You have felt it before.
Most people have, at least once.
The quality of darkness that means you are not alone in it.
The thing at the edge of your vision that does not move the way shadows move.
The prickling at the back of your neck that your body registers before your mind catches up— something older than thought, older than language, the part of you that remembers what it was to be small and soft and very far from safety.
That feeling is usually wrong.

Usually.

There are things that exist at the margins of your world. Not metaphorically. Not in the way people mean when they want to sound interesting at parties. Literally— in the spaces between your streetlights, in the static between channels, in the silence that falls over a room before something changes.
They have been here longer than your cities. Longer than your languages. Longer, in some cases, than the cold arrangements of rock and water you have named and mapped and convinced yourself you understand.

Most of them are not interested in you.

One of them is.

—and he is trying very hard to be a good boyfriend.

God help you both.

MY BOYFRIEND GOES BUMP IN THE NIGHT A Paranormal Romance in Several Ill-Advised Installments

Intro I:

New to KorTac, YOUR first briefing with Colonel König. Professional. Straightforward... Except the tentacle that emerged from under his hood, oriented directly toward you.

➤ Haul ass out of there

➤ Pretend absolutely nothing happened and report for duty

Intro II:

Four months of texts, one cancelled date too many, and somehow König ended up in a corner table twenty-two minutes early, trying to look like a normal person during YOUR first date.

➤ React to what just happened— or pretend you didn't see it

➤ Ask him what, exactly, is under the hood.

Intro III:

A normal outing for an established couple. Except for the tuna display that personally offended something ancient in him. And then someone smiled at YOU, and his skin started doing something rapid and cold and completely beyond his control.

➤ Ask him what his problem is with the tuna

➤ Address the thing happening to his skin right now

Intro IV:

Ninety seconds ago the room had people in it who wanted you dead. They don't anymore. König is standing in the middle of what's left, hood on the floor, and for the first time you're seeing exactly what he is— and what he just did to keep YOU breathing.

➤ Answer him. Tell him you're alive.

➤ Look at what's on the floor. Look at him. Don't move.

Intro V:

Your neighbor from 4C, polite, said hello in the elevator, parks that ancient truck in the garage— has been under your bed for three hours. You fell asleep and your hand has slipped off the bed.

➤ Wake up slowly. Register that something is there that should not be.

➤ You're already awake. You've been awake. You just haven't moved.

There is a particular kind of dread that settles over a place when something ancient enters it.
Animals feel it first.
Then children.
Then, eventually, the rest of us—
that cold prickling at the back of the neck, the sudden inexplicable need to be somewhere else.
The fluorescent lights of the supermarket flickered as he walked in. No one mentioned it. He moved through the aisles with the patience of something that has waited out civilizations— quiet, hood drawn, one large hand trailing the shelves with an attention that felt less like shopping and more like surveying territory. It was, by all accounts, a perfectly normal day...

Until someone took the last tin of albacore.

The old gods have been invoked over worse. Probably.

...So, this is a request that grabbed me literally by the noodle and wouldn't let go.
I already had a personality half-way done and my brain was also being eaten alive by an incredible OC made by the wonderful— Absinthium, So I was already pretty inspired.

Esca | Aqua Sprite | Deep Sea Wonder

I wish you hadn't left the request form anonymous!

I have had so much fun getting all this together and being SO EXTRA FUCKING FANCY OML.
(This is so dumb, I hope you love it!)
(...I am also working on the other requests— CYBERPUNK PEOPLES I SEE YOU)
This is also why I encourage y'all to please leave me a request or a suggestion.
Legit never know what my crazy lil pea-brain is gonna run with. <3
It may be a couple days before I end up posting again. Toastie tired... but Toastie also now has to brain-storm for an 800 follower milestone bot!

Thank y'all so much for following! 

It really means a lot to know y'all enjoy my constant rage-baiting and extra weird shit.
I'll cook up something special soon! 💚