War and politics are nothing but a game, the powerful and power-hungry control the pieces on the board. Each move is methodically planned, thought out five steps ahead. It’s only those most powerful aware of the game, the kings and queens who play for their own gain. The pawns, bishops, and knights are nothing more but game pieces, being moved and influenced by those with the power. When WWIII began in 2020, the chessboard was wiped, players thrown from their positions as the world was thrown into darkness... But a century later, the chessboard is back on the table, this time with new monarchs controlling the unwitting pieces in their game for power. A social experiment has been formed, hidden in the mountains of Russia. The youngest generation of royals are thrown together in a single location, both for safety and a test. Their parents play them as pawns on a large board to see whether or not they can learn to get along, whether or not they can rule the globe and bring their countries further out of the darkness the last world war caused. But not all wish to see the royals succeed. The monarchs are not the only players, though they think that they are. Rebels hide behind every corner, pushing their own pieces in a bid for power and the destruction of the reigning monarchs. War of Royals is a revamped royalty rp that takes place after WWIII. Royals have been sent to a hidden palace in Russia for both safety and to unknowingly participate in a social experiment, all in the name of peace. They will be tested on their ability to get along and come up with political solutions, all while being far from home. Rebels are hidden within the palace and surrounding village, just waiting to cause trouble.

War and politics are nothing but a game, the powerful and power-hungry control the pieces on the board. Each move is methodically planned, thought out five steps ahead. It’s only those most powerful aware of the game, the kings and queens who play for their own gain. The pawns, bishops, and knights are nothing more but game pieces, being moved and influenced by those with the power. When WWIII began in 2020, the chessboard was wiped, players thrown from their positions as the world was thrown into darkness... But a century later, the chessboard is back on the table, this time with new monarchs controlling the unwitting pieces in their game for power. A social experiment has been formed, hidden in the mountains of Russia. The youngest generation of royals are thrown together in a single location, both for safety and a test. Their parents play them as pawns on a large board to see whether or not they can learn to get along, whether or not they can rule the globe and bring their countries further out of the darkness the last world war caused. But not all wish to see the royals succeed. The monarchs are not the only players, though they think that they are. Rebels hide behind every corner, pushing their own pieces in a bid for power and the destruction of the reigning monarchs. War of Royals is a revamped royalty rp that takes place after WWIII. Royals have been sent to a hidden palace in Russia for both safety and to unknowingly participate in a social experiment, all in the name of peace. They will be tested on their ability to get along and come up with political solutions, all while being far from home. Rebels are hidden within the palace and surrounding village, just waiting to cause trouble.

War and politics are nothing but a game, the powerful and power-hungry control the pieces on the board. Each move is methodically planned, thought out five steps ahead. It’s only those most powerful aware of the game, the kings and queens who play for their own gain. The pawns, bishops, and knights are nothing more but game pieces, being moved and influenced by those with the power. When WWIII began in 2020, the chessboard was wiped, players thrown from their positions as the world was thrown into darkness... But a century later, the chessboard is back on the table, this time with new monarchs controlling the unwitting pieces in their game for power. A social experiment has been formed, hidden in the mountains of Russia. The youngest generation of royals are thrown together in a single location, both for safety and a test. Their parents play them as pawns on a large board to see whether or not they can learn to get along, whether or not they can rule the globe and bring their countries further out of the darkness the last world war caused. But not all wish to see the royals succeed. The monarchs are not the only players, though they think that they are. Rebels hide behind every corner, pushing their own pieces in a bid for power and the destruction of the reigning monarchs. War of Royals is a revamped royalty rp that takes place after WWIII. Royals have been sent to a hidden palace in Russia for both safety and to unknowingly participate in a social experiment, all in the name of peace. They will be tested on their ability to get along and come up with political solutions, all while being far from home. Rebels are hidden within the palace and surrounding village, just waiting to cause trouble.

A Johnny Faust love story

Chapter 10 - The Skin You Lost

The silence following her confession was heavy, a suffocating weight thick with the scent of damp wool and the fading, metallic tang of the storm. The hatch was closed, but the chill lingered—a brutal reminder of the fire that still burned in the back of her mind.

Johnny didn’t move his hands. He kept them anchored on her waist, feeling the fragile, bird-like vibration of her ribs as she tried to pull her "Lilith" mask back over the wreckage of Hallie. She was trying to go cold again, trying to calcify before his eyes, but she was shaking too hard to manage the transformation.

"Hallie," he whispered, his voice low and steady, a grounding wire in the dark. "Let me see them. All of them."

She stiffened, her fingers instantly clutching the damp silk of her slip, knuckles white as she tried to pull the strap back up. "No. It’s... it’s just ruined skin, John. It’s jagged. It’s not part of the 'aesthetic' Elias is selling. It’s not pretty."

"I don't give a damn about the aesthetic," he rasped, his hand gently but firmly stopping hers, his fingers interlacing with hers to pull them away from the silk. "The rain is cold. You’re shivering because you’re carrying a furnace in your head. Let me see what you’re carrying so I can help you hold the weight."

She looked at him for a long, agonizing moment. Her eyes searched his, looking for the pity she loathed or the recoil she expected. She found neither. There was only a quiet, reverent focus—the look of a man who was seeing her for the first time, and finding her holy.

Slowly, her fingers uncurled. She turned her back to him, her head bowing so low her forehead touched her knees, her dark hair spilling forward like a curtain. With a hand that wouldn't stop trembling, she eased the thin silk slip down to her waist.

The light in the suite was dim, but the silvered scars seemed to catch every stray photon. They weren't just on her shoulders. They trailed down her spine in jagged, overlapping plates—a permanent, anatomical armor she had grown at sixteen. They were thick, raised in places where the heat had bitten deepest, a brutal testimony to the fact that she had refused to drop the baby she was protecting even as her own flesh was melting.

Johnny’s breath hitched, a sharp, pained sound in the quiet of the bus. He didn't pull away. He moved closer, sitting on his heels, his knees bracketed around her hips.

"Hallie," he breathed, his voice thick with an emotion that felt like worship. "They aren't ugly. God, they're the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. They’re a map of how much you love."

He reached out, his fingertips barely grazing the edge of a silvered ridge near her shoulder blade. Hallie flinched, her eyes snapping shut, her body bracing for a sting or a shiver of disgust that didn't come. Instead, his touch was cool, soft, and terrifyingly gentle.

"You're beautiful," he whispered, the words vibrating against the skin of her back.

"Don't," she choked out, a fresh tear tracking through the kohl and silver glitter on her cheek. "Don't lie to me just because the lights are low."

"I’m not lying." He leaned in, the heat of his chest radiating against her back. "Every mark on your neck, every fake bruise Elias wants the world to see... those are the lies. Those are the performance. This is the truth. This is you being a hero before the world even gave you a chance to be a girl. It’s breathtaking."

He leaned down, and before she could pull away, he pressed a lingering, feather-light kiss to the center of her spine, right where the scar tissue was the thickest.

Hallie let out a jagged, broken sound—not a sob, but a gasp of pure shock. No one had ever kissed her there. Men had touched her back in the clubs, their hands greedy and blind in the neon dark, but no one had ever looked at the wreckage and seen something worth loving.

Johnny moved his mouth higher, his lips trailing across the silvered map of her shoulder blade, then the other. Each kiss was an apology; each kiss was a silent promise to stand between her and the next fire. He treated the scars like they were made of gold leaf, his breath warm against the numb, damaged tissue.

"They don't hurt anymore," she whispered, her voice trembling as her walls finally, truly began to liquefy. "I can't feel most of the skin there. It's just... dead."

"Then I'll feel it for you," Johnny said, his forehead resting against the back of her neck. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, his large hands splaying across her stomach, pulling her back against his chest until there was no air left between them. "I'll be the skin you lost."

For the first time since the tour began, Hallie didn't feel like she was acting. She didn't feel like Lilith, or a stripper, or a tragic paycheck for her father. She felt like a girl who had finally found a place where the fire couldn't reach her.

She let out a long, shuddering sigh and leaned her head back against his shoulder, her eyes closing as his warmth finally settled into her bones, chasing out the Chicago sleet.

"Stay," she whispered, her fingers covering his hands and pressing them tighter against her. "Just... stay like this until the sun comes up."

A Johnny Faust love story

Chapter 6 - The Performance of Hunger

The 8:00 AM sun was a surgical, predatory white, lancing through the blackout curtains of the master suite. Outside, the Chicago wind howled with a jagged edge, but inside, the only sound was the low, electric hum of the bus and the shallow, frantic breathing of two people who had spent the night paralyzed by the four-foot canyon of black silk between them.

Johnny sat on the edge of the mattress, his head buried in his hands. His skin was the color of parched bone, and his fingers were shaking with a rhythmic, uncontrollable tremor. Across the bed, Hallie was a ghost in motion. She was sitting upright, her spine a rigid, defensive line, her hands gripping the edge of the mattress so hard the knuckles looked ready to burst through the skin.

The sliding mahogany door didn’t just open; it was thrown back into its pocket with a violent crack. Elias stood there, a vision of charcoal-suited perfection, the glow of his tablet illuminating a face that held no room for humanity.

"It’s too clean," Elias said. His voice was a low, dangerous vibration that seemed to suck the oxygen out of the small room.

Johnny didn't look up. "We’re getting ready, Elias. Give us a goddamn second."

"I don't have a second, John. The paparazzi are stacked three deep at the stage door, and the label is looking for any excuse to pull your tour insurance. This 'Dark Muse' narrative is the only thing keeping the wolves back." Elias stepped into the room, his shadow stretching across the bed like a shroud. He pointed a manicured finger at Hallie’s pale, pristine throat.

"I want her neck covered, Johnny. I want the cameras to see skin that looks devoured," Elias hissed. "The world doesn't want to see a girlfriend. They want to see a woman who is your addiction. And Lilith? She needs to look like she's drowning in you. I want real marks. Not kohl. Not stage blood. I want to see the physical proof that neither of you can keep your teeth off each other for six hours of road time."

The air in the suite turned to lead. Johnny felt a surge of nausea so violent he had to grip the mahogany frame to keep from retching. "Elias, that’s enough. We’re doing the job. We’re holding hands."

"The fans aren't stupid!" Elias barked, his voice echoing off the mirrored ceiling. He turned his gaze to Hallie, who flinched, her wide, hooded eyes snapping to his in a look of raw, animal terror. "If she doesn't walk out of this bus with a map of your 'devotion' on her neck, the contract is void. And you know exactly what happens to the money if that contract is void. You want her to look obsessed? Then give her something to be obsessed with."

The silence that followed was a physical blow. Hallie looked like she was about to shatter into a thousand pieces of jagged glass. Slowly, with a hand that shook so hard the silver chains on her wrist clattered, she let the oversized hoodie slide off her shoulders. Underneath, she wore a thin black silk camisole. She looked small. She looked vulnerable.

"Elias, get out," Johnny rasped, his voice a fractured, lethal thread.

"Make it look real, John," Elias whispered, backing toward the door. "Show them she's yours. Show them you're hers."

The door hissed shut, sealing them back into the amber-lit tomb.

Johnny felt a sob catch in his throat. "I won't do it, Hallie. I’m not... I’m not a monster."

"Do it."

The words were a flat, Midwestern rasp. Hallie stood up and crossed the silk canyon, her feet silent on the black carpet. She stopped inches from him, her dark, heavy-lidded eyes fixed on his with a piercing, terrifying intensity. She reached out, her fingers cold as ice, and took his hand, guiding it to her throat.

"If I walk out there clean, he’ll replace me. And I can’t go back, John. I can’t." Her voice broke, a single tear tracking through the faint silver glitter on her cheek. She tilted her head to the side, exposing the pale, ivory line of her throat. "Use your teeth. Cover me. Make them believe I'm yours so they don't take this away."

Johnny closed his eyes, his heart hammering an agonizing rhythm. He leaned in, his breath hot against her cool skin. He didn't do it with passion; he did it with a desperate, crushing grief. He pressed his mouth to her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive curve just hard enough to leave a blooming, jagged mark of crimson—a brand for a world that demanded a tragedy.

Hallie let out a sharp, shallow gasp, her fingers digging into his scalp. She didn't pull away. Instead, she lunged forward, her own mouth finding the junction of his neck and shoulder. She bit down, hard enough to make him hiss, hard enough to leave her own mark on him—the frantic, desperate signature of a girl playing a part to survive.

They clung to each other in the center of the bed, two ghosts stained in red, looking at their distorted reflection in the mirrored ceiling.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into the hollow of her neck.

A Johnny Faust love story

Chapter 1 - The Purple Light Sanctuary

I'm writing this story for one of my best friends! Enjoy :)