this ᵘˢᵉᵈ to be a 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄.

“I   do   mind,   and   you’re   not   forgiven.”   Nuh-uh,   he’s   not   taking   any   of   that   sassy,   attitude   filled   bullshit.   The   last   time   he   allowed   it,   he   ended   up   stranded   in   Siberia,   barely   alive,   and   he   would   not   like   a   repeat   of   that,   thank   you   very   friggin’   much.   So   even   if   this   makes   him   look   like   a   self-centered   jackass,   Tony’s   gonna   pick   at   the   scab   until   it   bleeds   and   the   truth   starts   spilling   out.   “We   have   plenty   of   time   until   we   arrive   at   Thanos’   planet.   More   than   enough   time   for   you   to   think.   So   I   wanna   hear   it   —   what   did   I   do   for   you   to   go   from   asking   for   my   help   to   treating   me   like   I’m   a   piece   of   shit   stuck   to   your   shoe?”

He’s   crossing   the   distance,   hurried   steps   taking   him   to   Stephen   and   then   in   front   of   him,   blocking   the   sorcerer’s   path.   It’s   unlikely   that   the   taller   man   will   punch   him   —   considering   the   state   of   his   hands   it’s   doubtful   that   he’d   inflict   pain   on   himself   just   to   cause   Tony   some   as   well.   Which   means   that   the   mechanic   can   be   a   bit   of   a   brat   in   his   approach,   can   push   the   line.   Not   too   much   though   —   Stephen   might   not   be   able   to   deliver   a   good   hit,   but   he   is   a   magic   wielder   and   that   can   be   much   more   dangerous   than   any   right   hook.   “Come   on.   I’m   asking   for   ten   minutes,   after   that   I   promise   I   won’t   utter   a   single   word   to   you   if   you   won’t   want   me   to.”   

he exhaled slowly, his eyes narrowing at the shorter man. the cloak shifted restlessly around his shoudlers, sensing the spike in tension in him. “ you want ten minutes of my time while we're hurtling toward the single greatest threat our universe has ever faced? ” he didn't step back. he wouldn't give stark the satisfaction. instead, stephen met his gaze head-on, the faint tremor in his hands hidden within the folds of his cloak. the same hands that had once held scalpels with godlike precision and confidence. the same hands that now served as a constant, humiliating reminder of everything he'd lost... and everything he became.

“ you remind me of myself, stark. brilliant, arrogant, and utterly convinced that the universe revolves around your intellect and your charm. i spent a lifetime as a surgeon surrounded by people who whorshipped their own egos almost as much as they worshipped me. nurses, residents. all tiptoeing around fragile pride while lives hung in the balance. i was the worst of them. and i paid for it. ”

New York glittered beneath the glass walls of the 620 Loft & Garden, the city stretching out like a jewelled tapestry—skyscrapers glowing gold, the winter air crisp enough to make every breath feel like a promise. Music boomed from speakers ambient enough to encourage conversation, fairy lights wound through the rooftop hedges casting soft halos over the mingling crowd of musicians, agents, influencers, and the kind of people who pretended not to stare while absolutely staring,Cat Valentine had been told this was casual networking,her agent had lied.Everyone here looked like they’d stepped out of a magazine spread. Champagne flutes clinked. A string quartet played a modern cover of something she couldn’t place. And somewhere in the crowd—if her agent was to be believed—was him.

Lestat de Lioncourt. Rock legend. Fashion icon. Walking headline. And the man they wanted her to model for

Her agent nudged her gently. "He’s here. Somewhere. Just… be yourself. They’ll notice."

Lestat de Lioncourt arrived fashionably late—of course he did. It wasn’t vanity; it was instinct. Let the room warm, let the anticipation simmer, let the mortals drink just enough champagne to loosen their tongues and sharpen their curiosity. By the time he stepped out of the elevator and into the glass‑walled expanse of the 620 Loft & Garden, the party was already humming with that particular New York electricity he adored,the city glittered below him like a living constellation.The rooftop hedges were strung with lights,the air was crisp, perfumed with winter and wealth and every head turned,they always did,he didn’t even need to try.

Lestat moved through the crowd with the ease of a man who had been adored for centuries—smiling here, nodding there, letting agents and producers and starlets orbit him like moths around a flame. He was polite, charming, untouchable. The perfect rock legend, the perfect myth.

Lestat had drifted toward the terrace not because he needed air—he hadn’t needed air in centuries—but because the crowd inside had begun to bore him,too many people talking at him, not enough people worth listening to and then he heard it. A voice—bright, breathless, trying very hard to sound professional and failing adorably,Cat’s agent. "…I swear, Cat, if you don’t at least try to meet him, I’m going to throw myself off this rooftop. Do you know how impossible it is to get his attention? He’s like—like a vampire crossed with a runway model. He doesn’t even look at people unless he finds them interesting."Lestat paused mid‑step, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.A vampire crossed with a runway model he’d heard worse.The agent continued, oblivious to the fact that the subject of their exasperation was standing just behind a hedge of manicured boxwood.

"He’s picky. He’s unpredictable. He’s… well, he’s Lestat. But if he likes you? If he thinks you’re worth his time? You could be the face of the entire merch line. Do you understand what that means?"

He leaned slightly, just enough to see her profile reflected in the glass—a girl who didn’t yet know the power she carried.Her agent sighed dramatically. "Cat, you’re adorable. You’re talented. You’re you. If he doesn’t see that, he’s an idiot. But you do have to try to be more appealing, the tortured artist act might cut it for Instagram but this...this is the start of the big leagues..."Lestat almost laughed.He stepped out from behind the hedge, letting the fairy lights catch in his hair, letting the city glow frame him like a stage entrance.

sure, the rooftop was nice. the place was bougie. glass walls, fairy lights, the city below like a mouth full of diamonds. but the air was thick with perfume, champagne and desperation. a room full of people pretending they weren't hunting something. it tasted... loud. crowds always did this to her. not just the social part—the psychic part. other people's thoughts didn't come as neat little sentences. they came as heat and static and images that weren't hers. a flash of a hotel room. the metallic bite of jealousy. someone's hunger, sharp enough to scrape.

so cat did what she always did when she had to survive in public: she went still. cat would spend every waking moment of her days locked inside her studio, and every other moment drugged out of her mind in a state of blissful euphoria. yeah, maybe that was fucked up, but it was the only way she found to cope. the noise inside her head got so loud in these events, that she became more of a living doll than an actual person. all she had to do was stand there and look pretty. smile. nod her head. she was just a body.

just a face people could project onto. tilt her head like she belonged in a magazine spread instead of a padded room. try not to flinch when a stranger's intention brushed her skin like a wet hand. she'd dressed like armour anyway—black silk sliding over her body, the organza drifting behind her when she moved like smoke, sheer gloves up to her elbows. the whole thing made her feel like a funeral portrait that had learned how to walk. people loved that. ethereal. tortured. art.

if they knew the real reason her art was dark— if they knew it wasn't an aesthetic but a symptom— they'd stop calling it mysterious and start calling it a diagnosis. nico's voice tried to keep her head above water. he tried to be her anchor. she felt bad for him. “ cat, please. just be yourself. ” cat's mouth twitched. myself was a girl with a head full of other people and a body that only felt quiet when it was chemically softened around the edges. but she at least tried to give him a little more. nico was the kind of person that liked to talk a lot. he filled the room with his voice. and he was good at it. so, he did the talking. but then—something changed.

a presence cut through the chatter with the clean, wrong certainty of a blade. the thoughts around her didn't just swirl—they shifted, turning toward the same point like iron filings to a magnet. cat's attention followed before she could stop it. he stepped out from behind a hedge, and the fairy lights caught in his hair like they'd been waiting for him. the city framed him like a stage. everyone's heartbeat in the room seemed to remember it had a job. cat didn't need her agent to tell her.

she felt him the way she felt storms coming: pressure drop, skin prickling, the world sharpening at the edges. but where she felt him the most... the inside of her head. cat swallowed. her fingers curled once at her side, nails biting into her palm through the glove, grounding herself in pain because it was real and it was hers. she didn't do the squeal. she didn't do the fangirling or frantic networking laugh. she lifted her eyes to him, expression half-guarded, half-curious, like she was deciding whether he was a hallucination. nico was stuttering for words, for a change. cat tried to keep her face arranged into something neutral... something model. chin slightly lifted, mouth soft, eyes steady. the kind of composure people mistook for confidence. nico kept talking beside her, voice bright and hustling, as if he could fill the space between cat and lestat with enough words to make it safe.

“ —and she's been killing it online, ” nico was saying, gesturing like the air itself was a contract. “ engagement is insane. editorials love her look, and her audience is rabid in that... you know, tortured-angel way— ”

cat barely heard him. because lestat wasn't just there. when his attention landed on her... it didn’t feel like being looked at. it felt like a hand closing around the back of her neck.

her mind, the crowded subway station of impressions and noise, did something worse than overload. it went sharp. a sudden clean slice through the static, like someone had tuned a radio and found a frequency that wasn't meant for human ears. the fairy lights blurred for half a second. the glass walls breathed in and out. cat's skin prickled beneath the silk of her dress like every pore had turned into an eye. and then, a voice that wasn't hers, or invaded private noise. an intentional voice, inside her head. male and distinct.

not even like the usual psychic bleed she got from other people, those messy emotional smears and half-formed images. this was focused. elegant. her stomach dropped so hard it felt like gravity had been rewritten. another flicker: candlelight. a throat. the intimate curve where pulse lived. teeth, white, sharper than a blade, near skin. hunger for something that wasn't sustenance.

something older. primal, raw, and absolutely terrifying.

her vision tunneled. hico's voice became a distant underwater warble. “ —and the merch line, i mean, she could absolutely carry a full campaign, right? she's got that— ”

cat's fingers twitched inside the sheer glove, reaching for anything real. her nails dug into her palm again, harder, deeper. pain flared, small and bright, and for a second it anchored her. but lestat's presence kept pressing. not forcefully—almost curiously. like he was leaning closer to examine a bruise. pretty, the not-thought murmured, lazy as smoke. and fractured.

was that him? was that her inner critic? she can't tell. cat's breath hitched.

the room tilted sideways.

images slammed through her—not as visions, not as a gift, but as an invasion: a stage drenched in red light, bodies screaming his name like prayer; a mirror catching a face too beautiful to be trusted; blood on a mouth, wiped away like lipstick; the sweet rot of immortality curling around everything. and under it all, that unbearable sensation that he could feel her feeling him. cat's heart started to race, fast enough that she could hear it in her ears. her lungs forgot how to be lungs. the edges of the city outside the glass turned too bright, too sharp, like it was being drawn in ink.

nico was still talking. “ —she's very professional, very easy to work with, she just needs the right—cat? babe? ” cat couldn't blink. couldn't swallow. her body stayed perfectly still while her mind scrambled like a trapped animal. she looked at lestat, and for one awful moment she didn't see a rock star. she saw a predator who wore beauty like a joke. she saw herself reflected in his attention—edible, interesting, breakable. cat's mouth opened. nothing came out. her hands went cold. she could feel panic crawling up her throat, clawing for air. nope. absolutely not.

she forced her lips to move, manufacturing sound the way she manufactured smiles. “ sorry, ” cat heard herself say, voice thin, too bright, like a wire about to snap. her gaze flicked to nico, pleading and furious all at once. “ i—i need a minute. ”

nico frowned, already trying to salvage it. “ cat, wait— ” cat shook her head quickly—too quickly. “ bathroom. two seconds. i'm fine. ” lie.

the most professional lie she'd ever told.

she didn't wait for permission. she didn't wait for introductions. she didn't wait for nico's hands or lestat's gaze or the room's gravity to decide she belonged. cat turned and walked. fast, but controlled, the way models walk when they're pretending they aren't running. but the second she hit the corridor outside the rooftop space, the sound dropped away and the lights softened and the air tasted less like perfume and more like nothing, blessedly nothing—she broke. her breath came in jagged pulls. her palms shook. the inside of her skull still buzzed with the echo of him, like fingerprints on glass. cat pressed her back to the wall, eyes squeezed shut, trying not to slide down into a heap in her own expensive dress. trying not to scream. trying not to think about the fact that for the first time in her life—the noise in her head hadn't been louder than everything else. it had been answered.

she looked into the abyss, and for the first time in years, it looked back. and it had sharp fangs for teeth, and blood dripping from its jaws. all those years of nightmares, of waking up drenched in sweat, screaming, terrified, and she had never, not once, experienced that while awake. and she knows, she was awake. she pinched herself to confirm. she knows this wasn't her mind torturing her. this was real. lestat, was real. and whatever he was, she knew one thing: she wants nothing to do with whatever darkness he's got going. god knows cat has enough darkness of her own.

her skin feels clammy. she breathes in through her mouth. her feet guide her to the ladies room, where she splashes cold water onto her face. she doesn't care if the make-up isn't water-proof, which, thankfully, it was. water dripping down her features, she looks up at the mirror, at the haunted look in her dark eyes, and she catches a flash of that beautiful pink outfit, of blodne hair and bright eyes and she screams, turning around to find nothing there. you're going crazy. shaking, trembling, cat laughs.

“ i'm fucking crazy. ” she tells herself. it's the booze, or the drugs. she needs to go to rehab. she tells herself she'll make it up to nico, that she'll promise to blow the next superstar he manages to get her a meeting with, but she's going home, and tranquilising herself with valium and a bottle of wine. but, nico's face flashed in her mind—the way he looked when she bolted, desperate and trying so hard to salvage this for her. she owed him more than a disappearing act. one minute. she could give him one minute. fake an apology, say she felt faint, promise to call him tomorrow, and then vanish into the night like the unreliable mess she was. she straightened the sheer gloves, smoothed the black silk over her hips, and tried to arrange her face into something closer to the tortured angel brand her followers loved. it almost worked. she stepped back into the corridor, heart still hammering against her ribs like it wanted out. the muffled thump of music and conversation bled through the doors ahead. i can do this.

the moment she pushed open the door to the rooftop, the psychic pressure slammed into her again. it was heavier this time. the fairy lights, the city glow, the turning heads. and him. lestat was still standing exactly where she'd left him, haloed by the glass and the night like he belonged to both. cat's steps faltered for half a second. she felt that same clean, elegant presence brush against the inside of her mind again—just there, tasting the edges of her panic. her fingers tightened in the folds of her organza skirt.

she lifted her chin, forcing her legs to carry her forward even as every instinct screamed to run the other way. nico spotted her and visibly relaxed, already on damage control. but cat's eyes stayed locked on lestat's. she couldn't look away if she tried. “ sorry about that, ” her voice was thinner than she would've liked, but it was steady enough. “ i'm a big fan. i was kinda afraid i'd make a fool out of myself. i guess i did just that. can i try this again? hi, i'm cat. ” she was doing that thing, where she talked fast and all in one breath. she did her best attempt at a charming laugh as she stepped forward, one single step toward lestat, offering him a gloved hand and a practised smile.

“ let me get you a drink. what's your poison? ”

"You sound just like my oldest boy."

"Have you seen it? It's a tiny little thing. My jumping spider. I call it Ricardo. It might be a girl, though. Who knows. It doesn't matter. "

GIFTS ARE A FOREIGN CONCEPT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Everything he's received from his father feels like an afterthought or an accident. Everything he's been given by Kronos is because he's worked for it, bled for it, betrayed his friends for it.

He doesn't regret those choices. They're the ones he's made—that's all.

one that doesn't reach his eyes. he's surprisingly calm—which coming from him, could be terrifying. but he isn't angry at this child. he is angry at his father for using him. for once again, destroying things. “ i suppose being eaten alive by your father could be considered... things not working out between us. ”

“ i'm not taking anything out on you, luke. we're having a conversation. ” truly, if he wanted, even now, all it would take would be one thought.still, he has done nothing of the sort. “ why does my presence anger you so? ”

@theirmadness asked: i did a number on your back. sorry about that. [ raven @ erik <3 ]

PROMPTS FOR THE MORNING AFTER | Accepting

Erik sits up on the edge of the bed, glancing over his shoulder to look at his back. He then moves to the mirror and looks at himself in it, turning his back to the mirror and looking over his shoulder again. He chuckles softly, turning to look at Raven. He shrugs a bit and smirks at her. "I asked for it, didn't I?"

“ you did ask for it. ” her voice was low, still husky and sleepy. her golden eyes flicekd down his body, then back up to meet his. “ begged, even. pretty sure i remember hearing you say harder at some point. ” she stretched languidly beneath him, like an oversized blue cat, the sheet slipping down just enough to tease him, before she propped herself up on one elbow, coming face to face with him.

“ eat, first. ” she decided, brushing her thumb over his bottom lip. “ you're gonna need the energy. if we go again right now, i'd probably put you in a coma before lunch. ” raven leaned in and nipped at his jaw, stealing a quick kiss from his lips. she gave his hair one last playful tug before rolling toward the edge of the bed. “ come on, magneto. feed me, first. then you can try and survive round two with your favourite wildcat. ”