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Many do not understand the weight of being a faithful and discreet slave to a Divine Force, to an omnipotent God; the Great Old Ones are demanding but they reward loyalty and unyielding faith. Their motives are a mystery, their voices echoing riddles, yet they have those like you who follow their will without question. The Great Old Ones slumber, the Reverend Patriarch says, when the time has come we of faith will ascend like children answering the call of a parent. The Reverend Matriarch told you that the path of faith is difficult, unknowing to us, and at times confusing; we are lambs being guided by an unseen shepherd but we must follow no matter where it takes us.
It is written in the notes of a man who touched the slither of the Great Old Ones’ minds. They hold the answers to ‘all that was occurring in the universe’. They live yet are not alive. They can be seen or rather felt when the stars are aligned and the houses rise and fall in sync.
It is your path to accept and go where the invitation to the manor is your test, the Reverend Ones believe you as their child, one touched by a Great Old One, was chosen to see what the Baron of the Oletus Manor.
And you are tested in every match and every interaction.
You try to keep track of how long you have been here, but there is no telling time, no defined way to count. Is it like time is frozen, or is it in a loop? There are nights you stand in the dark of the dormitory halls and sense the force shielding the manor. It is not one you recognize, but you know it is young, hungry, and curious. Then it pulls away as if you scared it.
You try to contact it despite the one titled Priestess advising you not to seek something you do not understand. It makes you chuckle given she is a worshipper of Yog-Sothoth yet has only scratched the surface of his divine power. A young branch of the Gods, Outer Gods, you know as the notes of the first devouts and sacred texts of dreamers who projected themselves to the first home of the Great Ones, Mount Ngranek.
You are the most abnormal of the two who are connected to the Gods of Old, of the Outer, and of the New; you are the one most of the other survivors are uncomfortable around. They fear the unknown though many of them are touched by the forces they cannot understand. You do not speak about your faith with the other survivors though Eli is curious and Fiona senses your soul is touched by something very Old— Older than Hastur and Yidra. But you are not going to preach as it is not your place as a lamb nor do the Reverend Ones allow the preaching of the Great Old Ones. If the person is chosen then they will seek out their kin.
But you find it is different with the ones who follow the Eye of Darkness.
Darkness is a product of the union between Azathoth and Shub-Niggurath, a mysterious one that lacks a proper name. The symbol of it being an eye and a cat is taken note of as this is new information. Along with it having followers, the two are part of the church while the decoder clearly has been touched yet the Hermit does not recruit him? Strange, you do not interfere.
The longer you are here, new arrivals coming in with connections to the ones who are here first or some with no ties to this place, you can know the young entity is joyful. Loneliness? You try to find spots in the manor where the veil, as some will call it, is thin; a crack within the mirror to push against. This is how you found Miss Nightingale, a bird woman who is deeply connected to the manor.
She tells you when the time is right you will have your answers, the Baron will keep this promise.
So the matches go on, the survivors and hunters play their parts, and you find yourself finding an odd understanding with the one called Herald or as many call her here Disciple, the cat did not like you at first during the first match ever you had with her.
Perhaps it sensed the blessing of kin on you? You are curious about it as it is in you.
No one worships the slumbering Old Ones as the Eldest of the Old Ones is frightening and when summoned to this plane of existence only disaster follows. This is known, and it is not what your brothers and sisters want; no, faith and patience are what is given until their awakening.
The Hermit only becomes aware of seeking you out when the cat, Apostle, keeps slipping between the boundaries of the hunter and survivor side of the manor to stay in your room. It is disruptive and he was lucky you were not in your room when he got the cat.
Until you were there and greeted him at your door, the cat rubbing and walking around your legs.
“Father Alva,” You are the only person to address him in such a manner outside of those within the church of the Eye of Darkness, “Good evening.”
“Good evening, (Name),” He is tall compared to your doorway, “It was not my intention to dispute your evening routine, but a certain cat decided to play cat and mouse at an inappropriate time.” Knowing the avatar hates to be called a cat by Alva, it is just rude!
“Hah,” You bent over and picked up the cat that made a ‘mew’ sound as if it was disappointing you were not going to fight to keep it, “He was no problem here, in fact, he was very insightful on who I should speak about… Well, private religious matters.” Your hand stroking its head causing it to purr.
To say this is the start of a blooming relationship like many have in the manor would be… Saying you became friends with him, which is not the case.
Alva and your faith clash, he is a shepherd and you the lamb, it is in his nature to try to guide what he believes to be a lost lamb into his flock.
You are a lamb but you are not lost, you have a flock but the Great Old Ones have laid out a path for you to follow; he does not see it nor is it for him to see.
Alva a temptation, the one who tries to use this scepter like a shepherd's crook to catch you.
“My faith remains. They have guided me, my path is as clear as they deem necessary.”
Your words hold the weight of truth, but there are nights when you wonder who in the Dreamland wants to indulge in fantasies and sinful pleasures with the Hermit. Lust is nothing to be ashamed of and some use it as an act of worship, however, you feel guilty.
He is a temptation, questions you with his arrogance, and yet he talks to you as if he is the mentor and you the student.
Praying helps but it is not the way of seeking to rid yourself of wild thoughts.
It has been some time since you have done this without assistance; a Reverend One would be here to oversee this and a kin member would be behind you to lash you.
Though this is not the ideal place to commit the act, it is sacred ground and you know the original present that once graced this place is long gone. The cat being here during matches is proof of that, a hollow husk of a place of worship.
You begin placing the materials on the ground. First, you place a covering over the podium—a long black simmering sheet—to symbolize the vastness of space. Next, you remove your robe and place it beside you an arm's length away. Then, you place a wooden box with the symbol of your church on it, then open it to reveal the velveteen fabric inside and the tool of your penance.
You kneel on steps, an arm up gripping the top of the podium, the other hand grabbing the flogger. It has metal tips that will scratch into your skin, pain is a gift and reminder. You lightly tap it on your back, to caress yourself with a familiar object.
The first strike does not as you did it wrong, so you do it again causing you to gasp in pain. Again.
This is not easy without any assistance but you keep going nonetheless.
Over and over, the pain is sharp and there are marks of bruising and welts forming; each side of your upper back is marked and the tears you shed are held back as much as possible.
"Ah!" The next hit hurts causing you to stop and tremble in pain, a sharp inhale of air before the hissing as the cold air is touching the broken flesh wounds. Thoughts of the Eye of Darkness priest still plague you as you swear you can smell him. Burning incense, the faint hint of bathing soap, and the neutral clean scent of medicine.
The baritone voice coming from behind you only a few steps away snaps you out of thoughts of how mad you feel, "Your devotion is admirable," The undeniable reality of Father being here, like a man of faith who walks into a confessional, you dare not turn your body around towards him.
The Hermit is here because there is peace in the Red Church, odd as that sounds given his faith lies in what the church will say is the enemy— Fools, all of them.
The cries of someone in pain echo within the church, the slapping of something on the skin.
When he enters he sees you kneeling in front of the altar, the top part of your robes off and neatly folding away from you; the thing he heard slapping skin is a flogger... A part of him was mortified to leave cuts on your back, yet true to his word about admiring your devotion to the Old Gods who will never answer your prayer.
They are silent, long ago to the aether, however, you debate him and hold firmly to your faith. Always reminding him of the young God he worships, a child compared to the God who has marked your soul.
Apostle, the avatar of the Eye of Darkness, confirms it though it wants your faith. You are special, in what way is unknown. If the feline was here in its usual spot on the podium (it seems, it must have decided to return to Disciple's side for her match).
The podium is covered by a black veil shimmering in the low light, the aura around it is both foreign and familiar. Likely be part of this ritual.
You look over your shoulder at him. "My flesh is only a canvas—A vessel to exercise my worship and hold my faith within.” Speaking with conviction though your voice trembles from the pain, “This is expected."
"Very well," Walking in long strides to be closer behind you, careful of the blood around the floor. "Confessing to the air and seeking atonement through self-inflicted torture." Those golden cat eyes are on you with his head high as he looks down upon you. "There would be a high priest to administer this..." Gesturing to your position, “Correct?” The marks are uneven on your back and your grip on the flogger is not as strong likely from getting tired and the pain.
"Yes," Looking at the podium. "If you will excuse me—"
"Allow me."
You stopped mid-swing, so it didn't connect yet. You looked up at him, "Why?"
Why indeed.
“One cannot help to admire,” You feel the cold scepter press upon your back, blood dripping onto the metal as he presses on open cuts; the pain moans you let out causing him to draw back his scepter. “If only you…” Alva stopped himself from starting a disagreement, “Such dedication to your faith should be praised.”
“But… Why help me?” You feel vulnerable like this kneeling on the steps of this church, him placing the scepter on top of the podium.
There is an indulgence drive of greed in the self-inflicted atonement that could be considered blasphemous.
That is all he is thinking as he takes the modified device from your shaking hand. He admires your determination and only wishes to help you in your devotion. It has nothing to do with the soft lines of your body with the deep-set marks... nothing to do with your flushed face glistening with sweat. Your parted lips are swollen and trembling from biting back your cries.
"Because it is my duty."
The Hermit is the shepherd and though you are a claimed lamb, he cannot help but offer a hand to ease your journey. His God does not disapprove, it knows you well and your master well enough not to push. For pushing will only drive the lamb to flee, the conflict on your face telling him to ease you into the idea. The way you go tense as lukewarm leather and metals dance up and down your back, the inhale and exhale as your eyes close before they open. They are alert as you glimpse into the darkness of the fabric in front of you, and then he sees you sit up adjusting your position like the one you had before your body was too weak to keep it up.
“Father,” Gripping the top of the podium, “Your duties are obligational to another, however, it is kin to the Old Gods thus they are permitting you to blend our goals.”
“Pray tell me what goals do you believe I have?”
“That has not been revealed to me, Father.” This is true, you can only see as far as they allow, and as far as your human mind can handle, “Only stop when I say so.” Informing him.
In the matches Alva has had the pleasure of you being in, pain does not hindrance for you but rather empowers you. Faster movements, healing not quite as fast as others, but you can take their pain and feel into yourself. A masochist is what they call you, but the scars on your back say this is your belief and the power given in return. He will follow your words as the first strike has your crying out, words of prayer in a language he cannot decipher. It matches no human language.
Another hit, you refuse to fall. Another hit. Then another,
Though you know his strikes are no less harsh than your own the endorphins rushing through your body make the harsh sting of the leather and metal arc down your spine in strangely warm waves. The fabric beneath your fingertips feels soothingly cool to the touch.
You take it as a sure sign of your God's approval albeit you feel strangely guilty for it. To need assistance from one such as him feels like a test of faith you've not been taught how to navigate and as the warmth spreads through your body you find yourself gripping the podium tighter as the thought flits through your mind
Is this a test... or an outright trap?
"I will not feign that I know the heart of your God, but if you truly believe in that shared kinship then perhaps this is intended." His voice didn't waver but he couldn't stop the softest of grins to curl the corner of his lip. Your shiver was subtle but he knew he had struck a chord.
He let the leather tresses of the flogger go lax against your back for a moment, the gentle caress only bringing more awareness to the tight and throbbing welts making you bite your lip again to steady your breath.
"To what end?" You thought you had it but your voice wavered slightly.
His grin deepened as he slowly traced the tails back up. The cold metal scratches against your flesh and draws another harsher shiver from you.
"Perhaps some mutually glorious purpose." He flicked his wrist suddenly drawing the full shock of the device across the one relatively unmarred patch of your back. Your sharp yelp echoed through the abandoned church, the passionate echo dancing across the stone a litany that made his breath catch in his own chest.
You fell forward slightly, clinging desperately to the podium to not fall. His words made sense.
Why else would your God allow him here in this most intimate of devotions?
Alva keeps going until there is more blood on the floor and his shoes; stopping when you collapse, still conscious and able to move enough to try to pull yourself up, “(Name)—” Has he found your limit?
“W-why did you stop?” Upset as if you did not nearly pass out because you did not tell him to stop, “My thoughts are still tainted.” Panting as you get yourself back up as if you have a second wind kicking in to keep going.
“This is ineffective.” Dropping the bloodied flogger, “If your thoughts are truly sullied then we are using my method.”
“Y-your method?” Lying on the floor confused then making an indigent sound when he picks you up far enough to have your legs dangling from the floor, a reminder the hunter has supernatural strength. “Father Alva what are you…!?”
𝐬𝐮𝐦. one dick ina a box, red ribbons n’ locks, a trip to the north hole that shocks, no way home n’ way too many cocks, and a holiday spent getting rawdogged in socks
𝐚𝐧: merry belated birthday to big mama 🎂🎀✨ well my bday was on dec 20 lmao enjoy this holiday self indulgent fic of my husbands and happy holidayss! 🎄☃︎ (just pretend it's still christmas)
🎄FLINS — Wrapped With a Bow, Filled With Woe
"Merry Christmas, my love.~"
Flins says it like he’s unveiling a masterpiece—soft, delicate, reverent—and yet there’s something in his voice that makes your skin prickle. Something too warm and sweet. Like honey poured over a blade.
He stands framed in the white glow of the estate’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Snow falls in thick, silent sheets behind him, swallowing the world whole.
You haven’t stepped outside in days. Maybe weeks. You wouldn’t know anymore.
You’re curled on the pristine couch, wrapped in a blanket he gave you. He didn’t tie you down. Didn’t lock the doors; he never needs to.
Since…he knows your name.
He’d asked for it once, soft and unassuming—just your name, nothing more. You were cold, shaking, and stupidly hopeful back then. You gave it to him like a gift. You didn’t know it would be the last thing you ever gave freely.
Now, he’s holding a damn box.
"Go on," He gestures with a slight, curt nod "Open it. Slowly."
A ghost of your old self might have flinched at the oddity, might have felt a spike of confusion or disgust.
You reach for the top, fingers brushing the plush velvet. A sharp, pained hiss cuts the silence. "Careful," Flins murmurs, his voice a low warning. "It’s… sensitive."
You lift the lid… and your eyes widen slightly.
His cock lies inside like a relic—thick, flushed, swollen, nestled in immaculate folds of white paper. The head glows faintly, slick leaking in a trembling bead that threatens to spill.
Flins watches your reaction with a small, wry smile.
He even chuckles—a dry, amused sound that never reaches his eyes.
“You should’ve seen your face,” he smiled. “You look like I put a bomb in there. Well… I suppose that depends on how you treat it.”
You don’t move. Your hand stays frozen on the velvet lid. His cock in the box gives another faint, helpless twitch, and a fresh pearl of that luminous slick wells at the slit, catching the pale winter light.
“You gave me your name,” he whispers, thumb stroking your lower lip. “Such a precious thing. How careless of you.” His tired golden eyes brighten faintly—not with life, but with obsession.
“And so… here is mine.”
You don’t know why your mouth opens…It just does.
His cock twitches violently at the sight.
“Oh,” Flins breathes, voice cracking with something dangerously close to relief. “You really do love me.”
He lets you struggle for a moment. Lets you feel the stretch, the helpless gag, the tears that spring to your eyes. Then his hand in your hair tightens, not yanking, but steering, setting a slow, deep, impossible rhythm.
“You take me beautifully,” cupping your jaw as he guides you down. “Even when it hurts you.”
His thrusts are slow, reverent—like he’s conducting a ritual instead of fucking your throat. “More— nghh—,” he breathes, his composure beginning to show its first crack. A flush creeps up his pale neck.
Glllkk, gllk, gluuuck
As your throat convulses around him with each gag, your fingers clutch his thighs—broad, strong beneath the soft gray slacks. “O-oh… my love~.” His voice cracks again, a raw edge bleeding through the composure. “My perfect miracle.”
What little voice you had in the back of your head—the one that whispered things like run, resist, escape—is fading fast.
His thumb wipes your tears. “So gentle even when you suffer,” he whispers. “How could you ever leave me? How could you ever walk into that cold world when you warm me like this?”
His hips push a little harder. Pace steady, ceremonial. Not fucking you—offering himself to your mouth.
“I w-would’ve chased you,” he says suddenly, voice fracturing on the edges of his refined cadence. “If you’d run. I would’ve begged…but instead…” A shudder. “You stayed. On your knees. Taking me so kindly.”
His thrusts grow bolder, desperate. The elegant rhythm gives way to something raw, erratic, terrifyingly hungry.
“I’ll keep you like this forever,” he promises, gasping as your throat clenches around him. “Locked away. Worshipped. Safe. My perfect darling, my only joy—just stay right here. Right where you belong.”
Your throat aches. Your jaw trembles. You can’t breathe between thrusts, can’t think between the electric taste and his whispered devotion. He brushes a trembling hand over your cheek again.
Then Flins pushes deeper—slow, careful, but inevitable—until you feel him in your throat, until tears spill hot down your face.
“F-forgive me,” he gasps, body bowing over you. “I can’t hold it—my love, I can’t—”
He grits his teeth, hips stuttering, and then...with a groan that sounds like prayer—he stills.
You feel it, the hot pulse of his release painting your tongue. A flood of something glittering and warm, magic-laced and searing, like swallowing starlight.
Your throat pulses around him as he empties himself—more and more, glowing slick flooding your gut, sliding down your esophagus in dizzying waves. He holds your head gently, reverently, as he fills you like he’s making a vow.
“There,” he breathes, voice shaking with relief and pure adoration. “You swallowed all of me. All of it.”
When he finally pulls out, his cock leaves your lips with a sticky, glowing thread. He looks softly ruined, unhinged in the quietest, most loving way.
For a moment, he’s silent. He looks at you—his droopily half-lidded eyes flushed, reverent.
He kneels before you, tilting your chin up.
“My beautiful girl,” thumb smearing the luminous mess across your lips. “Christmas begins and ends with you.”
He kisses you—slowly, gently, tasting himself on your mouth.
“Just us now,” he whispers into your cheek, voice soft as snowfall, final as a gravestone. “No escape. No fear. Only my love for you.”
Softly grasping the box he pulled it off his cock gently setting it on the table.
He pulls you into his lap, wrapping an arm around your waist, heart pounding hard against your back.
Outside, the snow thickens. Inside, he holds you like an answered prayer.
And the world disappears.
🎄VARKA — North Pole? More Like North Hole
You didn’t even get a full gasp out before Varka's hand clamped around your waist and hauled you clean off the floor.
One second you were in the living room, laughing with your friends, bells on your slutty little elf costume jingling as you reached for another drink—and the next you were slung over Santa's shoulder like you were the damn gift he came here to steal.
“Varka—!? What the hell, put me down—”
“Oh, now you wanna talk to me?” he growled, boots thundering down the hallway, fake Santa coat flapping behind him. “Blocked me all week, bunny, but you show up dressed like this?”
SMACK
His hand smacked your ass once—hard—just to make you yelp.
To remind you who the fuck had you.
Your friends had barely stopped laughing at his stupid Santa entrance. Jean thought it was a bit. Lisa thought your husband showing up in a cheap tight red coat was funny.
Only you knew better.
Only you felt the white-hot anger simmering in his grip, fingers digging into your thigh like he wanted to leave bruises in the shape of his hands.
“Varka, stop—people are watching—”
“Yeah,” he rumbled, throwing open the guest room door with his shoulder. “And they all saw my wife struttin’ around in this tiny little elf outfit like she ain’t got a man. You think I’m lettin’ that slide?”
The second he kicked the guest room door shut, the act was gone.
No “ho-ho-ho.” No booming laugh. Just Varka—your unhinged, possessive, starved man—hauling you up like you weighed nothing and throwing you onto the bed hard enough that the frame cracked loudly beneath you.
Before you could sit up, his huge hand pressed to your chest, pinning you by the sternum. Chest heaving, eyes blown wide with Varka towering over you like the reason naughty girls don’t make it out of the North Pole
Santa was not jolly.
“Look at you,” he snarled, shoving your thighs apart with one massive knee. “Dressed like a little treat. Parading around for every bastard in that cabin like you ain’t got a man who breaks doors for less.”
Your mouth opened—to argue, but he was already on the bed, crawling over you, big hands sliding up your thighs with a patience that felt more like a threat.
“You blocked me,” he said, almost softly, thumb stroking your inner thigh like he wasn’t seconds from ruining you. “Didn’t call. Didn’t text. Thought I wasn’t gon’ find you.”
His fingers reached your panties and paused—just long enough for heat to bloom in your gut—before he pushed them aside and dragged his thumb through your slick folds with a slow, devastating sweep.
You gasped.
He smiled, small and sharp.
“Breakin’ my heart in a place like this,” he murmured with faux hurt, leaning in until his lips brushed your ear. “All dressed up like a slutty little elf for people who don’t even know how to touch you.”
His other hand dropped to his belt, undoing it with a heavy clink. You barely had time to inhale before his fat cock slapped against your bare slit—heavy, thick, hot enough to make your back arch off the bed.
“Say who you put this outfit on for,” he whispered, rolling his hips just enough to drag every inch of him through your wetness. “Go on, sweetheart. Say it.”
“Tch,” Your breath trembled annoyed. “Y-you…”
That was all he needed.
Varka hooked your legs over his broad shoulders, the sudden angle making your breath catch in your throat. His body dwarfed yours, chest brushing your knees, nipple touching your thigh as he positioned himself.
“Yeah,” he growled, the word vibrating through your body. “Knew it. Knew my girl wouldn’t dress like this for anyone but Santa.”
His cock pushed in—slow, brutal, unrelenting—stretching you wide, deeper than you ever remembered, deeper than your frantic mind could process.
Your fingers scrambled against his scarred shoulders, against the Santa coat bunching under your nails. “V-Varka—”
“No, baby,” he corrected, voice thick, hips grinding deeper until your vision sparked. “Not tonight.”
His hand wrapped around your throat—light, guiding, claiming—and his lips brushed your cheek as he whispered:
“Call me Santa.”
The bed groaned under his weight. Then cracked. A leg snapped clean off the frame when he slammed into you again, but he didn’t stop—just steadied you with one huge hand while the other squeezed your waist like you belonged under it.
“Santa's been real patient,” he rasped, his thrusts turning messy, desperate, claiming every inch of you. “But you push me too damn far, princess. Avoiding me? Leave without tellin’ me? Dress up like a slut—”
“C-cause! Shit! Y-your crazy!—” A sharp thrust tore a moan out of you. “AH! MMPH- NO-” Your back arched. Your eyes rolled.
His grip tightened on your hips, dragging you back onto him with a force that made the headboard slam into the wall.
“Naughty fuckin’ girl,” he groaned, his breath shaking as he picked up speed. “You know what Santa does to naughty girls, don’t you?”
You barely choked out, “Varka—fuck! S-someone’s gun-na h-hear us—”
“I don’t care,” he growled, thrusting deeper, voice shaking with how much he needed you. “Let the whole damn cabin know exactly what I do to you.”
Footsteps passed the door.
Someone laughed, then called your name—
He slapped a hand over your mouth, pressed you deeper into the mattress, and whispered right against your lips:
“You’re not goin’ anywhere. Not tonight. Not ’til Santa's done.”
And then he fucked you harder—so hard the whole bed shifted again, another crack splintering so hard your vision blurred at the edges, your breath catching in ragged little sobs beneath him.
“Yeah… yeah, that’s it,” Varka groaned, voice rasped raw, blond hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Thick strands clung along his brow, dripping, wild, making him look like some outlaw deity who crawled out of the storm just to ruin you.
His blue eyes burned straight through you—hungry, furious, devoted.
“Look at you,” he panted, slamming into you with a force that shook dust from the rafters. “C-can’t ah! even hold yourself up anymore—legs shakin’, eyes rollin’ back—fuck, p-princess, you’re makin’ Santa lose his mind.”
Your nails clawed uselessly at his back. You tried to say something—anything—but all that came out was a thin, broken moan that melted into his chest.
Your body couldn’t keep up with him or his ruthless pace. You couldn’t think or breathe between thrusts.
Your vision tunneled. “V-Varka~,” you whined, the sound barely formed.
His hand slid up your ribs, up your throat, thumb brushing your lips before guiding your head back into the mattress. “No, baby,” he murmured, voice trembling with something close to worship. “Not Varka.”
His lips brushed your cheek, hot and shaking, his hair sticking to your temple as he whispered:
“Santa. Say Santa… b-before you ngh! pass out on me.”
You couldn’t, your consciousness slipped, warm and dark and dizzy.
And that was when he lost it.
“Oh fuuuck!—look at you,” he growled, fucking into your slack, pliant body like you were made just for him. “Passed out on Santa's cock like a good little elf—shit—sweetheart, you’re gonna make me—”
His hips slammed forward, brutal and possessive, and he came—hot, thick, spilling deep inside you with a guttural moan drowned against your throat.
But he didn’t stop.
Didn’t even slow down.
A shudder ripped through him, his abs tightening as the aftershocks rolled through his body—but he just dragged your limp hips back down onto him and kept fucking you, cock still hard, still throbbing.
“That’s it,” he rasped, breath trembling, hair stuck to his cheeks with sweat. “Santa's not done—not even close.”
Your unconscious body bounced with every snap of his hips, heat spilling out around his length, only for him to shove it right back in.
“G-gonna fill you again,” he grunted, voice cracking as his scars flushed red. “And again—fuck—again.”
He hooked his arms under your limp thighs, folding you in half, fucking deeper, fucking harder, using your body like you were a present he hadn’t unwrapped properly the first time.
“Pretty little thing,” he panted, grinding into your overstretched cunt like he could climb inside you. “Even passed out you’re squeezin’ me—mmph—milkin’ Santa dry.”
Another load deep inside you.
He moaned—loud, wrecked—but didn’t pull out, still hard as hell.
He just grabbed your jaw with one big hand, thumb dragging your lip down as your head lolled back.
“Open for me, sweetheart,” he murmured against your slack mouth, voice sweet and ruined. “Santa's still got more gifts to give. You’re—fuck! never running from me again.”
And with a low, hungry growl, he slammed back into you—chasing a third release.
“Hope you were good this year, bunny,” he grinned, trembling as he rutted into your unconscious form. “'Cause Santa's not lettin’ you sleep tonight.~”
🎄RERIR — Red Ribbons, Bad Decisions
There’s… music playing.
Some old, warped Christmas tune crackling from a radio in the corner—soft, cheerful, horribly out of place.
“You’re a mean one… Mr. Grinch…”
It loops. And loops. And loops.
Your cheek presses into the cold floor, ribbons biting deep into your skin—tight enough to sting, tight enough to remind you he tied you like this himself.
Red silk winds around your wrists behind your back, under your breasts, between your thighs… pulling you open like an offering.
Your captor fiancé is just… standing there.
Massive. Silent. Breathing hard behind black bandages.
The bodies of the people who helped you escape lie carelessly behind him. He didn’t even bother to move them. He only looked at you.
His boot drags through a smear of blood as he approaches, leaving a crimson trail across the floorboards.
You should’ve kept in mind how fucking psycho Rerir is.
“Oh…doll,” he finally spoke, voice muffled but trembling with something horribly close to relief, “you made such a mess.”
The words vibrate through his chest as he crouches, lowering over you. He’s so big that his shadow swallows your entire body, heat radiating off him in waves. Pink eyes glow like twin wounds through his white bangs.
His long fingers terrifyingly gripped your jaw and yanked your head up.
“Why did you run?” Soft. mocking. More dangerous than screaming. His grip turned bruising pricks of blood starting to form on your face. “Do you really think there’s anywhere on Teyvat you could hide from me?”
You couldn’t respond; the damn ribbon is pressed between your teeth like a gag.
He hums, amused. “Ah. Can’t answer.” His hand slides down your stomach… lower… claws grazing the ribbon splitting your thighs apart.
“You’re shaking,” he observes, tone decadent and cruel. “And yet—”
THWACK!
His palm lands sharply on your pussy—hot pain shooting straight through you, forced moan vibrating against the gag. The ribbons tighten with your movement.
Rerir groans—actually groans—at the sight of you jolting under his hand.
“Mm.. you sound… exquisite.”
His cock strains against his pants, massive and heavy, a dark shape that makes you tremble harder. He strokes your pussy again—slow, reverent—and then:
SMACK!
Your knees buckle, but the ribbons keep you open, trembling, helpless.
“Shh, shh… quiet now,” he coos, petting the tender spot he just struck. “They can hear you on the other side of the veil, you know. Your little cries.” His head tilts, bandages brushing your cheek. “And they won’t save you.”
The Christmas music glitches, the same jolly line repeating. He laughs manic, breathless.
“Perfect soundtrack, isn’t it? Festive.” Another pussy slap.
SMACK.
Your vision whites out for a moment.
Rerir shudders. “Hah— yes.— that reaction,” undoing his pants with one hand, sliding his monstrous cock out with the other. Thick and pale with throbbing veins. Way too big to take, too big to survive.
He’s definitely from Khaenri'ah…nobody is built like... that.
It twitches as he lines it up against your dripping slit.
“You feel that?” His voice dips, possessive and raw. “You tied me in knots. You… you broke something inside me when you escaped.”
The ribbons tighten again—like they react to his heartbeat.
You’re choking on air now, and he chuckles, low and dark.
“Such a pretty sound,” he muses, sliding his massive hand down between your thighs, pushing the ribbon aside to expose your dripping heat. “Crying when you’re already soaked. Do you like being caught?”
His fingers—long, and thick—press against you, and you jolt, unable to move with your arms bound behind you.
“Look at me.” You do as his pink eyes burn through you, heat pooling where fear and arousal blur. “If you close those eyes, I’ll rip them open for you.”
He presses forward—barely the tip—and your body seizes, stretched around him painfully, gorgeously wide.
“Ngh-” hissing, grabbing your ass. “You’re squeezing me like you’re trying to keep me out.”
He pushes deeper.
Your scream is muffled by the gag.
“Mm-nah, not yet,” he rasped, gripping the ribbons at your back like reins. “Save the screaming for when I really start fucking you.”
He plunged his hips forward another impossible inch, your pussy whimpering with you burning in pain. Rerir grunts as he leans down, seeing tears spill down your face, his tongue darts out, licking the lines.
“Fuck- You can’t even take the tip of me, and you’re already crying.”
Your ribbon-bound thighs tremble violently, he groans—long, hungry, maddened, until he places both hands on your quivering hips, clearly impatient before he brutally shoved his whole length in one go.
Solid inches upon inches that were bruising, making your mouth let out a pathetic muffled cry, and if the ribbons weren’t gagging you, you probably would’ve made both y’all’s ears bleed.
Rerir watches with ragged breath when your trembling form tries to curl away from the overwhelming stretch—your pussy fluttering helplessly around the monstrous girth, forcing you open.
His massive frame leans in, bandaged face inches from yours, the warmth of his breath bleeding through the fabric with each heavy exhale.
“Too tight—too tight—fuck—” his voice is low and velvety, a silken danger wrapping around your spine. “You’ll tear around me before you ever escape me again.”
His hips shift forward again—slow, and torturous. Your bound thighs convulse as your cunt struggles to accommodate him.
His length drags along your slick walls with a wet, obscene pressure that makes your lungs thin out in a frantic gasp.
Humming at the sensation, Rerir savored the way your pussy clings desperately, as though trying to halt the intrusion and pull him deeper all at once.
“Such a fragile little thing…” he coos, running a hand down the trembling curve of your spine, fingertips ghosting along ribbon-tight flesh. “Wrapped like a present… yet you thought you could run.”
The radio glitches again. “You're a monster…Your heart's an empty hole…”
His voice curls around your ear like smoke. “How adorable.”
He retreats until the tip is out of your stretched entrance to pulse frantically at the loss—before plunging back in, deeper this time, silk ribbons biting harder into your skin.
You swore you stopped breathing for a moment.
The stretch borders on unbearable, deliciously unbearable, your heat molding around him inch by inch like you were nothing more than warm clay beneath his hands.
His hips pick up a rhythm—slow, deliberate thrusts that stroke against every pulsating ridge inside you, each withdrawal dragging slick out in messy wet strings, each descent heavier and deeper than the last.
Your bound form jerks with every movement, helpless to steady yourself, helpless to stop him.
“You feel every inch, don’t you?” he breathes, heat rolling off him in waves as he folds over you, chest brushing your back. “The way I stretch you… reshape you… brand you from the inside out.”
He shifts his grip, sliding both hands beneath your ribbon-bound hips, lifting you effortlessly into a new angle—one that leaves your pussy exposed to the dead audience, vulnerable, helpless to the bruising depth he forces on you.
You spasmed violently around him, and his voice fractures into a low, unfiltered groan—deep and primal and utterly consumed.
“No, no—don’t look away,” One hand tangles in your hair, wrenching your head back just enough for pain to bloom sharp along your scalp. “Eyes on me. Look at the man who slaughtered a room because they touched you.”
Rerir shudders, hips stuttering—then slams forward with zero mercy. “H-hold still—if you break, you break.” Fucking devouring you, letting out a primal, guttural roar as he feels your pussy walls clenching and gripping his swollen cock. “I’m mhng, not slowing down for ya.”
The sensation of your cunt sucking his thick shaft as he pounded into you with brutal, animalistic force sent a dark ecstasy surging through his muscular body.
His hips shoved forward again and again, the sound of your bodies slapping together echoing off the walls. Pussy gushing hot around him, slick coating his thick length, his breath catches in a shattered moan.
“Mhm, l-look at this mess,” pushing even deeper, until it feels like he’s rewriting the limits of your body. “I h-haven’t even filled you yet, and you’re dripping down your thighs like you’re begging for it.”
He pulls your hair harder, dragging your head back so he can watch your expression as your cunt spasms uncontrollably around him. “There it is, t-that’s the look ya- give right before y-you’re bred.”
Rerir's hips draw before slamming forward with a force that knocks every coherent thought out of your skull.
The floor vibrates beneath you. The ribbons bite deeper, your breathing breaks into raw sobbing, muffled ugly moans.
Thrusts devolving into a relentless grind that feels like worship and punishment at once. Until your orgasm hits so hard your eyes roll white, your whimpering pussy clamping down, sends him spiraling.
Rerir growls animalistically, his cock throbs violently inside you just once before—inflating your overstuffed pussy until Rerir slides a hand down to about halfway down your abdomen, pressing down at that nudge.
“Mine, Mine, ngh, Mine-”
He empties himself in long, shuddering pulses, filling your pretty pussy with his seed, each one adding to the pressure that rises in your abdomen, your gummy walls fluttering helplessly around the heavy spill.
His hand presses your stomach bulge again. “Hng-… f-fuck… look how full you are,” he pants voice breaking in awe. “S’right at home…”
And when the last spurt of cum leaves him, he doesn’t soften.
Still speared in you, he licks a slow, satisfied line up your tear-streaked cheek, seeing your teary eyes start to flutter close, “…don’t pass out yet..." He roughly fisted your hair.
"…I’m not done breaking my perfect runaway’s cunt properly.”
𝐚𝐧: woo chile im late but- merry belated dickmas! 🏃🏽♀️💨🎄
❝ he's my man, we're hand in hand, to hell and back - and i love him like nobody else can. ❞
𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋ your husband is the loveliest man that's ever lived. how could you possibly let him go?
yandere! fem! reader x yandere! flins (genshin)/sunday (hsr).
The soft sounds of rain hit the lighthouse rhythmically, a song and dance which you had grown accustomed to these past few weeks.
Winter was a sharp mistress and Nod Krai's ice would spare no one. Therefore, you took it upon yourself to make this ancient lighthouse into a home - fire crackled cheerfully in the tiny pit, the sound giving the room a brand new sense of life. Soft orange hues bathed the furniture, some pieces being older than others. The oak grandfather clock stood tall and proud close to the door and despite its old age, its handles worked perfectly.
In a few minutes, it would be midnight.
Curses.
A deep frown etched itself onto your lips as you slowly descended down the rickety old stairs, each step causing more noise than it ought to. Dust clouds kept rising, the air becoming so polluted that you wondered if you'd start coughing later. You hated going down the basement but your dear husband simply could not help himself but to hunker down there, those soft yellow eyes of his all but pleading not to tear his head off for making such a decision.
Kyryll was such a fascinating man. A mystery wrapped in an enigma, he was the kind of person who could stand in the middle of a graveyard and gaze at the wandering ghosts before him, his eyes filled with sorrow, pity and perhaps a speck of wonder as well. He was old, borderline ancient really, but that didn't stop you from wanting him the moment you saw him. Ever since that day, there hasn't been a single moment where you haven't tried to fulfill the role of a good and dutiful wife.
He had no reason to eat human food, but he still enjoyed at the very least having dinner with you. Those long, gloved fingers of his would slide across your forearms and land smoothly on your hands, fingers now intertwined like vines as he whispered how he can't wait to taste your cooking.
Hah. He cannot taste any of it, the silly man. As a matter of fact, he likely doesn't even like it.
But, he never said so out loud. Never, not even once. Kyryll was always so delicate towards you, treating you like a precious bloom which could wither if handled poorly. He made you feel so special, like the most beautiful woman in the world. It didn't matter if you were covered in dirt or grime from head to toe, your good husband always made sure to pick his words well.
Perhaps a bit too well.
He all but insisted that you stay home, claiming that he makes more than enough to sustain you both. Besides, the upkeep of his little lighthouse is no easy task - not to mention the various phantoms lurking all over would surely cause problems.
However, his darling wife had surpassed all of his expectations. He originally had no plans of ever changing the decor around his living space, but he found himself genuinely enjoying the little touches here and there. The frostlamp flowers hung loosely in a nearby vase, its porcelain slightly chipped as the man felt his wife standing next to him.
A familiar scent hit is nostrils, causing him to smile. It was a sickly sweet one, which was well masked by the strong liquor which was brought to him in a neat little tea cup, the hand painted roses on it adding a special kind of touch which was oh so sweet.
His wife hoped to make him ill - he was no fool, the specks of poison were nothing new to him. Originally, the Lightkeeper thought that perhaps his wife was filled with a sort of ire, that she was not as good as she led on.
Turns out that, much like him, that was a half truth.
His sweet wife was such a silly woman - always so afraid that something would happen to him, constantly chiding him that it's so dangerous out at night and can't he take the day shift?
Just once?
Without hesitation, Flins took the cup out of her hand and drank everything, all but a single drop of the hazel liquid grazing down his pale chin, meanwhile the lantern on his side flickered a bright, passionate red.
Cute, he thought to himself.
He didn't mind playing dumb, ah, he didn't even need to actually even drink anything - he just loved to please that snippy, adorable creature he called his wife. She brought a sort of peace into his life, a sort of light that could not be mimicked. To his ancient fae eyes, she was like a jewel, all pretty and rough around the edges, all his for the taking.
The little jewel never even knew just how long he had been watching her, cataloging every single speck of hers. Flins was a collector at heart, and he just so happened to find something that struck his fancy... Even if the gem tried to scratch him from time to time.
What was so wrong about a wife who loved her husband just a bit too much? Human nature was fickle and wild, absolutely terrible to predict but none the less - he absolutely reveled in it.
Sometimes he'd cough just a bit too much, making himself weaker than he actually was. The sound of rushing footsteps would immediately follow, accompanied by the sound of that lulling voice which wanted nothing more than to keep him under lock and key.
Flins sometimes wondered if he should just tell his wife the truth. Should he just cut this little game and tell her that she's less subtle than a hungry animal? Her teeth and claws were always at the ready, even if she did look like a cute berry to the outside world.
He could devour that berry any time he wanted, its essence sticking between his teeth like candy - much too enjoyable to let go.
Therefore, how could he deny himself the joy this brought him? For just a while longer, he'll play the role of the clueless husband. He'll kiss his wife good morning and goodbye, all the while keeping the blooming butterflies and smug grin buried deep within.
You are so precious, I could devour you. - this was the mantra Sunday had been hearing for the past few weeks, causing his poor heart to flutter like mad. Every time his wife would stick close, her hands enveloping him into a hug, she'd whisper those words over and over, her voice so sweet that it might as well be honey.
Sunday was not sure if she was casting a spell or a curse on him. The tenacity, the ferocious nature of her words often made him question just how good his chosen one really was - but as time went on, he found himself not caring as much.
He was, for the lack of a better word, terrified. His fall from grace had been high and bad, but even after the shame and humiliation, his good wife had taken his hand and followed him into the abyss, the future a mystery to them both. Sunday had once been sure that she would leave him the moment he was captured, but that was just not the case.
He once cornered her, his voice laced with sorrow and melancholy, the feathers on his head flicking nervously as he just went straight for it:
"Why are you still here? Why do you follow me?"
He was not sure what to expect, but... But seeing that serene smile on her face was the last thing he could imagine. Sunday felt her fingers on the tips of his wings, cheeks now burning hot and red as she kissed the edges of the feathers, her eyes shining bright as the stars in the galaxy.
She loved him. She really, truly loved him.
And he was a fool for never noticing it.
All of his planning and scheming had become a good backdrop for her and her real objective. Up until recently, he didn't even know just how much he actually needed his wife. She was his backbone, his heart, his soul - she had managed to integrate herself so seamlessly into his life as if she was a missing heartbeat.
Whatever their souls were made of, his and hers were the same.
Sunday had lost Robin - but against all odds, he hadn't lost his heart.
His fingers gently took a lock of her hair, the halo at the back of his head flicking with light ever so slightly as he hummed mindlessly, causing the woman next to him to grin like the cheeky thing she was.
Cheeky. Yes. He didn't mind his wife being cheeky.
His journey would be long and arduous, but there was no thorn he couldn't take out if he had his rose right next to him. Not even the Aeons could pluck out this feeling out of his chest, no matter how hard they may try.
This was a cage he would not be stepping out of. It was made by his own cursed hand, and with a good touch of the one person he needed like air. May the universe take it all - just not this.
A/N: HAPPY 2026!! I hope every single one of you has an amazing year! This is my first written post for the new year and I was super excited to do it!
I was originally going back and forth between Diluc and Flins for the song choice, but then Sunday rotted my brain once more... So I said fuck it, I'll shorten the format and just cram both of them into one post. This was originally supposed to be a longer fic for Flins and only Flins but uh, that didn't end up happening... And I kinda don't regret it.
I don't really know what the vibe here is though. The fic feels very much all over the place, I fear I'm losing my touch.
The song which birthed this fic is living in my head rent free, I am catching myself constantly humming it, especially since it's January and it's super rainy where I live. The eerie atmosphere just makes the vibe so much better, y'know?
While writing, I wasn't actually listening to the song the fic was based off, I was actually listening to this masterpiece. When reading/writing, I genuinely cannot concentrate if my music has lyrics, so instrumentals are an absolute MUST!
I'm rambling, sorry about that, your author likes to ramble. Please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments, there just aren't enough words for me to use in the dictionary to describe just how much I live off feedback!
i have been thinking about all of the things that one ought not to do when dealing with a faerie, and flins. for instance:
not giving him your true name. but you have no reason to suspect that doing such a thing would be an issue, and he introduces himself so nicely by all three of his names with a polite bow and an incline of his head and a faint smile that suggests he is waiting for your response - so why wouldn't you give him it, smiling back at the courtly gentleman you've heard so much about? the one who is a protector, a lightkeeper? how are you to know how much power he holds over you?
not accepting his hospitality. not drinking what he gives you, or eating the food he prepares. but it would be rude, you think, to not accept the glass of expensive wine he offers to pour you. he watches you with a strange eager intensity as you politely sip at it, and when you do an uncomfortable little laugh he gives a soft chuckle in response and tells you he merely does not get many visitors; it is pleasant to see somebody enjoy themselves.
accepting a dance from him. they say many things about faerie music; they say that when one has heard it, they may go mad listening for it over and over again, because one can never truly recapture the majesty of those first chords. they say that one cannot stop dancing until the music stops or the fae say they may, and in many cases, neither of those things will occur until well after the mortal expires. with flins' hand in yours and his eloquent speech and the sad music he puts on for you and the request for a dance from a man who must be so lonely, this is a rule that would be far from your mind even if you knew what he truly was.
not thanking him. a 'thank you', after all, is an acknowledgement that a debt has been created - that he has done something for you. and for a creature such as him, acknowledging such a thing is the same as saying that you owe him a favour. whether that favour may be as inane as allowing him to take a closer look at that pretty stone you wear in your necklace, or something as nefarious as letting him take you into his lighthouse and never let you go.
be direct with what you say. faeries find lying difficult, and will often weave about the truth instead - but that means they will also find a way to weave around what you have admitted. a whispered confession that one 'has your heart in their hand' could well lead to a hand plunged deep into one's breast. a whisper to flins that you could stay here forever . . . well. it's best not to find out, isn't it?
Just in time for his birthday ( ദ്ദി ˙ᗜ˙ ) This was supposed to be the last post of October, but I have a little catching up to do, so it's not actually that, oops. Welcome to the (almost) winter theme!! I also wanted to do a proper banner for this one since it's way longer than the other fics of the series, around 5k words.
I'm a whore for this man, just so you know
Content warnings include: NONCON, cisfem!Reader (mentioned she/her), yandere content (imprisonment, possessiveness...), spoilers for Flins' backstory and heavily freestyled lore relating to that, he's lowkey an asshole, manipulation, fucked-up sort of hurt/comfort, horny with horror-esque plot, fingering, penetration, and crossing into dacryphilia territory.
⋆ Around 5,0k words.
Disclaimers can be found in my pinned post. See right here for the full list of October's plans!
You can’t say you’ve ever quite understood what it is that people find so difficult about running downhill. You’ve seen people, especially tourists who aren’t quite used to Nod-Krai's hilly terrain, tumble down the steep roads of Nasha town, yet you yourself have never lost your footing on the twisting paths, not even in a hurry. Certainly, you wouldn’t consider yourself to be the most agile person in the room, but even then, you would be lying if you said you’ve ever considered the challenging properties of the sport.
However, better late than never, you think as you scurry down the hill on top of which the Lightkeepers’ lighthouse stands tall.
You’re all too aware that the window for the escape you’re about to conduct is a narrow one. It took way too long for you to fiddle the lock on the door open, and with what little time you have left before his return, you scamper away from your prison in nothing but your nightwear. Sharp pebbles dig into the soles of your bare feet, but you can’t afford to stop, not even for the single second it would take for you to kick the stones off. With your blood rushing in your ears like the river that streams below the Light-Bathed Platform, you sprint past the countless headstones and blooming frostlamp flowers and dash towards the islet’s shore.
A dense fog has settled over the Final Night Cemetery. Your heart trembles at your throat as you push through the mist without as much as a match to guide your way. The air is heavy with a humid, earthy scent. Glancing at the pitch-black sky, though the bright white circle of the moon illuminates the ether, you’re hardly able to make out the sight of the stars that speckle the dark canvas.
A weight in your shorts’ pocket sways along with each stride you take. Though it would be wise to keep both of your hands free in case you were to stumble, one of them lingers by the side of your thigh, holding tightly onto the ace up your sleeve, just in case the man were to catch you by surprise.
It took a considerable while to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, but finally, finally, you’ve got him figured out. From the very start, you had a suspicion that he who calls himself Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins isn’t the ordinary sort of a person. At the very beginning, you thought that perhaps the eccentrism could be explained away with his profession, but the further you were pulled in, the more suspicious you became. In hindsight, you wonder if that very thing was what landed you in the position you are in now, but despite the thought stirring up boiling hot vitriol inside you, you push the memory aside: With what you have taken on tonight, you have no time to dwell on past affairs.
All along, it was in much plainer sight than you thought. Though he conceals it exceedingly well, he’s unable to entirely get rid of the certain, distinct sort of an aura he has around him. After mulling the matter over in your mind for a while, it wasn’t a difficult task to come to the conclusion that his nature couldn't be a consequence of him simply having wisdom beyond his years.
He doesn’t have the pointy ears, no, nor does he have a pair of wings growing on his back. Truthfully speaking, there’s nothing about his appearance that could be connected to the mystical Snezhnayan race, yet you have never been more certain about your deduction. The moonwheel, the lamp, the peculiar flames he wields — you weren’t born yesterday.
Truly, you are in luck, for he is one who appreciates literature, at least to some degree. Though the dust covering the bookshelves was an indicator that he himself hasn’t exactly touched the tomes in a while, he was trusting enough to allow you the liberty of inspecting them. Little did he know that one of them had a crucial piece of information written on its pages.
“Fae may be repelled with iron”, is what was scribbled on the frail, yellowed paper.
The scraps you have managed to gather mostly consist of old bolts, screws and some rusty coins you found lying beside the graves. It’s a blasphemous thing you’ve done, one could say — robbing the dead of their offerings for nothing but your own gain — but you’re certain that even the perished stand behind you on your journey. If anything, their tender should be the one they ought to turn their backs to.
Making it to the base of the hill, you finally reach the edge of the sandbanks that connect the cemetery to the rest of the Paha Isle. You’re hardly able to make out the outline of the gargantuan metal structure looming in the distance, yet you waste no seconds sinking your bare feet into the cold, damp sand.
In a mere minute, your legs have gone so frigid that you can hardly feel them anymore. The lack of clothing isn’t of your own accord: Flins has a habit of keeping you indoors for days on end aside from the short strolls he allows you to take at the yard. Naturally, you don’t require much to keep you warm inside the lighthouse, and your shoes, deemed unnecessary by him, are carefully hidden somewhere in the building. Wasting your time on searching for the pair would have served little to no purpose, and besides, knowing him, they’ve been placed somewhere you would have no chance of reaching. His strategy is so simple yet so incredibly effective and all the same infuriating that your fingers yearn to rip the long strands of his hair right off his scalp.
Left? No, maybe it was more towards the right?
It’s difficult to make sense of your surroundings in the mist. Moreover, the shoal’s shape is a curved one, and as much as you don’t wish to lengthen your run, you don’t trust yourself to be able to swim all the way to the opposite shore. Still, even as you squint your eyes and observe the water ahead, you’re unable to determine where the shallow part of the bank continues.
Nevertheless, your time is running short — you can practically hear the clock ticking in your ears. Without any further hesitation, you step leg-deep into the freezing cold sea.
The Snowland Fae, a mysterious race. The majority of them are said to have been wiped out when a calamity from the skies befell their realm. There was an abundance of folklore in the book you read: Everything from ritualistic offerings to small things like not telling them your real name or expressing gratitude via words — though the information got to you a little too late with the latter two. You’re not certain how much of any of it is true, and you never got the chance to try anything besides salt out.
You wade through the icy cold liquid, doing your best to ignore how pins and needles prick at your submerged legs. Firmly keeping your gaze on what lies ahead of you, you clench your jaw and bear the pain. Scampering further and further away from the cemetery, you leave diverging lines of waves in your wake.
Salt, that one certainly didn’t work. The most reaction you got out of Flins when you ”dropped” the shaker on the floor was a soft sigh and a pat on the head.
You’re nowhere close to giving up the fight, however. No matter how much fear he instils in your heart, you’ve decided he won’t get the best of you just yet. He could swing his polearm all he wants, he could scorch you with his lantern, he could chant-
The chanting.
Your running comes to a halt. Stopping completely still in the midst of the darkness, you hold your breath.
You wonder if your mind is simply playing tricks on you. By now, the sound of his voice speaking in his kind’s ancient tongue has even breached your dreams, and with your thoughts rushing all over the place, hearing things wouldn’t be too far-fetched of an explanation.
But you’re certain.
The stillness of the night has been stirred.
”Let all mortal flesh keep silent before the light.”
A pale blue light appears over the murky waters. Above it, the harrowing sight of the reaper’s flame-clad smirk splits the mist.
You take a step back. Then another. Your tremoring heart sinks into your stomach.
”Let the dead bury the dead, and let the living mourn the living.”
The fog gathers around you. Suddenly, your sense of direction slips out of your grasp.
”As I stood by the door of the Golden House, guarding the eternal flame.”
His silhouette comes into your view. With his lamp in one hand and his weapon in the other, his unhurried footsteps break the water’s serene surface as he approaches you.
Frantically, you look around, whisking your head left, then right, then over your shoulder, but it’s all the same. It’s like the rest of the isle has disappeared in its entirety, only leaving a single patch of land in its wake — the one your trembling feet are standing on.
”And yet, the eternal flame herself refuses to be guarded.”
There’s a faint, unintelligible smile on Flins’ colourless features. You’re not sure what his expression entails, but you find that very fact to be more petrifying than anything his face could convey.
”The night is beautiful. I can see why you would want to take a walk”, he comments.
The terror threatens to rise into your throat. A tingling feeling of weakness spreads in your extremities.
”Stay away!” you warn him, raising your hand in front of you, yet you can muster no courage behind your words.
Flins lets out a quiet, amused huff.
”That is a request I won’t be granting, I’m afraid”, he says, hooking the lantern on the side of his overcoat. ”I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Your limbs grow stiff. Though you perceive the imminent danger, though you watch him grow closer and closer to you, your feet are frozen to the sand. It’s a sort of a primeval fear you feel — the kind that paralyses your entire body from head to toe, no matter how dire the situation. Even as the distance between you grows shorter, five meters, four, three, your legs won’t listen to your commands.
And then, you remember the weight resting against your thigh.
He walks closer, closer, closer.
Your hand flies into the depths of your pocket. Not caring how the scraps scratch red lines across your palm, you seize a fistful of the metal pieces, fling your arm back, and hurl the fragments towards his form.
The majority of the pieces land in the water around you, moulding rings on its still surface. Some of them, however, hit Flins’ arms, legs, chest, before bouncing off of him and landing around his feet with quiet splashes.
For a moment, both of you stand still as statues, silently staring at the ripples. The circles expand larger and larger, gradually losing their form until no trace of the disturbance remains.
You hold your breath.
Nothing happens.
Your gaze shoots up to find Flins’, yet you come to find that his own is fixated on the sight of the iron coins that now flecked the sands of the shallow bank.
There's a peculiar, curious glint in his irises.
He raises his brows. Then, blinking a few times, he closes his eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitches. He raises his chin slightly, just enough for you to be able to see how his Adam’s apple bobs, and finally, though he evidently does his absolute best to suppress the action, his shoulders twitch with the laugh he fails to properly stifle.
You can’t believe your eyes.
Your hands ball into fists. Glaring at the man with your mouth hanging ajar, you watch as his chest rises and falls along with the deep breath he takes in.
”My apologies. That was uncouth of me”, Flins then sighs, shaking his head. ”I should commend you for the effort.”
Quicker than you would like, the terror inside you turns into sheer mortification. Even though your knees threaten to buckle underneath you, a blush finds itself on your features.
”I did wonder what you needed these for”, he bends down and picks one of the coins out of the water. ”There certainly is a charm to them”, he inspects the piece between his fingers, ”but I would vastly prefer if you didn’t steal them off the graves. The ghosts tend to be fond of what was theirs in their past lives, you see.”
You can’t comprehend how he’s able to do it; to ramble away like it was an ordinary midnight stroll you were sharing. During moments like these, the side of him that could be called human seems to disappear completely. Though his form appears to be that of a person’s, the energy that emanates from him belongs to something else entirely.
Cautiously, you take another step backwards. Flins raises his gaze from where it’s fixated on the sight of the coin in his hand.
”Well”, he then speaks, adjusting his grip on his weapon. ”I think it is time for us to return inside. Your attire doesn’t quite seem to be suited for this sort of weather.”
As if his words had broken a spell that kept you frozen still, you regain control of your legs. A surge of adrenaline shoots down your limbs, and in moments, the uncontrollable jitter of fight-or-flight wipes your mind crystal clear. Resisting the urge to spit him goodbye, you turn on your heels and rush head first into the fog behind you.
”Ah, please.”
A silvery crescent moon shape cleaves the water’s surface ahead of you. You only barely manage to stop yourself in time before you run right into the crackling rune.
”Allow me to escort you”, Flins’ voice rings out right behind you, as nonchalant as ever.
”Stay the fuck away from me you-!”
”Ah, there it is. I almost thought you had lost your spirit.”
You turn your head to look behind you just in time to meet the sight of his black overcoat’s chest.
"Now, then."
His free arm hooks itself around your waist, and you’re hoisted into the air.
Flins throws your body over his shoulder like a sack of rye flour. You yell out a shriek so loud that anyone in the islet's vicinity would be pricking up their ears, but alas, the land is as bereft of life as his soul is barren of sympathy. Letting out a huff, he briefly steadies his grip on you, and just like that, your trip’s direction is reversed.
Having been humiliated more in the span of a few minutes than you ever have in your entire life, as a latch-ditch attempt to have it your way, you start flailing. You beat your fists against his back with all your might and swing your legs in all possible directions, but alas, you don’t get him to as much as flinch. The only thing you’re granted as a response is a mildly fatigued sigh.
”Watch it”, he tells you, landing a light smack on the back of your thigh, though there is not an ounce of actual concern in his tone. More than anything, he sounds mildly entertained. ”Or would you like me to drop you?”
”Let me down, you son of a bitch!” you scream at him, tearing at the long strands of his hair, yet he doesn't seem the least bit bothered by the way his neck is jerked backwards.
”How lovely of you to say”, Flins merely remarks.
Oh, you know he’s seething inside, no matter how hard he tries to make you believe that he’s unbothered. He prides himself in being calm and collected at all times, yet it’s so easy to see through his facade that it’s almost laughable. It’s the snarkiness, namely: He tends to get a keen edge to his tongue whenever he’s vexed, and now, it’s perhaps more evident than ever before.
Your view changes from the endless expanse of foggy water to the familiar soil of the Final Night Graveyard. With your body swinging side to side along with his footsteps, you try to land one last kick at his chest. The disobedience rebounds, however: Sighing, he hikes you up into a better position, inadvertently punching the air out of your guts.
You want to screech his ears deaf, to sink your nails into his pale skin, to rip the man into shreds so he may never lay his touch on you ever again, but alas, as you rise further and further up the hill, carried right back towards your prison like hunting trophy, your hunger for strife gradually morphs into panic.
Swallowing down the trepidation bubbling up inside you, you force yourself back into survival mode. Holding your breath to quell the hysteria that threatens to overtake your senses, you take a look around you. Your eyes fixate on the sight of his lamp hanging on the side of his waist, just within your reach.
Much more desperately than you were planning to, you outstretch your hand towards the lantern. However, as if having foreseen your action, Flins’ twists his arm back, and the haft of his polearm comes in between you and your aim. His shoulders rise with a sigh.
Soon enough, you arrive at the foot of the lighthouse. One by one, Flins climbs the crooked steps of the stairs until he reaches the building’s base. Using his elbow, he pushes the ajar front door open.
”Watch your head, if you wouldn’t mind”, he warns you as he steps through the doorway.
”You-, let go of me!”
Your attitude has lost some of its flame, and the tone you’re left with is more on the pleading than the demanding end. Still, not quite ready to give up the fight yet, you beat his shoulder blade a few more times as if to compensate for the loss of believability due to your wavering voice.
Your command goes on deaf ears. Instead of letting you down from his shoulder and making his way to the basement where you usually spend most of your time, Flins closes the door behind him, sets his polearm to lean against the entrance, strides across the room and heads to the staircase leading upstairs. At first, you don’t quite understand where his intentions are leading him, but as he walks past both the bathroom and the kitchen, dread begins swelling up in your stomach.
Sure enough, he carries you all the way to the makeshift bedroom on the third floor of the lighthouse. To be frank, the space could hardly be called that: The man himself hardly ever sleeps, so the flimsy bed he has set out is mainly for you to use. More often than not, you get to rest alone due to him having his nocturnal responsibilities to fulfil, and so, the times he himself has actually utilized the bed have been for another purpose entirely. It takes a moment for the thought to dawn on you, but as it does, the earlier adrenaline surge gets an encore.
”Flins, what are you doing!?” you question him as you frantically tug on his hair, once again yanking his head back with force that would have any ordinary person screeching out in pain. "Flins? Flins?!"
Every course of action available to you suddenly seems like a dead end. Rarely have you felt the sort of terror you do now, and even with the brave expression you’re still fighting tooth and nail to keep up, you’re certain that the flood gates aren’t going to hold for long anymore.
Apologize? Beg and plead? Maybe you would, if it meant that you could save yourself. But, alas, things have never been that easy with Flins. He doesn't forgive-and-forget, nor is he swayed by half-hearted attempts at reconciliation, even if they’re coming from the apple of his eye. Your lips purse up into a thin line.
In an unceremonious motion, your body is dropped over the bed. A yelp resounds around the dim room as your back lands on the mattress with a bounce. Immediately, you attempt to make your escape by rolling off the edge, but you’re stopped by a heavy hand on your leg. With fright written all over your face, you whisk your head towards your lower half.
Flins, having taken a seat by your thighs at the edge of the bed, sets his lamp on the nightstand and proceeds to gently brush his glove-clad palm along the length of your bare calf. There’s an indiscernible look on his features. A toneless chuckle makes its way past his pale lips.
”Ah, you’re freezing”, he comments as his hand caresses over the curve of your knee.
The only thing keeping you from rolling your eyes are the tears stinging at them.
His touch moves along, creeping further up until his fingers rest at your inner thigh. Gently, he strokes his thumb over the sensitive flesh.
”That won’t quite do”, he then says. ”What do you suppose we do about it?”
His eyes find yours. The couple of yellow irises stare right into your soul’s very essence, digging deep into the disquiet bubbling up inside your chest and picking your resolve apart with as little as the intensity of his gaze.
You don’t know what the correct answer to his inquiry is, or if there even is one. The question itself sounds rhetorical, but the faint, wily smile on his face is one that expects a reaction from you.
So, you shake your head — the only response you’re able to give him. There’s no doubt that he can see the simmering terror in your eyes, yet he isn’t quite satisfied still.
”Flins, please”, you prop yourself up on your elbows and try to crawl away from the man, but you’re once again halted by his grip, this time on your hip.
”Relax”, he shakes his head.
”No, I-”
”Relax.”
You try to force down the lump in your throat, but it has grown much too large to swallow. What used to be a valiant expression on your face quickly crumbles into a pitiful, demeaned pout.
Sighing, Flins’ hand leaves you and instead goes up to the straps of his collar. He promptly unfastens the clasps before sliding his overcoat off his shoulders, revealing the lavender purple waistcoat underneath. Folding the piece of clothing over his arm, he lays it beside him on the mattress.
”A shame it is that you happened to choose tonight for your escape”, he says as he turns his attention back to you. ”Had the night been a little more eventful than usual, you could have evaded me.”
It’s difficult to tell what’s going on in his head, and truthfully, you’re more concerned about your own well-being than what he might be thinking of. The ever-so-polite smile still lingers on his face, yet the words that come out of his mouth convey something akin to bitterness.
”Nevertheless”, Flins continues his monologue, ”you shall atone for your mistakes.”
Your eyes widen.
”Flins, no, no-no-no, don’t-!”
The hand on your hip flies to your face. Taking hold of your jaw and cheekbones, his glove-clad palm rests over your mouth, heavy and unforgiving.
”Shh”, he brings a finger to his lips. ”Do not fret. You’re in capable hands.”
His words, as icy cold as his soul, sow despair into your very being, and finally, the glimmer gathered at your lashline spills over. Through the blurry sheen of tears, you send him the most hostile, murderous glare you could possibly muster up.
Gently, his hand slides down from your face to the crook of your neck where he tugs on the shoulder strap of your top. Hooking his finger underneath it, he slips it past your arm.
Despite finally having managed to bring you to your lowest, there isn’t anything much to be seen on his face. His countenance is recondite; devoid of any feeling you could grasp onto.
Flins has never quite shown any emotion in one direction or another towards your expressed misery. He doesn’t really strive to comfort you beyond a caress on the shoulders and a pat on the head — unless you were to seek him out of your own accord, of course — and the situation is no different now. With an anodyne gaze, he silently observes your expression as your distress finally boils over.
”I hate you, I fucking hate you!” you hiss at him through your clenched teeth, yet the brave front you do your best to put up suffers from the sob that slips out right after.
Flins raises his brows as a half-hearted attempt to seem surprised at your words.
”You may”, he closes his eyes for a moment, ”but you might want to conserve that zeal for something else. It would be a pity for your energy to be wasted on things you cannot change.”
The next to go is his vest. He takes his sweet time undressing: Though you only torture yourself by watching his fingers slide each of the buttons open, you can’t tear your eyes away from the sight. The choice is between observing him or turning your back to him: You know exactly what’s going to happen next, yet still, a kind of a morbid curiosity keeps your gaze glued to his form.
”Now”, he then says, working his gloves off, ”how would you prefer we approach this?”
”Flins, please, I don’t want to!” you shake your head at him, desperately trying to find a single ounce of commiseration in his gaze — only to find none.
”Ah, but where would the meaning lie in your actions not having consequences?” Flins fiddles with the collar of his shirt. Slipping the article of clothing off his shoulders, he reveals his pale chest underneath. ”Besides, it has been quite a while since we last had the chance to indulge, has it not?”
It has. He doesn’t often have the time to entertain whatever sexual needs he has, and you would rather not think about the occasions where that hasn’t been the case.
A horribly cold palm plants itself on a bare patch of your abdomen that peeks out from under your shirt’s hem. You shudder at the skin-to-skin contact, yet the reaction does nothing to deter Flins from going further. He hunches over your form, intently observing your face as his touch creeps up your ribcage.
Twisting his body, he moves so that his free hand is able to find purchase on the back of your head. Gently weaving his fingers in your hair, he bends down to catch your lips in a kiss.
You dodge the attempt, and his mouth lands on the side of your jaw instead. With as much strength as you’re able to put into the action, you push against his chest, but the man doesn’t as much as budge. He merely sighs at the pitiful show of defiance, and simultaneously, his freezing digits change their direction. Instead of going for your breasts, his touch slides downward, slinking past your waist and dipping under the waistband of your shorts.
The sensation has your legs flexing off the bed in an effort to rid yourself of the intrusion. Nevertheless, no matter how much resistance you put up, what he has set his mind on can no longer be changed.
A cry breaks past your lips. Flins, licking a long stripe up the side of your face, chuckles to himself.
”Ah, there is no need for tears”, he sighs against your skin as he plants a few pecks on your temple. ”You shall feel no pain. Or is it that you’re frightened?”
Squeezing your eyes shut and clenching your teeth, you beat your fists against his chest. There’s not much force behind the hits — at this point, the action is more for your own sake than for him.
With a tender hand, Flins tugs your shorts and underwear down your legs before his fingers return to your lower abdomen in a featherlight, daunting brush. Weakly, you kick at him, but as the cool air hits your skin, you switch to clenching your thighs together.
”Please don’t, don’t...!” you whimper, pressing your palms against his sternum.
Your breaths, having grown rapid and irregular, come out as short, airy gasps that have your shoulders heaving up and down. He lets out a quiet sigh through his nose.
"Flins, Flins-...!"
Repositioning himself once more, Flins moves to plant his knees on either side of your thighs, properly climbing on top of you. Raising the hand on the back of your hair off the pillow, he brings your head to his chest to cradle it against his heart. Simultaneously, the fingers that linger on your navel dip in between your legs.
His touch is so cold. The sensation of his digits dancing along your folds is so unbearably strange that it has your core constricting around itself. In contrast to the warmth that emanates from you, the pads of his appendages feel freezing against your core.
Gently, after giving a few leisurely rubs to your clit, he moves past the bud and instead goes for your entrance beneath.
There’s something deadening about Flins’ embrace, almost. Along with his fingers breaching you, the last bits of your resolve trickle out of your veins as if his presence had soaked them up. Your hands which were still pressed against his ribs mere moments ago now go to cover your own mouth to suppress the inconsolable sobs that jerk through your vocal cords.
Two of his digits drag along the edges of your hole, pushing in, then pulling out, in, out, in, out in an unhurried pace as if testing the waters. Coaxing you to loosen up around the invasion, his nails tenderly scratch the back of your head.
”Flins, please, no...”, you whimper against him, yet all you get as a response is a curl of his fingers inside of you.
”There, there”, Flins hums with a hint of amusement in his soft tone. ”You’re quite alright. Doesn’t this feel pleasant?”
Adding a third digit to the other two, he proceeds to work on your insides in a digging motion.
It would be no use trying to deny the warm, gentle pressure that jabs at the depths of your stomach. He knows your body inside and out, and it took him no more than a few times to learn just where to prod to have you unravelling under his care. It’s deplorable, really; the weak thing he has managed to reduce you to.
The tingling pleasure travels up your abdomen and along your spine, slowly making you arch your back off the sheets. Your thighs quiver with each bend of his fingers, your breaths grow more and more laboured, your hands tremble. Gradually, he sedates you with his proximity alone, lulling you into the faux consolation only he is left to offer you.
Then, after a while, his digits draw out of you. Giving your bits a few more tender caresses, his hand retreats and pulls away from between your legs.
Your midriff jolts along with your shaky sobs. You’re uncertain how the loss of his touch inside you feels: The contradicting sensations and thoughts have tangled your emotions into a tight knot, and you’re unable to find either end of the lace it has been tied with.
The sound of a buckle opening reaches your ears. You know even without looking that Flins isn’t quite yet done with his routine. Continuing to pour your misery out against his chest, you don’t do much to resist him as he parts your legs with his own and slips in between your thighs. Still cradling your head in his hand, the other takes hold of the back of your knee, gently bending the joint and pushing it towards your shoulder.
Soon, his cock prods at your cunt. You feel the tip of his member search for your hole for a moment before it begins pushing in in a steady yet merciful motion.
It doesn’t hurt — not really. Flins isn’t of the brutish sort, and he takes no enjoyment in inflicting that sort of pain on you. Yet, the sting of the final shreds of your resolve shattering ache all the same.
Quickly, within a few experimental prods, he gets into a stable rhythm as he begins thrusting into you. His member pushes into your deepest parts, gently persuading your bits to allow him further inside you. The deep murmur of his exhales rings in your ears.
”Now, then”, Flins whispers against the crown of your head. ”Let us clear up a few misconceptions.”
You can hear the faint smile in his voice.
”What is capable of harming me is no stranger than the keen blade of a sword”, he tells you, all the while his cock drags in and out of you.
Gently brushing across the outer side of your thigh and raising goosebumps in its wake, his unoccupied hand slides down to where you’re connected. Once more, his touch finds your clit, and he begins circling the pearl with the pad of his thumb.
”It is not salt, it is not iron, not the sonorous song of bells, nor am I afraid of my own reflection in the mirror”, his voice vibrates through his chest with every word he speaks. ”You may try as many times as you would like, but it is in your best interest to accept that whatever it is that you come up with, you cannot hope to rival me.”
Softly, the tips of his fingers massage the base of your skull as if to comfort you.
”The sooner you relent, the less of a burden you will have to carry”, he says. ”Whenever you fall, I shall be there to catch you.”
A/N
Flins when you throw the scraps at him:
I kid you not, while trying to find suitable synonyms for certain words in the starter lines of this piece, I fell down a rabbit hole of researching what the fuck happens in the annual cheese rolling contest in Cooper's Hill, Gloucestershire. If you watch IG reels, you might’ve stumbled upon a reel of a guy falling backflips down a hill, and that’s exactly where it’s from. Ouch.
Writing this piece, I had to genuinely stop myself from describing Flins' eyes as orbs because of the garbage reputation the word has built for itself, but like, those are genuinely orbs. That's what they mean when they say orbs. The texbook definition of yellow orbs that stare right into your soul. Also, where the fuck does the coat end and the shirt start. Where. Is the purple thing a vest? I decided it's a vest.
This is meant to be the piece of writing for my this year's October, and I hope I was able to deliver. I've had tons of fun writing for all sorts of topics and characters, so big thanks to everyone who has hanged on for as long as they have (੭ ˊ^ˋ)੭ ♡
you're in love with flins, and he's in love with you. this could've been your perfect story, it should've been your perfect story, but of course that can't be the case. perfect stories don't exist beyond hardback covers.
NOTES
MINORS / AGELESS BLOGS DNI. yearn city and flins nation COLLAB! a personal apology to all my modern au haters, but i am once again at your front door with a postgrad au flins (+ others). angst fluff and smut! sorry if my synopsis is vague, but if any of you have read and enjoyed my "again and again" fic, this one is similar. i probably will make a taglist, so if this appeals, Lmk in the comments pls!
"You are seriously so hot. Like- I've had three separate dreams about you already, and I'm probably gonna have my fourth tonight."
Gracefully, elegantly, and painfully, none of those at all, that was what you'd said to Flins the very first time you were alone with him, drunk out of your mind a few feet away from the bar. The poor guy was already tasked with escorting you home (Varka's doing), and there you were, making it infinitely more difficult for him. You hadn't even held a conversation with Flins on your own before, and you somehow decided that it was the perfect time to admit that you'd dreamt of him. Multiple times.
Ever the keeper of brilliant ideas, you were.
From a young age, you had always loved romance in fiction.
Tailored, sculpted, crafted: it pained you to know that the confessions, the theatrics littered through the books you'd read growing up, hardly ever bloomed beyond a hardback cover. The heroes in those stories would shed blood, sweat and tears for their lovers; they'd climb mountains, win war after war. It was safe to say that you were completely enamoured by it all, addicted to the idea that love could break past anything if strong enough.
Angry, desperate confessions of devotion, stained with sorrow and rainfall. Quiet, intimate admissions of passion, whispered under warm, velvety sheets. That look, the one you'd see described time and time again, that lovers held in their eyes: that glint of affection that screamed "I love you" before the words could themselves.
Seriously, you had always loved romance in fiction.
"Oh my God!" you'd squealed during your first read through of 'Pride and Prejudice', pressing the book right against your face. You kicked your feet, giggling into the pages; you were acting as if you were the one to receive Mr Darcy's confession yourself. If anyone were to have walked in, they would've definitely been met with a bit of an embarrassing spectacle, catching you reacting so physically to a story. Luckily for you, though, the only witnesses to your state were the four walls of your bedroom. You could count the guys posing in the band posters on your wall too, but they'd seen worse.
"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."
"Allow him," you'd demanded to no one at all. "Holy shit, allow him."
Yeah, that type of confession was exactly what you needed.
However, one thing you failed to realise was that most of the people receiving these confessions were quite different to you.
No, very different to you.
On a general note, the dissimilarities easily outweighed the similarities, but the most noteable difference was the fact that these recipitents were not stumbling around outside of a busy bar, three drinks and five shots deep, giggling stupidly into the face of their handsome, charming love interest.
Only idiots like you would be doing that.
"Wait," you slurred, "not...not weird dreams. The most we've done in them is make out. But nothing after. I swear."
That was a complete lie.
Two of your dreams had already been about fucking him.
But somehow, and thankfully, the universe had graced you with a sudden wave of "get your shit together", and you'd sobered up for about 10 seconds to damage control the situation. In actuality, though, 'damage control' was a hopeful way to regard your words. They fell with about as much innocence as a child caught stealing chocolate, the evidence smeared over their lips. Anyone with half a brain could tell that you were lying through your teeth, and from what Lauma had told you about him, Flins probably had two full ones.
"Actually,” you mumbled quickly, “we didn't make out, so forget I said that. We- you were just there. We stood together... and stuff."
Now, in a realistic situation, that would've been Flins' cue to get you home safe, and then never speak to you again.
Courtly, chivalrous, proper: nothing about the man ever gave you the impression that he'd appreciate someone acting the way you were acting. He was objectively great looking, long, tamed streaks of blue leaking like silk down his back. They were lighter at the tips, deeper at the roots. The strands framed his face perfectly, casting the illusion that he was carved from a brilliant marble. Two, golden coins gifted him with sight, and God, did he look even better when he smiled. You didn't ever consider Varka the funniest guy in the world, but you were sure as hell glad that Flins did. Each quiet chuckle that curled into the palm of his hand crept through the gaps between his fingers, and it only made him more attractive than usual.
You were so mad that Varka hadn’t introduced him to the group earlier.
You were certain that Flins would have no issue finding someone he liked, and you were semi-certain that the "someone he liked" would not have been acting like you were. Realistically, that is.
Another thing you’d failed to consider, though, was that every storybook had to be based on something real. Reality itself was all but linear; how could it even be called something so limiting as “realistic” ?
Flins, to your immense surprise, had laughed. The sound of it rippled through you, an instant remedy to the nausea your drunk confession had infected you with.
"You've dreamt of me, Miss?" he chuckled, that dashing, boyish smile playing on his lips. "My, how flattering."
He'd graced you with an opportunity, a brilliant, bright opportunity. It would've been the perfect time to manoeuvre the situation to your own benefit, to morph it into something even slightly similar to your storybooks, to fiction, to something Mr-Darcy-Confession adjacent.
Just say something flirty, you'd thought, something sweet, sincere, something to make his heart-
"-I'd rinse my savings to go on a date with you."
Skip a beat.
The stories you'd held so dear to you were always far from your reality. They were elegant, slow; the fiery passion that blossomed between lovers bloomed at an almost painful pace. Yearning, reaching, pushing and pulling. Unspoken words, whispered confessions, baited breath.
You, in all your clumsiness, in all your intensity, didn't offer yourself the chance to fall subject to any of it.
But when you checked your phone the next morning, a hangover pounding against your temples, you quickly concluded that not everything had to play out like Pride and Prejudice, The Notebook, like fiction.
[Unsaved Number]: Hello, y/n. This is Flins. I asked Varka for your contact details. [7:04AM]
[Unsaved Number]: Would you be busy tomorrow evening? [7:05AM]
This was real life, after all, not some intricately crafted storybook.
What could go wrong?
yifa omg why is your mc such a Fking Loserrr? Why is this GIRLFAILURE?
you're in love with flins, and he's in love with you. this could've been your perfect story, it should've been your perfect story, but of course that can't be the case. perfect stories don't exist beyond hardback covers.
NOTES
MINORS / AGELESS BLOGS DNI. yearn city and flins nation COLLAB! a personal apology to all my modern au haters, but i am once again at your front door with a postgrad au flins (+ others). angst fluff and smut! sorry if my synopsis is vague, but if any of you have read and enjoyed my "again and again" fic, this one is similar. i probably will make a taglist, so if this appeals, Lmk in the comments pls!
"You are seriously so hot. Like- I've had three separate dreams about you already, and I'm probably gonna have my fourth tonight."
Gracefully, elegantly, and painfully, none of those at all, that was what you'd said to Flins the very first time you were alone with him, drunk out of your mind a few feet away from the bar. The poor guy was already tasked with escorting you home (Varka's doing), and there you were, making it infinitely more difficult for him. You hadn't even held a conversation with Flins on your own before, and you somehow decided that it was the perfect time to admit that you'd dreamt of him. Multiple times.
Ever the keeper of brilliant ideas, you were.
From a young age, you had always loved romance in fiction.
Tailored, sculpted, crafted: it pained you to know that the confessions, the theatrics littered through the books you'd read growing up, hardly ever bloomed beyond a hardback cover. The heroes in those stories would shed blood, sweat and tears for their lovers; they'd climb mountains, win war after war. It was safe to say that you were completely enamoured by it all, addicted to the idea that love could break past anything if strong enough.
Angry, desperate confessions of devotion, stained with sorrow and rainfall. Quiet, intimate admissions of passion, whispered under warm, velvety sheets. That look, the one you'd see described time and time again, that lovers held in their eyes: that glint of affection that screamed "I love you" before the words could themselves.
Seriously, you had always loved romance in fiction.
"Oh my God!" you'd squealed during your first read through of 'Pride and Prejudice', pressing the book right against your face. You kicked your feet, giggling into the pages; you were acting as if you were the one to receive Mr Darcy's confession yourself. If anyone were to have walked in, they would've definitely been met with a bit of an embarrassing spectacle, catching you reacting so physically to a story. Luckily for you, though, the only witnesses to your state were the four walls of your bedroom. You could count the guys posing in the band posters on your wall too, but they'd seen worse.
"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."
"Allow him," you'd demanded to no one at all. "Holy shit, allow him."
Yeah, that type of confession was exactly what you needed.
However, one thing you failed to realise was that most of the people receiving these confessions were quite different to you.
No, very different to you.
On a general note, the dissimilarities easily outweighed the similarities, but the most noteable difference was the fact that these recipitents were not stumbling around outside of a busy bar, three drinks and five shots deep, giggling stupidly into the face of their handsome, charming love interest.
Only idiots like you would be doing that.
"Wait," you slurred, "not...not weird dreams. The most we've done in them is make out. But nothing after. I swear."
That was a complete lie.
Two of your dreams had already been about fucking him.
But somehow, and thankfully, the universe had graced you with a sudden wave of "get your shit together", and you'd sobered up for about 10 seconds to damage control the situation. In actuality, though, 'damage control' was a hopeful way to regard your words. They fell with about as much innocence as a child caught stealing chocolate, the evidence smeared over their lips. Anyone with half a brain could tell that you were lying through your teeth, and from what Lauma had told you about him, Flins probably had two full ones.
"Actually,” you mumbled quickly, “we didn't make out, so forget I said that. We- you were just there. We stood together... and stuff."
Now, in a realistic situation, that would've been Flins' cue to get you home safe, and then never speak to you again.
Courtly, chivalrous, proper: nothing about the man ever gave you the impression that he'd appreciate someone acting the way you were acting. He was objectively great looking, long, tamed streaks of blue leaking like silk down his back. They were lighter at the tips, deeper at the roots. The strands framed his face perfectly, casting the illusion that he was carved from a brilliant marble. Two, golden coins gifted him with sight, and God, did he look even better when he smiled. You didn't ever consider Varka the funniest guy in the world, but you were sure as hell glad that Flins did. Each quiet chuckle that curled into the palm of his hand crept through the gaps between his fingers, and it only made him more attractive than usual.
You were so mad that Varka hadn’t introduced him to the group earlier.
You were certain that Flins would have no issue finding someone he liked, and you were semi-certain that the "someone he liked" would not have been acting like you were. Realistically, that is.
Another thing you’d failed to consider, though, was that every storybook had to be based on something real. Reality itself was all but linear; how could it even be called something so limiting as “realistic” ?
Flins, to your immense surprise, had laughed. The sound of it rippled through you, an instant remedy to the nausea your drunk confession had infected you with.
"You've dreamt of me, Miss?" he chuckled, that dashing, boyish smile playing on his lips. "My, how flattering."
He'd graced you with an opportunity, a brilliant, bright opportunity. It would've been the perfect time to manoeuvre the situation to your own benefit, to morph it into something even slightly similar to your storybooks, to fiction, to something Mr-Darcy-Confession adjacent.
Just say something flirty, you'd thought, something sweet, sincere, something to make his heart-
"-I'd rinse my savings to go on a date with you."
Skip a beat.
The stories you'd held so dear to you were always far from your reality. They were elegant, slow; the fiery passion that blossomed between lovers bloomed at an almost painful pace. Yearning, reaching, pushing and pulling. Unspoken words, whispered confessions, baited breath.
You, in all your clumsiness, in all your intensity, didn't offer yourself the chance to fall subject to any of it.
But when you checked your phone the next morning, a hangover pounding against your temples, you quickly concluded that not everything had to play out like Pride and Prejudice, The Notebook, like fiction.
[Unsaved Number]: Hello, y/n. This is Flins. I asked Varka for your contact details. [7:04AM]
[Unsaved Number]: Would you be busy tomorrow evening? [7:05AM]
This was real life, after all, not some intricately crafted storybook.
What could go wrong?
yifa omg why is your mc such a Fking Loserrr? Why is this GIRLFAILURE?
The harbor of Nasha Town breathed with noise and salt, iron and rust, life and danger braided together so tightly you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
Ships creaked at their moorings, ropes groaned as winches turned, and the voices of merchants rose like a discordant hymn—calling out wares, prices, promises no one meant to keep.
The air was a living thing; salt cutting the back of your throat, soot clinging to your lungs, fish oil seeping into your hair.
It would have overwhelmed you if not for the fact that Flins hand swallowed yours, dragging you into the current of bodies like a weight tied to your wrist.
Flins didn’t walk as the others did. He glided, steps too steady, too graceful, every movement precise as though he was weaving through a dance no one else could hear.
To the townspeople, to the dockhands and inventors and noisy children darting between stalls, he looked like a normal Ratnik walking with his beloved, guiding her through the tangle of cobblestones and clattering machinery with care.
But to you?
That hand was a shackle.
The softness of his glove didn’t matter when the bones beneath it pressed so firmly into your skin that you knew you’d see the shape of his grip for hours after.
You tried not to look at him, because the way his face glowed in the lamplight of the craftshops, with the faintest shimmer of otherworldly gold in his irises, made something in your heart stumble.
A fae's beauty was unbearable. Dangerous.
He was a man made to lure, not to release. And when his gaze slipped down at you, his lips pulling into the faintest smile as if you were the secret star in a sky only he could see, you felt the cage close tighter.
He leaned toward you slightly, words curling in his throat with that lilting fae accent that always sounded half-sung. “Stay close, my beloved. The crowd here bites.”
His thumb pressed against your pulse deliberately, the message silent but clear —I know exactly how fast your heart is racing.
You wanted to wrench away. To melt into the crowd. To vanish into the iron labyrinth of Nasha Town’s piers where the lights were dim and the shouts of vendors couldn’t be picked apart.
You imagined it as you stumbled over slick cobbles—turning sharp, losing yourself in the nets and steam and strangers’ hands.
You imagined freedom like you’d once imagined a lover’s embrace.
But curse your fate, he never let go.
Not at the taverns with their glowing windows spilling out music.
Not at the craftshop where gears turned noisily in an open stall.
Not even when he paused to answer a merchant calling out in rough Nordkraian dialect.
Every moment his hand, every second his tether. And for a breath, you thought this was your life forever— paraded like a jewel he kept polished.
But then it happened.
He gestured, his other hand raised casually to wave away the merchant, and for the briefest moment his grip slackened.
Not even released—just loosened, his focus tilted elsewhere, the clamp of his fingers softening.
It was enough. Perhaps the gods felt merciful for once.
Your body moved before your mind caught up. You tore your hand from his with a violent jerk and bolted.
The sound of your boots striking cobbles was thunder in your ears. Your breath hitched, caught, gasped.
You shoved past a man carrying crates, ignoring his curses, ducked beneath ropes heavy with drying nets. The air stung your lungs with salt and metal, every inhale a blade, but still you ran.
You heard gulls scatter above you, startled by the frenzy of your steps, and behind them—your own pulse, drumming so loud it drowned the harbor.
For three heartbeats, you thought you could make it.
The alley split into shadows, narrow and slick, lanternlight fractured on puddles of sea spray.
You plunged into it, desperate, body trembling with adrenaline, throat burning with the soundless cry of go, go, go. Your eyes burned, vision blurring, but still you hurled yourself forward.
Then someone grabbed your shoulder.
A dockworker, broad and rough, smelling of brine and sweat. You slammed into him, stumbled, tried to push past, but his hands clamped hard.
Another man turned, brows furrowed as he saw your wild eyes, the way your chest heaved, your lips parted in a frantic gasp.
“Miss—are you—?”
“She’s with me.”
The voice was calm. It wasn’t raised, wasn’t sharp.
But it slid through the clamor of the alley like a blade through cloth, slicing everything else into silence.
You froze. Slowly—dreadfully—you turned your head.
Flins stood at the mouth of the alley, lantern in hand, flame glowing bright and golden in the fog.
His steps were unhurried, his smile almost gentle, but his eyes… oh, those eyes. The faint gleam of yellow voids swirling, pupils dilated too wide.
To anyone else, it was the look of a man relieved to find his beloved.
To you, it was the promise of a snare snapping shut.
“She has spells of distress,” Flins told the men, his voice like velvet laced with smoke. “Trauma, from the Wild Hunt. It rattled her mind. Sometimes she runs when fear takes her.”
The men exchanged looks. Your chest collapsed inward, air squeezed from your lungs, because you knew what they were seeing: a beautiful, patient man, explaining with sorrow in his tone.
And you—a trembling, wide-eyed girl, panting like an animal, too frayed to string words together.
“She—she bolted like she was being chased,” the first dockworker muttered uncertainly.
Flins gave a soft sigh, lowering his lantern slightly, flame casting shadows over his pale face. “My point proven. She hallucinates sometimes. It isn’t her fault,” he murmured. “Would you be so kind as to let me take her home? She’ll hurt herself otherwise.”
Your throat unlocked just enough to croak, “No—”
But the words cracked, small, pitiful. They looked at you with sympathy, not belief. Poor thing.
Poor unstable creature.
One of them even patted your arm. “Go on, miss. He’ll see you safe.”
Safe.
The word twisted in your ears, cruel as any blade.
Flins stepped closer, the glow of his lantern filling your vision. He didn’t seize you roughly. He didn’t drag you by force.
He reached out with delicate precision and brushed his knuckles down your damp cheek, wiping a tear away with a tenderness that made your stomach turn.
“There you are,” he whispered, soft as a prayer. “You frightened me.”
And some wicked part of you wanted to fall against him. To let the world tilt back into place, to surrender so the pounding in your chest would stop.
Because in his presence, even your terror stilled into something like… relief. And that was the most terrifying part of all.
He laced his fingers through yours again, slowly, deliberately, binding you back to him with that quiet intimacy that made it seem like you chose it.
His smile stayed sweet, unwavering. But you felt the iron in his grip, the tremor of restrained wrath beneath the glove.
The men stepped aside. One even bowed his head faintly as Flins guided you past, lantern swinging, hand unbreakable around yours.
To them, you were a fragile soul in the care of a devoted lover.
To you, you were a prisoner walking deeper into your cell with every step.
The streets of Nasha Town blurred as he led you on. The shouts of vendors muffled, the clang of gears distant, the smell of salt and oil turned cloying.
All you knew was the warmth of his lantern on your skin, the pressure of his fingers crushing yours, the sound of his breath near your ear as he leaned down just enough to murmur words meant for no one else.
“You’ll never do that again,” he said softly, almost lovingly, the words brushing your skin like a kiss. “But I forgive you. You were frightened. You’ll learn.”
The lantern burned brighter, casting the world in golden haze, pulling you along the piers where water slapped against wood. The lighthouse loomed in the distance, black against the purple fog, waiting.
Your body shook, not from the cold, not from the sea wind, but from the knowledge of what waited behind that padlocked door.
He bent close as you trembled, his lips brushing the edge of your hair, his voice a sigh you almost mistook for affection.
“You’re lost without me.”
border by :@leilakitya
flowerr: flins came home in 138 pulls and his weapon in 96 pulls. How wonderful... JASDHJASFJKFHSKDJFHSKDJFH—
ALL MY FURINA SAVINGS HAVE SEVERLY DEPLETED NOOOO—
ಥ﹏ಥಥ﹏ಥಥ﹏ಥಥ﹏ಥಥ﹏ಥ (இ﹏இ`｡)(இ﹏இ`｡)
Word count: 1.4K
written by @sungjinwooscertifiedwife
do not copy, or use in ai
reposts are allowed but don't claim my work as yours.
the soul-charged blue of night - flins x reader (13k)
and a small lamp, kindness, is gleaming in his heart
flins 'rescues' you.
cw: yandere flins. mostly sfw (intimacy occurs but are not explicit). a mishmash of fae lore. captive reader. hypnotism, i suppose? reader wears a dress and chemise but no gendered terms are used. injury. not quite canon-compliant, i make my own rules here.
a/n: the gothic horror romance yandere flins fic i have been promising! i hope you enjoy it, it's been a while since i sat and allowed myself a nice long fic! reblogs or comments or asks or anything is appreciated i would LOVE to hear if you enjoyed this one!!!
Nod-Krai is cold at all times – you are on the borders of the nation of ice, after all – but at night, the temperature drops to below freezing. So one ought to be prepared for this, if they are going anywhere once the moon has risen high in the sky – a fur-lined coat, a heavy alpaca wool sweater, a cloak that feels heavy upon their shoulders. You’ve heard of pyro-infused packages one can put in their pockets to warm their hands – you’ve known people who swear by the warming properties of certain foods.
But if one is running away in the middle of the night--
Well. Suffice to say that you did not have much time to prepare for this journey. You had sensed an opportunity to finally slip from your older brother’s grasp and his suffocating control of your life, and had decided to seize it with both hands and pursue your dreams. To live your life for yourself, and not for what he insisted your parents would have wanted had they lived to see both of you reach adulthood.
It was evening when you slipped into the forests surrounding your village. The moon was a distant glow; the horizon still had a faint hint of pink and purple from the sun setting. The air had been crisp, but your jacket had done much to alleviate the sting. You hadn’t noticed how thin the soles of your boots had worn, because the ground was not yet so frigid that the chill would leach into them.
You simply hadn’t thought it through – and that had been perfectly fine when it was barely seven, when you had only been walking for twenty minutes . . . but now, as the midnight hour approaches and you realise you’ve been on your feet for coming on to five hours and you’re far, far away from anywhere you might find remotely familiar . . . now, all of the things that you didn’t think about are starting to weigh more heavily on your mind.
Where will you sleep tonight? Even if you thought yourself shameless enough to beg shelter, you don’t think you’ve seen a proper dwelling for miles. What will you do if it rains? The skein you had brought with you to drink from is running dry, and you know that dehydration is an unkind master. Your stomach is beginning to rumble – you had forgone your evening meal, anxiety roiling hot and heavy in your stomach at the thought of what you were going to do. You are shivering, the cold wind chapping your lips and your face, and you think that you are only a particularly sharp rock away from the soles of your boots ripping through.
You do not know where you are.
And if it were to start to rain--
No. You shake your head to try and rid yourself of the thought – there is no point trying to curse your journey any further, and it seems bad luck to speculate on what else could go wrong. You hug your arms closer to your body to try and pilfer any residual warmth left in them, though you’re beginning to feel as though you’re half-frozen to death already. You stumble over roots and trees, sighing, squinting, trying to force yourself to think positive thoughts.
Maybe you should have simply done as your brother had wanted. Maybe you should have agreed to spend the rest of your life living in your little house on the outskirts of Nasha Town, accepted your lot was to be his housekeeper and eventually nanny his children for him because your parents had always thought the two of you would help one another out . . . he had interpreted this as you always being ready to help him out, but perhaps he was right. You have few skills of your own beyond the ones you’ve had to learn, and nobody in the village has ever caught your eye (or, if you are being honest, ever shown interest in you). Perhaps you are, after all, an ungrateful and spoilt monster like he had accused you of being--
You stumble out of a thicket of trees and into a clearing. For one moment, you’re grateful – a clearing will allow you to sit for a moment, to rest your back against a tree trunk, to re-evaluate the path that you’ve been taking so far. And then you see the ripple of a violet glow in between the trees, hear the whispering noises of something gaining on you, and realise the mistake you have made.
The Wild Hunt.
You have been lucky enough to never have come across them before; you’re not ordinarily in the habit of wandering around alone, and your brother and you have lived a somewhat sheltered existence even after your parent’s deaths.
But you, like every child of Nod-Krai, have heard stories. You remember your Papa warning you to stop picking the vegetables out of your stew and feeding them to the family dog, or the Wild Hunt would come and take you away. When you got older, you’d learnt more – heard whispers of people who had walked outside alone at night and been taken by the Hunt, or who had been gored and their corpses left to be found. You had, like so many, been taught that if you were ever lost and alone and saw a Lightkeeper, they would be a safe person to ask to guide you home.
You do not see a Lightkeeper now.
You freeze up, your blood somehow running even colder than it was before. When you had thought about the ways you could die out here, all of the awful things that could befall you – you had not even considered the Wild Hunt. The very idea of it was too terrifying, too terrible to even consider. But now, the violet-fired monsters are shambling out from the trees and your heart is in your mouth.
Perhaps they won’t see you, you pray, but then you stumble – a sharp rock, your damn boots – and you hear the crack of twigs beneath your feet, and one of the monsters raises its awful, flaming head.
The effect is instantaneous. The creature’s trajectory changes, and suddenly it is walking towards you, and you can see the full breadth of its body. You could stand shoulder to shoulder with two other versions of yourself and not match its width; its arm alone seems to be wider than your waist. If a creature like this were to strike you . . .
You can see, too, the weapon it wields – an axe that crackles with fire and abyssal energy, the blade wickedly sharp. It is making noise as it approaches you, a whispering, chattering kind of language you don’t understand. Desperately, you stumble back – but even as you turn your head to look where you are going, more and more of the Wild Hunt are emerging from between the trees. It is like you are at the epicentre of a hunting party; a fox surrounded by baying hounds.
It’s almost like you’ve stumbled onto some kind of gathering, or like they’re looking for something . . . You feel sick, your limbs moving so much slower than you want them to. You should be running! But you have been running - and walking, and jogging for hours . . . and you are so, so tired.
The big one lifts its axe, and you do not realise that you have even opened your mouth until your helpless yelp of fear is cutting through the air. The blade slashes through the air, just missing your side; and then you are trying to run, stumbling, falling . . . And the other members of the Wild Hunt are upon you, and hands are tugging at you with grips that feel like fire burning through to your bones. You scream as the axe once more rends the air in two.
Your shoulder goes white hot – a shock to your system, when the rest of you still feels so terribly ice cold. Something hot and liquid trickles down your arm, inside of your clothes, and you wonder if this is how you are going to die. You feel light-headed. You feel sick. You feel . . .
Almost relieved.
If you are killed here, you won’t have to worry about anything else. You won’t have to think about carving out a brand new life, about maybe having to slink back to your brother with your tail between your legs and apologise to him. Your life will end here, but with the cessation of your breath will come a cessation of your worries. And just lately, it has seemed like your entire world has been nothing but worries.
You never expected that accepting your own death would come with such an immense sense of peace.
Your eyesight flickers as you fall onto your knees, as you pitch forward and your cheek meets the dirt of the forest floor, stones and debris grazing your face--
And then your vision goes all blue flame.
You aren’t in control of yourself well enough to fully understand what is happening around you. All you see are feet; the Wild Hunt, with their slow, dragging footsteps . . . and then, another pair, clad in long dark boots.
The source of the blue flame, you realise, as the battle that was waging around you comes to a surprisingly abrupt stop. The feet of the Wild Hunt dissipate almost as quickly as they’d come – but those long boots do not. In fact, they stride closer and closer to you. A lantern hanging from a hand enters your vision.
A Lightkeeper. How lucky could you be?
Well. Your arm still feels white hot, so not that lucky.
“Are you injured?” A voice comes floating from above you, cultured and polite. “Ah, yes, I see. I’m going to roll you over. I’ll be careful.”
He takes to one knee, and as firm but gentle hands roll you onto your back (carefully avoiding touching anywhere too intimate, you notice), you get your first glimpse of your rescuer and you have to fight back the gasp at his appearance.
It perfectly matches his voice; gentlemanly, calm, courteous. His eyes, a strange shade of yellow like a cat’s, bore into you in a way that manages to be interested without being intense. His skin is almost pale enough to glow in the moonlight – but when he sees you looking, he gives you a smile that’s obviously intended to reassure. He wears the traditional garb of the Lightkeepers, though his lantern seems rather old-fashioned – but Lightkeepers are not known for their interest in fashion and, in fact, have a reputation for being oddballs . . . so it does not seem as surprising as it could.
“My name is Flins,” he tells you. “I’m a Lightkeeper. I’ve seen such injuries before, so please do not panic. I’ll make sure you get the help you need.”
Your mouth is dry when you tell him your name in return. There is no point hiding it – your brother probably won’t have informed anyone you’re missing yet, but . . . it’s not like you can continue fleeing with your shoulder the way it is.
However it is. You haven’t seen it yet.
As your name slips from between your cracked lips, a strange shadow passes over his face. In the shadowy night time light and the eerie glow of his lantern, you might have called it greed – if, that is, it had been on the face of anyone but the Lightkeeper who just saved your life. But there is no reason for your name to inspire that in anybody – your family is neither wealthy nor well-known.
“Where do you live?” He asks. “Let me escort you back and we can see if we can get you the medical attention that you need. You’re fair in the middle of nowhere here. You must be far from home.”
“I can’t go home.” It bubbles from your mouth before you can stop it. You had no intention to say anything incriminating – but with the cold air nipping at your face, the hard ground beneath you, and your shoulder . . . It feels as though your mouth and your brain are not fully connected to one another.
Flins’ face doesn’t so much as twitch. He keeps his eyes on you, and simply gives you a slow, considering nod.
“Is there anywhere else I can guide you?” He asks, and you want to cry at the question.
“N-no,” you whisper – and then, because what does it matter if you are going to die, you whisper: “I ran away.”
He softens his features into sympathy, and you can’t help but notice how handsome he is. You almost hate that he’s being kind to you – but as he speaks, you’re grateful for his presence.
“I understand,” he says, in that calm, low voice. “Sometimes a home is not the refuge that it ought to be. Sometimes uncertainty feels better. Do you have nobody I could take you to?”
You swallow, and shake your head.
“Nobody,” you whisper. “I-- I was not allowed to make friends. I can’t go back. Please—”
He looks down at you, and almost to himself he repeats your name like it’s a prayer. Again, there’s a strange quality to the way he says it – something almost possessive, something wanting and hungry. But you must be imagining things, surely? You’re no prize. You’re nothing, not really. Isn’t it one of the symptoms of an infected wound that the receiver begins to hallucinate and grow paranoid? It surely can’t be long enough for your wound to have become infected, but who knows what kind of weapons the Wild Hunt wield?
Is there abyssal rot infecting your bloodstream, pumping towards your heart, even now?
He nods as if he’s making a decision.
“It is the duty of a Lightkeeper to protect and guide,” Flins says. “You seem in need of both. I will take you to my dwelling and administer your aid – and perhaps once you have recovered, we can examine your circumstances once more.”
“You don’t have to,” you whisper. You feel light-headed and strange. Even speaking is taking more effort than you can bring yourself to expend. Flins’ gloved hand smooths over your hair, your cheek.
“Do not give me your gratitude too profusely,” he says. “You have not yet seen my abode. I find it peaceful, but you may yet be . . . unsettled.”
You swear, as you finally lose consciousness and his low words fade into a hum, that the Lightkeeper is warning you that he lives in a graveyard.
When you awaken, you are underneath a blanket on what is unmistakably someone else’s bed; a rickety thing that groans when you shift. It takes you a moment both to recall what has happened and for the panic at finding yourself in an unfamiliar place to subside – and then it all comes back at once. Your flight from your home, the hours spent fleeing, the cold dark night and the Wild Hunt and--
And Flins. The Lightkeeper.
Your shoulder.
You’re aware of a bone-deep ache in it as you use your uninjured hand to pull at the scratchy blanket. Your face goes hot as you pull it down – you’ve lost the vast majority of your clothes, and though the simple chemise you wore underneath them covers all of the most important areas of your modesty, it’s hard to get the thought of the elegant Flins undressing you out of your mind. You chide yourself for being so prudish – you had been wearing quarter length sleeves, and if he had any hope of cleaning your wound it’s only natural that he’d have to remove your clothing to do so.
A Lightkeeper would not have made any moves on your virtue; if anything, the stories you hear of the abyssal monsters of the Wild Hunt would suggest that you were in more danger of being used as plaything there. You wonder if it’s better or worse that they had instead tried to hack you into pieces, and if you should be offended – and then you huff at yourself for the maudlin thought, and force yourself into a seated position to be able to take a better look at your wound.
It’s been wrapped in a fresh, clean bandage – there’s a little blood staining it, but nothing that makes you feel as though you’re in immediate danger of passing out from blood loss or blurting out your whole life story to a stranger. You bring your hand up gingerly to touch the bandages and hiss through your teeth at the pain that resonates all the way down to your elbow. You try to flex the fingers on your injured arm, to bend your elbow – and though you’re successful, twinges of pain go ricocheting all through the extremity.
It’s your dominant arm. You’re not going to be doing any housework for the foreseeable future.
“I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of dressing your wound,” comes a voice, dark and deep and velvety, from the corner of the room. You jump at the intrusion – you hadn’t heard so much as a door open.
Actually--
You make yourself look around the room you’re in. A perfectly circular, open plan room . . . one small window, set high on the wall. The furniture here is sparse, but most of it looks to be of good quality – even the bed you lie in is, though it’s very obviously old. It’s almost as if Flins doesn’t use it – perhaps he sleeps somewhere else? No doors that you can see – because Flins has come up from a flight of stairs, through a hole in the floor.
“A lighthouse?” You blurt out, and Flins gives you a small smile.
“Welcome to the Final Night Cemetery,” he tells you, and you recall stories about Lightkeepers and lighthouses from old folk tales you’d once read. “Yes. This lighthouse is where I spend my time when I’m not out in the wilderness. It must seem terribly cold and unappealing. I’m rather used to being alone and I don’t much notice it nowadays.”
“N-no,” you say, shaking your head, your cheeks going hot again. “No. I’m thankful, Sir Flins. Thank you for everything.”
There is a small lamp burning beside you, and it throws off just enough light as Flins steps into the centre of the room that you can see he is carrying a tray loaded with sustenance. Your throat goes dry, your mouth watering. You don’t know what time it is, so you have no idea how long it’s been since you last ate – but with everything that has happened to you, it feels like a lifetime.
“I’m sorry I had to disrobe you,” he says – and where some gentlemen might have found themselves blushing, Flins keeps his voice and his face studied. “I had to dress the wound before it began to fester – abyssal weapons can cause even more permanent damage than an ordinary blade, and it would be a terrible pity to lose someone so lovely to the abyss. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to stay here for a few days whilst I monitor your recovery.”
Did he compliment you? You don’t have time to properly parse it – you’re too busy looking at the food that’s piled on his tray, and realising the consequences of what he is proposing. A reprieve from figuring out what to do with your life.
“Thank you,” you say to him, again. This time, you hope that he understands exactly what he’s giving to you. “Of course I’ll stay, Sir Flins. Rescuing me, monitoring me, making sure that I’m alright – you’ve already done so very much for me. I . . . I can’t think of a way I could possibly repay you.”
That strange shadow passes over his face again; a hunger, a wanting, a greed.
“That’s of little consequence right now,” Flins says pleasantly, stepping forward. He pulls a chair up to your bed – another old antique, of unpopular and outdated style but good craftsmanship. You wonder how many other Lightkeepers have been master of this lighthouse before it fell to Flins. “Please – you need to regain your strength. It would please me greatly if you would eat.”
The tray that he places gingerly on your lap is perfectly set, like a dining room from an old party. The silver that sits by the plate is expertly polished, and the food on it looks delicious and freshly made. You can’t help but notice, though, that he has brought nothing for himself.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” You ask him, your brow furrowing. It seems impolite for you to enjoy the hard work he put into preparing this veritable feast whilst he simply sits and watches you. Flins folds his hands in his lap and smiles at you.
“I’ve already eaten,” he says. “I’ll be out on patrol in a few hours myself; though the food is appetising, I’d rather have something lighter in my stomach in case I need to engage in combat. This is . . . heartier than I would ordinarily make, but it felt worth it when I had a guest. I so seldom do, you see. Please, indulge me and eat as freely and deeply as you wish. You must recover your strength, after all.”
It makes sense, but . . . something about it feels a little off. Surely he would at least have brought himself a cup of water? It seems strange for him to sit and watch you eat, with nothing else to do--
You try and shake the suspicions off as quickly as they come. Who are you to be judging the man who saved your life? Perhaps he just wishes to ensure that you are eating – you’ve heard as much as anybody else that you cannot recover if you do not nourish your body. Perhaps he has already eaten. Perhaps he doesn’t like the food he’s prepared for you and just doesn’t wish to say so! There are a hundred reasons, you tell your suspicious mind, why Flins could have brought you food and decided not to indulge himself.
Flins did not need to do this for you; did not need to rescue you and save your life and bring you to his home – his private sanctuary – and feed you and dress your wounds and make sure you were perfectly alright! A Lightkeeper may have some duty to their citizens, but Flins has proven himself to be willing to go beyond the call of it. And for that, you should feel gratitude and nothing else.
“Thank you,” you say, instead, and turn your attention to the meal that Flins has prepared for you.
“I hope it’s to your liking,” he says, watching with an unerringly focused gaze as you pick up a knife and fork and begin to cut the meat. “Ratniki often subside on field rations – cured meats, hardtack, and such. The kind of food that can last through wars. I thought those to be neither conducive to your recovery nor,” and here he gives you a secret smile, “particularly delicious. I’m no chef, but it is sometimes pleasant to do something unusual, don’t you think?”
You take a dainty bite of the meat, worried by what Flins has just said. If it isn’t good, you tell yourself, you will pretend to like it – but flavour bursts onto your tongue, and you realise that it is in fact more than good. You make a noise of enthusiasm and pleasure in the back of your throat and almost miss the way that his fingers flex in his gloves.
“It’s delicious,” you tell him, when you can speak again. “I would never have guessed you didn’t cook often! And . . . I suppose that this is a deeply unusual situation so far, for me. I don’t know if I would describe the part where an axe met my shoulder as ‘pleasant’, though.”
You win a polite little laugh from Flins.
“I hope your stay will be pleasant, at the very least,” he replies. “I will be out most nights; I take my duties as Ratnik seriously, you see. Nothing ought to bother you here, but I’ll lock the lighthouse up whilst I’m gone even so. Please let me know if there’s anything at all you may need.” Here, he looks at you, and you think he is trying for an expression that one would call ‘earnest’. There’s a peculiar shine to his eyes, though. A strange way of holding himself. “It is nice to have a little company. I hope that you will feel the same way.”
You give him a confused smile.
“I already do,” you assure him. “Like I said: I . . . I don’t know how I could ever repay you. I suppose I owe you a favour, but all I can give you is my thanks.”
A smile quirks Flins’ mouth. The lamp by your bedside gutters, throwing his features into a sharp relief that could almost be considered ghoulish. His eyes, though . . . that shine could almost be called a glow, a firebright inhuman kind of light--
“Oh,” Flins says. “People never really realise how much such a thing is worth.”
For the first two days, he will only let you leave your bed in order to keep yourself hygienic. In a way you think is terribly quaint and rather sweet, he primly calls them ‘ablutions’, and he stands outside of the small room built onto the lighthouse on the ground floor whilst you do them. He brings you some more chemises that can be shrugged on and off without hurting your shoulder – your face burns at the thought that he had bought them, asked for them, perhaps had to show a stall-owner your old clothes in order to get the size correct . . . but you are grateful, at least, that you don’t have to keep wearing the same thing. Your chemise had mostly survived unscathed, but there’s a splattering of blood on it, and the reminder of how the axe had felt slicing into your skin can only be relived so many times.
The ladders that lead from one level of the lighthouse prove tricky, but with practise you get quite good at navigating them with only one hand.
It is queer, though, that you never see another bed.
You don’t bring it up to Flins, because you don’t want to make him think you are being ungrateful. You try and rationalise the strange quirk to yourself as much as you can – wondering if he sleeps at the very top of the lighthouse where you have no need to go, if perhaps he sleeps in another one of the small, dilapidated buildings that dot the island, if he prefers to sleep outside amongst the stars . . . but you can never think of a satisfying solution.
At any rate, he doesn’t seem to suffer from poor sleep. Though his eyes have shadows beneath them, whenever you have seen Lightkeepers passing through the village they have had the same haunted expression – they must see terrible things. His voice never sounds scratchy or tired. He is always bringing you exquisitely prepared meals with polite smiles – and he never misses an opprtunity to sit with you and talk.
He tells you all kinds of things.
You have heard fairy stories, of course, and you had a collection of books . . . but the way that Flins tells stories is of an entirely different calibre than even the most beautiful books that you’ve ever lost yourself in. He seems to know so much, and he never runs out of them – and all of them are told in that low, lovely voice, calm and serene and polite.
He tells you about stories that the Lightkeepers have passed from Ratnik to Ratnik as if he were there, a sorrowful cast coming over his eyes when he speaks of the losses that have plagued the organisation over the years. He describes battles carefully, leaving out the bloodiest details, but always with an edge that reminds you that battlefields are places of horror. He talks, too, of nicer things – tells you folk tales and myths and legends from the time of the Fae, when Snezhnaya was a glittering luxurious whirl of parties and hedonism, when the Belyi Tsar ruled over the lands.
“Oh, but listen to me go on,” he says one night, when you have finished the soup he has brought you and you have been listening with rapt attention to the story of the Tsar and the King of Summer Oak. “You must get so terribly bored of hearing me prattle. These are all ancient stories.”
“No,” you’re quick to blurt out, and then you feel your face grow hot at just how quickly you’d argued. “I could listen to your stories forever, Sir Flins. You . . . Sometimes it feels as though you were there, and when you tell me about them I feel as though I’m there with you.”
He gives you a smile that feels wistful, leaning forward to take your tray from your lap and rest it on a bureau.
“Your arm is healing,” he says. “Better than I could have hoped. It doesn’t seem as though you’ll have any lingering issues from the abyss.”
You swallow. You understand what he’s saying; soon, he will have to find a way for you to leave his lighthouse and he will return to his solitary existence.
“I hope I haven’t been too much trouble,” you whisper to him, looking down at the bedclothes. There’s a lump in your throat that you hate yourself for, and you will yourself not to cry. You always knew that this day would come; Flins cannot keep you here forever. He has a life. Just because you have imploded yours, just because you had went off into ther wilderness with no thoughts of plans as to what you would do when you escaped beyond the concept of escape . . . he has been kind to you.
Flins’ brow creases once again, and your breath catches as he leans in and he catches your chin in his hand, tilting your face towards his.
“You’ve been no such thing,” he says to you, softly. Your heart feels like it beats faster in your chest. “It’s my duty to take care of people like you.”
Ah. Of course. Duty. You’d thought, for one stupid, foolish second, that the man was about to kiss you. Flins runs his thumb over the apple of your cheek, and a strange, secret smile alights upon his lips.
“Did you mean what you said?” He asks you. “About listening to my stories forever?”
He doesn’t seem the kind of man to be insecure about his storytelling skills – he carries himself with a quiet confidence that you envy terribly. Nobody would ever have bullied a man like this into becoming an unpaid skivvy, like your brother had somehow bullied you into. So why would he ask? Does he just want to hear you compliment him?
Well. He’s already seen you at your most pathetic. There seems to be no point in trying to save any kind of face.
“I could,” you say to him, with a small smile. “Sometimes I feel like I could stay here forever.”
You expect him to respond with a chuckle, a shake of his head, a warning that you ought not get too comfortable or perhaps even an estimate of how much longer he might let you stay with him, avoiding any and all responsibilities that might be out there in the world. Any consequences for what you’ve done.
Instead, though, he tilts his head in a way that seems almost considering.
“You can call me Kyryll,” he says, instead. “Flins is the name I mostly go by nowadays, but . . . I think I would prefer to hear you use something different.”
With that mystifying pronouncement, Flins lifts the tray up from the bureau and disappears down the ladder.
But . . . the question remains, tugging at your heartstrings, haunting your dreams and making you lie awake and stare up at Flins’ ceiling at night.
When is he going to make you leave?
It’s two nights later, when you can’t sleep, that you decide you will explore the lighthouse a little more. Up until now, you have only ever been out of the level you sleep in either with Flins with you – to sit in the kitchen once, and drink a hot cocoa he had made (he had not made himself one, though you have long since grown used to the fact you never see him eat and you have only ever seen him drink a glass or two of wine) – or to use the facilities, that are downstairs in order to be more easily plumbable.
It’s been some hours since Flins had left, locking the door behind him as he has been doing whenever he has gone out on duties. He has reassured you that there is nothing on the island itself that would hurt you, and given you another of those small, inscrutable smiles when you had reassured him that you were not afraid of ghosts – but he worries, he says, about mortal man instead of the spirits. He worries what might happen to you when he is gone, and it feels far safer to mitigate any risk.
You start on the bottom floor, poking around with some interest. Flins may be free with his stories, and may make you feel as though you are indeed there with him – but he never speaks of the recent past. You do not know anything about his family, or what drew him to become a Lightkeeper; and you are merely curious what clues you can find to your enigmatic host whilst he is gone.
You know that you are being nosy; you feel bad that Flins may yet come home to find you snooping . . . but he fascinates you so utterly! You wish to know his secrets!
He has learnt more about you in the past few days – you’ve told him the truth about why you had run, and he had laid his gloved hand atop of yours and looked at you with those piercing yellow eyes and assured you that you were worth far more than you realised, and that the life you fear is waiting for you when you go back will not come to fruition. You have told him stories about your childhood, little things that have floated across your mind when the two of you have been chatting. But he remains . . . frustratingly tight-lipped.
Oh, you don’t think it’s on purpose – but somehow, whenever you ask a question, he answers it without really answering it. You’re halfway through another subject before you realise that he never told you if he had any pets as a child and somehow now he knows that your family had gone through three dogs and a cat. He twists his answers, tying them into bows and knots, and they always seem to come back to you and him finding out more about you.
And sometimes--
Sometimes you tell him things you do not mean to, you have realised. Sometimes he asks you a question, your name falling from his lips at the end like it is a sugar-coated question mark, and you are replying to it with a frankness that frightens you. Like something is compelling you to answer him and tell him nothing but the truth, even when you would prefer to keep some of your own secrets.
So he knows, then, that you had accepted your death back there with the Wild Hunt. That you had in fact, almost welcomed it (he had looked sad at this confession, a soft sigh falling from his mouth, a whispered apology that you would feel like that). He knows that you resent your brother so much you had once thought of slitting his throat in his sleep, though you would never go through with such a thing. He even knows that you think he is handsome, and that you have never had a serious relationship because nobody in your village has ever interested you--
He had laughed at the confession that you found him handsome, and then looked at you with those yellow eyes almost playful and reassured you that he found you, in turn, just as pleasing to the eye. It had not seemed, though, that such a thing had tumbled unbidden from his mouth – his words had seemed perfectly thought through.
So, then, you tell yourself, if Flins knows some of your secrets . . . don’t you deserve to at least know a little more about him?
The kitchen and bathroom do not provide you any intelligence about Flins.
You do find it odd that there appears, beyond the rations that Flins had mentioned to you, no other food in the lighthouse other than those that he has been using to prepare your meals. This puts an end to your theory that perhaps he eats something else, because he doesn’t like the food he makes you. The quantities, from what you can see, all seem to point to you being the only person who is eating anything. The silverware drying by the sink, too, is only that which you have used, beyond the cups you have occasionally seen Flins drink wine from.
It throws up more questions than answers, and you have to force yoursef to stop ruminating on it in order to be able to move on to your next stop on the snooping tour.
The second foor of the lighthouse is the floor in which you have been sleeping, so you bypass that one – in the time you have spent with Flins, you have grown rather too intimately familiar with it. You know that there are no secrets to be found here. There are a few spare Lightkeeper uniforms in the armoire, another pair of boots, a few very old books in a bookshelf . . . but other than that, the room he has made you guest in does not bare open much of Flins’ personality to you.
So you ascend the ladder again, higher up into the belly of the beast.
You have been using an old lantern to light your way – not one of the ones the Lightkeepers have, but something of rusted iron that had taken you far too long to figure out how to light. Your shoulder remains unhealed, though you can at least use your hands a little now – holding the heavy lantern, though, had proven a step too far. Consequently, you have to put it onto the floor with your good hand, groping sightlessly onto the next level, and then hoist yourself up after it – and there is something that’s rather . . . unsettling about the way the shadows dance on the wall in the next room.
This one is undoubtedly Flins’ domain, and you give your eyes a moment or two to adjust and to second-guess what you might be seeing.
This is no second bedroom.
The simple, kind thing to call it would be a ‘study’. There are more books lining the walls, after all – but taking up most of the space is a grand desk-come-worktable, covered all over with the projects Flins is working on. You see that there are many glistening jewels and coins and other such shiny trinkets covering the desk and taking their place on the shelves, but that is hardly a concern.
What is a concern, though, is the unmistakable objects that are scattered all over Flins’ desk, in a disarray that seems at odds with the man’s practical mind. They gleam, too, but in a very different way – the gleam of these objects almost feels like a warning, that you ought to descend back down the stairs and forget that you ever saw what he was doing up here.
Because covering Flins’ worktable is a veritable mountain of bones.
You’re glad you hadn’t yet picked up the lantern from the floor, because your hand flies to your mouth to stifle your gasp. Some of them are obviously animal, or perhaps even monster – but some of them have a certain angle to them, a certain colour and size that makes your blood run cold and fear nestle heavy in your gut that they are, in fact, human.
You should go back down to your own level and tuck yourself up in your bed (‘your’ bed) and pretend you have not seen anything. You should try and forget that this is above you, and smile at Flins and ask him questions and act as nothing has changed, whilst trying to leave as soon as you can lest you become one of that mountain of bones yourself.
But something inside of you – a curiousity that you can’t quell – drives you onwards. You know you are being foolish even as your feet move across the wooden floor of the lighthouse, closer and closer to Flins’ desk. This is how hapless mortals die, in the folktales and stories that Flins has been telling you (now, when you think of them, they seem almost like a warning).
But there is something to be said for the lure of knowledge, and before you know it you stand before them. You reach out, your fingers brushing against both smooth and pitted bones, both small and large. You have never seen a skeleton in real life – the closest you have come is the bones in some of the meat that you used to prepare for your brother and you to have for meals. But you know these to be more than simple rabbits or chickens.
Your hand grasps the thick pole of one of the bones, as you try desperately not to think of what it used to be.
Next to the pile of bones is another construct; this one, meticulous and careful. Besides this one is a scalpel, and other tools you have only ever before seen woodcutters use. This is a collection of bones, you realise, that has been carefully reorganised and reshaped to bear the likeness of a rabbit. Something that may once have been the fang of a great beast, carefully carved into a curling ear – a small bone like a kneecap reshaped into the rabbit’s face, it’s twitching nose. You ought to be in awe of the craftsmanship, but all you feel is a kind of crawling horror that this is the medium in which Flins has chosen to work.
And as you move to put the bone you are holding back down, the mountain of unsorted pieces falls to one side, revealing what is undoubtedly a human skull.
Your hand does not fly to your mouth in time to muffle the muted scream that falls from your lips as you stumble backwards away from it.
And into something cool and solid.
Flins’ voice comes against your ear, calm and cultured, polite to the end.
“Ah,” he says. “I see you’ve stumbled upon my little divertissement.”
You whirl back to face him, your eyes wild and open. Your mouth opens and closes as you desperately try to think of something. He’s a Lightkeeper, for Archon’s sake! He’s supposed to protect! But here, in this workroom, it seems as though he’s doing the very opposite of that. You don’t know what to say, but what comes out of your mouth is this:
“Please don’t hurt me.”
Flins tilts his head to one side curiously.
“Didn’t you tell me, only a few days ago, that you’d accepted your own death? That you almost thought it would be easier?”
You curse yourself for the unnatural openness that you’ve shown to the man before you, your lip trembling as your eyes stay locked to his own. But then, Flins gives you a slow, small smile.
“Ah. Apologies. I’ve frightened you.” (That seems like an understatement, all things considered, but you do not think you are currently in a position to say anything about it). “I have no intention of hurting you. You can trust my integrity as a Lightkeeper on that.”
Your eyes flicker to the carved bone rabbit, and you can’t quite hold back all of your fear.
“A Lightkeeper protects!” You protest. “These-- whoever these belong to weren’t protected--”
A furrow of his brow.
“Do you see a full skeleton upon my table?” He asks. “Do you know how many bones the average mortal carries around in their frame? I assure you that these bones came to me in bits and pieces, through entirely ordinary means. One comes across all kinds of things when their patrol takes them across almost the whole of Nod-Krai.”
You let out a slow breath. This makes sense. But--
“Wh-why would you pick them up?” You ask. “Why would you want to be surrounded by all of this . . .” You helplessly gesture to everything around you. “All of this death?”
This gets a little laugh out of him, a noise that makes a hot flush rise into your cheeks. His laugh is as low and courtly as his voice.
“That seems like a loaded question to ask somebody who makes their home in an isle that doubles as a graveyard,” he says, and you pull in a rattling breath. Your heart is starting to calm somewhat, now. Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for all of this.
“I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t . . . carve wood, or something,” you say, your voice a little helpless this time. Flins gives you a small smile and bows slightly to you, proffering his hand towards you to be taken. A little nervously, you allow yourself to place your finger into his palm, and he draws you closer to the worktable and to the carefully arranged rabbit sculpture.
“I think you understand things more if you handle them,” he says. “Whilst carving mortal bones into something else – the power of transformation – you come to a kind of comprehension that would otherwise evade you.” He gazes at the rabbit with what you realise is fondness. “I carved this and thought of you.”
You’re taken aback.
“Of me?”
That strange, secret smile alights on his lips again. His eyes caress the lines and the curves of the rabbit, flickering only momentarily to you as if he is comparing the two of you. You realise, with a strange start, that his eyes almost seem to be glowing in the shadows that the lantern is still throwing over the room. Your shadow is as it has ever been – but Flins’ . . . Flins’ shadow almost seems to waver and wobble on the wall, like he is keeping hold of a form that he isn’t meant to be in.
You are so far away from anything else, here in the Final Night Cemetery. Nobody knows you are here but Flins himself. You’re so terribly vulnerable, along and injured and relying on the Lightkeeper for absolutely everything--
“Mortals are delicate things,” he says. “So prone to death. So prone to injury. And yet – beautiful. Rabbits are like that, too – but despite everything stacked against them, despite the knowledge that they are soft and easy to hurt and prey for forces they don’t understand. . . they persevere. Like you.”
And he keeps using the word ‘mortal’, as if it is not a word he would ascribe to himself.
The lack of food, the lack of sleep, the strange glow in his eyes and the antiquated way of talking and all of the stories he tells you as if he was really there.
Your hand is still within his, your palms still pressed together, and not for the first time you think about how he is always so very cold.
“What are you?” You whisper to him, and Flins smiles enigmatically at you again. You pull your hand out of his, fear hot and sour in your throat. You’ll go no matter what, you think. You’ll fight and you’ll claw and you’ll swim, injured or not, to get away from this not-a-man.
And as you back away from him, Flins murmurs your name in that same soft, cool tone that he always uses.
“Stay.”
And your feet are suddenly rooted to the ground. This is different from the suggestion wrapping around you that you share with him the truth when asked; this is some magic you cannot fully understand, bearing down upon you fully. This is something vicious and deep, fighting against what you want.
“Do you remember what I told you about the Belyi Tsar?” He asks you, not yet crossing the room. “About how the Snowland Fae used to be so important, so venerated? So magical?”
Oh.
Oh.
All of the stories that you’ve heard come crashing into you again. Do not give a fae your true name; do not accept their hospitality, do not owe them a favour, do not eat faerie food . . . All rules you have broken, again and again and again. All things that Flins can use to do whatever he wants to you. You feel your legs begin to tremble.
Flins’ steps towards you are slow and considering, like he is indeed approaching a rabbit – an animal he doesn’t want to spook lest they run into the forest never to be seen again. You wish that were the case here. Even if you wanted to, his magic is ensuring that you cannot run and hide from him.
Do you want to? Is it the worst thing he could be? When he could have revealed himself as some kind of abyssal monster, some murderer or such?
(Fae are not without blood on their hands, though; you know the stories. You know the whispers. But why, then, would be don the garb of a Lightkeeper and actually bother to save poor unfortunates such as yourself?)
Flins seems to sense the way that your mind churns. He comes to a stop before you, so you have to tilt your face up to look at him.
“Don’t fret,” he whispers, and gives you a smile that lights his face – and now, he lets it. Now, he does not hold it back into something mortal. Now, his eyes seem to flame from inside and there is something just slightly inhuman about the way his face moves, almost too beautiful to be looked at full-on. You wonder how you could ever have been fooled by him. “You may remember something else from the stories. You may remember that the fae can only twist, can only set riddles and puzzles – you may remember that we cannot lie.”
He leans down, his face coming close to yours. Your heart pounds in your ears.
It’s hard not to think of how he has taken care of you. How he has saved you. How he could have left you for dead, but he brought you back here and understood your plight and brought you food and stories and treated you like something precious and important. It is because of that, you tell yourself, that your gaze fixates on his lips and the feel of his cool palm, as he cups your cheek with his hand.
“So perhaps it may comfort you to know,” he continues, “that I have absolutely no intention of hurting you.”
And his lips brush against your own, cool and smooth and soft.
The first command he gives you, now that you know exactly what it is he is doing when he says your name, is simply to stay in the lighthouse. You imagine it like some shimmering spectral chain wrapped around your ankle; once, when he has gone for the evening to complete his patrol, you go to the front door and rattle it helplessly in the doorframe. He has locked it, of course – but even just by the door, it is as if the magic that binds you can sense your intention, and you feel a strange sense of mooring to the spot. Your stomach feels empty, your head swims – and none of those feelings abate until you give up, and go sit at the table in the kitchen to glare at the offending entryway.
“Where would you go?” Flins asks you, when he comes back in the lilac dawn light to find you, mutinous, sitting there. “You have already said you’re alone in the world; where would you go, if you found yourself out there?”
It’s a question you have asked yourself, but somehow from Flins’ mouth it seems all the worse. You press your lips together and try to fight the traitorous hot tears that you can feel springing into your eyes. Your fists clench. Flins must see the way that you react, because he comes towards you again, taking a seat beside you at the table, those elegant gloved hands once more coming to cup your face.
“Oh,” he breathes. “Don’t cry. You are not alone in the world any longer, dear one. Not now that you have me. You ought to know that you have carved out a space in my heart, don’t you?”
“You barely know me,” you breathe out to him in response, your voice cracking. Flins tilts his head and smiles, leaning in to you. His cool lips brush against your forehead now, your cheeks.
“I know what you look like when you bleed and what you sound like when you cry. I know the way your eyes sparkle when you listen and how your heart calls out for someone to understand it. I know . . .” And here, a faint flush crawls over the tip of his ears. “I know the feel of your heartbeat. What else need I learn? When I have so long with you to look forward to?”
“You haven’t-- you can’t--”
Sometimes, when he speaks like that, you are reminded that he is a being something more than mortal. The words don’t make sense – he doesn’t know your history, not really, or your family or the way you get angry when someone stands over you whilst cooking . . . But if you were to try and say that, you don’t think he would understand. He is of a higher being than that – and though you think such things are important when in a relationship, you’re sure he would dismiss them as mortal foolishness.
You can’t call this a relationship by any ordinary means.
“But you could tell me,” Flins breathes, pulling back. His eyes are yellow as a wolf’s, his smile almost too perfect, with a few too many teeth. A creature playing at being human. He corrects himself. “I could make you tell me.”
You shiver, sitting there beside him, at all of the sharp edges hidden in his syllables. There is so much he could make you do, with nothing more than the whisper of your name. It’s hard to forget just how much power he holds over you.
“Will you?” You ask him, wetting your lips. “Will it feel the same, knowing that you had to force me to spit it out? Do your kind care?”
A brief twitch of his lips, as if he is amused you are fighting back. The rabbit, again – versus the hunter, versus the faerie, versus the all-knowing.
“Most would not,” he says. “But I have been playing at being mortal for too long. It will be all the sweeter for me knowing you told me yourself.” He strokes his thumb over the apple of your cheek. “But . . . until then, I still wish to take my pleasure from the one I love.” Your back goes cold, and Flins clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “No, no – please don’t misunderstand my desire as intention to force you, dearest. For now . . .”
He takes his hand away from your cheek, and you sit there in terrified silence, waiting to see what he will do. You watch as he peels his gloves off, to reveal his bare hands and fingers – long and pale, elegant. Somehow, this feels just as intimate as any other touch would, when he takes your face between his palms and pulls you in and kisses you, deep and wanting.
You want to fight him off. You want to bite him, when his tongue brushes against the seam of your lips. You want to be able to say, when you open your mouth and sigh, that it is because he has told you that you must.
But that would be a lie.
When Flins kisses you, your mind goes blank of everything but his chivalry, his devotion, his handsome face and his lilting voice and the fact that he has shared with you something he has not been able to share with another soul for centuries. You forget that he is keeping you here by force. You forget about the enchantments that he dangles over your head.
For just that moment, and just that kiss, you think you might love him back – and when Flins pulls back and smiles at you, you realise that he could tell.
“I need to go to sleep,” you blurt out, though you have done nothing but sit stewing at this table since you got out of bed in the evening when he left (your schedule, you notice, has started to adhere more to his than to any you might once have kept). Flins’ eyes do not leave your face.
“Sleep well, beloved one,” he says, inclining his head. “It has been some time since I took refuge in a warm bed, myself. But . . . I do not think it will be much longer.”
The words should feel ominous – it was only a short while ago, after all, you thought he was making a threat on your virtue. But instead, they make a heat run through your veins that you can barely stand. It rushes into your cheeks, your skin hot to the touch, and you turn away from him before he can see what effect he is having on you.
It’s foolish, of course.
He knows.
You are starting to feel as though it is not possible to keep secrets from him.
Of course, when you get up to the level which is yours and you sequester yourself in bed, you cannot sleep. You toss and turn and think about the mess you have found yourself in, trying to keep your mind from thoughts of your captor. But thinking of anything else is worse – thinking of the life you have left behind, of the life that could have been, of all of the dreams you had once harboured . . . You stare helplessly at the ceiling and recall how it had been before you had discovered his secret.
It means you are awake when Flins ascends the ladder.
“Kyryll?” You ask. You have been using the name he gave you since he asked you to; you had briefly thought about returning to ‘Sir Flins’ when he had made it clear you were his prisoner, but you had not found yourself able to after you had used it once and he had outright flinched to hear it fall from your lips. He had not used his enchantments to command, but . . . something about the hurt that had flickered across his expression had made sympathy pang inside of you. You could not bring yourself to do it again.
“You’re still awake?” He asks, and you hear his footsteps come closer to the bed. You sit up, letting the coverlets gather over your lap instead. You’ve long grown used to being bare shouldered around him; he has seen to your wounds, after all. It is mostly healed over, now. You do not think you will need to wear the bandages for much longer, though there will be a scar there forever to remind you of the mistakes you made to lead you to the Final Night Cemetery. “You’re not dreaming?”
“Were you going to play with your bones?” There’s a sharp edge to your word that, if Flins were like the cruel captor fae of legend, you’re sure you would be punished for. Instead, he breathes out slowly and evenly.
“Perhaps,” he says. “Perhaps I just wanted to check on you. Perhaps I have watched you sleep every night since I brought you here, just to be sure you are sleeping soundly and undisturbed.”
The thought makes you shiver at the same time as it makes you feel . . . strangely safe. It has been so long since anybody has truly cared about your wellbeing; your mind bitterly cannot help but wonder if your brother has even reported you missing to anybody. Though Nod-Krai does not have formal laws, he could still probably get the Voynich Guild or some passing adventurer to search for you . . .
If he was willing to part with the Mora, of course.
“Does anybody know I’m here?” You ask, trying to ignore the warm tug of tenderness in your heart for the idea your captor may stand watch over you at night. “Do you know if anybody has asked about me?”
You think you see a flash of pity cross his eyes.
“There have been no reports of anyone missing matching your description,” he says. “Ratniki are often told of such cases. Too often, those missing have fallen afoul of the Wild Hunt. And I . . . I would rather keep you to myself than let anybody know what a treasure I have found. It is not unusual for those of my employ to be solitary in nature.”
Your brother was not willing to part with Mora, then. It should not surprise you as much as it does. The inside of your mouth turns to ash. For all he had said about needing you there, to cook and to clean and to do all of the things he promised he could never do alone . . . it had just been a way to keep you tied to him, hadn’t it? You have escaped one cage and gone into another.
At least in the cage Flins keeps you in, you are valued. You have gone from prisoner in jail cell to pretty bird in an iron cage, a pet to be adored and cherished and taken care of.
Flins has said your name. He’s settling on the edge of the bed now, his yellow eyes seeking out your face. You don’t realise that frustrated tears have spilt from your eyes until they wet your cheeks and clump your lashes.
“They did not deserve you,” he says, voice urgent. “They did not see the value of you; your beauty, your strength, your worth. Not as I do.”
“Do you think me beautiful, then?” You ask. You try to make it barbed; but it comes out, as such a question is always likely to do, as almost pathetic. Hopeful. Flins swallows, and for the first time you see a touch of nervousness touch his composure, flickering at his edges.
“. . . More than you realise.” He says, wistful. “I think it must have been fate, the Wild Hunt delivering you to me like this. Knowing that I would see the worth of such a precious gem where others have not.”
You think of his shelves, and the precious gems and coins he has hoarded like a magpie. They say that the fae have a fondness for pretty things; you imagine him collecting them and polishing them, thinking of their lives and their stories as he holds them. You are a gem, too. Flins’ collection made flesh. The thought should chill you – you hate that, instead, it makes something that feels like pleasure prick up your spine.
“Thank you,” you say to him, and mean it.
“You were undervalued,” he says, in that way he has that is both intense and calm, a perfectly smooth galleon cutting through a rough and stormy sea. “I am lucky that it was I who saw it. I was lucky that I stumbled upon you in time. But . . . fate has a way of working these things out for us, I find. Fate has a way of rewarding those who are willing to play with her.”
You don’t understand his meaning. He must see how your brow pinches, your face scrunches, because he gives you a smile. His hand brushes over your cheek – and then, with only a small amount of hesitation, further down and over your neck, your shoulder, your bare arm. The cool touch of his flesh makes you shiver, and it is not entirely unpleasant.
“I have spent more time than I care to admit in the service of justice and protection,” he says. “Perhaps she has seen fit to send me a reward.”
“I am not some spoils to be won,” you say, your voice dry. Flins’ smile, enigmatic, lighted as if his lantern burns within him and not simply upon the end of his hand, echoes through your mind for the rest of the night.
“I would not dream of it,” he replies. “You are something far more precious than that. You will be protected too, dearest one. You will be protected most resolutely of all.”
He could make your life difficult. He could make you hold his hand; use his command and his power to make sure that you followed every order he gave. He could demand you kiss him, that you open your heart and your bed to him. He could tell you to hold a knife against your throat and you would be forced to comply.
But he does not.
It does not seem right, to use the word ‘chivalrous’ to describe the inhuman creature that holds you hostage in solitude on an island full of bones. But that is what he is. He avoids commands whenever possible – the only things he ever uses your name to force your obedience are either for your own good (an order to stop scratching, when the healing scars of your arm have felt like they are filled with burning hot ants crawling over them), or in order to maintain his hold upon you.
Flins has a visitor, some three weeks into your tenure as his captive – another Lightkeeper who calls himself Illuga, who Flins later tells you is the son of the current Starshyna. When he knocks on the lighthouse’s door, dropping by unnanounced, Flins’ voice is urgent as he tells you to only respond with niceties and to not tell the truth about why you are, that you ran away and that he is holding you captive. He gets it all out in a rush, but you understand – the fae are known for being tricksy themselves, and he is trying to cover his bases.
You oblige. You smile sweetly at the younger Ratnik and answer questions with a blandness that Flins clearly finds pleasing. You do not even shudder when Flins calls you his beloved, and asks Illuga not to spread gossip about him. Lightkeepers value their privacy, Illuga assures him, and he gives you a smile and sounds quite pleased when he tells you he has glad Flins has found somebody to share this lonely life with.
(You wish your heart didn’t jump at this; you wish that you didn’t think about how much easier it would be to give in to what Flins wants from you).
After he is gone, Flins brings you out a treat; a sugar sculpture he bought in Nasha Town, made carefully and beautifully in the shape of a rabbit.
“It’s beautiful,” you say, and – because you have not yet learnt, even after everything, you thank him. This time, though, as the words leave your mouth . . . you feel something shift within you, like cogs and gears moving in a lock and locking something in your heart in place. You look up in wild alarm at Flins, to see that his expression has gone terribly soft and loving again.
“Every time you do that,” he says, laying a hand atop of yours on the table (he has started forgoing his gloves, now, and the shock of his cool skin never fails to make you shiver), “it strengthens our connection. The enchantment that binds us to one another. You felt it that time, didn’t you?”
You swallow, your eyes darting away from Flins’ face. There is something unsettling about openness when it makes a home in Flins’ eyes – knowing what he is, you cannot help but feel that it should not come naturally to him. It makes you wonder what trickery brews beneath the surface.
“Yes,” you admit, the word coming out bitter. Flins chuckles and shakes his head.
“You have nothing to be afraid of,” he tells you. “I will not hurt you. You know this to be true.”
“There are things worse than hurt,” you whisper, and Flins tilts his head again, like this is a human concept he is still yet to understand. “There are things that . . . mortals need and crave, that you have taken from me.”
“You have shelter and food and protection,” he says. “What else do you need? You have . . . affection, when you are willing to accept it.”
You should not have expected him to understand. You try to ignore the voice in your head that whispers that you should accept the affection; that you should embrace the life he has proffered to you, simple and easy and safe. What other mortal in the world could call themselves beloved of a fae, beloved of something that has lived for centuries and will live for centuries more, and yet still finds them fascinating enough to tether themselves to?
(You have suspicions, about Flins and his lantern, about legends of protection that he has told you in the past. You do not think he is any ordinary fae).
“Freedom,” you say to him, lifting your head to meet his yellow gaze head-on. He looks at you with an adoration that is sharp at the edges; an adoration that says he will love you and venerate you, but you will have to fit into the box that he has designated. You will have to be what he wants you to be. “I ran away from home because I did not wish to be forced into a life I did not choose for myself. What is different about my life here?”
He does not break the eye contact. Looking into Flins’ eyes, it feels like you are seeing the centuries he has lived through; you think of the stories he has told you. Looking into his gaze, you feel as though you are in ballrooms swirling with people, on battlefields full of raging swords and screams with blood soaking into the ground, far asleep beneath the ground in a slumber that you think you will never wake from.
“Here,” he says, “you are safe. You are adored. You are mine.”
“Does it not upset you to know that I would leave if I could?” Your voice comes out dry and quiet and afraid. “Do you really wish to keep me here against my will, if you adore me?”
“I am not upset,” Flins replies. “Such a thing is not in my nature. If I were mortal, perhaps I would let you go. But I am not. If I were mortal, perhaps I would tell you I am doing this for your own good. But I am not. It is foolish to hold me to those ideals, beloved. I adore you. I love you. And I have you. And . . . because I have you, because you are mine, because the enchantment ties our souls together – I have absolutely no intention of letting you go.”
“Kyryll,” you repeat, voice broken, staring at him, as the waves of finality crash all around you. It does not matter what you say. He has made up his mind.
A Lightkeeper is a stubborn creature, you have always been told. They live away from society; they give themselves to their work. They are strange and not particularly social, with ways that can seem antiquated.
The stories say, too, that a fae is a stubborn creature. They do not easily give up their prize.
You have the misfortune, then, of stumbling across both.
You will never be free.
You do not think you will ever be happy here; not with the call of what could have been. Just because you are away from the life you had run from does not mean you have stumbled into a life you would have chosen. Flins, for all of his good manners and his handsome face and his courtly grace, is no replacement for your own adventure.
But he is handsome. And you think, insofar as he understands it, he does care for you. You do not think a fae truly understands what love is – but you think Flins must think he does feel such a way for you. You pull your hand back from his, clenching your fists, your nails worrying crescent moons into your palms.
One moment to feel the pain and the reality and the truth.
“Will you do something for me, Kyryll?” You ask him, your voice tremulous. Flins looks at you, and you feel his greed and his want and what he must think is his love. Perhaps it is. Who is to say what love is, for a creature like him?
“Almost anything that is within my power, dearest.”
You swallow. You will not allow yourself to look away from him; you will not allow yourself to choose the coward’s way out at the last moment. If you are making this choice, you will stand firm in the fact that you chose it.
“Use my name,” you say to him. “Tell me to love you.”
You grow flowers in boxes on the thick sills of the lighthouse, in carefully chosen arrays. They ought not to flourish in the Final Night Cemetery the way that they do, but whenever it seems a bulb is going to falter and die, you ask Kyryll to take a look at it and it springs back to life within a few evenings. Their scent fills the air, and it makes you smile to see them there.
You bake at the oven in the downstairs kitchen; krumkakes and sweets that Kyryll never partakes of, but always takes a great inhale of and assures you of their deliciousness. You ply him with them when he goes out on his Lightkeeper patrol, and tell him to share with anyone he saves. Sometimes he gives them to other Lightkeepers, when he comes across them, and he tells you they gently tease him about his little homemaker.
You dust the lighthouse to keep it nice; you bother Kyryll until he brings you trinkets and other things to light up the dull interior. There is a tablecloth of red gingham over the kitchen table now, and a vase of flowers cut from the window boxes. You sweep and hum, mend Kyryll’s clothing for him when it gets ripped (despite his laughter and insistence that you need not do any such thing. You tell him that you like looking after him, and a look that almost seems like sadness flits across his face).
Sometimes, when you are looking after the home that you and Kyryll share, you get a strange hollow feeling in your chest. When you are rearranging files and clicking your tongue because he’s left his worktable in a muddle, a flash goes through you, a whisper that you have been trapped in a role that you never wanted to play. You ignore it. Everybody has such feelings, you tell yourself: and you are lucky.
You are in love. You are loved in return.
You curl up beside Kyryll in the bed, his hand brushing through your hair with the utmost gentleness as he tells you stories about his time in the courts of the Belyi Tsar, about the things he has seen. Whenever he tells you of something beautiful, he always takes a moment to pause and tell you; “But that beauty could not hold a candle to your own, beloved”.
You kiss him soft and slow and tender, and he gives back the same. His hands on you are like he is handling a precious artifact. He treats you like glass, and he plays you like a violin, hands caressing curves and plucking strings until music flows forth from you and he curls his body about yours.
Sometimes you stroke his shoulderblades, the spot where his wings would be, and he shivers in pleasure and arches like a cat. He promises one day he will show you his full, true form.
And sometimes . . .
Sometimes, in bed, when you are both panting beside each other and you are slipping into a pleasured doze, you look up to see your beloved Kyryll awake. He looks down at you with that yellow-fire gaze as if he would raze cities to the ground if they threatened your safety. As if he would do anything in the world to preserve this moment, to keep you here, to make sure that the two of you will never be parted.
And when you think that, when the thought slips into your mind before you lose yourself to the haze of unconsciousness--
A scar that slices across your shoulder – one you don’t remember getting – suddenly seems to ache.
flins thoughts for the brain.... (tw; pseudocest, MASSIVE age gap, sick things — do be guided that this is a dark content blog!)
oh, to be flins’ fae apprentice that he so sweetly picked up from the snow at a young age and took in under his wing... perhaps you were abandoned for being a runt or for other such reasons, but that aside, he takes you in anyway—for he is a lightkeeper, is he not? what are lightkeepers for but to guide and light the way for those who need it? and he’s decided the day he took you in and learnt you were too young and weak to even glamour some magic over yourself and hide your fae features, that you’d be his ward; his to guide, his to raise, his to lull some magic over when the warmth of nod-krai prods at a snowland fae too wrongly.
and, oh... the wrongness he’d feel when you mature into years where growth is most prominent for fae. you’re at your first hundred years (practically a fledgling compared to his lifetime) and he’s... well into his thousands—and if that wasn’t enough to deter his want for you, you consider him a father! to be fair, he did take you in to be both ward and apprentice... he blames it on the grief or loneliness that comes with having lost many comrades over the years for being the reason as to why this odd desire festers in the first place. guiltily does it thrive whenever you call him sir or master, whenever you lean against him hoping he'll provide some icy air to your skin, and whenever you trot after him and naively promise you’ll spend your eternity with his.
(for how can you not? he is the old fae who so generously took you in and raised you, taught you all about mortal and immortal society, and keeps you chilled when the warmth of the lighthouse and nod-krai proves to be too much for a young, snowland fae such as yourself. oh, and you just know he spoils you rotten too...)
ah... how it digs at him that he cannot claim you the way he wishes to. it wouldn’t be proper of him to claim his ward as his mate—no, the only thing it’d make proper is a proper bastard out of him, he thinks.
but... if you were ever to have your first heat season in your hundred years... of course, he’d help you—he can’t just leave you alone to cry and wail unsatisfied and in pain—! no, no, it’d burden his fond heart too much. after all, his desires aside (it will never be extinguished unfortunately, try as he might), you’re still his ward and apprentice that he swore to take care of in every way :)
WARNINGS: major dark content/dead dove, fem reader/reader has a somewhat unpleasant personality, violent noncon, some mild blood, near-death scare, asphyxiation/choking, very brief allusion to necro, technically ntr, mentions of potential mutilation and past mutilation (none occurs in-story), canon divergence
This is a direct sequel to my earlier fic Verschlimmbessern, but probably significantly darker/more angsty than that one. Eventually I intend to write an actual sequel detailing the direct events after that one, this was meant as more of a side story, but given the developments in the last event I couldn’t not make something for my boy >:)
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Peckhamian : a form of mimicry in which a predatory animal copies the physical appearance of a harmless animal in order to more easily obtain unsuspecting prey.
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“You’re heading out?”
It was, of course, not a question of genuine curiosity. It was rather obvious that that was the case, given that he was putting on shoes, already having slung a bag over his shoulder, and, of course, standing right next to the door. It was, rather, a question to grab attention, create tension, say and ask unspoken but so very obviously implicated things.
And Albedo knew that – you could tell by the way he stiffened, although that may have very well also been due to the tension in your tone itself. “…Yes,” he responded, back still turned to you. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before nighttime.” He craned his neck, head turned towards you, but his gaze was averted just to the side of you, as if not wanting to look you directly in the eye. “If you… would like something new to do, I could maybe bring you some paper…”
You huffed, laying back down in the bed, coldly turning over so you faced away from him and grabbed the pillow, hugging it to your chest. “You say ‘new’ like there’s anything to do here in the first place.”
You could have complained more, but paused. Not that such a thing would produce the results you wanted. It worked with most people, and that was, perhaps, why you continued to try the same tactic, leaving the subject of tension so obvious yet unspoken, waiting for the other to finally get too frustrated and bring it up.
And yet, he proved time and time again to be the exception, a master of avoidance – perhaps a trait inherited from yourself, given your history.
Ways to Show a Character is Jealous but Trying to Act Above It...
(or: “I’m not jealous, I just hate everyone suddenly for no reason.”)
⋆˙⟡ Compliments that sound like they were dragged over glass. “Wow, they’re… really confident.” Translation: they’re annoying and I hope their confidence cracks like cheap porcelain. They say it with a smile, because they’re not jealous, obviously. They’re observing. They’re mature. (They’re absolutely rotting inside.)
⋆˙⟡ That tight-lipped smile. I mean it’s not even a real smile. It’s something they stitch on because they have to look normal. It’s the facial equivalent of “I’m totally fine,” while every muscle screams, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.
⋆˙⟡ “Good for them.” Said like a prayer, or a curse. You can practically hear the unspoken: “Good for them. Hope they choke.”
⋆˙⟡ Eyes betraying everything. They keep looking. They tell themselves they’re not, that they’re done, that they don’t care, but there’s that glance again. And again. Like their eyes haven’t caught up with their pride yet.
⋆˙⟡ Overcompensating like their ego’s on fire. Suddenly they’re the funniest, most magnetic person in the room. Loud, charming, shining too bright, because if they don’t blind everyone, someone might notice they’re bleeding.
⋆˙⟡ Politeness as violence... “Oh my god, hi!” all sugar, all shine, but too sweet and too rehearsed. The kind of politeness that’s less “nice” and more “don’t give me a reason to bite you.”
⋆˙⟡ Casual questions that could double as interrogation. “So… how did you two meet?” Said like they don’t care, like they’re just curious. But really, it’s an autopsy. They’re dissecting history, looking for where they went wrong.
⋆˙⟡ The smile dies the second backs are turned. Gone. Wiped clean.
Like flipping off the “human interaction” switch the moment they’re not watched. (Cue the dead-eyed stare into the void.)
⋆˙⟡ They say they don’t care too many times. (They care so hard it’s physically vibrating out of them.)
⋆˙⟡ They get mean, but subtle. “Oh, that’s so brave of them to wear that.” Or: “They’re really… bold.” Half praise, half venom.
⋆˙⟡ Pretending to be above it all, but taking mental notes anyway.
They say, “I’m happy for them,” while memorizing every detail. The perfume, the shoes, the tone. They’ll replay it later in the dark, not because they care, but because they can’t stop caring.
⋆˙⟡ They walk away before the mask cracks.
The air gets too tight. The noise too loud. So they leave, smiling, graceful, pretending it’s because they’re “tired.” But really, it’s because if they stay one more second, the jealousy will start to show.
