell is two things: the absence of God and the presence of time. Infinite variations on that theme.
Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Well, trust me....”
"what if they fucked" WRONG. what if they ruined each other's lives irreparably. what if there was nothing left but a smoldering heap. what if everything that brought them together twisted and corroded and ripped them apart. and then they fucked.
💋 Gently kiss one of the receiver's scars / wounds.
The cup shattered against the wall beside Hale’s head as the wine streaked the stone in dark rivulets. One bronze shard spun across the floor with a shrill, metallic cry before settling beneath the overturned table.
Belle stood at the centre of the room breathing hard and the lamps had gone wild around them with her anger. Flames bent sideways in their bowls; shadows climbed the walls like reaching hands. Around her feet lay the ruin of the evening; split figs, scattered dishes, a chair on its side with one leg cracked clean through.
“You keep burdening me with fucking useless games,” she said.
Hale leaned against the far table, jaw tight. “Because it was safer.”
“Safer for whom?” Belle asked with a sharp laugh.
“For everyone.”
“Oh, beautiful answer, Helel.” Her hands spread wide. Gold glimmered angrily at her wrists. “Vague enough to sound noble. You’ve been practicing.”
“Come now,” Hale’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Notice that every time something matters, you suddenly discover another errand for me?” Her voice rose. “Another sacred archive to oversee, another dispute to mediate, another task so painfully important that I must be kept occupied for days.”
“Belle, that isn’t what this is.”
“No?” she snapped. “Then tell me plainly! Tell me that you did not trust me with the information.” His silence answered for him and Belle went very still after that.
Hale straightened slowly. “You have been trying to repair things with them.”
“With Han and Audrey?” Belle scoffed. “Yes. Because unlike you, I don’t enjoy collecting enemies.”
“You’re too sentimental where they are concerned.”
“And you are paranoid.”
“No. I’m careful.”
“You’re afraid I would tell them something.”
Hale did not deny it quickly enough and the hurt crossed her face so fast it looked almost like fury.
“Oh,” she whispered. “You truly do think that.”
“I know that you want them to forgive you.”
“And that means I can’t be trusted?”
“It means,” Hale said carefully, measuring his words before he spoke “that you have a habit of bleeding information when you love someone.”
Belle stared at him as though he had struck her and for a moment the room became dangerously quiet, then she reached for the nearest object, a heavy bronze cup, and hurled it at him. It exploded against the wall narrowly missing him as fresh wine splashed against stonework. Hale flinched backward as its fragments scattered across the chamber.
“You arrogant bastard.”
“Cordziz…”
“No.” Her voice shook now. “No, you do not get to stand there pretending this is strategy when really you just wanted me out of the way.”
“That is not true.”
“You gave me busywork.”
“It was important.”
“It was useless.”
“It needed attending.”
“So does your ego, apparently.”
The nearest lamp flickered violently. Hale ran a hand across his face, he looked exhausted suddenly, older than empires. “I was trying to protect the best interests of this r--.”
“You were trying to protect yourself from the possibility that I might choose someone else over you!”
“Belle, that isn’t fair.”
“Fair?” her laugh came thin and terrible, a withered and dreadful thing. “Hale, you looked me in the eye and decided I was a liability.”
The lamp beside her burst, its glass shattered outward in a violent spray. Belle gasped softly as Hale froze. A thin cut opened along her forearm where a shard had struck. Blood welling up slowly, bright against her skin.
The anger drained from his face at once. Belle pressed her lips together and turned away as though the sight embarrassed her. Hale crossed the room immediately to her side.
“Don’t,” she said, a warning stitched between each breath.
“Let me see.”
“I said don’t.”
But her voice broke strangely on the last word and Hale ignored her. He caught her wrist carefully; not gently at first, only firmly enough that she could not pull away again. Blood slid toward her palm in thin crimson lines, pooling against her bracelets.
The cut was shallow, but Hale looked at it as though it were ruin. Belle watched his expression harden with guilt and hated him for it instantly.
“You see?” she said quietly. “This is what you do. You wound me and then act horrified afterward.”
“I never wanted to hurt you like this.” His jaw tightened.
“No,” she said. “You only wanted to keep me manageable.”
The words landed harder than the cup had. Hale lowered his eyes; tiny fragments of glass still glittered in her skin. He removed them one by one with careful fingers that had once split kingdoms apart. Belle looked away toward the ruined corners of the room, anything to escape the scene she had found herself trapped within.
“You think I would betray you for them,” she said after a long silence.
“I think,” Hale murmured, “that you would carve pieces off yourself to keep the people you love from leaving.”
Something in her face faltered.
Because it was true.
Because she had done exactly that for centuries.
Hale pulled the final shard free, blood slipping warmly over his knuckles. Then, very slowly, he lowered his head and pressed his mouth against the wound on her arm.
Belle inhaled sharply. The kiss was soft, devastatingly so. It was not desire, it was repentance. Hale lingered there for a moment, lips pressed against her broken skin, as though he could somehow undo the injury by reverence alone.
“I hate when you bleed,” he murmured.
Belle gave a brittle laugh. “You are usually the reason.”
“I know.”
His voice sounded tired enough to break.
She looked down at him then; the Devil himself kneeling amid shattered glass and spilled wine, holding her arm like something sacred despite everything sharp and ruined between them. Tomorrow, they would likely wound each other again. They always did. Love, with them, was less devotion than collision.
Still, Hale turned her wrist carefully in his hand and kissed the inside of it too, directly over the pulse.
Belle closed her eyes.
“I’m leaving, Hale.” she whispered. “I can’t do this… I need space.”
But Hale only rested his forehead briefly against her arm, as though surrendering to an old and terrible god whilst his offerings turned to ash and rot at her feet.
“Then I think that is true punishment.” he said softly.
Far below the ridge, the river dragged silver through the valley, and the temple fires of men flickered like earthbound stars. Above them, the true stars burned without mercy. They crowded the heavens in impossible numbers, white and gold and blue, scattered across the dark body of the sky whilst the night smelled of myrrh and cooling stone.
Belle lay against the smoothness of the cooling rock with one arm beneath her head, her hair spread loose around her.
Men had once called her Ninmah, Mother of Clay, Shaper of Kings. In older centuries, before language learned restraint, they had called her the Mother. She had made mountains kneel. She had carved rivers with her fingertips…
Tonight, she simply watched constellations move.
Hale sat beside her whilst the priests beneath the hills painted him with horns and red jaws. They whispered his name into bowls of lamb’s blood and buried charms against him under their doorways. Yet there was nothing monstrous in him now, not visibly at least. Only a man with tired eyes and a bronze knife at his belt, seated with one knee drawn up beneath the spilling heavens.
The devil looked cold.
Belle glanced sideways at him. “You’re brooding again.”
“I’m not, I’m just contemplating.”
“You contemplate like a widow.”
“Maybe it’ll catch on down there.”
She laughed softly at that, the sound low as reeds brushing against the river’s flow. Hale turned toward it instinctively, as though every laugh she uttered still startled him after all these centuries.
There had been a time when he almost feared her.
Not in the simple way mortals fear; beings such as them did nothing simply. He had feared her with devotion. With precision.
She had stood beside the first dawn while mankind crawled wet from the mud, and Hale had watched her gift them tenderness.
“You made them fragile,” he had told her once.
“I made them live...”
“And now they break easily.”
“They were always meant to.”
That argument had lasted four hundred years.
Now however, they sat together beneath the stars like weary monarchs after a ruined feast.
The wind climbed higher along the ridge. Belle closed her eyes against it and Hale watched the life pulse beneath her flesh. Strange, he thought, that divinity should imitate mortality so well.
Or perhaps mortality had only ever imitated the gods.
“You’re staring,” she murmured.
“You’re glowing.”
“That’s just the starlight.”
“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”
Something moved between them then; it wasn’t surprising, for nothing remained surprising after eternity, but recognition. The old and terrible kind. The kind that split worlds.
When Belle opened her eyes, they reflected the constellations above them with brilliant clarity. Hale had seen empires burn in those eyes. He had seen her kneel beside dying children. He had seen her curse oceans into drought.
Once, long ago, he had seen her dance while the world was still cooling from creation.
And suddenly he could no longer bear the distance between them.
“You shouldn’t look at me like that,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Because I remember things.”
The devil smiled then, though a distant sorrow touched its edges.
“So do I.”
A silence unfolded as Belle turned onto her side to face him fully, golden circlets gleamed at her wrists. Hale thought absurdly of chains. Of prayers. Of all the kingdoms that had begged them for opposite mercies.
“You’re scared,” she said.
“No. I’m just being cautious.”
“No. You’re afraid,” she repeated, softer now. Perhaps he was.
Not of war. Not of heaven. Not of the endless machinery of fate. Hale feared only this: that tenderness, once permitted, became hunger.
Belle reached toward him first. Her fingers touched the side of his face with an unbearable gentleness. The Devil closed his eyes at once, as though struck.
“You carry too much loneliness,” she said.
“You carry too much love.”
“Yeah,” Belle breathed. “Maybe that’s my own personal failing.”
“No,” Hale said, his voice now rough as the stars wheeled slowly overhead. “That is your divinity.”
Then he kissed her softly, not hungrily, not with the triumph of a king claiming his prize, as gentle as a confession.
Belle inhaled sharply against his mouth, and for one suspended instant the whole world seemed to pause around them; the river below, the wind, the distant temple songs. Hale’s hand came to rest against her jaw as though he feared she might vanish in an instant.
Her lips were warmer than the offerings crumbling against the temple fires. Warmer than the birth of suns. And when she kissed him back, the heavens altered.
Somewhere, far beyond human sight, constellations shifted by the breadth of a mere whisper. Fate loosened one golden thread and tied another. When they parted, Hale remained close enough to feel her breathing. Belle smiled faintly, though there was an unnamed pain in it too.
“Do you think we’ll regret this?” she asked
“Almost certainly, love.”
“And that the world might suffer?”
“Doesn’t it always? What would inspire men’s sagas if it didn’t?”
At that, she laughed again.
The sound rose into the ancient dark, and above them the stars continued burning; indifferent, eternal, and bright as newborn prophecy.
It wouldn't be their first kiss, says the man with the dangerous smile and pretty blue eyes. Hers threaten to roll in her head - that line of his has been at work enough times that the romance has almost entirely died from it. What was once a charming flirtation is now a cliche plucked from one of her worst-written novels and said too often to even have figurative meaning.
Astrid stands blocking the doorway of her little bookshop, arms crossed over her ample chest and chin tilted to look up at him, even from atop the stairs. She hates a tall man with unearned arrogance, she decides. Perhaps if she decides it hard enough, it will start to be true. Until then, she's likely and unfortunately stuck with this strange gentleman who won't leave her alone.
"Sir-"
"Hale."
"Sir. I don't mean to be ungrateful for your patronage, especially with times the way they are. But you can not possibly be reading every one of these books in an evening, and I can not let you keep purchasing from me on this misconception you seem to have about me. I assure you, sir, if we had met already I am positive I would remember you."
Maybe she imagines it, it happens so quick, but there's a flash of something in his face that looks like sadness. It's gone before she can imagine a scenario in which that makes any bit of sense.
Three months prior to this doorway intervention, Mr. Hallerton - Hale - stopped along his way to the coast on business when his horse injured its foot. The horse's foot has long since healed and Mr Hallerton has produced a bevy of excuses to delay his departure.
First it was that, while his horse was no longer at risk of falling lame, the creature should be fitted with new shoes - which of course meant calling the farrier two towns away. Then, he was apparently in need of new riding clothes and saddle. Outfitted to the teeth, he had then suddenly become interested in purchasing a parcel of land adjacent to her shop.
And every day, without fail, he visited that very shop to buy a book. He could not be more obviously trying to court her if he were already down on one knee, in spite of the fact that she had told him no less than a dozen times that she was too busy to entertain the notion. He did not seem to believe the lie, given that he remained determined to stain her good name and reputation by declaring right there in the street that he had already kissed her. Truthfully, her romantic heart may have leapt at the notion of something so enchanting, if it weren't for the fact that he so quickly ruined every bit of poetic fantasy conjured with whatever next came out of his mouth.
"I have decided to buy the land," he says, smiling with all of his perfect teeth. He is looking at her as though he expects her to be excited for his happy news. The smile falters when she yells a sound of utter frustration and stomps back into her shop. Straw-colored curls (always escaping from her efforts to tame them) bounce angrily when the heavy door slams behind her.
She isn't surprised when it opens again a couple of moments later, spotless riding boots hitting creaking floorboards with an authority she can no longer stand for. Whirling around, Astrid shoves a pointing finger into his chest. "You are arrogant! And absurd! And you have no idea who I am, yet harbor some mad and maddening belief that you are entitled to me because of an imagined connection. Sir, I do not say this lightly, but I fear that you have read too many books and may be the first to have addled his mind with literature. I have suffered your advances because you are a gentleman and I am only a bookseller, and a spinster at that, and you have a charm about you that is tolerable in small doses, but I'm afraid I can no longer accept your patronage if you buy that parcel of land. In fact I- why on God's bloody earth are you smiling?"
And he is, his eyes twinkling like he's about to laugh. She has to steel herself against his expression, because a lesser woman might melt like sugar in the sun. She's glowering at him, breathing so hard from her ranting that her chest rises and falls against the confines of her corseted day dress. The rise of skin above the fabric is a matching angry pink, and the hot color blushes up her neck to her round cheeks. Her lips feel pursed in displeasure to her, but they look tremendously like a pout.
"So...you think that I'm charming, then? I'm happy you finally noticed."
She picks up a book and hauls it directly at his head.
The horror that crosses her face and drains all the color from her cheeks is met with his raucous laughter. She watches the madman practically double over with it, then watches him stand and fix his hair. Mad, he's absolutely mad. She's alone in her little bookstore with what is clearly a man who has no proper sense of reality.
"There you are, love! I do know you by the way," he says, as casual as anything. She is contemplating what options there are should she need a weapon for self defense. He doesn't seem offended or menacing, rather delighted actually, but that can hardly be reliable.
"What do you know of me?" she asks, to stall him for time. Distract him, perhaps, until she can formulate a plan.
"For one thing, you're developing some kind of brilliant exit plan right now. Brilliant because your exit plans always are, although I prefer when we flee together." Mr. Hallerton places his hands inside his pockets, as if to make himself less threatening to the woman he has cornered like a rat in a barrel. "You read romances, primarily, and turn down the page corners - abhorrent, by the way. You snort when you laugh, and you laugh at everything except for my jokes. Everyone in town knows that you would rather start a business in the city, but you have a stubborn loyalty to this shop because it was passed to you by your father. If you had land here, and a house, you could move out of the apartment upstairs and still come to visit, once you hire someone to watch it for you while you're away. You would hire Penny, that baker's girl who keeps refusing her very good marriage offers but looks at you like you're the Queen. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the house you build would have its own library, filled with special editions you keep for yourself. It feels too sad to sell them to someone who wouldn't appreciate them as you would."
Her heart is thundering inside her chest. Astrid stands transfixed, listening to him describe her inner thoughts as if he has known her her entire life instead of mere months. He has obviously been paying attention, much more than she realized, but the familiarity of his fondness is disquieting. Despite herself, she lets him step closer to her without stepping away.
"What, um..." Leave it to her mind to forget every word she knows at the worst moment. She's scrambling for a response when his hand appears out of nowhere to cup her cheek. Suddenly she is too warm, her dress too tight, the air in this shop too dry with page dust.
He looks down at her like a man tormented. "Let me kiss you, love. I miss it."
"Oh, for God's sake!" She's still too warm and more dizzy than anything, but no matter how much he genuinely seems to be interested in her, she is sick to death of his obsession with past life nonsense.
Frustration is what drives her forward, she would say. She would blame the impulsive decision on the unpredictability of wrath and confusion. Somehow, Astrid thought to herself that kissing Hale would be the solution, or would somehow convince him that he had been wrong all this time about who she was.
The problem is that when his lips seem to mold perfectly to hers, and her body finds his like even their very bones know each other, and he is suddenly familiar to her in ways that do not make any rational sense - the problem is that the mad bastard was right.
if you are sending to a multi-muse, remember to specify the muse that the prompts are being sent for . you can add + reverse to swap roles . a couple of these are considered usfw / nsfw .
🫣 Kiss the receiver for the very first time.
🥀 Kiss the receiver as if it is for the very last time.
😡 Kiss the receiver during a heated argument.
🧱 Pin the receiver against the wall while kissing them.
🫦 Bite the receiver's lower lip before kissing them fiercely.
😭 Kiss away the receiver's tears from their cheeks.
😴 Wake the receiver up with kisses all over their face.
🔥 Kiss the receiver while snuggled up by a fireplace / campfire.
👔 Pull the receiver in for a kiss by their collar / tie / belt.
🛏️ Push the receiver onto the bed and pounce them with kisses.
💋 Gently kiss one of the receiver's scars / wounds.
🌃 Kiss the receiver while quietly stargazing.
😱 Kiss the receiver to shock them out of an anxiety / panic attack.
🥂 Press a kiss on the receiver's lips / cheek while a little tipsy.
🎭 Kiss the receiver while on a pretend date (for a mission / wedding etc.).
🌿 Kiss the receiver while standing under some mistletoe.
😈 Kiss the receiver on / near one of their private parts.
💦 Kiss the receiver while they slowly come down from their release.
💄 Leave lipstick marks on the receiver's face / neck / body.
🧛 Leave a trail of bite marks along the receiver's neck / body.
🎤 Who sings in the shower & who secretly records it for blackmail?
🧩 What tiny habit of the other do they find unbearably adorable?
⚓ If one of them had to leave forever, what would they leave behind for the other?
Hit me with that good Belle x Hale shit please and thank you. Blowing you a million kissies about it 💋💋💋
Blackmail feels more like a Belle thing. First of all, her singing in the shower? Terrible, but not especially blackmailable. Hale on video shaking ass and singing to Shakira? That's gold. She could sell it to the highest bidder and pay off the debt of an entire country for a thirty second clip. Hale would do whatever she wants to keep that from leaking to the people who frankly don't really need more ammo. There's also the small but nonzero chance she will actually follow through if he pisses her off enough. On the flip side, if Hale tried to blackmail Belle with literally anything her response would be "Okay lmao. Do it."
Belle thinks Hale's thing about whales is the cutest thing in the entire world and if it's brought up she'll unfortunately temporarily forget any recent evils committed. They guy just loves whales so much, how is she supposed to cope with that?? Hale thinks everything Belle does is adorable, but it's funniest to play that up when she's legitimately mad about something and he wants to stoke the fire. This always ends badly for him and he'll keep doing it anyway.
OOF ROUGH okay
Belle's always done the leaving, all the way back to the beginning. Hale, for all his faults, would have tried to stay as long as she asked him to, and has even when it's hurt him. He's always left holding the bag, so to speak, while she starts over (and over and over) again. Mostly I don't think she'd leave anything on purpose, but I think at some point he would have just started taking things, maybe spitefully or maybe because he'd never been sure if that was the last life they'd find each other. Once he started that habit I think it would have been hard to stop, even if the spite went in the opposite direction. He could refuse to take a memento, a signal just for him that it doesn't really matter that she keeps leaving him behind. But then what if it really is the last time? What if he didn't have something from this version of her and it was the very last version? He's probably got some sort of shrine-collection of tiny disparate things that she wore or liked, books and hair ribbons, maybe some paint brushes or a particular dress he bought for her.
For what it's worth, Belle regrets not leaving anything almost as much as she regrets not keeping anything of him for herself
tangentwithtanner
titsay
romaincrisis
gummygunk
dailybridgerton
areudirty
vaporwave
kaledo-art
yousharknotpass
dededos
