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theredofoctober · 3 months

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MANNA- CHAPTER TWELVE: FRUIT

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, Daddy kink, implied child abuse

This is chronologically the twelve chapter

READ AFTER THE CUT...

You ascend to your room alone, glancing back over your shoulder in the paranoia that one or the other man pursues you like night after the sun.

Neither have taken you by way of carnality since Will rutted you against the wall. It seems an unnatural strike of fortune, and one unlikely to last.

There is too much lust between these beings, hunger of such echoing depths that the sensual urge is but one chained within. Their eyes all evening have picked you to the bone like carrion set at by desert birds. Your cunt parts, empty, about the memory of Will’s fingertips; there is a sense of art unfinished, a crescendo in the crashing of keys only the hands of men can bring into violent birth.

In dread of missing the sound of their approach across the landing you lie quiet in your bed, no music nor comforting hum of the television as your night-time companions. Yet footsteps only halve the house when your captors go to bed, each in their own room, an anti-climax.

You think of Hannibal, tossed amidst the curse of unsung ardour, then of Will, crushed under the density of an unsated sleep. Such lonely men, in their way, divided by what lies unchartered between them, and with you.

Though by now settled, the skin which Will has touched—struck—still seems to burn with him. Five fingers, the rounded oblong of a palm, a hand that feeds dogs, has fired a gun, has rocked you, fucked you. A hand that Hannibal Lecter reaches for across dead miles of darkness to know as you have, and to love what you have loathed.

Unsettled, you roll on your stomach, but the pulse you hear when overwrought seems to peal through your very bones in its jeering song.

Filth, sin, soil: you taste your shame in its salt, as you have each night since long ago. Yet before your taking for the purpose of this ritual science there had never been pleasure in it, only the experience of staring always at the edges of things. The corners of ceilings, the light at the top of a door, a wall torn to grain by the night, liminality your legacy of innocence.

With Will, with Hannibal, you cannot look away, are made to witness and to partake in every aggression and gentleness with the same focus of attention. For that is what they want, your immersion in the devil’s playhouse. For you to be a doll, a daughter, embraced after the most inclement incident into a state almost soothed.

You cry yourself to sleep, wanting such a practice of love from someone who’s never once hurt you.

Hunger wakes you in the night, a restless drumroll that compels you upright in its rallying beat. As you stretch, thinking morosely of the marvel it is to have gorged and still not be full, you hear someone stumble in the nearby hallway, thudding against the adjoining wall.

A fight? Some drunken struggle? An intimacy overheard? No—

There is but a sole pair of scuffing footfalls on the floorboards beyond, too unbalanced to be Dr Lecter’s.

In consternation you go to your door and try the handle. It gives way easily under your hand, allowing you to peer out into the black mystery beyond.

Will lists against the right-hand wall, his eyes glazed and rolling under twitching lids. As you stare, abashed, his limbs fall under him, and he sprawls thrashing in unconscious spasms of animation.

There is blood on his face where he’s bitten his tongue, ebony in the negation of light. An oil spill on a seabird, drowning. A splash of mud on a bog's sunken dead.

You should let him suffer, step over his convulsing form and dart for nearest open window or outer door, but horror shakes you senseless of the thought before it takes full form.

Will’s fit continues, throwing the young man’s slim frame about like a machine caught in the throes of grim malfunction.

God help you: you pity him. He is human, and you are, as well.

“Will?” you say, stepping gingerly towards him. “Daddy? Can you hear me?”

It occurs to you that Will’s death is also yours, your lifelines enmeshed, a symbiosis in which only he would survive your parting. You kneel with your palms hovering over him, recalling very little that you know of First Aid, and entirely terrified of making him worse.

Hannibal’s voice comes from your left, uttering your name with a softness that somehow bears all the authority of a bellowed command.

He steps up quickly behind you, his hair disrupted from its usual tidy arrangement.

“Will’s having a seizure,” you say, in despair. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll help him,” says Hannibal. “Go back to your room.”

You stare at him, dumbfounded by his apparent calm.

“But—”

Again Dr Lecter says your name, without raising his voice, or with any particular emotion. Yet you scuttle back the way you came, jarred by the suggestion of temper in that subtle repetition.

You hear Hannibal calling to Will, the sound of him lifting the other man and carrying his dead weight back to the spare room. The door closing, the subtle murmur behind it of Will rousing, his friend's soft, reassuring reply.

Silence, as of an exhibition ended.

Half an hour edges by, and not once do you stop shaking despite the heat of the autumn night.

Presently a knock comes at your door, and the doctor enters, his eyes lowered in remorse.

“I apologise if I spoke harshly to you. I know that you weren’t being deliberately disobedient. It wasn’t my intention to imbue your evening with additional distress.”

“It’s not your fault,” you say, quite disarmed by the apology. “It’s nobody’s fault. I mean, I shouldn’t have left my room, but I couldn’t just not go out there and see what was going on.”

Hannibal’s expression is opaque, a mask of ivory.

“I detect a concern for Will that isn’t entirely manufactured for my benefit,” he says. “Could it be that such a little cynic loves something other than her hunger?”

“What choice do I have but to care about Will?” you ask, shrilly. “What’s wrong with him?”

Adrenaline runs so high within you that you see the room on a tilt like some demented circus mirror reflection.

“What’s wrong with him?” you ask, again.

This time Dr Lecter answers, his tone low and even so as not to incite further upset.

“I suspect that Will is suffering from a combination of stress and fatigue, although I can’t deny the possibility of a neurological disorder.”

“Jack said he was sick,” you mumble. “And the other night, when I— you know. He looked awful.”

Will's face is punched into your retina like a flash of light, all blinding awfulness.

“And he’s been getting so angry with me,” you say, in a panicked rush. “Even though sometimes he’s almost nice. Is that why? Because he’s not well?”

“Will’s health has certainly contributed to his recent outbursts,” says Hannibal, smoothing your rumpled coverlet with fastidious hands. “The absence of control he feels amidst his fever leads to acts of impulse, particularly when in an environment he’s uncertain of, or feels threatened in.”

“I’m not threatening him,” you insist, hotly. “How could I?”

“I don’t mean in the literal sense. Will has very few close confidants, and those he possesses he guards dearly— that, or it is he himself that Will defends against his competition.”

You look up sharply, and Hannibal smiles, all benign conspiracy.

“Yes, little one. Having considered your thoughts on Will's dislike of you, I suspect that he also fears you may supersede him, or else share intimacies with me that he alone would otherwise possess. Yet Will’s envy is more complex than mere romantic ire, for unlike other rivals he has contended with, Will finds himself in the position of dizzying power over you.”

Dr Lecter pauses, his head at a rueful incline.

“For my part, I admit that it was rash to elect Will as the disciplinarian between us without taking all factors into account. It seems that I underestimated how antagonistic your relationship would become as his immersion in your treatment progressed.”

This you do believe, at least in that the doctor’s dissuasion of Will’s most outrageous verbal lashings is clearly genuine. Your bickering, in its familial likeness, he enjoys: an outright skirmish, repellent it its indecency, he does not.

“As you’ve indicated,” says Dr Lecter, going about your room to address its customary disorder, “Will’s becoming aware that his resentment is not entirely warranted as he finds himself increasingly sympathetic to your case. Such feelings are at odds with his desire to be alone in my company— an intricate conflict for any mind, let alone one so fiercely ablaze.”

“Ablaze?” you repeat. “What do you mean?”

“If my suspicions are correct, then Will’s condition may have been agitated by the ingredients in various dishes served in my home these past few weeks. The symptoms are closely matched to Will’s behaviour— disorientation, loss of consciousness, personality changes, mood swings. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t notice this much sooner.”

There is something performative in Hannibal’s guilt, his unshed tears like the glass eyes of a taxidermy animal. He’s known of Will’s ailment far longer than he suggests, and as he turns his back to close your chest of drawers you feel relieved, no longer forced to entertain this show of lies.

“You mustn’t mention any of this to Will until he’s received a formal diagnosis,” says Dr Lecter. “It may be that he’s simply mentally unwell, which would be a far more complicated outcome to navigate. But what you’ve seen of him lately is merely a conjunction of symptoms and heightened territorial emotions. Will’s true self you’ve yet to meet.”

The assurance is of little comfort to you, being that the nearest you’ve come to perceiving Will at his most natural and honest is in his private conversations with Dr Lecter. Through these you’ve glimpsed a complex creature, one that approaches evil with a newborn’s chary exploration.

You want to believe, for your own sake, that the sensitivity you’ve received from him sporadically evidences the continued persistence of his soul. Yet you cannot decide if he began a good man, changed through Dr Lecter’s influence, or if he’s always been a hunter, each kindness a flash of marsh fire luring you to drown.

The image of Will—twitching, defenceless—ultimately overrides this dilemma of thought.

“So what do we do now?” you ask. “We have to help him.”

Pleased by your concern, Hannibal leans across the bed to kiss the downturned corner of your mouth.

“I’ll reschedule tomorrow’s appointments so that I can tend to him. Will needs rest, first and foremost. As for his role here, it would be safest for him to delegate the majority of his more strenuous duties until he's recovered. I’ll continue them, in his stead.”

Choosing not to linger on the implications of this, you ask, “What about me? What can I do?”

“Healing Will is not your responsibility, little one.”

“But I’m making things worse,” you say, fretfully. “I know it. How can I make him like me?”

Not without humour, Hannibal says, “You can begin by tempering that sharp tongue a bit. Like Will, you rarely attempt to sweeten your words. I’ll never encourage you not to bite, but it is important that you roll on your back when we bid it. You must be our good girl, above all else, or if not good then charming, at the very least.”

You roll onto your side, crushing your face into a valley of pillows.

“I guess I really haven’t been playing along enough,” you mutter.

Hannibal chuckles.

“Not nearly enough, for all your promises. But it’s early days yet, sweet girl. We’ll see how you are once we're used to one another.”

Morning comes rudely, stalling the excitement like an opera’s intermission.

You take breakfast with Hannibal, only distracted from the usual struggle of eating by the presence of Will’s vacant seat. Having thought of him without respite for hours you’re in state of nervous delirium, your flinching knee a seismic force under the table.

“I want to see Will,” you blurt out, at last. “I want to see if he’s alright.”

“I’ll be taking a tray up to him in a few minutes,” says Dr Lecter, scarcely bothering to hide his delight in this new interest. “Don’t ask him too many questions. No doubt he’s feeling somewhat delicate this morning.”

You watch as Hannibal prepares a separate meal for the other man, cutting fruit and stewing tea leaves with loving ceremony. When he puts a strawberry to your lips you take it, your tongue rasping the juice gamely from his fingertips.

The shock of the previous night has amputated your mulish declination to humour him; even the disgust that meets your every concession is hushed, made redundant by a renewed vow to leave this house on soft feet rather than screams.

Other women have befriended their keepers and lived, as will you, if you can bear to pander to Dr Lecter as long as they.

Accompanying Hannibal to Will’s room you find that you’re oddly excited, even gleeful in anticipation of the visit. You’re taken with the notion that his seizure will incur some unknowable change, though whether in Will himself or the dynamics of the households you cannot predict.

Never have you seen him so utterly fragile, the dilapidation of a man. You think of a child, foisted on a detached father by a mother Will had never seen fit to name.

Will he be ashamed that you’ve seen that self so clearly? Will he be angry, indifferent, or else fear the power his weakness allows you as though your thumbs press deep in the fluttering dell of his very throat?

There is another possibility, however, the one your morning-fresh hopes hang onto by their nails: that he’ll remember how you’d crouched at his side and called to him as he shook in the darkness.

“Wait here for a moment,” says Hannibal, as you crowd up behind him at Will’s bedroom door. “I’d like to speak to him alone first.”

You hang back as Dr Lecter goes in, pressing your ear to the door the moment it shuts at his back.

“You’re awake,” says Hannibal, simply. “How are you this morning?”

There is a pause as he sets down the beautifully arranged tray somewhere in the room.

“I feel like I could sleep for another forty-eight hours,” says Will, his voice thick and slightly nasal, a sickbed tenor. “I should probably get up and head home. I need to check on the dogs.”

“I called Alana and asked her to look in on them,” Dr Lecter replies. “It’s inadvisable to drive in this condition. Try to eat. You’ll revive much quicker if you line your stomach with something.”

“Yeah, well. I can’t make any guarantees of keeping it down.”

You hear the metallic scraping of a fork about Will’s plate and writhe in envy. Even unwell he eats without thought of the fat that disallows your enjoyment of any meal. You live vicariously through him, in that moment, imagining the liquor of fruit across his tongue, the forbidden pearls of white sugar.

What you’d give not to be a slave to thinness, the goal whose end will never form.

Hannibal says, "Present issues aside, I can't help observing that you've been conflicted, as of late, Will. One might even say confused."

"Have been since the start of all this,” says Will. “The clouds still haven’t cleared. A bilious forecast.”

"Yet you've no wish to abandon this project for brighter climes."

Will gives a little snort of derision.

"I'm too enmeshed in this household to extract myself now. The night I first touched her was my signature at the end of the page. Indelible ink. No taking it back."

You flatten your face to the door so as to better interpret Hannibal’s silence.

"You feel a genuine duty to our little one, for all your misgivings,” he says, at last. “I was beginning to question if I’d made a mistake."

"She's abrasive,” says Will. “Not exactly malleable. I believe you know what you’re doing, but on paper it seems like an ill-fitting adoption."

"Children are reflections of their parents, and so far she’s shown herself to be a mirror of you. Towards me she is cool, distant, and distrustful. With you, there is an attraction of sorts. Not sensual, nor even familial, but it’s enough that, in spite of your every rebuttal and harsh word, she’s beginning to develop something of a rapport with you."

Laughing tersely, Will says, "Not sure I see it."

"You don't allow yourself to,” says Hannibal. “But you’re aware of that truth, all the same. Each time you relent into even momentary tenderness you turn against her in savagery that is vastly unearned.”

“You asked me to punish her,” Will says, sharply. “Encouraged me to— relish it.”

The admission does not move you; these men have knifed ecstasies of you like oyster flesh enough times to have indicated their tastes.

It is the why you listen for, the object they skirt about with the same flirting avoidance of a tryst that cannot be.

“I’m not referring to punishment,” says Dr Lecter. “This I have openly supported. It’s how you address our charge that’s beginning to make her feel displaced.”

“Are you criticising me, Dr Lecter?” asks Will, with a smile in his voice.

“Certainly not. I’m merely observing a pattern of behaviour, and its impact upon my patient.”

To this Will says nothing, but the tension between the two men is as visible as the door that stands between you.

"If you yearn for the hours that you and I once spent alone, I'm able to accommodate by replenishing that time together,” Hannibal says, at last. “But the blame for that neglect is solely mine. I've foisted our little one upon you without consideration of what response such an abrupt change would elicit."

"You don't have to apologise,” says Will, as surly as ever. “It’s an adjustment. I’m getting used to it.”

Your ears catch the delicate action of him lifting the tea cup on his tray, then of setting it down again.

“I spoke to her alone last night,” he says, abruptly. “Told her of my intentions to stay part of this. For a moment it felt like we connected. Like that was the promise she was looking for. But when I refused her something she wanted, she accused me of being ‘like him’. I figured you'd know who she was referring to.”

“Yes,” says Hannibal. “I can make what I imagine is an accurate guess.”

“Whatever parts we try out here, I don’t want to become the unnamed shadow that stands at her shoulder. It made her the way she is. There’s a tastelessness to that kind of evil.”

"I know. It’s more than apparent that you repel her less through genuine hatred, and more through the necessity to protect yourself from what it would mean to know her, and for her to know you in return.”

As Will replies you hear the huskiness of genuine emotion forced out between gritted teeth.

“All this would be a wasted effort if she were ever taken from me.”

“That won’t happen again,” says Hannibal, at once. “The pillar of salt left when you looked back at Abigail will never form with our new charge. When our second daughter turns to me with the same thirst for intimacy she’s developed for you she’ll be, at last, our Chloris, the nymph turned mistress of flowers."

He speaks with such tender compassion that it starts an ache somewhere in the underwing of your ribcage. What necromancy he conducts here to wake your dead and mangled innards into a living heart you cannot guess, only fear the compassion you’re capable of towards such creatures as would destroy you.

"Our little one would like to speak to you, it seems,” says Dr Lecter, closing the previous subject with a seamless finality. “Should I let her in?”

Will shifts uneasily on the bed, creaking its springs.

“She asked to see me?” he asks.

“She did.”

You imagine the younger man scraping a tangle of hair back from his temples as he gathers his thoughts.

“Where is she?”

Thus your cue to enter announces itself: you open the door, peeping at its edge, oddly shy.

"Hey,” you say, in a semi-whisper.

Will is as grey and moist with feverish sweat as deep-sea stone. His vast eyes nest in violet shadow, the whites a thread work of capillaries.

You pity him, this shambling experiment of Dr Lecter's creation, one of many, no doubt.

"Hello,” says Will, dully. “Sorry about last night."

Edging into the room, you allow Hannibal to slip discreetly away behind you with a light pat on your shoulder.

"Are you okay?" you ask. “How are you feeling?”

"Tired, mostly,” says Will. “I'll get over it. Need to. I’ve got a case to work on."

He scrutinises the half-empty tray before him from under lowered lashes.

"I'm surprised you helped me. You could have run off. Hit me over the head with one of Dr Lecter's vases."

"I wouldn't do that,” you retort. “You even said so. That I— can't."

"No, but you could have gotten away. So why didn’t you?"

There is no surprise in his voice, nor even suspicion, which you’d expected. He merely sounds ill, and trying to be interested, in spite of it.

“I don't know,” you admit. “I felt bad for you, seeing you like that. I didn’t want to leave you."

A weary cynicism twists Will’s features into momentary ugliness.

"You were afraid of being alone with someone you could never hope to understand without me."

"Not just that,” you insist, alarmed by the truth of the insight. “I was scared for you. Really. You should go to a hospital. You need tests. Meds. Scans and stuff, maybe.”

Will searches your face with eyes like dull rain, and some of the guardedness falls away from them.

"If it gets any worse, I will,” he says. “Just not today.”

You see how much he detests his own weakness, the potential to be devoured like an animal fallen in a savannah. If you strike, he will struggle, and sick as he is, you will lose.

So you offer him the gift of submission instead, the cunning exertion of a child's mite power.

"Okay, Daddy.”

You feel rather than see Will straighten in response to the word.

"Don't think I'll ever get used to that,” he says. "It’s alright to use my name. There aren't any rules against it."

"No, but he wouldn’t want me to.”

“When have you ever cared what Dr Lecter thinks?”

Shrugging, you mumble, “I guess I’m just sick of fighting all the time.”

The sick man scrutinises at you for so long that you hop from foot to foot in discomfort, itching your sole against your calf.

“It’s going to be hard for me to trust you,” says Will. “You’re probably just going to pretend until you see an avenue to get out of here.”

“Everything’s pretend, here,” you say, smartly. “Nearly all the conversations in this house are about myths and dreams. Dr Lecter talks about them like they’re real, or something.”

Amusement lights the sunken dark of Will’s gaze.

“He finds their philosophies more valuable than the moral structures most people follow.”

“And me?” you ask. “Am I valuable to him?”

Being that you’re still convinced that your worth to Dr Lecter is entirely reliant on Will’s continued interest, you only ask to discern if he himself understands this, or if he believes Hannibal would love you of his own accord.

With a tired caution, Will says, “Right now, I think you entertain him. What else he feels about you I don’t know.”

“And what do you feel?” you persist. “Still don’t like me?”

At this the young man laughs and shakes his head.

“Ask me again once I’ve gotten to know you. If you can agree to a truce, that is.”

“Fine,” you say, and you put out your hand for him to shake. “Truce. Let’s try that.”

With a wry grin Will accepts, letting go almost at once with a sharp inward breath.

“You’re freezing!”

“Haven't you noticed?” you say, hastily stuffing the offending hand under one arm. “I always am.”

It’s an unfavourable symptom of your hunger, this blood and touch of ice. Under even the sweltering gasp of summer’s heat you’ll shiver, knock-kneed, and suffer at the slightest feather of a draught.

Still, that cold affirms you. Were you to be warm again you’d hate yourself, having regained enough of the weight your system craves to regulate its heat.

Glancing up, you notice Will examining his own hand as though he shares your temperature, his fist a twin to frost.

"Come along, little one," says Hannibal, materialising in the doorway again. "Will needs more rest. Perhaps you’ll see him later on.”

But by late afternoon Will has dragged himself home without saying goodbye, and as before his absence eats a crescent into the house.

Some days later you pass an evening with Hannibal like so many others, yet unlike for the new state induced in you through his medicinal enterprise.

You're accustomed to the concoction of drugs that regresses you to a needy youth, the sleepers, the stimulants, the tea that lowers you from the electric heights of righteous hysteria into something slowly numb.

Yet whatever element comprises the pill flushed down by water from today’s gently tipped glass elevates you to orbit a heaven above you, so removed from your imprisonment that you observe all below with an objective eye.

Dr Lecter has bestowed upon you the rare trust that you may eat without prompting or assistance, and you have done so, temporarily rescinding your disordered agitation to a mycelium half-dream.

Thus entranced, you watch yourself drape the tines of your fork back and forth across your half-eaten plate, enthralled by patterns on the porcelain that are not there.

Your eyes drift repeatedly to a painting on Hannibal’s wall, mounted coyly for any dinner guest to comment on.

Naturally, you’ve seen the piece many times before, and have been, in turns, startled and disturbed by its subject.

Now you find yourself dully intrigued, as you were by the Japanese prints. This attention does not go unnoticed by Dr Lecter.

“What is it, little one?” he asks, intently. “Do you have an interest in art?”

“I don’t know,” you say, confused by the banality of the question. “It’s just this picture. Isn’t it... rude?”

Hannibal smirks, eyeing the image with a fond appreciation.

Its focus is a supine young woman, draped, half-naked, on a rumpled bed towards which a curious swan approaches with its curved neck bowed.

Likely it is the original painting, procured at auction, its price unimaginable; all things in this house are ripe with expense, even you, its demanding charge.

“Artistic nudity is only considered rude by children,” says Hannibal, blithely, “or else by shallow and ignorant adults. Does the depiction of genitalia offend you, my darling?”

You gaze up at the cowrie of a cunt under its shadow cap of hair, pinkly presented on spread silk, and think how often your own has been arranged likewise for Will or Hannibal to admire.

“Why is it in this room, specifically?” you ask.

You struggle with the syllables of the words, spitting the sibilants in a manner unbecoming of so distinguished an event as dinner with Dr Lecter.

“Doesn’t it put people off their food?”

“I find it makes for an amusing conversation piece,” says Hannibal, pouring himself another generous glass of wine like the blood of some celestial giant.

You attempt to grimace, none of your muscles quite taking to the motion.

“I don’t think it’s funny at all. Just creepy. Sad.”

“Are familiar with the story of Leda and the Swan? Zeus, a virile and insatiable God, looked upon the queen of Sparta and desired her. So, in order to seduce her, he transformed himself into a swan so that she would be fooled by his beauty and appearance of vulnerability to take him to her bed.”

“He tricked her,” you say, quietly. “He didn’t seduce her, at all.”

Dr Lecter’s face scarcely moves, but there is something of laughter in the lines of his strange beauty.

“So it’s the deception that unnerves you,” he says. “The pretence that he was an innocent creature rather than the all-powerful and lustful deity he truly was.”

You nod, not wanting to admit that you see your own face mirrored in the brushstrokes of the damned queen.

Prophet-like, Hannibal interprets the gesture with flawless vision.

“You empathise with Leda. Recognise the parallels between her story and your own.”

“Is that why you put it there?” you retort, emboldened by the miles between you and the girl slumped in the dining chair. “Because you think you’re the swan?”

“The bird is a shield for the truth, remember,” says Hannibal. “So what would the swan be, in me?”

Dropping the fork with a discordant clatter, you consider.

“The polite, handsome doctor,” you say, at last. “You fool everyone: Jack, Alana Bloom. My parents. They would never have left me here if they knew what you really were.”

Hannibal turns his head at a slight angle, as though by doing so he might uncover some mystery in your face.

“And what am I, little one?”

“I... don’t know,” you admit; a killer, certainly, though there is more to him even than that. “There are a lot of things you’re hiding from me.”

“Tell me your perceptions, then. There’s no need to spare my feelings; after all, you so rarely do.”

Amidst your mushroom-made divinity, you are fearless in your answer.

“You’re a bad person. You’ve done things that would get you into a lot of trouble. Hurt people. Not just me. Not just Tobias. And you don’t feel bad about it. You think that everything you do is right, somehow. Like you should be allowed to do it. Like you’re the gods in all these stories.”

Hannibal absorbs this with the silence of having been sated by your answer.

“And what about Will?” he prompts, some moments later. “Is he, too, a starving monster under the cunning guise of a tender animal?”

“No,” you say, with less certainty. “He’s... sick. You're using him, making him think that this is what he wants.”

Your captor laughs over the rim of his wine glass.

“That’s where you’re wrong, little one. The Will you think you see is only one wing of a swan. Soon, you will glimpse beyond that fragile veil, and feel the mythic need of all immortals to plunder from the weak, merely for the pleasure of knowing that they can.”

A sudden sadness tugs you back to earth like a choke chain, iron-like the lump in your throat.

“So you don’t want to help me, after all,” you mumble. “It really was all a lie.”

Taking your hand across the table, Hannibal presses a thumb to the pulse at your wrist, a soothing motion.

“Not at all,” he says, firmly. “I’m quite fond of you. I wish you to be strong. Each time you find yourself resenting Will and I you must remember that Leda did not die after Zeus bedded her: she became a mother. In you, I seek another outcome. More than one, and not all of them so horrible as you imagine. There will be beauty in this conversion, as well.”

You gaze at him with disbelieving eyes, close to rejecting the hope he grooms in you.

“What other outcomes are you looking for, Dr Lecter? How can I become all the things you want if I don’t understand them? What’s really going on?”

Hannibal kisses your knuckles and places your fork back into your hand.

“Nothing you need to think about at the moment,” he says. “Now, finish what’s on your plate. I’d like you to move on to dessert.”

Just like that, you are his little girl again, the moon having passed across the sun.

#tw eating disorders #tw noncon #tw rape #tw fatphobia #tw anorexia #hannibal fic #yandere will graham #yandere hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader x will graham #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal lecter x will graham #will graham x reader #manna fic

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jiminiecrickets · 7 months

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HONEY WILD & MANNA-DEW: PART II. JJK / M!READER

summary. you have stepped on the toes of a vampire whose possessiveness knows no bounds.

wc. 8.1k

tags. smut | vampire!jk, werewolf!reader, dom bottom!jk, sub top!reader, jk calls r. mutt/dog/pup/puppy, ownership/collars (r. receiving), god kink (?) and worship (jk receiving), sadomasochism, degradation (r. receiving), blood drinking, brief knife play, multiple orgasms

[ requested ]

"take it off."

"not until you learn how to behave," he purrs, dancing his fingers up your bare arm. you shiver; his touch is as cold as ice. "i know that you're my good boy, darling, but you can't go around touching others, kissing others, when you already have me to please."

"take it off," you repeat, a little bit of a whine glancing off of your words. you tug at the smooth leather, and the silver heart-shaped tag clinks against itself with every move. your face explodes with heat as jungkook hooks his finger under it and drags you down to his level, crushing his lips to yours.

you moan softly as he walks you to the wall, not stopping until he has you pinned in place next to the foyer mirror. it's a silver antique, intricately hand-chased and set with mother-of-pearl. he cages your wrists by your temples as he tilts his head, deepening the kiss. his slick white fangs glide against your lower lip, teasing his control – how easy it would be to let go and draw blood.

you squirm, feeling his clothed bulge rut lazily against your thigh. then, just as you begin to stiffen, he pulls away entirely.

he hums as he glances in the mirror. his soft, luxurious black clothes float in the shape of him and he tucks his shirt in tighter, fixing up the folds of cloth. he glances aside at you, your warm expression a mess of embarrassment and want. his lip curves.

"fix up your trousers," he says airily, swiping his thumb over his lower lip. he smacks them softly and glides past you, placing his hands on your hips to move you out of the way. "nobody gets to see you like this but me. do you understand?"

"yes," you breathe, throat bobbing as he bends over to tuck his heels into his shoes. his hand braces against the edge of the buffet table – his fingers are adorned with platinum rings and bracelets, sparkling under the midday sunlight.

"good boy," he croons, beckoning with one jewellery-laden hand. you can imagine so vividly how it'd look wrapped around your neck, your cock…

"what are you thinking about?"

"nothing," you lie quickly. "nothing at all."

his lips quirk up. "mm, just as i like you. heel, puppy – keep up."

—

you shift your jacket collar higher around your neck, rubbing it self-consciously. the jingle of the metal tag is muffled against the cloth, but you still feel that it's too loud – that every glance in your direction is because they hear it and know your shame.

you swallow and adjust your collar one more time before stepping onto the soft greenery of the park. a playground on the other side is full of life – children screaming and laughing, parents watching from benches or helping their toddlers chase after their older siblings. on the edge of the park nearest the university, several clumps of students tap away at their laptops and scribble on notepads.

"yn-hyung!"

the screech barely gives you enough time to turn around before a body barrels straight into yours, knocking you clean to the ground. you laugh, grabbing their shoulders and wrestling them into the soft, clean grass. after a short but intense battle, you emerge victorious, grinning down at taehyung.

he beams up at you, wriggling his way out of your grip and pouncing on your back. you lift him up with ease, hoisting him higher, and he hums softly as you hike towards the group of familiar smiling faces.

"there you are!" hoseok chirps, his face bright. "we were wondering when you were going to arrive. taehyung-ah was about to cry."

"was not," he denies, burying his face in your shoulder. "he's just saying that to deflect! he was really worried when you were five minutes late. you'd think he was told you died or something."

"idiot, i told you not to say anything about that!"

you set taehyung down, but as soon as you lower yourself to join the group, he's practically on top of you, nibbling on your shoulder when you aren't looking. you don't notice, too busy yapping away with changbin next to you about the beat of the new song he's producing for an assessment. namjoon takes taehyung's shoulder and guides him away before you play-fight him for ruining your jacket with bite marks.

taehyung isn't so fussed about it – not like he usually is. he frowns, staring at your side profile, and leans in towards namjoon, whose brows are knitted in concentration as he leans over a mid-size canvas. he's filling in the park and city views as a charcoal piece.

"hyung," he whispers urgently, "he's nervous."

namjoon cocks a brow. he matches taehyung's volume. "nervous?"

"well, i don't know... fear, maybe? it's, like..." he scrunches his nose, snapping his fingers in irritation. "stress? i dunno, it's a little sweet, too... it's like when you're a kid and want to go on the biggest roller coaster at the park."

"are you sure?" you couldn't look more relaxed, but taehyung's never one to lie. "ask him."

taehyung clings to your arm. his features are pinched with concern, brown eyes huge and glimmering with worry. "hyung? hyungie? are you okay?"

you glance down at him, breaking off your conversation about how to incorporate baroque conventions into a modern piece. "hm? what are you talking about?"

"you're worried," he whispers, which catches changbin's attention. hoseok peers over, half of a daisy crown coming together in his lap. "you're never worried. you know you can talk to us about anything, right?"

he rests his head against your shoulder, peering up at you with massive eyes. you shove down the spike in your heartbeat. "no, i'm not," you chuckle, trying – very desperately – to sound confused. "i'm fine, taetae. maybe you're picking up changbin-ah? he's scrapped his draft four times."

"it's true. i'm losing my mind," he supplies.

taehyung shakes his head insistently. "no, it's you! what's wrong? you can tell us. is it a love problem? i give great love advice."

"but you're single," changbin ponders aloud.

"which makes my advice even better, since i'm not blinded by rose-tinted glasses." he sniffs, affronted. "you'd also give you good advice."

"hey!"

"if you're worried, we're worried," taehyung declares, firmly grabbing your shoulders with an intense look in his eyes. "what's going on?"

"it's nothing, taehyung, don't worry yourself."

namjoon's eyes widen slightly. "it's nothing? so there is a thing that's upsetting you?"

changbin leans forward with furrowed brows. he peels away the collar of your shirt, revealing the thick leather band.

hoseok gasps, eyes growing as huge as saucers. taehyung grabs your jacket and yanks it down around your biceps, ignoring your soft growl of warning.

"who did this?" he demands, and namjoon leans around him to take a look. his charcoal stick slips from his fingers onto his canvas, making a small dark mark.

shit.

you scoff at the grass, ripping blades out of the soft dirt. "i got into a fight with a vampire," you mutter. "he was hungry, or something. when i came to, this thing was on me. you shouldn't touch it," you say quickly, pulling taehyung's hands down. "it's silver."

"it's burning you," hoseok states worriedly, shifting closer. they crowd around you, tilting your head away to get a better look at the thing. your cheeks burn with heat. "does it hurt much? i could call jin-hyung! he's got those big tailor scissors – i bet they'd cut through this."

"and be indebted to a vampire? no way," taehyung scoffs, tentatively poking the silver detailing punched into the leather. he flinches back and rubs his fingertips together. "this is why we don't fraternise with them, hyung! they're mean and treat everyone else like walking blood bags. that parasite probably thinks he won that fight. quick, everyone, let's help get this off of him!"

—

"what are you wearing?"

you startle, hackles rising as you spin on your heel. the vampire lowers his crossed arms, his hip leaning back against the stone kitchen counter. his gaze is heavy, suspicious, staking you in place – you resist the urge to whimper apologies.

"jungkook." you lick your lips. your throat is dry. "what are you doing in my house? how did you even get in here?"

"your house?" he scoffs, drumming his fingers rhythmically against the white stone. his fingers glitter with jewels. "this little shack is mine. an altar, so to speak – you worship me here, tuck away pieces of me as a keepsake when you think i'm not aware."

he saunters towards the entrance of your apartment, stopping just shy of you. his gaze trails down your neck, your chest, your belt. it flickers back up to your neck, and you shift uncomfortably, trying to shoulder your jacket into closing up at the throat.

"why else would i be able to stand here alone, awaiting my little puppy in the place he calls home?" he murmurs, reaching up and flicking his fingers. your throat bobs, bare and naked. he hums softly, drawing his hand away, and the collar slips back over the soft skin. "you've made this place mine. i feel it in the air, in the wood knots of your furniture. you're such a gift," he chuckles softly, tracing your cheek, "so sweet and giving..."

your heart pounds against your ribcage, raw and red. your chest tightens as he slides his fingers around your neck, jewellery cold and hard against your skin. you shrink into the back of the front door, but he follows – a beautiful ghoul, skin pale as ivory but with lips as red as blood. he knows the direction of your eyes and those lips curve upwards, baring white fangs too big and cruel for his pretty face.

"but i... but i bought it," you whine softly, unable to say anything cleverer.

jungkook ghosts his lips over your jaw, tilting up to catch your earlobe between his teeth. his other hand cups your ribs, slowly creeping towards your spine like a vine.

"oh, silly puppy," he admonishes with condescending sickly-sweetness. his fingers trace the vertebrae of your spine. "do you think that i'm bound by measly human rules? me? i ruled over men like you, dog. they fought each other with teeth and nails to warm my bed, to feed me, to robe me after my baths. time has passed since then, but all you pretty things remain the same: stupid, tiny, worthless."

his grip tightens, sharp nails digging into your jugular. his eyes flash as his mouth curls into a sneer. "can't even obey a simple command... it required the absence of action, and yet you still couldn't manage it. where is it, mutt?"

"j-jungkook—"

"silence." his fangs trace your artery, pressing ever so slightly to the soft skin. he moans, able to feel the rapid pump of your heart pulsing through it. "i asked where. not for excuses."

with your head tipped back against the front door, you fumble with your jacket, pulling out the leather collar. your hands shake as you offer it, the heavy silver buckle at the back still in one piece. it's the leather that's broken, torn against the grain like a piece of paper. the heart-shaped tag clinks with your trembles.

gently, he picks it up, running his thumb over the tag with his name on it, and relishes in the slight sting the silver courses through his black veins. a heart-shaped abrasion mars the hollow of your throat, a shade or two too red. it's warm to the touch, like a burn.

it won't scar, but jungkook wishes it would. you look so lovely with his initials emblazoned on your skin.

he doesn't say anything for a long while. he turns the collar over in his hands. you remain still, tense as a rabbit under a wolf.

what does it say about you when you are no longer the wolf of the wilds, strongest of his pack?

"it's alright, my dear," he murmurs, tossing the collar aside on a small round table next to the door. "i know you would never do such a thing. it's just a piece of leather and metal, after all."

your shoulders slump. your lips part and a ripple of a whisper escapes them. "but... it's not just leather and metal..."

"hm? speak up, pup. i didn't quite catch that."

this motherfucker...

you swallow around the nervousness in your throat, lifting your chin. you haven't quite managed to look him in the eyes this time. "it's not just leather and metal to me."

"oh?" he smiles pleasantly, cosying up to you and draping his arm over your shoulder. his other hand traces your ribs, stopping over your heart. he taps it with one pointed nail and his eyes flicker up to you coyly. "then what is it, my dear?"

"i kind of... i liked it," you whisper shamefully, staring at your feet. you have to turn your head aside to avoid jungkook's searching gaze. "i want to belong to you. feels right to. after that night... my whole life belongs to you."

he looses a breath, tipping your chin towards him with one soft-palmed hand. "you're mine, then? my little guard dog?"

you find yourself nodding harder than intended, a deep yearning in your soul pulling you towards him. at the sight, jungkook's soft smile grows cocky, and he chuckles.

"very well, my puppy. i'll make another for you and you can wear it everywhere you go, reminded of me with every step and jostle." he seems satisfied at that. he stares up at you through his lashes, expectant. "well, what do you say?"

"thank you." it rushes out in a single exhalation. you want to throw yourself on him, smother him in your scent, mark him as yours as he hasn't let you before. maybe he'll make you his; your heart flutters. "th-thank you, thank you. i'm – i've never wanted anything more."

"mmhm. you should try harder to stop them from taking it off of you next time. i'm disappointed you didn't hide it better. but," he interrupts, "what really matters isn't what it is. it's what it represents. do you understand that, mutt?"

you nod, staring at his lips. the bulge in your pants is getting hard to ignore.

"hm." he smiles. "liar. that collar lets it be known that you surrender all that you were to me, puppy, and it shows everyone just how devoted you are to me. you're not yn; you're not a leader." his fingers tug at your belt, and it comes loose in one fell swoop. "you're only mine. my good puppy. repeat that to me."

"you're – i'm only yours," you gasp, your brain gradually growing heavier the longer you stare into his piercing, hypnotising eyes, smoky and crimson. his pupils are fuller than usual – a full moon, but black as deep space.

you feel your head swimming. keeping your eyes on his is the easy part – everything else seems to blur, straight lines fluttering like heatwaves over asphalt roads. he traces your lips with his thumb and his own tick upwards when you lean into his touch.

"that's right." he presses his chest to yours, slipping his thumb between your lips – you groan softly as his thumb rides the ridges of your teeth. he smirks, kissing the corner of your mouth. you pant softly, twisting a fist in his shirt. "your teeth are so small," he giggles, his own sharp fangs flashing in the light, "so flat and dull. you really are helpless outside of the week of a full moon. that just won't do."

his nails dig into the sensitive skin just behind the corner of your jaw. his eyes narrow. "make yourself pretty in the bedroom. i must... prepare."

he's a killer, you think vaguely while you obey, moving slow and silent, in a haze. you watch your hands travel up behind your head, pulling the cotton nape of your shirt over your head. you move to your shoes, your pants. he's a killer and you can't fight it, not even if you wanted to – the urge to obey him is hot under your skin, thrumming with power.

you feel yourself lower to the ground, the floors cold and hard under your knees. the room is colder than you usually like it and the bedsheets are untucked, pillows tossed about haphazardly.

you swallow, returning your gaze to the floor. your heart hammers. he'd slept in your bed, mingling his scent with your sheets – his gentle vanilla shampoo, his enhungering natural danger. you can smell it: a sweet tug at the back of your mind, like an instinct to turn around after spotting something eye-catching in passing.

you shouldn't be here, on your knees with your breath held for a man who only cares about what you can give him. you shouldn't be a servant in your own home.

but you can't stop coming back to him. the little taehyung in your head tells you to walk away and forget all about him because vampires can't be trusted not to run with a pair of scissors, let alone care for another person beyond anything skin-deep. they're solitary creatures by nature, and nothing lives for half as long as they do – why does anything beyond themselves matter if it dies in a breath?

but you can't stop coming back to him. it almost makes you angry. bitter. but every time he looks at you with eyes just a little softer, every time he tells you charming stories about his youth, you manage to trick yourself into thinking that maybe – just maybe – you could be what he thinks he's never needed.

"mm, that's what i love to see."

his soft voice echoes in your head. you glance up as he nudges the bedroom door shut. he wears a pair of short black gloves, the edge curving towards his knuckles in a convex arc. he spins a short silver dagger between his fingers like a drumstick, twirling and folding and flipping, and you're mesmerised.

"would you like to have a look at it?" he asks gently, stepping closer. he perches on the end of the bed, guiding your head to rest against his thigh, and strokes your hair as he brings it closer for your inspection.

you reach out to touch it. he tilts it away. "ah-ah, love. it's silvered. that's why i'm wearing these gloves."

"where'd you get it?" you murmur. mortality is a sensitive topic for him – you wouldn't have thought he'd keep something that can kill him so close.

he brushes your hair from your face, flipping the blade lengthwise in his palm to show you the intricate carvings of the wooden handle and cross-guard. a relief of a woman is imprinted into the handle on either side. "winter, seventeen-eighteen. i liked to travel. this thing stuck me right here."

he touches a finger to your back, below the shoulder blades and between the ribs. "isn't it strange how something so small and pretty tried to end me? it's like a sparrow kicking a buffalo and hoping it dies."

"it's pretty," you agree, resting your cheek against his thigh. you gaze up at him. "but... why are you showing this to me?"

he only smiles. "get on the bed and lay on your back."

you do. in a heartbeat. he could kill you right then and there. you don't care – or maybe you do.

you don't know anything, not really. with him, everything is measured in infinites and uncertainties. jungkook glows like the moon, bright and good, kissing a well-worn path down your chest and stomach, and you close your eyes to the feeling of his cool touch gliding down your sides.

he lifts himself to your lips, allowing you to initiate the kiss – he hums, settling his naked weight on top of you. had he always been bare?

"this dagger pierced me here," he whispers, placing his hand over your heart between the third and fourth ribs. he licks his lips, feeling it pound like a drum. "it went all the way through. but when i opened my eyes, i saw the moon and all her stars through the treetops, and i knew then that i was meant for bigger things."

he reaches down with a coy smile, wrapping his fingers around you boldly. "maybe this is it."

your voice gets left behind in the anticipation, rushing and tingly. his palm slides over your tip and up your stomach.

"since then, i've felt... different," he says softly. "i found no pleasure in the chase – only their little deaths. life was boring now that i knew they could not touch me in ways that mattered. but then i found you, tiny and wounded, and when you looked up at me with fire and blood i wondered if i'd been going about it all wrong."

he slams the dagger straight through your headboard, inches from your face – the wood splits – you flinch away and a strange choked moan escapes your throat.

"you were special." he slides his cock against yours and lowers a hand to angle you against his hole. the other hand tightens around your wrist, pinned to the mattress. "you made me want again. you shouldn't have – you were just another little bug who bit off more than he could chew. you should've made me smile in pity. but you were still baring your teeth, leaning towards me even though you couldn't walk by yourself, and you made me want to be wanted."

he presses the tip of your cock into his ass and throws his head back, moaning breathily as he sinks down on it and rolls his hips.

you resist the urge to buck up into him – your head falls back to the pillows. he dips his head into the crook of your neck, laving the soft skin with his hot kisses and sharp white fangs. he rocks his body: back and forth, tight circles. he writes his name with his hips and smiles when you whine for him, strong thighs tensing under him.

he shifts on his knees and bounces on your cock – harder, rougher, skin slapping obscenely. he leans back, staring down at you with crimson eyes. his cock bumps against his stomach and he wraps his thin fingers around it, smirking as your gaze flickers down to it. he swipes the precum across his tip with a louder moan than all the rest, pumping himself in time with his bounces.

your head falls back and you close your eyes to the sound of his pleasure. in this moment, as his sharpened nails rake stinging lines down your chest and stomach, you are nothing – nothing but a toy, a temporary trinket. your tongue drags over your lower lip and jungkook's gaze snaps to it.

he leans in, his hips slowing. he tucks his clawlike nail against your lips, drawing the bottom one back, and lets it snap back against your teeth. a smile creeps slowly across his features as you gaze up at him, glass-eyed, your heart pounding in your ribcage as your cock twitches in his tight heat.

it's so strange, you think vaguely, that his skin is cold but his core is not. perhaps he is a god, carrying the heart of a star in that doll-like hollow of his chest.

your arms flex above your head. you want to touch; it's in your nature. like a fire, you're entranced by the devastation such beauty can create – and, like a fire, you can't help but sift your fingers through the dancing flames, teasing burns for the heat and adrenaline. there's only so far you can press before something bites back, but you'd take anything jungkook gives.

you call yourself his, and he kisses your eyelids.

"good puppy," he whispers, fingers digging into your jaw. he rushes in, conquering your lips without regard, and you groan into it, gliding your tongue against his as he cages your hips between his thick thighs and forces them still.

his love is magnetic. he sits back with a breathy moan, licking his lips. a thin trickle of your blood stains the corner of his mouth, and a twitch of your own tongue brings the smooth-edged nick to the front of your mind.

his eyes blaze with demoniac intensity – not quite fury, not just lust. it is a pure, base need, like the look of a starved man presented with a banquet. he bounces quicker on your cock, baring those too-big teeth with a morbid sensuality, sharp white points glistening under the swipe of a scarlet tongue. you whine his name, half-swallowed whimpers knocked out of your lungs.

"stop breathing like that," he hisses, accentuating that word with a drop of his ass that has you recoiling, halfway to pain. "you – your heart – it's so fucking loud," he growls. "nngh, shut up shut up shut up—"

your cock burns inside of him. he squeezes his eyes shut, pushing his fingers against your bleeding lips until his palm finds purchase around the shape of your jaw and muzzles you. your dull fingernails dig into the firm flesh of his thighs.

on one particular plunge of his hips, he clamps around you just as he travels the length of your cock, and it itches a nerve-deep restlessness in the back of your brain that has your eyes rolling briefly back and your cock erupting prematurely inside of him. you claw at his wrist, relearning the difference between your body and his. a strange noise escapes your chest, bubbling out of your throat and collecting a cry and a sob from the shallow of your mouth.

his eyes snap open, dazzling in their hell-flame glow. he looms in, throwing your hand off of his thigh and onto the bed by your head. his claws tear at the linens. he buries his face in your neck, so close that you can hear the churning sound of his tongue as it licks his teeth and lips.

the dark lashes flutter rapidly against the supersensitive skin of your throat as his shivering lips ghost over your collarbones and adam's apple. the cold tip of his nose brushes your skin with each heavy jolting drop of his hips. when you begin to whine louder, muffled, behind his palm, squirming as he milks you of everything you have, he doesn't say a thing to chastise you.

the hot breath on your neck is heavy and trembling. every part of him is plagued with the same shuddering animalistic lust. you don't doubt for a second that he can hear the dog shaking off in the yard across the street, or the simmering of the hot water tank next door.

amongst all of that white noise, he chooses you. you are the only one worthy of his full attention – the pounding of your heart reaches your ears, throbbing in your fingertips, pumping harder than ever to even attempt to keep pace with him. he presses his mouth to your artery, the hard dents of sharp teeth pushing torturously into your skin.

the message he didn't intend to send is clear. you are his toy, and he isn't teasing you – he's teasing himself. you can only close your eyes in languorous ecstasy, waiting – waiting with beating heart.

abruptly, he tugs his hips off of your cock, hissing softly as his thighs tense and untense. your cock falls to your stomach with a wet tap and your muscles relax with a judder, finally allowed some semblance of relief. your cum is smeared along your length, creating a frothy white right around your base, and it drips down jungkook's inner thigh behind his aching, swollen cock, on the cusp of a high.

nose buried in the side of your neck, he reaches up, groping for the headboard. his fingers wrap around the dagger and he wrenches it out of the thick wood, dusting the pillows with a fine wooden rain. he wipes the blade against the top edge of a distant pillow and lifts his lips from your throat, only to set the blade against the bulb of your throat. you gasp sharply and the knife rides against your throat as you gulp harshly, the sound echoing in your ears.

with a soft exhale, jungkook turns his red gaze over his shoulder, his hand sliding down and down until it finds your cock, gliding loosely over it until it finds the hot tip of it and guides it towards his ass again. you wince as the lapse of attention has the knife denting your skin. he rocks his hips backwards onto your dick.

"no..." you drawl out the whine, struggling weakly against his weight caging your hips. a sharp discomfort grows in your gut as he plays with your cock, handling it carelessly. "no more..."

he tightens his grip on your shaft, not sparing you a glance. the twisting curve of his spine, the lean angles of his body – it's like art.

jungkook hushes you absent-mindedly, like someone speaking to a panicking kitten. "quiet, little one..."

you're not little in any sense of the word. you lead your pack as their primary defender, their protector. he is more svelte than raw unbridled force, which you are – the reminder only makes it all the more humiliating, put at knifepoint of a man-shaped monster who weighs ninety pounds sopping wet and who you could throw with a good wind-up. how he's so light, you don't know, as dead vampires don't leave bodies to study, and no living – ha – vampire would ever degrade themselves by allowing medical students to poke around their innards.

despite this – fuck, you can barely think straight anymore, going off on such mental tangents – jungkook stares you down as if he's the most powerful man in the world, letting the head of your cock pop in and out of his slick asshole to see you squirm, lashes fluttering and tongue darting out to wet your parted lips.

there is a time and place for tears, but when all you can think about – all you have, all you can cup in your palms without breaking – is jungkook's pretty little waist, the shelf of his hips and ass, it's hard not to ruin and be ruined. you cannot control anything, but jungkook is holding your hand, and the illusion of being able to control more than whether or not to squeeze back is enough for you.

"i know, puppy, i know. it's okay. i've got you."

the faint burn of the silver has your cock jumping shamefully. the idea of your blood threatening to break the surface and how it would burn his attention on you like a brand... you might just die without any input from the dagger at all.

"y-you're gonna make me come again," you whisper hoarsely, still struggling futilely. "ah—!"

he sinks halfway down your cock without flinching. he angles the silvered blade against your jawline, black-gloved knuckles pressing against your chin. it stings a little sharper. "don't," he demands, and his voice is harder, more of a growl than spoken word. it softens, playing with meekness and pity. "come inside me one more time and i'll make sure you won't again."

his voice is low, almost a whisper, but it seems to cut through the air and ring around the room and in your skull, pulling a weak groan from your lips as your cock throbs, choked by the heat of his plush walls around you. he shifts his grip on the dagger.

you barely have time to respond before he drops his hips the rest of the way. his insides swallow your cock voraciously, his brows furrowing and ruby lips parting as he slams down on your hips without a care. his head thrown back in taut ecstasy, he fucks you until you've got his skin under your fingernails, raking them down his hips and thighs. the wet smack of skin on skin, the squelch of your cum fucked deeper inside his heat – you arch against the silver suddenly and the rocking of the bed slides it against your skin.

drip.

jungkook's eyes fly open as the scent hits his nose. he yanks the dagger to his pale chest, the lurid red smeared along one silvered edge commanding his attention. his hips move unsteadily, the tendons of the back of his hand tightening and shifting under his hand as he grips the dagger ever tighter.

in a lapse of control, he fucks himself with a powerful grind of his ass, and he drags his scarlet tongue along the edge of the blade, his hot breath fogging the silver. he moans, a sound fuelled by an undercurrent of a growl, and flips the dagger expertly, lapping up the blood on the other side.

his cock is red and heavy, arching in the cool air as precome bubbles persistently down his tip and shaft. it pools between the ridges of your stomach and you grip his thighs, eyes wide as you stare up at him and the way his long tongue curls around the dagger with blissed-out exaltation.

he parts with it unwillingly. licking his lips, as if to savour it, he places it delicately back in the shattered hole in the headboard he made earlier, pushing it in until the cross-guard refuses to let it any deeper. gently, he swipes his thumb over your brow, wicking away the sweat gathering there.

with a soft exhalation of breath, he yanks your head back and dives in to attach his lips to your flesh with a moan.

jungkook's tongue is rough, perhaps to better collect the blood oozing from a wound. it must not work well enough for him, for he snarls, pushing those slick white teeth against your throat and scraping against the bulb of your throat. the power behind his thrusts is enough to shatter a lesser man's pelvis, and you clutch onto him for dear life, arms wrapped tight around his tiny waist and firm back.

the bedframe shakes. his toes curl.

his cock is crushed between your bodies, but he doesn't seem to care, even as it throbs and leaks for attention. his ass ricochets roughly against your hips, unstable and rippling – his hot gummy walls clench and strangle your cock as if he wants to kill you.

heat death, big freeze. same thing.

you come. he loses control and his teeth breach your delicate skin. his razor-pointed nails pinch into your neck from the hand cupping the arch of the base of your skull, drawing beads of blood where each point meets your flesh. blood pumps rapidly against his fingers, the pulsating rush of your arteries and veins hot under the thin protection you have against him.

skin glistening with sweat, you spill inside of him, pulsing inside his hot depths as you thrust up against him, muscles bulging until they tremble. your cock pumps him full and searing and he moans into your skin, slurping up the hot metal blood gushing into his mouth with hollowed cheeks and starved, fervent passes of his tongue.

his grip around your wrist feels like a dog's jaw, sufficient to snap human bone. luckily for you – or unluckily, as others would say – you are far hardier than that, and the pressure is heavy, but not painful. weighed down by his body, riding you and swallowing you like nothing else matters, you feel like a chew toy, gnawed and bitten. it's your one purpose. it's your only purpose.

in the white-hot daze of your high, focussing on the pale red-lipped face above you is easier than knowing anything else. his eyes glimmer in the dim light, star that he is.

he's terrible. he's beautiful. your blood drips from his chin down the swan-like curve of his neck, his claws digging deep into your skin, denting the flesh – teasing his own strength. the words fall out like comets burning through the atmosphere.

"what did you just call me?"

his voice is soft yet booms around the bedroom, filling the space like no other can. you release a shaky breath, numb to the world outside of his touch, and shift your hands tentatively higher, cupping his ribcage like something sacred.

"god," you whisper, wanton and reverent. "you are a god."

his scarlet lips curl in a smirk. he gazes down at you, soft and sweet like a farmer to his dog. god? he says, slinking and burning his way down your body. his sharp eyes glitter and gloat, gazing up at you through dark lashes the whole effect is that of a blood moon through the winter-bare woods. there are a great many gods out there, little one. you're putting me in the pen with the likes of zeus and poseidon, manwhores with hundreds of children between them. you say i'm venus, so envious of a gorgeous mortal girl she sends her on impossible journeys in the hope that she dies. you, then, call me whore, that jealous bitch?

"no! please, you're everything," you cry, desperate to rid him of the distrustful twist to his mouth. he feels your heart leap. you cup his cheeks, riding your thumb along the edge of his lips and placing the gathered blood on his tongue. he hums in soft content, sucking softly and hollowing his cheeks, staring down at you to ensure you're watching.

you are. how could you do anything but?

"and?" he purrs. "what's your defence?"

"forgive me," you whisper, your throat bobbing. "you're my god. just one. just mine."

he only allows himself to react when you bury your face in his shoulder, unable to see the wild gleam in his eyes or the feral sharpness in his smile. he cups the back of your head, hushing you, and he runs his tongue over his lips, your taste lingering on his breath like poison.

he licks his teeth, the soft sound louder next to the blood pumping in your ears. sweat trickles down your temple, down your neck, and jungkook lunges in, drawing it onto his tongue with a shuddering keen like an animal.

"i'm your only one?" he whispers, a ripple in the wind. "i am your god?"

you nod into his shoulder, throbbing under your skin. something about him – something about you – is rawer, redder, tonight. like meat over the fire, blood on the snow. you want to get your hands inside him, prove your strength. your desire. you want to pierce deep inside him where that dagger could not and show him that you deserve to be there, that you can do what no one else can.

"such a sweet little lamb," jungkook croons, dancing his touch down the inside of your elbow. he seizes your wrist and you gasp softly. he brings it to his lips, warm and plump with blood. he kisses the pulsing veins, feeling your heartbeat quicken under his thumb as he bares his teeth and presses the points of his canines against the soft warm skin. "i hunger for your sweet libation."

rather than give, he takes – fangs piercing your wrist, he closes his lips around the wound and his eyes flutter shut, his blue-veined eyelids delicate and shifting as he moans, his body rolling atop yours with a renewed hunger. this hunger is slow, yawning, maw open to swallow and gulp. he opens his eyes, and the first thing they do is search for yours in the semidarkness.

maybe you're kidding yourself, that you would be the first thing he looks for when he opens his eyes in a dark room. it's a fantasy – a lovely little marigold dream – but you keep thinking of it anyway, keeping it alive in chains and a cage at the back of your mind like a circus animal a hundred years ago. sure, it hurts to keep because it scratches and bites, but it'd hurt more to get rid of something with so much promise. so much potential.

his throat bobs steadily as he drinks, opening his ruby eyes and freezing you in place. when the flow begins to slow, he growls, grabbing your bloodied throat with his other hand and yanking you up, forcing gravity to do its work. like this, closer to him, you watch as he cradles your wrist, tilting his head against the two neat little gashes in your wrist like a kiss.

watching him drink is another obsession altogether. after every swallow, his scarlet tongue peeks out, lapping at your skin before his rosy lips close over the wounds.

you cradle his cheek, brushing his lustrous dark hair from his face, and he twists naturally with it, leaning into it as he moans softly, caressing your wrist with suck stark gentleness that it gives you whiplash.

that half-dead animal limps out of its cage to heal in the river.

"you stare too much."

your eyes drop to his shoulder. he takes your chin and tilts it back up, capturing your gaze.

"i didn't say i didn't like it."

a shaky breath escapes you, puffing warmly against his shoulder, where you rest your head. he detaches himself from your wrist to tug on your hair, lifting your face.

he licks his bloodstained lips, redder than any lipstick. "keep looking, my dear. have you seen what you do to me?"

wordlessly, you nod, throat bobbing harshly as you glance aside at your wrist. the blood flows down the inside of your arm, twirling down the length of it to drip from the point of your elbow. you shudder as he places his lips on the two little wounds, lapping it up like a melting popsicle.

he locks his gaze with yours throughout it all, heavy as he moans softly against your skin. finally, he drags his tongue over the wounds, kissing them better. he lifts your arm slightly, lowering his lips near the bottom of your arm and licking a long, twirling line back up, tracing the trickles of blood.

he lowers your hand, tongue swiping over his teeth as he links his arms behind your neck. he lowers his lips to yours, gifting a soft, almost chaste kiss upon them. your blood is like steel and sweets.

his soft breaths puff against your cheek, hot and lazy as he presses your cheeks together, cradling the back of your head so that you may not escape.

"you still want me like an animal," he breathes, loosing a soft chuckle. he rolls his hips, moaning softly as you grip his side tighter. "my good little puppy... your blood is like wine."

you tilt your head, baring the other side of your throat – the one unmarred by his bite. you close your eyes, feeling his incisors nibble at the skin.

"you like the pain, do you, pup?" he digs his blunt fingers into the healing wounds on the other side, already closed over. you've always been a quick healer, even amongst your own kind. jungkook relishes in the half-strangled groan that judders through your body. "sh-shhh... you can hold me, if you'd like."

you seize the opportunity, wrapping both of your arms securely around his waist, fingers digging into his waist and shoulder. shifting him on your cock, still buried inside of him, makes him moan, and he tightens around you as he takes a deep breath of your scent, the sweat and musk marking you as something dangerously alive.

risen-dead as he is, he has no such scent. he wears perfumes of all kinds, but it's a shallow fix to the fact that he feels so obsessed with your engulfing arms because you smell like you have lived – the sweet grass you lay in, the crushed petals soaked into your jeans, the sweat after a chase.

it almost makes him... jealous.

his teeth pierce your skin. you gasp in pain – this time he's so much rougher, sinking his teeth deeper into your veins and nicking the artery. he lets out a trembling moan as the blood spurts into his mouth, and his throat works excitedly to gulp it all down, the churning sound of his tongue lapping it up and swallowing making you dizzy. his claws dig into the sensitive skin under your jaw, keeping your head away from your shoulder.

your lashes flutter and you gasp, clutching onto his bruised hip tighter, his ribs tight against the inner side of your elbow. he's forgotten to keep up the act of breath, and his still chest against yours is in perpetual forward motion, his hips rocking roughly as an afterthought to his greatest pleasure at your neck. he leans in, and the arm braced against the bed trembles under your combined weight.

forward, forward. he drinks and drinks. your strength fails you and you collapse to the bed, squirming as your vision blurs in crimson and white. your oil-slick blood is hot on your skin and jungkook laps at your throat with a starved growl, nosing at your jaw.

you've felt like this before, the lines of the bedroom swimming in your vision, swirling like marble. you clutch your god, whose body rocks languidly atop yours, and the sting of his tongue sliding against the oily blood leaking from your neck burns a thousand times brighter, flaring along your nerves to the tips of your fingers.

you come inside of him like a broken dam. his leaking cock follows suit, spilling all over your stomach and glazing it in white. his eyes roll back as he moans around the blood pouring down his gullet, sweet and thick.

when he opens his eyes – dark brown – and licks the wounds to seal them up temporarily, he realises, slowly, that your touch is bruising him.

his thoughts begin to pull themselves together out of the animalistic foggy haze. your warmth around him, in him, is addicting, clutching him close as if he's the only thing keeping you sane. he moans softly, arching into your touch.

"such a good boy for me," he whispers, milking your cock for all it's worth. you suck your lower lip between your teeth and bury your face in his shoulder, grinding up into his ass and pushing his hips down to meet yours. he sighs softly, stroking your cheek and jaw as you grow lax, panting shallowly. "that's it, darling. my sweet pup did so well."

you nod dazedly against his skin, a little dizzy with the praise – and the blood loss. "mm, th-thank you..."

his lips quirk up and he traces his fangs with his tongue. "so polite, too. your peers could learn a thing or two from you, love."

your heart flutters at the pet name, rolling off his tongue like rich wine. you pull him to your chest, tucking his face in the hollow of your throat, and roll over, pulling his calves over your thighs. you hold him like that, your bicep acting as his pillow and your other hand cradling the small of his back.

he lifts his eyes, gazing up at you with amusement. "you're covered in blood, puppy. you don't want to clean up?"

"i love you."

"that doesn't change anything," he murmurs, dark eyes the richest warmth you've ever known. "you're still messy."

"sorry."

jungkook sighs, able to recognise when he's fighting an uphill battle. your heartbeat remains quick and rabbiting, and he places his palm against it with a tiny smile he makes sure you cannot see. you're still up in the clouds, still replacing the blood he accepted from you, and you're groggy, cuddling him into your chest like a lover. he's certain it has something to do with the fact that you're still trying to court him.

he amuses you, playing along. it can't hurt to let you have this fantasy – after all, you've been so good for him, dropping that cocky edge the second he wants you between his legs. you play his game, so he'll play yours.

what a shame you haven't told him all the rules.

#top male reader #x male reader #male reader #dom male reader #dom reader #male reader smut #bts x male reader #bottom bts #bottom jungkook #jungkook x male reader #kpop x male reader #bts x reader #kpop x reader #bts smut #jungkook smut

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totallyhussein-blog · 2 months

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Iraqi Jewish confectionery are a window into a bygone era

Five days a week, 78-year-old Tzvi (Sabah) David rises at 4:35 a.m. and dons an all-white baker’s outfit before heading out to open up Konditorei David, the last-of-its-kind Iraqi pastry shop in Petah Tikva that was opened by his father David Tsalah.

Three days before the Purim holiday, David is getting ready for one of the busiest times of the year as multiple generations of Iraqi customers will soon stop by to purchase sweets that have been synonymous with Purim for Iraqi Jews for centuries, if not millennia.

“I love the work. It is a very tiring and difficult job and I am not 18 anymore, but I feel young in the morning when I get up,” David tells Eliyahu Freedman of The Times of Israel on a recent visit to the small shop, which doubles as a window into the pre-modern world of Middle-Eastern pastries.

His first item of business today is making a fresh batch of baba qadrasi, also known in Arabic as “mann el-sama” or “manna from heaven,” named after the legendary food that God miraculously delivered from the sky to feed the Israelites in the Exodus story.

If not truly the biblical food itself, an early recipe for baba qadrasi was found in a 10th-century Abbasid cookbook.

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eelhound · 9 months

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"The transition from [the barter system to currency] is hard to understand; how can human cravings be fetishized into pieces of metal? The answer is elegant because it reveals not only the origin of money, but its character even today. Money was and still is literally sacred: 'It has long been known that the first markets were sacred markets, the first banks were temples, the first to issue money were priests or priest-kings.' The first coins were minted and distributed by temples because they were medallions inscribed with the image of their god and embodying his protective power. Containing such manna, they were naturally in demand, not because you could buy things with them but vice-versa: since they were popular, you could exchange them for other things.

The consequence of this was that 'now the cosmic powers could be the property of everyman, without even the need to visit temples: you could now traffic in immortality in the marketplace.' This eventually led to the emergence of a new kind of person, 'who based the value of his life — and so of his immortality — on a new cosmology centered on coins.' A new meaning system arose, which our present economic system makes increasingly the meaning-system. 'Money becomes the distilled value of all existence ... a single immortality symbol, a ready way of relating the increase of oneself to all the important objects and events of one's world.'

If we replace 'immortality' with 'becoming real,' the point becomes Buddhist: beyond its usefulness as a medium of exchange, money has become modern humanity's most popular way of accumulating Being, of coping with our gnawing intuition that [the ego does] not really exist. Suspecting that the sense of self is a groundless construction, we went to temples and churches to ground ourselves in God; now we ground ourselves financially.

The problem is that the true meaning of this meaning-system is unconscious, which means, as usual, that we end up paying a heavy price for it. The value we place on money karmically rebounds back against us: the more we value it, the more we use it to evaluate ourselves."

- David Loy, from "Buddhism and Money: The Repression of Emptiness Today." Buddhist Ethics and Modern Society: An International Symposium, edited by Charles Wei-hsun Fu and Sandra A. Wawrytko, 1991.

#david loy #quote #quotations #anthropology #economics #symbols #money #psychology #psychoanalysis #buddhism #value #neoliberalism #capitalism

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crossdreamers · 1 year

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Was Jesus transgender?

Jay Hulme has written a fascinating thread about how theologians have understood the gender of Jesus. Even though no one thinks of Jesus as transgender in the modern sense, it is pretty clear that Jesus has been seen as crossing the gender binary.

Jay Hulme is a transgender poet, performer and education and you can find his web site here! Jay is currently Poet-in-Residence at ‘The Poet’s Church’, St Giles-in-the-Fields in Central London.

Recently there was some drama where news outlets got angry at a sermon which supposedly claimed Jesus was trans. Obviously the sermon did not say Jesus was trans - but it did touch on some fascinating (and very old) theology surrounding Jesus and gender. So let's talk about that.

God is not male

First I've gotta explain the Trinity... which is way too complex for twitter Suffice to say that God is not male (despite what you may have heard) and is in fact all genders and none simultaneously Jesus is God made flesh, God embodied as human. As a human man, yes, but also...

If you've been on Trans Twitter you'll have seen the "Jesus is trans" jokes. Saying his chromosomes had to be XX because he couldn't have got a Y from his Father. The meme about his side would being from top surgery But people have been playing with Jesus' gender for centuries

And the reason that people have been playing with Jesus' gender in art and theology and all that for centuries, is that Jesus gives us REASON to. So, of course, as we expand our understanding of gender in the modern world, we expand that to trans stuff too.

For all mankind

So lets talk about how, historically, the "Masculinity" of Jesus has been seen and considered, shall we?

So the whole point of Jesus is that he comes for ALL of humankind. We are told that we are all capable of, and supposed to work towards, being "christlike" - after all, Jesus is the embodiment of a genderless (or genderfull) God. The point is not that Jesus is a man, but a HUMAN.

And Jesus is clear about the fact that he didn't come as "a man" but "a human". So clear that all of the Gospel writers agree on it. In fact, throughout the Gospels Jesus never uses the word "anēr" (male/masculine) to describe himself. He always uses "anthrōpos" (human).

Jesus is the human incarnation of a God who is all genders and none, all at the same time; a God that has created each of us in their own image - all of us, of every gender - and therefore Jesus is not simply "male", but "human", and theologians have long recognised this.

Jesus as mother

Understanding that Jesus isn't merely "male", theologians have often described Jesus as a "mother" - most famously Julian of Norwich, who wrote in the 1300's, said: "Jesus Christ therefore, who himself overcame evil with good, is our true Mother."

Julian of Norwich also stated "The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life"

This idea of the sacrament as breast milk was not unique to Julian - many theologians drew the connection between these life giving things - even reflecting Rabbinic understandings of the Manna from Heaven as breast milk to create a long thread of understanding.

But one of the most "contentious" parts of the sermon that started this furore and started this thread is a particular (and long held) understanding of Jesus' side wound. Obviously, Julian has thoughts on that, too...

Julian says: "The mother can lay her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus can lead us easily into his blessed breast through his sweet open side, and show us there a part of the godhead and of the joys of heaven, with inner certainty of endless bliss."

Jesus side wound

Medieval Christians were OBSESSED with Jesus' side wound. It was the highlight of artistic depictions, the focus of sermons, the content of visions. And one of the main things they saw it as, was some kind of portal...

And by "portal", I do, of course, mean vagina. And that's what the oh so contentious sermon said - "look, medieval christian art saw Jesus' side wound as a vagina. Let's talk about that."

The idea is that Jesus gives life. Like a mother giving birth. Jesus raising Lazarus from the tomb, Jesus himself rising from the tomb, they both involve the miraculous drawing out of human life from a dark cave, along a tunnel, and into the light. Sounds a lot like childbirth.

We say that Christ died so that we could live. The Bible says it a lot. Many theologians, living in a time where death in childbirth was common, and childbirth itself could be horrifically painful drew the connection between Christ's physical death on the cross and childbirth.

Theologians saw Jesus' agony on the cross as a form of 'labour' as he 'birthed' new life for all of us. And so, when the soldier pieced his side, proving he was dead, and "blood and water" came out, they saw that as the moment of 'birth'. Like blood and water come in childbirth

With that in mind, when an opening in a body brings forth water and blood, and in the midst of that water and blood comes new life... it's fair to think of it as a vagina. So medieval artists, depicting that moment, depicted Jesus' side wound as such. It was a thing.

The femininity of Jesus

There's also all the theology that surrounded Jesus' actions: theologians living in times of strict gender roles obsessed over the "femininity" of Jesus feeding and serving others. Even speaking to women as if they were equal. Of him taking the "feminine role" in his interactions

But this thread is already very long...

In summary: If you think it's heresy to see Jesus as "feminine" or "mother" or anything other than a masculine macho manly man, you're wrong. And if you think it's "modern woke nonsense", then you've not been paying attention to centuries of theology, or the Gospels themselves.

One day I'll do a whole thread on how it actually is Big Trans Vibes for God to shrink down to a single "gender" and body to walk among us as Jesus, and how weird that must have been for Jesus to suddenly be "male" and not "the genderweird vibe of God" but that's for another time

Ppl have been going BUT WHAT ABOUT 'THE SON OF MAN' and my friends, the earliest Gospels we've got are Ancient Greek and Luke 9:22 says "υἱός τοῦ ἀνθρώπου" υἱός is often translated as "male child" but regularly applies to female children ἀνθρώπου means "human / humanity"

Full twitter thread here!

Photo from the Norwegian play Jesus, the Queen of Heaven, where the Norwegian transgender pioneer Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad played Jesus. Photo by Fin Serck-Hanssen.

#trans #transgender #queer #lgbt #lgbtqa #jesus #theology #gender theology #christianity #essential #history #religion

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rollercoasterwords · 1 year

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i think the thing that people need to remember is that ur favorite fanfic writers are all losers. LIKE. i'm sorry but u are kidding urself if u think anything else these people spend hours and hours of their free time writing stories about stupid little characters from a book series that isn't even GOOD. like the people ur turning into celebrities are literally the quintessential nerds from every bad high school sitcom u should be shoving them into lockers and stealing their lunch money NOT treating them like celebrities!!! come ON people nature needs to heal these people spend half their time on the internet talking about how anxious and shy and pathetic they are at best they are frightened rabbits like these are the animals god put on earth for u to hunt for sport and u want them to be interviewed by E! News?????

(none of this applies to me btw i am so so so beautiful and smart and powerful when i write fanfiction it's incredibly sexy and i am a god blessing u foolish and sinful wanderers in the desert with manna. i'm the only exception tho everyone else is a LOSER sorry!!)

#fanfiction writers i am hunting u all for sport #MWAH 💋#txt

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edenfenixblogs · 4 months

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My cousin’s bat mitzvah is today!

I’m so proud of her. And it is not lost on me that it is on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Our grandmother is the only living child of her mother—who is the only survivor from her family in Hungary. Of her several siblings. Today I pray for them and their memories. And we recommit ourselves to our faith in their honor. We live and find joy because we fought hard for our right to do so. They tried to kill us all and make sure we never existed and here she is—my cousin!!! Enjoying a time honored tradition and becoming an adult in our community.

Suck it Nazis and antisemites! Fuck y’all! We live!

Also, her Torah portion is wildly good.

Parashat Beshalach / פָּרָשַׁת בְּשַׁלַּ ?!!! Are you kidding me‽????? That’s like the best one!!!!!!

Beshalach (“When He Let Go”) describes the splitting of the Red Sea and the song the Israelites sing upon crossing through. In the desert, God sweetens bitter water and provides manna and quail. The portion ends recounting the victory of the Israelites against an attack by the Amalekites.

Like…for those who don’t know, Jews read the Torah in order and every week is a new Torah portion. You don’t really get to choose any chapter. You just get the one you get when it’s your week (which is usually near your birthday).

For reference, my Torah portion was about what to do when you see a dead body on the side of the road (I actually did like that one and I think my sermon was really good and I’m still proud of it tbh), but it’s a lot harder to make a random Leviticus chapter work than THE freaking EXODUS.

I’m just so proud of her. I wanna talk about her community service project but I think that would involve too much identifying information. But she’s an extremely good, caring young woman and I’m so full of joy for her that im actually pretty tearful about it.

My fellow Jews, please — amidst your memories of the horrors and losses and in your mourning for those many family members and their descendants who should still be with us— don’t forget: we are still fucking here. They decimated us. But they did not succeed in exterminating us. We are here. We are still here. We live. And we love and we celebrate and we can do this. We have each other.

#am yisrael chai #holocaust rememberance day #yom hashoah #jumblr #Judaism son

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talonabraxas · 1 month

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There are three hierarchies of angels each of which contains three orders.

The Nine Choirs of Angels The Arrangement of the Angels of the Lord (according to Pseudo-Dionysius)

Let’s turn to the individual choirs so that we can examine the powers each have, and how they relate with one another.

Seraphim The seraphim are the angels closest to God. As such, they reflect most immediately the highest attribute of God manifest in creation: His love. They are on fire with the love of God; the very name means “incandescent ones” or “burning ones.” Classical sacred art portrays them as entirely red and ablaze. They are usually depicted as having six wings but no faces — simply a sea or ring of flame around the Holy Trinity. Because of this burning love, more than any other angel they have the most perfect knowledge of God, which makes them the most perfect adorers. St. Jerome notes that they not only burn by themselves, but they also inflame others with the love of God.

According to the prophet Isaiah, the seraphim are the angels whom he hears crying out “Holy, holy, holy,” as one of them purifies Isaiah’s mouth with a coal from the altar so that he might serve as the Lord’s messenger (Isa. 6:3–8). In the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Mass, the priest evokes this moment as he prays for worthiness in proclaiming the Gospel. We too should pray to the seraphim that we might be purified in our responsibilities as teachers and bearers of the Word to our families, our friends, and all those over whom we have responsibility. It was a seraph who appeared to St. Francis of Assisi when he received the stigmata. Later mystics, too, will speak of the seraphim as the Lord’s messengers and intermediaries when they had extraordinary experiences of loving and transforming divine union.

Cherubim The cherubim have a deep intellectual knowledge of divine secrets and of the ultimate causes of things; their name means “all-knowing one.” As such, they constantly contemplate the wisdom and the love of God in His relationship with mankind. They reflect His omniscience. The cherubim were the mighty adorers of the first covenant in its wisdom; images of the cherubim were the only images of beings that were permitted in the ancient Temple of Jerusalem. Their carved figures adorned the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, which prefigured both the Virgin Mary “tabernacling” the unborn Christ and the Eucharistic tabernacles of our churches, containing the new manna of Christ’s sacramental Body and Blood. Embroideries of the cherubim also covered the beautiful drapery that separated the Holy of Holies from the outer court of the Temple. It was that veil that was ripped from top to bottom when Our Lord died on the Cross as the sign that He had passed into the Eternal Sanctuary and that the Temple of Jerusalem had fulfilled its purpose (Matt. 27:51). The cherubim are still considered protectors of the New Covenant and so are often depicted on tabernacles and Eucharistic vessels.

Thrones The thrones, as their name suggests, can be thought of as beings raised up to form the seat of God’s authority and mercy. A throne manifests the glory and authority of a king; it expresses stability and power. And since a throne is also a judgment seat, these angels are especially concerned with divine judgments and ordinances.

In the early Church, a common representation of God’s glory in Heaven was a mosaic behind the altar and above the seat of the bishop that represented an empty throne with a radiant cross mounted above it. This image represented Christ the King, Lord of all and Judge of the living and the dead. But His judgment seat was also a throne of mercy, for Christ has redeemed the world by His Cross. His love has brought us to salvation. The thrones are never seen or experienced as “flying” but as “rolling” across the heavens, in keeping with their manifesting the Lord’s stability.

* * *

The second hierarchy receives knowledge of divine secrets through the first three choirs — knowledge that they could not perceive by themselves. The ardor of the seraphim inflames their love; the wisdom of the cherubim reveals the depth of the mysteries; and the stability of the thrones draws them into constant adoration of God’s majesty. In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas teaches that the names “domination,” “power,” and “principality” belong to government in different ways. The place of a lord is to prescribe what is to be done, and so Gregory says that “some companies of the angels, because others are subject to obedience to them, are called dominations.”

Dominations The dominations are concerned with the government of the universe. They are the first of the three choirs in the second ring, which is the ring of the cosmos — the angels who are charged with great and universal stewardships. The dominations in particular are involved in the workings of divine power. They coordinate the ministries of all the angels who deal with creation. We see in the angelic world that the Church’s teaching that God works through secondary causes is beautifully demonstrated. The angels mediate God’s power just as the saints intercede for us with Him.

Virtues St. Peter mentions the virtues in his first epistle (3:22), as does St. Paul in his Letter to the Colossians (1:16). The name is in some way a mistranslation or at least a “false cognate,” since this choir of angels does not deal with acquired habits (virtues), but rather exercises innate, raw power over the physical universe. According to Pseudo-Dionysius, their name refers to “a certain powerful and unshakable virility welling forth into all their Godlike energies, . . . mounting upwards in fullness of power to an assimilation with God; never falling away from the divine life through its own weakness, but ascending unwaveringly to the super-essential Virtue which is the Source of virtue.”1 They are the lords of causality and the principles of cosmic order in the material realm. They ensure the well-being of the world.

Powers The powers (dunameis) form the third and last choir of the second angelic hierarchy, according to Pseudo-Dionysius, while other scholars and spiritual writers consider them to be the fifth choir. This choir is mentioned occasionally in the Old Testament, such as in the book of Daniel where we read, “Bless the Lord, all powers, sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever” (Dan. 3:39). Some scholars maintain that the name “powers” is also used to indicate angels in general, since it is the Septuagint’s translation of the Hebrew sabaoth. In the New Testament St. Paul writes that there are powers who have remained faithful to God and powers who have fallen away and become part of the empire of Satan (Eph. 6:12). The choir of powers is thought to introduce man to the higher mysteries while repressing the attacks of the “hostile powers” of Hell against the deepest laws of physical creation.

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The third sphere of angels is concerned with Almighty God’s plan of salvation for mankind. It receives from the highest sphere its focus on the immutability of God, which is manifested in creation by the harmonious principles and intelligent organization of the laws of nature, which are upheld by the angels of the second sphere. In turn, the angels of this third sphere pour out their influence on those who have the greatest interaction with us in the ordinary course of things established by God.

Princes or Principalities The princes are also described as having members who have fallen away and others who have remained faithful. Principalities are the leading choir of the last hierarchy of angels. Their activities are described by Pseudo-Dionysius in this way, “The name of the Celestial Principalities signifies their Godlike princeliness and authoritativeness in an Order which is holy and most fitting to the princely Powers.” They are often seen as being the guardians of nations or peoples; this is why St. Michael is described in the book of Daniel as “the prince of Israel,” who comes to the aid of Gabriel against the demonic prince of Persia. It seems fitting that this first choir in the “ring of salvation” should also look after the spiritual structure of the supernatural life of the Church.

Archangels This choir is the most known and loved in popular devotion. Among the archangels we find St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and St. Raphael. It is traditionally believed, due to the statements of Raphael in the book of Tobit, that there are only seven archangels.

Three of their names occur in Scripture, and so the Church uses these names in our worship — St. Michael, the prince of the heavenly host and the only one called “archangel” in the Scriptures; St. Gabriel, the messenger of the Incarnation; and St. Raphael, the angel of healing and of medicine.

The names of the other four are not used in our Liturgy, though there are certain churches that preserve these names and make use of them in private devotion, including some Eastern Catholic Churches. Roman Catholics often refer to them as the seven archangels or the seven assisting spirits around the throne of God.

The seven archangels have been regarded from the very beginning as having a special place in God’s plan; their number is often associated with the seven days of the week and the seven sacraments. It is thought that the archangels were outstanding in their fidelity to God, and so in the writings of the saints they are often called archangel princes, an appellation that connotes leadership and authority in the heavenly realm. Many spiritual authors and mystics speak of their special assistance and often attribute other “groups of seven” to their protection or patronage — virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and so on. The archangels are also associated with the protection of nations, dioceses, religious communities, and the mission of the Church.

Angels The ninth and final choir of angels is composed of those who are most involved with the doings of mankind. These angels are those who are sent out on missions from God and from whom the guardian angels are chosen. The angels who fill up this choir may be the lowest, but they are beloved because the Lord places them at our sides to watch over us and to care for us. They are the ministers of Christ’s love and our protectors. They defend us against harm and temptation. They warn us of impending evil and inspire us to remain faithful to God in prayer.

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