I’m Here, There, Everywhere

So when she said no, when her soft scholar's voice trembled with fear and revulsion, he did what stories do to their readers: He pulled her inside.

The first time she saw him, he didn’t enter so much as arrive.

There was no clatter of boots on the wooden floor, no rattle of the old brass bell that hung from the lintel. One moment, the shop was empty, save for the soft hiss of rain against the windowpanes; the next, he was simply there—standing between shelves stacked with books older than grief, bathed in the amber hush of gaslight.

Y/N had been cataloguing a tattered folio of Breton lullabies, her gloved fingers tracing the curled ink as if the pages might flake away under breath. She was used to strange customers. Eccentric scholars. Cult collectors. The occasional storm-drenched tourist who thought the shop was a café. But this—

This was different.

He was tall, skeletal beneath a tattered, many-buttoned coat stitched from velvet, brocade, and something like moth wings. A silken cravat foamed at his throat. And his face—if it could be called that—was concealed behind a porcelain cat mask. One half smooth and expressionless, like an antique doll. The other side, cracked and grinning wide, bore too many teeth carved in cruel, childlike strokes.

He didn’t speak at first. He simply watched her with the unsettling stillness of a puppet between scenes.

Y/N cleared her throat, spine straightening. “Can I help you?”

His head tilted. A sound—like wind brushing paper—escaped him. “Ah… but you already have, dearest heart.”

His voice was liquid. Not warm—never warm—but smooth, like ink poured over a corpse. The accent was peculiar, too, like someone playing at civility from a place that had never known it.

She didn’t answer immediately. Years in the trade had taught her when to speak and when to simply let silence stretch. The man—thing?—before her was clearly dangerous in the way ancient books were: charming, impossible, and not quite of this world.

“You deal in lost things,” he went on, stepping closer. His boots made no sound. “But not just the forgotten—no, no. You gather the wrong versions. The wicked ones. The stories that bite back.”

Y/N slowly placed the book on the table and closed it. “I collect original forms. Stories before they were sanded down for children.”

“A charming euphemism,” he purred, circling her desk. “You hunger for the unwritten truths. The wild woods. The devouring mother. The lover with teeth. Tell me—how many ways can the Beast be punished before he is loved?”

That made her stiffen. She hadn’t told anyone about that story. A rare variant from an Italian folktale, barely translated. In it, Beauty is trapped not by gentleness, but by the endless performance of gentleness. She falls for him not out of affection, but because the world will not let her leave without guilt.

Pocketcat noticed her reaction. Of course he did.

His voice softened, wrapping around her like silk sheets gone sour. “Ahh. That tale. Your favorite. You saw yourself in her, didn’t you? Not in her love—but in her doubt. Her defiance.”

He was too close now. She took a step back.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice low.

He bowed—fluidly, mockingly. “I am a story that walked too long without a reader. I am the empty space between a child’s scream and the silence after. I am…” He tapped his mask, where the smile met the porcelain cheek. “A collector, like you.”

She didn’t like the way he said it. Like he’d collected things that bled.

“I think you should go,” Y/N said quietly.

A pause. Then:

“I think you don’t mean that,” he whispered. “You’ve been reading me for years. Every time your fingers turned a page, I felt it. Every time you understood—every time you chose the version where love was a trap and kindness was a mask—I saw you. I knew you were the one.”

Y/N’s breath caught.

“I’m not interested in playing house with a haunted mask,” she said, harsher than intended.

He didn’t flinch. If anything, he looked delighted. “Oh, darling. Who said anything about playing?”

And then—just like that—he was gone.

No flicker. No puff of smoke. One blink, and the space where he stood was filled only with dust motes drifting like drowned things in the amber light.

Y/N didn’t sleep that night.

She tried, of course—curled in the tiny apartment above her shop with a cup of tea left to grow cold at her bedside. But something in her head itched, like pages turning behind her eyelids. And somewhere, in the quiet between streetlight flickers and passing cars, she swore she heard a soft meow… and the rustle of a story slipping itself off the shelf.

It began with the books.

Not all of them—just one. The one.

Y/N kept her private collection separate from the shop floor: the rarest, strangest editions locked in a rosewood cabinet behind her desk. She didn’t loan them, didn’t display them. Some stories weren’t for sale. One of them—her favorite, though she’d never admitted that aloud—was a version of Beauty and the Beast that didn’t end with love, but with quiet surrender.

It had no author, no publisher. Just a cracked leather spine and a name etched in gold on the front:

“The Beholden Bride.”

In it, Beauty was not drawn to the Beast for his tenderness or tragic curse. She stayed because every time she tried to leave, the Beast wept. He clutched at his chest and cried that she was breaking him, that she didn’t understand what she meant to him, that she had ruined him by showing him kindness only to take it away. It was never violent—but it was suffocating. She stayed not for love, but because she couldn’t bear the guilt of his grief.

It had always haunted Y/N, how quietly the story turned its screws. How Beauty’s freedom was never taken—just made unthinkable.

That book was the one she found open on her desk the next morning.

She hadn’t touched it in months. She never left it out.

Worse still—the pages were different. Slightly. A phrase here, a turn of metaphor there. At first, she thought she’d simply forgotten how it read. But then she saw it: a new passage that hadn’t been there before. A scene where the Beast watched Beauty sleep, whispering:

“Even if she forgets me in the waking world, her dreams will keep me close. Her soul remembers. Her bones remember. They have always belonged to me.”

Y/N slammed the book shut.

It hissed as it closed—like air sucked between teeth.

She tried to ignore it.

Two days passed. Then three. The lights in the shop began to flicker without reason. Her teacups moved slightly from where she’d set them. Once, she caught the smell of lavender ink and dust when no one had opened a book in hours.

And on the fourth night, when she locked the shop and climbed the stairs to her apartment above, he was waiting.

Not inside.

In the mirror.

He stood behind her reflection—taller than the frame allowed, head tilted as if examining a cherished trinket. His masked hand reached forward, brushing ghostlike against her cheek in the glass. She turned—nothing there. But in the mirror, he remained, watching with the patient hunger of something that had all the time in the world.

That night, Y/N did not dream of her own memories.

She dreamed of ballroom floors layered in ash. Of roses that sang lullabies in forgotten languages. Of herself, dressed in crimson silk, walking through a mansion made of torn pages and stitched shadows.

And always—always—he was there. Offering his arm. Smiling with half a face.

It was raining again when he returned—this time, with sound. A soft chiming of the doorbell, just like any other customer. Only the air shifted—thickened—as though the walls of the shop were holding their breath.

Y/N stood behind the counter. Her hands did not shake.

“You’re not real,” she said. “You’re part of a story.”

“Exactly.” Pocketcat bowed low, one hand over his heart. “And so are you.”

He straightened slowly, the porcelain catching candlelight in strange ways. “You’ve read me. You’ve known me. And I… I have loved you from the moment your fingers touched my name.”

“I never asked for that.”

“No,” he sighed, stepping forward. “You didn’t. But stories rarely ask permission, do they?”

He placed something gently on the counter. A book. Leather-bound. No title.

She stared at it.

“It’s yours,” he said softly. “I wrote it. For you. About us.”

Y/N didn’t touch it. “There is no us.”

Pocketcat cocked his head. “There was. There will be. There must be.”

His tone was still velvet, but something coiled beneath it now—tighter, meaner.

“I love you,” he said.

Y/N’s breath caught.

“I don’t.”

“You don’t yet.”

And then—so fast—his mask was inches from her face. The world blurred at the edges. Time shuddered.

“Let me show you what we could be.”

Her mouth opened—to scream, to protest, she wasn’t sure. But the words curdled in her throat. The floor vanished.

She awoke in silence.

The shop was gone. Her body felt different. Heavier, but graceful. The air smelled like parchment and old perfume. She stood slowly, her shoes clicking against marble tiles that hadn’t existed before.

Before her rose a grand hall—dark and gold, hung with chandeliers that dripped wax like tears. The walls were covered in moving murals—scenes from a story she knew far too well. Roses curled around mirrors. Dresses shimmered in wardrobes. A table set for two waited at the far end.

And standing beside it—

Was him.

Dressed now in regal finery, his mask polished and smiling wide.

“Welcome home, Beauty,” Pocketcat purred. “You’ve remembered, at last.”

The mansion was alive.

Not in the quaint, whimsical way of talking teacups or self-sweeping brooms. No—this house breathed. The wallpaper curled and flaked like old parchment. The chandeliers flickered with candlelight that dripped blood-red wax. The rugs shifted beneath Y/N’s steps, stretching subtly, as though the floor was sighing beneath her weight.

Every door she tried led back to the same place: the great hall.

Pocketcat sat at the head of a long dining table, sprawled like a marionette king. His coat now shimmered with black velvet and gold thread, and his porcelain mask had been polished to a gleam—both halves smiling, but in different directions. The left, soft and courtly. The right, too wide, teeth carved deeper than before.

When Y/N entered, his voice rang out like bells at a funeral.

“Ah, my lovely, tragic bride returns. Did the halls not amuse you?”

She didn’t answer. She stood at the far end of the table, spine straight.

“I want to go home,” she said.

A pause. Then, in a voice that dripped with performative pain:

“Again?” He sighed, theatrically, resting a gloved hand over his chest. “Each time you say that, my heart withers just a little more.”

Y/N’s jaw clenched. “You don’t have a heart.”

He stood, slowly—each movement too smooth, too fluid, like he was being played from behind by invisible strings.

“I gave it to you,” he said softly. “And you—you—have stomped it into the dirt.”

He circled the table as he spoke, voice rising like a melody played backward.

“Do you know what you said to me the first time we met? You don’t, do you?” His tone became pitying. “Of course you don’t. This version of you is so stiff, so cold. But in another life, another page, you whispered to me in the margins. You said I was the only one who ever saw you.”

“That never happened.”

He stopped walking.

The room darkened by a degree.

His mask tilted, as if he were weighing something. Or sharpening it.

“Are you so certain?” he asked quietly. “Stories remember, even when people forget. I remember. I remember how you used to dream of hands like mine. Gentle. Unyielding. The only hands that never let you fall.”

Y/N took a step back. “You’re twisting things.”

“I’m telling the truth,” he snarled, voice cracking just once before smoothing again. “You don’t know how cruel you’ve been. I waited centuries for a reader who understood me. Do you think I chose to be made of scraps? To be part mask, part mouth, part monster? No. I was written to be unloved.”

He was in front of her now, close enough for the lace at his throat to brush her arm.

“But you read me,” he whispered. “You saw my story, and you kept it. Don’t pretend that didn’t mean something.”

“It meant I’m a scholar,” she said, voice low. “Not a suitor.”

For a moment, the silence was heavy and awful.

Then, Pocketcat laughed.

It was a sharp, rising sound—wrong in the way a music box is wrong when it winds too far.

“Oh, my dear,” he said, voice laced with acid-sugar, “you are the story now. You should be grateful. I’ve given you such a beautiful role.”

He gestured to the gown she hadn’t realized she was wearing—a deep crimson thing, embroidered with eyes and roses and tiny, silver-threaded mouths. Every part of it whispered as she moved. It hadn’t been on her moments ago.

She tore at the collar. “This isn’t love.”

“No,” he said softly. “This is devotion. It’s stronger.”

She looked up, fury rising like bile. “Why me?”

Pocketcat knelt, suddenly, at her feet. His voice turned hushed—too soft.

“Because you didn’t look away. You read the version where the Beast stays a beast. Where Beauty’s silence is survival. You understood me.” He reached for her hand, porcelain fingers curling like claws. “And now I’ll help you understand yourself.”

She yanked her hand away. “I’ll never love you.”

A beat of silence.

Then, something in his mask shifted.

“No,” he said, voice hollow. “But you will stop fighting me.”

That night, she woke to find the mansion had rewritten itself.

The hall was gone. In its place: a bedroom made of forgotten verses. The bed was carved from blackened wood, draped in gauze-thin curtains. The mirror above the vanity showed not her face—but a version of it. One smiling. One docile.

And on the desk, laid with velvet care, was The Beholden Bride.

The passage she had read weeks ago was gone. In its place:

“And when Beauty looked into the Beast’s eyes, she saw not a monster, but a man made of longing. She pitied him. And pity is the first shape that love takes, when one is too tired to run.”

Y/N closed the book. Her hands trembled.

She was too tired to scream.

Y/N didn’t cry. Not when she realized the doors were illusions. Not when her fingernails tore bloody trails down wallpaper that peeled back like skin. Not even when the book began to speak to her in her own voice, reading The Beholden Bride aloud at night while she lay in bed, rigid as stone.

She didn’t cry. She observed.

That was what scholars did. They categorized, they recorded, they refused to be consumed.

Pocketcat did not like that.

“Oh, darling,” he cooed over breakfast one morning—a dish of candied figs, black tea sweetened with something she could not name, and a piece of toast carved into the shape of a heart. “You glare at me like a villain in your little thesis. So tragic. So predictable.”

Y/N sipped her tea without responding. She’d stopped reacting to his monologues three days ago. Or three years. Time was melting here.

Pocketcat circled her chair, trailing gloved fingers along its back.

“You could make this easier,” he whispered. “It would be so easy, Beauty. Just a smile. Just one kind word. I would rewrite the world for you. Would you like a garden? A library? The moon, hollowed and filled with roses?”

“I’d like my name back,” she said calmly.

That stopped him.

He tilted his head, expression unreadable behind the mask. “You have it.”

“No,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “You call me Beauty. You’ve buried my real name in whatever version of the story this is. But you don’t own me. I’m not yours.”

He knelt beside her, voice softening in that awful, broken-glass way. “You could be. You used to read tales of possession, of devotion. Of love so deep it swallows. I’m giving that to you, my beloved. I’ve chosen you.”

“And I didn’t choose you.”

Pocketcat’s hand twitched on the table. He went still. Something rippled behind the mask—a seam splitting.

Then: laughter.

But it was tight. Fraying.

“You think you’re so clever,” he said, standing slowly. “So untouched by sentiment. But I know the truth, Beauty. You were lonely in your little shop. You whispered secrets to the books when you thought no one heard. You kept my story. You kept me alive.”

“I kept you on a shelf,” Y/N replied, voice sharper than before. “There’s a difference.”

Silence.

The chandelier above them flickered. The air grew heavy.

Then, very quietly:

“Ungrateful.”

That night, the mansion changed again.

Her bed became a cradle of thorns. The candles spat salt instead of wax. Her reflection in the mirror wept constantly, even when she did not.

She wandered for hours, refusing to sit, refusing to speak. She scratched messages into the bannisters: You are not in love. This is not love.

When she returned to her room, there was a gift waiting. A book. Bound in velvet. Its pages were blank—except for the first one.

Write our story, it said. Or I will.

The next morning, he greeted her as if nothing had happened.

“Dearest heart,” Pocketcat sang, reclining on a chaise shaped like an open book. “Have you rested? Have you thought?”

“I’ve thought,” Y/N said.

“Oh?”

“I think you’re terrified.”

That made him freeze—just briefly, like a crack passing through porcelain.

“You speak nonsense,” he said lightly.

“No. I understand you now.” She stepped closer, expression calm. Controlled. “You’re not in love. You’re desperate. Desperate to be known, but too cowardly to be truly seen. You pretend to be romantic, but you’re just... lonely.”

The words hit like stones.

Pocketcat stood slowly. His mask didn’t shift. His tone did.

“You wound me.”

Y/N took another step, ignoring the cold building in her gut.

“You thought you could rewrite me like a page,” she said. “But I’m not a story, Pocketcat. I’m the reader. And I know how your kind ends. You're not the beast. You’re the curse.”

The slap didn’t come as a hand.

It came as a shift.

The room darkened. The walls sighed like lungs expelling air for the last time. The ground beneath her feet folded into paper, then thorns, then shadow.

When it stopped, she was on her knees in the library.

He stood before her, towering, voice now stripped of silk.

“You think you’ve won?” His voice cracked like thunder through ink. “You will beg for my affection before this is done. You will starve for it. And when you finally crawl into my arms, I will cradle you like glass and remind you what mercy looks like.”

Y/N looked up, still breathing hard, still shaking—

And she smiled.

“Then you’ve already lost.”

He left her alone after that.

For days. Maybe weeks. She wandered the storybook mansion in silence. No music played. No meals arrived. Her dresses hung limp in the wardrobe, colors draining from them like life from a corpse.

She was starving. Sleep-deprived. Her mouth tasted like ink.

And still—she did not speak.

Not until he returned.

Not until he knelt at her feet again and said, in a hoarse, breaking voice:

“Please. Come back to me.”

And she looked at him.

And for the very first time— she almost pitied him.

She thought he’d stay gone.

The house had gone quiet since the library. No grand entrances. No riddles. Just silence and dust and the feeling of being watched through the spines of books. It should have been a relief, but it wasn’t. The silence had teeth.

Y/N tried to pace her way through the days. She spoke to the empty rooms just to keep her voice working. She whispered her name into mirrors to remind herself who she was. She tore strips of linen from the hem of her gown and used them to mark time in knots.

Still, the house pressed in. Hallways curved when she wasn’t looking. Her meals came late. Her reflection began to blur.

She didn’t want him back.

But she knew he would return.

She just didn’t expect him to crawl.

It was in the music room.

She stepped inside and froze.

Pocketcat was sprawled on the piano bench, one leg draped over the other, tailcoat spread behind him like a dying bloom. His mask gleamed in the low candlelight. He was not smiling. Not mocking. Just watching her.

His fingers ran gently over the piano keys—ghost-notes, no sound.

“You came back,” she said flatly.

“I never left,” he replied.

The air thickened.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “This—quiet sympathy act. The soft voice. You’re trying to trick me into trusting you.”

Pocketcat’s head tilted. Slowly. Deliberately. “Must everything be a trick with you?”

“You took me,” she said. “Trapped me in a story. Gutted my name. Rewrote my thoughts. And now you want me to believe you’re just some lonely shadow looking for love?”

He stood.

Glided toward her.

Each step was too smooth—his heels didn’t echo, his coat didn’t rustle. It was like watching a thought drift closer.

And when he stopped in front of her, he did something he hadn’t done before.

He touched her.

Two gloved fingers—cool, delicate—brushed her cheek. The touch lingered.

Not rough. Not possessive.

Affectionate.

Calculated.

“I do not want you to trust me,” he said gently. “I want you to need me.”

She tried to pull back. His hand followed.

“You’ve gone so cold,” he murmured, voice curling into her skin like warm breath. “What’s the point of playing the heroine if you never let yourself be saved?”

“I’m not the heroine,” Y/N said. “I’m not even the audience. I’m the one trying to wake up.”

Pocketcat sighed, as though she had wounded him.

“You still think this is a dream?” he whispered. “You still think you are real, and I am the lie?” He stepped closer. She bumped against the wall.

His hand trailed from her cheek to her collarbone. Fingers soft. Intent sharp.

“You are inside the story now. And I am its voice. Every heartbeat you have here belongs to me. Every breath is because I allow it. I keep the ink from drowning you. I keep the walls from closing. I keep you alive, Beauty.”

She shoved him back.

Or tried to.

Her hands met his chest—velvet over bone—and he did not move.

But his head tilted. Just slightly.

“You’re trembling,” he said, almost fondly. “Still full of fire. I admire that. But fire needs fuel, doesn’t it?” His voice dropped. “How much longer will you burn when no one else will touch you? When the only warmth left is mine?”

He leaned in then.

Not to kiss.

To rest his forehead against hers.

His breath was slow. Imitated. Like a learned behavior.

“You’ve slept in my house. Dined at my table. Let me dress you. Watch you. Speak you into soft things. And still, you resist.” His voice trembled—not with emotion, but with restraint. “It makes me want to break you in the most delicate ways.”

Y/N’s throat dried.

“Kill me,” she said. “If that’s what you want. Just stop pretending this is love.”

“Oh, Beauty…” His lips brushed her temple like a whisper. “If I wanted you dead, I’d have written you a grave instead of a gown.”

His fingers slipped under her chin, tilting her face up.

“Love isn't a kindness in the stories you collect. It’s a cage. I thought you understood that. I thought that’s why you kept me.”

She met his eyes.

The smile returned. Subtle. Terrible.

“You’re not in love with me,” she said, softly now. “You’re in love with the idea of someone who can’t leave.”

That hit something real.

He stepped back, slowly.

The mask didn’t change. But the air around him rippled—like the moment before a glass shatters.

He didn’t speak again. He simply extended his hand.

Not to offer. To demand.

Y/N hesitated.

Then turned her back.

She walked away.

The candles flickered as she passed.

That night, her room was filled with roses.

Blood-dark. Thorned. Blooming from her pillow, her sheets, her hair.

And in the mirror, scrawled in black ink across the glass:

“You can only walk away so many times before your legs remember how to kneel.”

Y/N awoke in velvet.

Not sheets. Not pillows.

The air itself was velvet—warm, weightless, pressing soft against her skin like a lover's breath.

She blinked slowly. Her bed was gone. The walls were deeper now, lined with black damask, the floor soft beneath her bare feet. The mirrors were gone, too. Only candlelight remained, licking the room in amber and honey.

She sat up.

And there he was.

Pocketcat.

Seated in a high-backed chair, hands gloved and steepled beneath his chin. Not watching.

Waiting.

He stood as she moved. Fluid. Controlled. His coat shimmered, deep crimson this time—matching her gown, which she didn’t remember putting on. Silk straps hung off her shoulders like spider silk. The fabric clung. It whispered.

“You’ve been sleeping too much,” he said gently, stepping closer. “And eating too little.”

Y/N stared at him, throat dry.

She hadn’t had a proper meal in days. Her limbs were slow, her thoughts slippery.

“Let me care for you,” he said, his voice a caress. “You’ve punished yourself enough.”

“I didn’t ask you to watch me,” she whispered.

“But I must.” He stepped behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders—his touch featherlight, but possessive. “It’s my role, is it not? To care for my Beauty. To dote, to tend. To... adore.”

She stiffened.

His fingers traced the line of her collarbone. Not threatening. Not groping. But intentional. Sensual by accident—or by design.

“Tell me,” he murmured, voice low and reverent against her ear, “when was the last time someone touched you like this and meant it?”

Her breath caught. Her body remembered need before her mind could protest.

“I don’t want—”

“You don’t know what you want,” he said, gently but cruelly. “You’ve lived in ink and dust, in pages where the endings were always rewritten by someone else. But I—I see you. I remember the way your hands trembled when you found the first version of the tale. I remember your breath hitching at the passage where Beauty almost runs, but stays instead.”

He moved around her, kneeling in front of her now, gloved hands resting lightly on her thighs.

“Let me be the ending you never got.”

Y/N gritted her teeth. “You’re confusing obsession with love.”

“No, no,” he said softly. “You are. Because if I were a monster—truly—wouldn’t I have taken you already?”

The word sat between them, hot and heavy.

Y/N flushed. Whether with shame or fury or something darker, she wasn’t sure.

“I don’t—”

Pocketcat leaned closer, mask brushing her cheek, lips at her throat.

“I want you to want me,” he murmured. “That’s what makes it beautiful. That’s what makes it real. So I wait. I wait for the moment your voice breaks on my name. When your eyes soften. When your hands no longer push.”

His hand trailed down her arm. Her skin prickled with betrayal. Her body wasn’t listening to her brain.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” he cooed. “So tired of resisting. So tired of being alone in a house that only echoes when I’m not in it.”

“I’m not yours,” she breathed.

He nodded. “No. Not yet.”

Then, slowly, deliberately, he took her hand.

Guided it to his chest.

Let her feel the steady, mimicry of a heartbeat beneath his ribs.

“I made this for you,” he whispered. “It only beats when you’re near.”

She yanked her hand back. He let her.

But not before pressing a kiss—slow, lingering—to the place where her fingers had rested.

Y/N’s heart hammered.

“You keep pretending I’m special,” she said, voice unsteady. “But I think I’m just the first one who stayed long enough for you to wrap your claws around.”

Pocketcat smiled—soft and wicked.

“Doesn’t that make you special, darling?”

Later, in her room, she found a gift on her pillow.

A necklace.

A silver chain, too fine to be handmade. Dangling from it: a locket.

She opened it.

Inside was her name. Her real name. Not Beauty.

And beside it, carved in impossibly small script:

Beloved. Mine. In every telling.

She wanted to throw it in the fire.

She wore it instead.

That night, she dreamed of him again.

But not chasing her. Not threatening.

Dancing.

A ballroom of shadows and candlelight. Music hummed from nowhere, and he held her—not forcefully, not greedily.

Just close.

And when she looked up, his mask was gone.

And he was almost beautiful.

There was no day. No night. Only velvet dusk.

Y/N had stopped counting the hours. Time didn’t move here—it coiled. The mansion was always awake, always watching, and it changed when she wasn’t looking. One hallway now led to a conservatory she’d never seen. The mirror in her room whispered lullabies in her voice.

And the house—the house had learned her footsteps. It shifted its floorboards to slow her. It offered soft chairs when she shook, blankets scented like old paper, hearths that roared to life only when she returned from arguing with him.

Even the silence was tailored to her.

She hated how kind it was becoming.

Pocketcat began touching her more often.

Not forcefully. Not even possessively. Just… constantly.

A hand at the small of her back when she passed him. Fingers brushing her jaw when she refused to speak. His voice, always low, always velvet-wrapped, curling against her neck like perfume.

And she—

She flinched less.

That frightened her more than anything.

One night, she found herself in the observatory.

It hadn’t existed the day before. Or maybe it had. The mansion didn’t follow the rules of real space. It made new rooms when it wanted her vulnerable.

The ceiling was a dome of glass. Outside, stars wheeled in unnatural patterns. Red, blue, silver. Too close. Too bright.

The floor was covered in cushions and books—some hers, some unfamiliar. All open to stories where Beauty never escaped.

He entered without announcing himself.

She didn’t look at him.

“Is this where I’m supposed to surrender?” she asked dryly. “The stars, the pillows, the mood lighting? Going for the tragic romance ending tonight?”

He knelt beside her.

Not close. Not yet.

“Tonight,” he said, “I want to show you what I could be.”

She laughed—soft, bitter. “You’ve shown me. Over and over. You change the set, but the play never changes.”

He didn’t move.

Just watched her for a long, long moment.

Then he reached out—slowly—and undid the ribbon at her throat.

She stiffened.

But she didn’t stop him.

He pushed her hair back with careful fingers, exposing her bare neck.

“You think I want to devour you,” he said quietly. “But I already have. Every time you said my name, I tasted it.”

“I never said your name.”

He leaned in.

And whispered it into her skin.

“You did—in dreams. In silence. In the way you look at me when you think I’m not watching.”

Y/N wanted to push him away.

But he was too close now. Too gentle. His touch was precise—like a sculptor, shaping something fragile. Not lust. Not love.

Control.

That was what it always was.

“You’re going to kiss me,” she said flatly.

“If you want me to,” he said.

His hands ghosted her waist. The silk of her gown sighed.

“I don’t,” she whispered.

“Then I won’t.”

He stepped back. Instantly.

That was the cruelest thing.

Because she expected him to take.

She expected him to pin her, to force the scene.

Instead—he withheld.

“I want you to come to me,” he said softly. “I want your hands first. Then your mouth. Then your name.”

He walked to the door.

Paused.

Turned.

“But if you don’t come soon…” His voice turned quieter. Darker. “I may have to start rewriting again. Just a few lines. Nothing major.”

Y/N’s blood ran cold.

He smiled.

“Wouldn’t it be awful,” he mused, “if the next version of Beauty was just a little more pliant?”

She didn’t sleep.

She couldn’t.

Every time she closed her eyes, the story warped. The Beast grew kinder. The girl softer. The text began to forget her.

When she tried to read her favorite copy again, she found the ending had changed.

“Beauty remained, not out of fear or pity, but because she had learned at last: what seemed like chains had always been arms. And love, even twisted, was better than being alone.”

She threw the book across the room.

And wept.

Two days passed.

The silence pressed against her like a wet sheet.

And then—on the third night—he came to her door.

He didn’t speak.

He opened it.

And waited.

She stared at him from her place on the floor. Her hair unbrushed. Her lips cracked. Her gown falling from one shoulder.

“Say it,” he said softly.

She didn’t.

But she stood.

Crossed the threshold.

Let him take her hand.

He led her to the bedroom. His bedroom.

It was all dark velvet, black glass, and silk sheets that whispered her name.

He didn’t kiss her.

Not yet.

He undressed her slowly—his fingers reverent, almost trembling. He looked at her like a collector unwrapping a long-lost artifact.

“Am I yours now?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

He only touched her cheek. And whispered:

“No, my love. I’m yours.”

He closed the door behind her.

Soft. Intentional. Final.

Y/N stood at the center of his room, arms limp at her sides, every instinct screaming and curling inward at the same time. The gown he dressed her in the first night shimmered under the low candlelight, wine-dark and open at the back. It slipped too easily when he tugged the laces loose.

She didn’t move. Not yet.

He circled her like a gentleman preparing a bride.

Or a butcher his meat.

“I dreamed of this,” he said quietly. “A thousand variations. A thousand versions of you—some sweet, some vicious. But you—oh, you—you’re the one who made it to the end.”

His fingers slid the gown down her arms.

It fell like sighs to the floor.

Y/N flinched as cold air touched her skin—but didn’t cover herself. That, too, had been trained out of her. Modesty was a kind of rebellion here, and rebellion was punished.

He stepped behind her.

Hands ghosting along her spine, down the curve of her hip.

“I can stop,” he murmured, lips brushing her neck. “Say the word, and I’ll step back. I’ll let you go.”

Liar. Liar. Liar.

She almost laughed.

“You’ve already taken everything,” she whispered.

“Not everything,” he said.

She turned her head to face him. Their eyes met—his mask reflecting firelight, her expression drained, defiant, dizzy.

“This isn’t love.”

Pocketcat exhaled.

“Of course not.”

That stunned her.

Then, quietly: “It’s possession. Love is what mortals call it when they’re too weak to name the truth.”

He moved slowly, his gloved fingers removing his coat, his cravat. Everything precise. Ritualistic.

She should have run.

But she had nowhere left to run to.

When he touched her again, it was with care. That was the cruelest part.

There was no force, no haste.

Just the slow, deliberate claiming of someone who knew he had already won.

She turned her face away. His hand gently cupped her jaw and brought it back.

“Look at me,” he said.

Y/N clenched her teeth. Her breath came shallow.

“Please,” she said—not pleading, not begging. A whisper from the last place in her that still remembered who she had been.

He kissed her.

And that was the end of it.

Not because it was beautiful. Not because it was good.

But because it was inevitable.

Later, she lay curled against his chest, blanketed in silk and murmurs.

He stroked her hair with one hand and turned the pages of a book with the other—her book. Their book.

She no longer flinched from his touch.

Not because it didn’t hurt.

But because it was the only touch left.

Pocketcat kissed the top of her head and whispered:

“And so, Beauty stayed. Not because she loved him. But because the story had forgotten how to let her leave.”

*

They say if you find the book bound in velvet and stitched with thorns, you mustn’t open it. But you already have, haven’t you? You followed the pages. You watched her fall. You whispered no with her. And still you turned the last page.

Somewhere, deep in the house where stories are made of hunger and silk, a voice sighs against your skin—

Iggy: *Glares at him* >:-( *He turns away from him with his rear aimed at him*

Joseph: Huh?

Iggy: *Farts at his direction before walking away* >:-3

Joseph: *Smells it* O_O *Covers his nose and repulses in disgust* Gaaaaaah DX

Avdol: *Inside, watching the two from the hotel window as he sighs*.... Polnareff and Jotaro, they should've returned by now.

Medea: *Sitting on her bed, trying to pull off the Hamon mask* Ngh! *She then stops, realizing that [Anubis] is awake*....It happened....

Avdol: *Turns to her* Hm? What happened?

Medea: *Tries to act cute* Nothiiiiiing~

Avdol: *Suspicious*.... Are you hiding something?

Medea: No, why?

Avdol: You knew something is out there in Edfu, don't you?

Medea: How should I know? I don't come to this town often.

Joseph: *Walks in, fanning the air with his hat* Phew, no sign of the two yet.

Avdol: I was just thinking that, Mr, Joestar, *glaring at her* and I was just about to ask her about them.

Medea: Oh great, another interrogation? >_>

Avdol: She seems to know something about Edfu that we don't.

Joseph: *Raises eyebrow* Is that right? *Puts his hat back on* Young lady, is there another Glory God out there?

Medea: ....Maybe.

Avdol: And is he or she attacking Jotaro and Polnareff at this moment?

Medea: I'm not saying.

Joseph: Quit the games already! Are they or are they not being attack right now?

Medea: Look, I don't know, alright? I just felt [Anubis] awaken, that's all.

Joseph and Avdol: !?!?!?

Avdol: [Anubis]? Wait, you mean there's a Stand named [Anubis]?

Medea: *Realizes that she's says too much* Oh fuck! OxO

Joseph: So they are in danger! 

Medea: N-no! I mean.... I don't think so, I just felt it.

Joseph: What do you mean you just "felt it"?

Medea: I.... got possessed by the Stand months ago.

Avdol: Possessed? What do you mean?

Medea: ....*Sighs*....[Anubis] is a Stand bound to an ancient sword created by his original user, Caravan Serai, a master blacksmith.... After the user died, [Anubis] began possessing other people who dare unsheathe the sword to become his new user, the victim would then go on a murderous rampage with sword in hand....That was 500 years ago. Lord DIO found him in a museum and [Anubis] became one of his agents, the little demon swore loyalty to him out of gratitude for his freedom....I knew that because I unsheathed him by accident, thinking it was just a myth.

Avdol: So what you're saying is....

Medea: That's right.... Someone unsheathed [Anubis] and is now on the move, looking for you guys.

Avdol: .... We gotta find those two right now! *He leaves the hotel room*

Medea: *Flops on the bed* 

Joseph: *Uses [Hermit Purple] to drag her* You're coming to!

Medea: Oh come oooooon!

END

Candlelight flickers across the stone floor and drips along the contours of his chiseled abs. Your breath hitches at the image as his muscles ripple under his skin. You’re dead, attending final judgment, yet all you can think about is the curve of his V-line as it dips behind his belt. The taut fibers of his shoulders. The rich flesh hinted at beneath his skin, dark as the fertile soil of the Nile.

As he approaches, his scent envelops you. Myrrh, wild cedar, and dry earth right before the rain. He towers before you. His paw pads graze the sensitive skin of your breasts, sending electric waves to your core as he reaches between them, deep into your chest. His movements are well practiced and clinical as he cradles your heart in his huge paw.

A jolt, not of pain, but of thunder. The coarseness of his pads presses against the tender flesh of your heart, like sun-warmed stone. A firm squeeze from his paw would mash it into a pulp, but his hold remains precise and measured, even reverent. A cold shiver races through you and all you can do is stare into those pitch-black eyes, dense with eons and with a cosmic, impersonal hospitality. And yet, the heat from that impossible intimacy is pooling like honey low in your belly. The closeness of his long snout makes the fine hairs along your neck stand, but not from fear.

Anubis pulls out your heart. Red and bright, it flutters like a small bird in his grasp. Its beat reverberates through the empty hall as he lays it carefully on the scale. The metal dish plummets, lifting the white feather high on the other side. But then—it rises. It finds a point above the feather, dips again, beginning a slow oscillation. Anubis watches, utterly still. He waits, as he always has, for the scale to settle.

Except it doesn’t.

Time stretches. Anubis remains still, patient. You shift, pushing sand across the stone floor with your foot. Eventually, he rises and leans over the scale.

“Strange.”

His voice is deep, resonating through the chamber and sinking low in your core. That’s the first word you’ve heard him speak. For the first time, he truly sees you, an intrigued look crossing his canine features. His long snout sniffs your heart, curious. It tickles.

Anubis is bemused. Across the spans of his eternities, the scale has never been inconclusive. He looks at you, then at the rocking scale, then back at you. He approaches. Moonlight licks his body, and you want a taste. He sniffs at you, his long snout damp and warm as it brushes your skin. His expression is one of pure, unguarded astonishment. Finally, he reaches for your heart again, intent on a closer examination. As he lifts it to his nose and snuffles at it, hot shivers course through your body. They spike at your nipples and condense into a liquid ache at the apex of your thighs. As he carefully inspects the organ, you arch, a silent, helpless writhe of pleasure.

Your reaction fascinates him. His dark tongue slides out and tentatively skims across the surface of your heart.

Its wet heat floods your body, and you can't suppress a strangled moan that echoes between you.

The alienness of that sound astounds him. He stares at you and something new flickers in his eyes, something hungry.

The weight of his gaze is so intense you instinctively break the silence

“Lick a lot of hearts down here?”

“No. Just yours"

“Ohh … what does it taste like?”

He licks across your heart once more, this time more deliberate. There's a mischievous glow in his eyes which he doesn't take off you.

The reaction is instantaneous, your knees buckle at the surge of pleasure, your nipples tickle from the inside as your arousal slicks the fabric of your panties.

Anubis freezes mid action. His nostrils flare. His pupils darken as he lets out a low guttural grunt.

“That smell…”

He sniffs the air around you, quickly tracking the scent directly to its source between your thighs. A giddy giggle escapes your lips. His snout is a grain of sand’s breadth from your skin and you gently stroke its fur. His dark, long tongue slides out and licks the soft curve of your inner thigh. A lush moan from you captures his attention once more and his face is now in front of yours. He sniffs your neck

“That sound… it thrums against my skin. It is pleasing”

Your breath catches in your throat. Before you know it, your hands are traveling the dunes and valleys of his torso. You lean in to smell his rich scent and your tongue slides along the skin of his neck. A deep growl reverberates in his chest and through your bones as your fingers track the geography of his pecs.

Anubis pins both your hands above your head with one huge paw. He trails his tongue along your neck all the way to your clavicles. His breath is hot against your skin. His fangs tear your top. His tongue traces the contours of your breast and licks your nipple into a tight peak that buzzes with desire. A gasp escapes your lips followed by a decadent moan that makes his ears twitch.

Your hand easily slips out of his grasp and maps the route of his v-line while your other hand interlaces its fingers with his. He seems to want to use both paws on you, but he still cradles your heart in one. For a moment he appears confused as to what to do with it. He walks over to the scale and is about to place it on the empty dish again but stops.

“I find myself in no haste to cross you over”

He returns to you, pressing your heart back into your ribcage. He leaves his paw there, feeling the tissues stitch back together, captivated by the violent hammering of your beat against his palm.

A rush of blood courses through your veins like a sandstorm. The heightened intensity of your newly perfused desire is almost too much to bear, a broken cry tearing through you. Anubis watches the flush spread across your skin, his pupils blown wide until his eyes are nothing but boundless black marbles. The scent of your arousal, now amplified, fills his senses until he lets out a low, jagged whimper.

Your eyes meet, stellar vastness against a warm pulse, each mirroring the same need. You place your arms around his neck, searching with your mouth for his. His tongue laps at your lips, a stranger to human kisses. He palms your breasts in his paws, teasing your nipples into aching points. His snout buries between them, sniffing and nibbling gently as he makes his way back down to the origin of the scent that fascinates him.

Impatient, you fumble with your clothes, trying to get them out of the way, which his fangs help you do. Kneeling before you, his nose hovers over your naked mount before sinking between your thighs. You tremble with want, but he seems to hesitate. You whimper at his pause.

“I need to know,” his voice rasps, strained. “Do you truly welcome this, or does my divinity press upon you?”

Your voice is a ragged whisper: “I do. I want this." You guide his head, pushing it against your throbbing pussy. “Taste me.”

As if unleashed, his tongue is on your slit before you can finish the last word. It explores your folds with reverent curiosity.

He grunts.

“I was… unprepared for such a tang. Tart… as unripe fruit."

“Is it… not pleasing?”

“Oh, it's pleasing.” His deep voice rumbling along your cleft. “It is intoxicating. And so wet… a lush hot spring. I might just—”

With that, his tongue pushes against your entrance. You gasp, hips buckling toward him involuntarily. A raw, breathless moan leaves your throat as it slides in. You are amazed by just how long it is, how deep it goes. Its flexible nature allows it to rub all the right places inside you.

As his expedition continues, he soon discovers a spot that makes your pulse rise and your moans explode into needy whimpers.

His ears perk up. “Those sounds are… immensely compelling.” He wraps his paws around your thighs, lifting you effortlessly and securing your legs over his shoulders as he pushes your back against a column. The cold stone a sharp contrast to his hot breath. “I think I shall make you repeat them.”

His tongue circles your clit a few times before sliding back inside you. His movements become rhythmic, relentless, devout, as your cries fill the empty hall.

You thread your fingers through the fur on the back of his head, pulling him closer. As you approach your climax, your juices downpour over his face and your walls clench around him, your cries breaking, feverish. His breath comes in ragged pants.

“Gods” he grunts against your flesh, sound muffled. The vibration of his voice against your tender core sends you over the edge and you bury your nails in his back. He just keeps worshiping you through the first orgasm of your afterlife.

Read part 2

I'd love to get asks

TEFNUT

Colors: white, blue for water

Offerings: sea salt, reeds, shells, water, coral, water (especially dew), lotus root/flower

Crystals: blue calcite, sodalite, lapis lazuli, amethyst, larimar, ocean/blue lace agate, aquamarine

Animals: lioness

NUT

Colors: blue, black for night. white for stars

Offerings: amber, sandalwood, sycamore, moonflowers, morning glories, milk

Crystals: lapis lazuli, star jasper, azurite, obsidian, smokey quartz, black tourmaline, labradorite, sodalite, moonstone (especially black)

Animals: boar, cow, sow

GEB

Colors: green, brown for earth. black for the underworld

Offerings: grain, beans, yarrow, cinnamon, coffee, egg shells, foliage, dirt, rocks, snake shed, milk

Crystals: jasper (various types), aventurine, moss/tree agate, unakite, obsidian, jade, malachite

Animals: snake, goose, rabbit, bull

OSIRIS

Colors: green for renewal, black for death, white for rebirth

Offerings: bandages, dark chocolate, dried fruit (especially oranges or dates), dark chocolate, coffee, cedar, vetiver, bones

Crystals: lapis lazuli, moss agate, jasper (various types), malachite, obsidian, smokey quartz, pyrite, jade, howlite, star jasper (for his astral form)

Animals: heron, ram, cow

ISIS

Colors: white, grey for the moon. blue, black for the night. green for life and resurrection.

Offerings: the tyet symbol, cow horn, milk, sycamore, feathers, dried fruit (such as raisins or dates), pomegranates, nuts, pastries

Crystals: star jasper, moonstone, rose quartz, amethyst, fluorite, bloodstone, red jasper, carnelian, labradorite, aventurine

Animals: birds (especially a kite hawk or vulture), cow, cat, scorpion, sow

HORUS

Colors: blue, purple for insight and intuition. white and red for pharoahship.

Offerings: eye of horus, weaponry/iron, lotus flower/root, feathers (especially hawk or falcon), yarrow, chocolate

Crystals: malachite, aventurine, pyrite, amethyst, lapis lazuli, jasper (various), howlite, sunstone, aquamarine, labradorite, hematite

Animals: falcon

NEPHTHYS

Colors: black for darkness and funerary rites

Offerings: beer, linen, feathers (especially of a crow or vulture), bones, coffee, nuts, milk

Crystals: obsidian, smokey quartz, black moonstone (because of association with Isis), black tourmaline, red jasper, bloodstone

Animals: vulture, crow

SET

Colors: red, black for chaos and storms

Offerings: lettuce, sand, alcohol, dragon's blood, patchouli, yarrow, vetiver, charcoal, dark chocolate, black pepper

Crystals: red jasper, black tourmaline, howlite, obsidian, labradorite, sodalite, bloodstone, malachite, pyrite

Animals: the set animal (which resembles a canine, giraffe, and aardvark), donkey

THOTH

Colors: grey, blue for intuition/intelligence. white for the moon

Offerings: quill, ink, pieces of writing/books, feathers, rosemary, citrus, sage, moon water, lavender, nuts

Crystals: amethyst, lapis lazuli, malachite, moonstone, selenite, howlite, angelite, sodalite, fluorite

Animals: ibis, baboon

ANUBIS

Colors: black, grey for funerary rites/death

Offerings: bones, ash, charcoal, red/black peppercorns, marigold (associated with the dead), linen, yarrow

Crystals: hematite, obsidian, black tourmaline, howlite, jasper (various, but especially red), smokey/rutilated quartz, bloodstone

Animals: canines, especially a jackal

BASTET

Colors: white, red for pharaohship

Offerings: ointments/perfumes of most types, cedar, anything cat related, rosemary, black salt

Crystals: tiger's eye, cat's eye quartz, bloodstone, red jasper, black tourmaline, howlite, milky/smokey quartz, pyrite, carnelian

Animals: lioness, cat

SEKHMET

Colors: red for war. grey for justice

Offerings: sand (especially red), scales of justice, iron, cypress, red pepper, black salt

Crystals: bloodstone, red jasper, carnelian, garnet, ruby kyanite, jade, smokey/clear, hematite

Animals: lioness

HATHOR

Colors: pink, red for love/sexuality

Offerings: dancing, dried fruits (especially figs/dates), pomegranates, sycamore, milk, honey, pastries

Crystals: rose quartz, amethyst, citrine, carnelian, fluorite, jade, aquamarine, garnet/ruby

Animals: cow, lioness, cobra

KHONSU

Colors: white, grey for the moon. blue, black for the night.

Offerings: lavender, sage, mugwort, dried fruit, moon shaped items, moon flower, ash

Crystals: moonstone, selenite, sodalite, obsidian, black tourmaline, smokey/milky quartz, jasper (various), blue lace agate, lapis lazuli