TEST DRIVE MEME 002

[rubimods]

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:

Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.

THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.

CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.

If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.

FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS

IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE

The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin.

Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.

You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms back up from the recent snowstorm.

As you explore, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.

Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.

This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.

When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.

breaking and entering

If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.

SETTING: CRIME

Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Anyone who's already appeared in the village just as you did today lives here. Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, and some scorch marks still linger from a recent fire, and some furniture is still lying around in splinters.

Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.

finding roommates

Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.

Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!

OFFERINGS FOR ULANTI

The festival starts in the middle of the night, when the sun and the children are safely tucked into bed. The streets come alive with dancing locals, their faces painted red and purple and black and yellow. They all wear revealing clothing that, to your sensibilities, may seem sexually suggestive. Some individuals openly expose their breasts and nipples, while some others may incidentally reveal when they turn around to tend to their errands that their dress is backless — entirely! market stands and kind neighbors will gladly provide clothing befitting the occasion to anyone who asks.

Notably, the locals' choice of clothes reveal a mark on their bodies. An astute person will notice that there are four varieties — and a very astute (thirsty) person might notice that their fellow woodsfolk also have one of these somewhere on their body.

FAQ: CURSE MARKS

In addition to dancing and the lighting of any number of candles, you may stumble upon fighting rings inspired by Terry Silver's basement club, where the locals brawl until they're bloody and unable to move. Elsewhere, amongst the performance of a number of erotic dancers, you might come upon a face you recognize — naked and collared and caged, tongue pressed to the bars to taste anyone who'll stop and give them a little attention.

Temporary night market food stands offer various forms of alcoholic beverages and sweet and savory street food in suggestive shapes — sausages, popsicles, flowering cupcakes. many of them represent hedonistic indulgences and displays of wealth that the town usually does not seem to possess. This bounty, they attribute to the Duchess' patronage — and much of it is dosed with herbs and additives that enhance the sexual appetites and aggression in any who consume them.

Another kind of temporary stand has been erected — while new arrivals may at first mistake these for some kind of bathroom, it becomes apparent upon entry that they are partitioned stalls with gloryholes drilled between them. Some stalls are closed with an anonymous stranger waiting inside for someone to push a part of themselves through the hole to be lavished with mystery touches; others are fully unoccupied, should your character wish to lock themselves in and wait on the small wooden stool for a partner to offer themselves.

Anyone native to Rubilykskoye will take the time to answer questions about the festival of Ulanti, which functions as a way to purge their bad energy ("zadza") and sate their inner beasts ("duchozweirz"). They encourage characters to join the festivities — which range from staged sexual performances to sadism and masochism designed to feed the desire for violence. all appetites are welcome here, and there are only two rules: (1) stay away from the unmarked, which refers to the locals' prepubescent children; (2) hold nothing back.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try entering the fighting rings, watching or joining a live sex performance, or eating some aphro food (deliberately or otherwise)!

the fathomless dark of pajak wood

At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches.

In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.

Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.

In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?

In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!

HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US

Uh oh spaghetti-os.

The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.

FAQ: MONSTER CURSES & TIMELINES

Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.

Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.

someone else transforms

The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter.

Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.

(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)

you waited too long

At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.

Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.

As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?

RULES: CONTENT WARNINGS

Comments

danny johnson ("ghostface") — dead by daylight / diabel.

[ghostface]

ARRIVAL (IN THE WOODS)

( struck from grace, alone and naked in the woods, danny's first thought when he comes to is that he's being punished. again. no other explanation for it: the entity's pissed, and she's kicked him to some secluded corner of the wood where he can ruminate over what a bad disappointing boy he's been, sentenced to a thousand lines and lifetimes of i will not fuck around and find out on the chalkboard of his mind.

he quickly realizes, crouched in scratchy shrubbery while warily watching a few equally naked strangers book it through the trees past him, that maybe that isn't the case. this is different. something is different. he feels it, then. a gut-punch. a loss. she's not here.

when he finds you, you're inelegantly sprawled in the dirt, having caught your foot or ankle on a gnarled tree root. he approaches cautiously, hands raised and palms open, like he'd approach a frightened rabbit-girl-boy-survivor-prey in a snare. he looks friendly enough — pleasantly scruffy and boyish, even, despite his stark nakedness, with a smattering of black ink across his knuckles and forearms and a new, stranger mark ( ⚰︎ ) on the back of his left hand.

gently, as he kneels by your side: ) Hey, hey, easy. Are you okay? Can I see?

( if amenable, he'll cup a sandpaper-grit hand under your calf, carefully untangling your foot from the root. )

Are you hurt?

OFFERINGS
CW: POTENTIAL NSFW, APHRO'D FOOD, VAGUE REFS TO DRUG USE

( hope you don't mind company! danny finds you in the bustling throng of the crowd, considerably less naked now in a gauzy, semi-transparent tunic and a pair of indecently tight black trousers, black boots that remind him of home. he wields a sausage on a stick in one fist like it's a fucking renaissance festival, jiggling it toward you in offering. )

Pork sausage? I tried to refuse it, but the guy handing them out didn't wanna hear shit from my vegan ass. ( the lies come easy, natural. whatever's laced in the food here isn't his personal cup of tea, wrong drug, wrong high, wrong addiction, but that doesn't mean he isn't mildly interested in the effects it might have on other people. shitty science!

without waiting for a response or refusal, he trails your eye-line, to the wooden stalls swollen with a thick clot of people all waiting for their turns inside. )

You wanna check it out? I'll go with.

( mischievous, as dimple-cheeked impish and conspiratorial as a schoolboy skipping class to shroud the boys' bathroom in a wall of cigarette smoke. he already knows what's in there, having taken an indulgent peek earlier in the night: bruised knees, mouths and throats as slick sleeves for fucking. )

FEED THE BEAST
CW: NSFW, MILD BREATHPLAY, SLIGHT EXHIBITION, REFS TO VIOLENT FANTASIES IN HIS INNER DIALOGUE

( what's the best salve for an urge he can't adequately quench? his hips corralled between the spread thighs of a stranger or vague acquaintance, whoever you might be in this moment, and his hand warmly necklacing your throat. you're alone in this room with him, one of the bedrooms, propped on a dresser and pinned between the wall and danny's weight. across from you, visible just over danny's shoulder, the door is cracked open to the hallway, forgotten in your clumsy tumble for privacy.

when he wedges his thumb into your pulse, his grip is loose, unthreatening. he thinks: squeeze a little. he thinks: fuck the bitch up. he cinches his fingers beneath your jaw and tilts your face toward his mouth, licks your teeth and feeds you the taste of his tongue and cigarette smoke, hard liquor. )

You ain't gonna ghost me if we fuck, right? ( his voice is as gravel tumbled as his hand gliding down your front, between your forked thighs. whether you have a tight cunt for fucking or a dick for messy sucking, he squeezes you just the same. firm. a little mean. ) That'd really hurt my feelings.

MISCELLANEOUS

( danny as a character comes with a slew of content warnings you can view here. i'll cw per thread should anything come up, though nothing too egregious should be going down here while danny attempts to maintain a low(ish) profile for some of that good ol' slow-burn long conning. otherwise: ota, enthusiastically down for smut in (most) of these prompts for any interested 18+ parties! i default to brackets and present tense, but i'll match format so feel free to tag in w/ prose if the urge suits u. 👍

additionally, feel free to make up a bs prompt if none of these work for you and i'll follow your lead! super okay with assumed cr. characters sensitive to supernatural energy and/or those with detection abilities might notice the lingering echo of an attachment to a powerful force (a near-omnipotent eldritch entity, in this case, v malevolent, v bad news bears) on danny.

feel free to pm me at this account or over on curbstomps with any questions/thread ideas/etc! )

offerings—

[hiyakai]

( why accept handouts when you can just take what you want?

unlike everyone else around him, kai parker is fully clothed in passably normal clothes. he's got a short-sleeved shirt, pants, boots and even some rings to decorate his fingers. he also caught himself a quick meal, but that isn't entirely stopping him from eyeing the food.

shame he can hear its effects — increase in heart rate, unsteady breathing, the works. he would have loved to dive in, otherwise. get his fill, you know? he isn't sure that drugs would even work on him, buuut... he isn't nearly bored enough to test it out. wouldn't it be really awkward if it actually did?

so when some yappy guy comes up to him with a sausage, he lifts his hand to turn him down, only for the conversation to swerve towards the packed area he was admittedly staring at earlier. it had less to do with interest than it did from, well, the noises inside. he can hear it all from where he's standing, but since the suggestion has been made, who is he to be a party pooper? (heh. get it? because it's a bathroom.) kai widens his eyes slightly, as he raises both of his hands in front of him in mild panic. )

What? ( blue hues dart between the crowd of people and the guy in front of him apprehensively. ) Me? ( he points at himself with a nervous laugh. ) No, no. ( he shakes his head adamantly. ) I wasn't—... I mean, okay, I was a little curious, but... are you sure?

[ghostface]

( the poor sausage, no longer needed or wanted, is readily handed off to a random passerby sporting a garnet red fox tail butt plug and nothing else. not even shoes, their bare soles caked in black dirt. shit. that's some commitment to the aesthetic. danny steals an eyeful of plump cheek from over his shoulder as they melt into the crowd with their tail and jiggling sausage(s) before he glances back to his nervous friend.

he doesn't look like the type of guy who'd be easily scandalized, but neither had toscano in the fog, and he'd been all prayer and wasted tats, no fucking substance. so, accompanied by a loose grin: )

Yeah, dude. Fuck it. Why not, right? ( he wouldn't mind a partner for the evening. his hand trickles between them, brushing his wrist, his fingertips, and stitches their arms together by their palms. ) I'll even hold your hand.

I'm Danny.

[hiyakai]

( now, he's actually surprised.

he didn't expect him to hold his hand, like it was the most natural thing in the world — like he wasn't repulsive to touch and he wasn't some heinous freak of nature that should be avoided at all cost. if only he knew what you are, that hateful voice sounds out in the back of his mind. his first instinct is to immediately pull away, yet he stops himself before he can, only letting slip a small jolt, the whisper of bewilderment. it's genuine and it conveniently encapsulates the persona he's momentarily adopted.

he stares down at their entwined hands for a second too long, before he meets danny's gaze with a hesitant smile. ) Kai. ( he clears his throat, looking to their destination. ) You know what? You're right. Fuck it. ( his smile grows into a more confident grin as he begins to pull him towards the gathering of people. )

I've never attended a festival like this one before. I grew up in the Middle Of Nowhere, Oregon and my family was never big on public events. We didn't even go on trips, so this is like ( he gestures at their surrounding. ) beyond anything I could've ever imagined.

[ghostface]

( the only important piece of information here that danny carefully catalogs away in the color-coded filing cabinet of his mind is the electrical jolt through kai's arm as his hand is taken, unprompted. that felt genuine. he meets kai's tentative smile with a broader one, as if he hadn't noticed it, flashing him a neat row of white picket made-for-tv teeth, his eyes paper mache crinkling at their corners. )

Well, I imagine it wasn't every day you were kidnapped against your will to some culty sex dimension, either, unless Oregon is way cooler than I remember it being.

( spoilers: it definitely isn't.

there is something vaguely nostalgic about standing in line, hand-in-hand, like nights on the boardwalk on fisherman's wharf, waiting their turn to get into an outrageously overpriced bar. or in this case: a grimy, cum-crusted fucking glory hole. danny squeezes kai's hand and rocks onto the balls of his feet, peering over a sea of heads toward the stalls.

he drops back on his heels, giving kai's arm a merry little swing. )

We ain't that far back. Shouldn't be too long.

[hiyakai]

Oh, definitely not to some culty sex dimension. My family was way too uptight for something like that. They would have been completely scandalized. Also, ( there is a visible shift in both his demeanor and posture, any signs of that bashful nervousness gone, replaced by an unsettling calm. he tilts his head slightly, his voice thoughtful. ) it was more an imprisonment than kidnapping.

( blue eyes flickers to the side, meeting his gaze with the beginnings of a slow grin. )

Oh, and just so you know, I hate standing in line. Something about just having to wait, you know? ( it happens in the blink of an eye. one second, they're surrounded by chattering people; next second, they're in the middle of a glorious fuckfest. he closes his eyes briefly, reveling in the messy cacophony of moans and gasps and various body parts slapping together rhythmically. ) Mmm, the sweet sound of music in my ears. I could hear these fuckers going at it like jackrabbits from a couple blocks away. Just nonstop. It's almost like spring's fast approaching.

( his grip on danny's hand has tightened exponentially as he grins over at him sweetly. )

Sorry, I really did try for you on account of this. ( he holds up their intertwined fingers. ) It's so cute, you know? I've never had anyone just reach out and take my hand. Not willingly, anyway. But then I grew bored. Funny how that happens so quickly sometimes.

Feed the Beast

[nootherway]

[ She's been fighting in the rings. Bout after bout, just a game, Leah, we have fun out here, don't we? Don't we? Bout after bout, her knuckles wrapped but aching, and there is blood between her teeth, now. They don't go the full brutal here and she's hardly the one who goes into a room and throws a motherfucker on the ground just because, usually, but there's something in the air. Tonight, there's something in the air that makes her skin ache and itch, something set between her teeth that's driving her on and upwards toward a familiar edge. She did her time in the ring, won and lost and so fucking what, but she never killed anyone. No, sir, that'd be against the rules. She never even drew her knife.

But there was, and is, blood on her teeth now, and a stranger's hand around her throat. He's younger than she cares for but he's all bright-eyed and sure of himself, and her blood is up even as she's propped up on the dresser, her belt undone and the taste of heavy cigarette smoke in this stranger's mouth. In her mouth now, too.

She drags her teeth against his lip, sweet at first, and then not at all. Bites down hard and then she's standing abruptly, forcing the issue, forcing him back because either he gives ground before he staggers or she knocks him flat onto the ground. Her hand is in his hair - sweet at first, and then not, fighting sharp, tipping his head back to bare his throat. What a nice smile he had, she thinks distantly. He's the first person she's kissed since Daryl, a good long while back. And now his blood is her mouth now. Call it symmetry. And then she's going for his belt, businesslike - mirroring the same hard grip he had not a breath earlier. ]

You're sweet, [ she murmurs, though what she means is: I'm going to mess you up.

It's that sort of mood. ]

cw: surfacing of some MAD daddy issues here, misogynistic language in his inner dialogue

[ghostface]

( blood in his teeth, a vicious hand in his hair. that's the kind of pitiless treatment that gets his dick jumping, that no one in the fog had the nerve or balls to give him besides the pitiless bitch that put him there. he'd caught her at the tail end of a brutal match in the ring, after she'd laid a man twice her size on his back like it was nothing. neat with it, military efficient. the type of battle-hardened woman his daddy might have liked fucking until he realized her figurative dick was bigger than his actual dick.

too bad for him. danny didn't inherit his daddy's close-mindedness. when she takes her fist down to his scalp, his pulse pitter-patters in his throat, cabled muscles and tendons in his neck flexing in anticipation of a bite or mauling. he yields to her like he'd yield to the entity: a keening rattle in his chest, hitching a rough hand under the hem of her shirt.

that's the only place they match. their hands. well-worn. knife-callused. )

Ain't never been called that before, ( he says, more to the ceiling than her face, throat-thick and breathy. sweet. ) You gonna slut this nice boy out?

( please. please. he doesn't need to know her name to trace her ribs, thumbing between her sternum on his way to grip a firm little tit. she's tight everywhere. his hips hitch toward her hand, deeper into that vising pain, that knee-weakening grip. )

[nootherway]

[ Most men would balk at the way she handles him, shoving him back, a hand in his hair to bare his throat. Back home, no one would have let her get this close - not with the blood already on her teeth, not with her knuckles bruised and stinging, no, they'd know better. They're ten years gone since the end of the world and only the hardened survivors remain, the kill or be killed kind. Pope called that divine intervention. Pope believed he was going to live forever, right up until she put her boot on his back and a knife through his skull. She's wearing that same knife on her hip now, the weight of it a creature comfort even as this man grabs a tit.

But he lets her, is the thing. Wandered into distance despite the blood on her teeth and her hand in his hair. She watches his throat bob, eyes half-lidded, and then she tightens her grip on his hair. Almost vicious.

Men let her do a whole lot of things here, she's found. But this one, oh, he's seen her bloody. He has calluses on his hands like he handles knives. He's got his head tilted back, right where she put him, eyes on the ceiling like he's looking for God. There's a sharpness in him that she recognizes, that's mirrored in her and about half the men she's ever slaughtered. ]

Am I? [ She drags her hand under the hem of his shirt, over the softest part of his belly, and then lower. And then she draws her hand back to spit in it, and takes his cock in hand even as she bites down on the place where his neck meets his shoulder, hard. ] Behave.

[ Or don't. She'd rather fight him to the ground, she thinks. She'd rather bite him hard and watch him writhe under her. There's something vicious in the air. Some hunger that's risen in her, sure as the dead come calling, sure as every edge Pope honed her into. There is no gentleness in her now. ]

[ghostface]

Or what?

( spoken like a boy who wouldn't know how to behave even if you paid him a shitty little salary to write shitty little articles for your shitty little newspaper.

but she's giving him a knockout dosage of the good shit — teeth in his shoulder, an experienced hand on his cock — for him to fight her on it too much. he can't see her face, only angel wisps of her graying hair and the darkness sprawled above him like a mouth, heaven and hell colliding as one. he can feel her, though: her hip, between her thighs and the open seam of her trousers. he wonders if she's wet, if she's been wet since her fight. what kind of shit gets a woman like this off? )

You gonna fuck me up instead? ( his hand spider-crawls higher, touches the hilt of her knife like it's her cock. strokes it like one, too, squeezing his fist around the pommel as she squeezes his dick, hips twitching and haphazardly fucking into it. ) With this, maybe?

( because he's into that shit. )

[nootherway]

[ He could take that knife and try to gut her. Maybe he will. Strangers pull that shit all the time, don't they? And she ought to care about that, Leah knows, mitigate the risk, but there's a certain mood in the air. Something twitching under her skin. It's not just the sex, or maybe it's slithering alongside the promise of the sex. She ought to care, but she doesn't.

Mostly, she wants to put this man on his ground and fuck him up. She drags her teeth against his neck so she can feel his pulse jump, her hand tight around his dick. Working him steady. ]

Ask nice.

[ Or maybe she'll just sweep his legs and throw him down. This whole thing has a medieval sort of air; he doesn't know her name. She never offered. It wasn't that kind of moment. ]

Offerings

[guylining]

[ Nate looks up. He's found a bench that's near the action but not part of it. He looks like he's wearing heavy boots, ripped up black jeans, and a faded Guns 'n' Roses t-shirt, and his arms are covered in small tattoos. If he seems tense, it's because he's in the middle of a fucking orgy and everyone's dressed like it's Ren Faire, BDSM edition.

Including the guy with the sausage. Jesus fucking Christ. ]

What, never seen a glory hole before? I can tell you what you'll see. It's definitely not vegan.

[ you know if it were a few years back, Nate would've been all over all of this. Even the weird, creepy ritual part of it. Because what harm could it do, right?

he's not going there again. ]

[ghostface]

( damn, tough crowd. whoever this guy is, he's clearly not happy to be here. danny wouldn't blame him under normal circumstances, but he's spent the latter half of the past few months-years-centuries trapped in a wonky hell dimension by a vindictive bitch, forced to kneel and obey at her whim and leisure. this place, with all its sex-positive slash wildly depraved weirdness? doesn't really register as weird on his weird meter anymore. that shit's broken as fuck.

he dumps the sausage into the nearest garbage bin, which in this case is an empty flower vase, red clay cracked in lightning strike zigzags down the center. )

Different strokes for different folks, you know? I don't mind swallowing meat if it's attached to a person. ( or fucking the meat of someone's mouth, as he'd done earlier in the night when he'd taken the stalls for a passing test drive.

he'd offer to get the guy a drink, loosen him up a little, but something tells him he'd be told to fuck off, with haste. instead, he drifts closer, lingering near the opposite end of the bench.

an olive branch: ) I like your tats.

[guylining]

[ Nate looks around at him with half a grin. ]

I don't mind that either. I just prefer to know what the sex-fuelled rituals are enabling before I put my dick in them.

[ Untold years in a hell dimension? They'd have stuff to talk about. For now, the tattoos will do. The mention of them makes Nate's shoulders relax a little. It's better to focus on that than what the crowd's doing. Better to focus on one person than a crowd, in general. ]

Thanks. Did them myself. I should be thankful they let me keep them when they stole everything else.

arrival

[pharmacy]

[ Over time, he's bevome accustomed to having very little in the way of clothes. Take what you get, be grateful, and make it last as long as you can. His complaints are few and far between these days. Waking up naked, particularly when he cany remember having been in a trial or in a fight or high or anything that would have landed him here--

[ For a few minutes, Quentin pulls his knees up and in, covers his face with his hands, and snivels. Another fucking drop in the bucket.

[ Once he pulls himself together, it's apparent that something is off. The sun feels different. The animals and the trees look natural. He's investigating a clean-stripped berry bush when he notices the mark ( ⍚ ) inside the wrist of his right hand. Taking a close look at it seems like wisdom, until a root catches him around the ankle. There's some comfort in the familiar feeling of eating shit, even at the cost of embedding dirt into every square inch of his right side.

[ The particles sticking too him feeling bigger than they are--just like the old white scars swathed over his shoulde--when he realizes he's not alone. Quentin pulls in on himself again--or tries too before his ankle yelps in response. He tries to warn his helper off. ]

No--no no no, I'm good just--jesus-- [ Not good, actually. One eye twists shut, the other ticking up to eye the Samaritan. Also...totally naked. Quentin doesnt stop himself from taking a visual inventory and a guess: ] Tell me--tell me you woke up here, too.

It's--fuckin twisted, nothing crazy, just--ah--

[ghostface]

( danny doesn't believe in fate, or god, or the mystical everything has a spirit bullshit his mother touted at him when he was a boy, before her self-inflicted sickness returned her to the earth from whence she came, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. the entity may have spat him out like greasy fat from a steak into the gutters of an unfamiliar universe and time to fend for himself, but as he stares down into quentin fucking smith's dirt-streaked face and too-blue eyes, it feels like fate. a blessing. one last reward from the entity, praise be to her grotesque majesty.

oh, fuck. she does know how to wrap her gifts, doesn't she? or unwrap them. danny's never seen quentin like this: bare limbs, knobby elbows, bony knees. his eyes flicker over his shoulder, his chest, his tight rosy nipples and —

the scars. krueger's work, presumably. )

Sure fuckin' did, ( is his perfectly normal person answer, raspy-calm despite the iron-fisted clench in his guts and chest, adrenaline spiking. he bats away quentin's hand, fingers sailing over his ankle as he shifts his heel to sit heavy in his palm. twisted is right. he snared himself real good, all sweet and primed for the taking. )

Hold still a minute, okay? I got you.

( no pulling away this time; danny's grip is firm but gentle, wriggling his foot in slow, scraping inches from the knotted root. the final tug is the worst. patiently, danny shushes him through any would-be sounds of protests, counters any pain with whisper-murmurs of i know it hurts, almost done, i got you, i got you.

by the time danny frees him, there's plump, purple swelling near the bottom half of his fibula. no fracture, as far as he can tell, but: )

You ain't gonna be able to walk on that shit. ( he sets his ankle down gently after he's made his rough assessment, leveling his attention back on quentin's face. eye-to-direct eye, for the first time ever. ) Not without a fuckload of pain, anyway. C'mon, put your arm around me. I'll get you out of here.

[pharmacy]

[ To his credit, when he's told to let Danny help, Quentin lets him. Years of practice being broken and needing help make it easy to rumble over the shallow ruts of pride. They're obviously in the same boat, and if he's learned anything, it's that survivors have to rely on each other. The stranger's calm-steady reminds him of Jake, the measured voice and sure hands unlacing him from his trap.

[ The trap reminds him of McMillan, rusty teeth and hinges. He breathes through the uncomfortable sense memory, wets his lips and purses his mouth when dark eyes hook into his. He nods. ] Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thank you.

[ There's something too familiar in getting his arm around Danny, too, a moment of dizzy déjà vu as he's lifted up (over the shoulder, blood in his teeth, kicking, screaming). His stomach has been off since he woke up, though, so Quentin happily ascribes the rush of anxiety to that--and to the intensely invasive feeling of skin-on-skin from ribs to hips. He'll take more time to be self-conscious about the immodesty when he can stand on his own; for now, he just appreciates the ease with which his weight is supported, like he weighs nothing. ]

What's, uh--what's out of here anyway? I don't have a fucking clue, and--no offense, um. You don't--look like you do either.

[ghostface]

( like he weighs nothing. like danny is intimately familiar with every square inch of weight on quentin's body, and how to appropriately counter it as he's kicking, screaming. danny winds his arm around quentin's spine, open palming his hip for additional support. )

I don't, but I think that ( — he points, and through a thick stitching of tree limbs, black smoke rises as tall pillars onto a cloudless sky — ) might be a pretty good start.

( signs of civilization, maybe half a mile away on foot. ten minutes. fifteen now, with quentin slowing them down. danny picks the flattest, clearest path through the woods, deepening his shoulder into the crevice of his armpit whenever he needs him to brace the bulk of his weight onto him, haul him over obstacles. lift your leg a little. hold on. keep walking. good. their progress is hobbling and slow, but less desperate than the race danny's watched quentin take a hundred thousand million times in the past, for the gate. for the hatch. for survival. )

I'm Danny. ( it's just a name. it's just a fucking name. danny's had dozens of them, but after so long of keeping this one buried in his chest, the geiger click of the syllables between his teeth makes it feel like something radioactive. his newly marked hand skitters toward the arm draped across his shoulders and interlocks their fingers at the knuckles, turning his wrist where danny can see it. ) I'm guessing this mark here is new? Any idea what it means?

wildcard.

[unconscionable]

The guy who just finished with John doesn't spare Danny even half a glance as he leaves the alley, retying his trousers and going to get himself a beer. He's not someone John really knew before tonight, just a bear-hairy big-bellied hunter who keeps to himself outside the festival nights. He'd called John a sweet little cunt, which he hated, and railed him so hard he nearly went through the wall, which he loved.

He's still leaning on the wall in question, though he's turned around now, naked except for his shoes and the toga that he usually wears now draped around his neck like a gym towel. The breeding grunts of earlier and the smear of semen on his thighs make it clear the other guy finished, but didn't give John the same courtesy, so Danny finds him with a hand around his cock, head tipped back, idly stroking.

What he needs to do is push through the haze and make a decision about whether to phone a friend or go try his luck at the glory hole. But a third option presents itself with the warm and undeniable presence of a nearby heartbeat. John opens his uncanny eyes (a vortex of black on black, gaze weighted with impossible godhood, the white ring around the iris like a solar eclipse) and glances to where Danny is, regardless of how well he's concealed himself. Gives a crooked smile.

"Just gonna stand there and watch?" he asks, not sounding particularly upset by it since it's that kind of night. "Or are you gonna lend a hand?"

[ghostface]

Shame is a shackle Danny absolved himself of a long time ago, razed from his body in childhood, the ashes buried with his father. There's no shame in watching when people put themselves in a position to be watched, and without his usual tools at his disposal, a man's gotta get his late-night jack-off material from somewhere. Tonight's title: two men fuck nasty in an alleyway, as Danny lingers in the shadows and palms his hard cock through his trousers.

There's no miraculous resurrection of shame when he's prompted to step forward from his hideaway alcove nestled between two buildings, either. Just a candlelit flicker of momentary surprise. Just two black hole eyes staring at him from under a shroud of spidery lashes, beckoning Danny into his event horizon. Danny's eyes shiver and lower, kneejerk deference honed into him by the Entity. Heel, bitch. Be a good boy. Take your licks.

But fuck the Entity, and fuck this guy and his gravity-defying eyes. He's not playing sweet, wet-eyed bitch for another god. Danny's boots crackle-pop across broken stones as he untangles himself from the dark, crowding John back into the wall. He spits into his palm and joins John's hand at his neglected dick, screwing his fist tight in a single stroke down, up again, around his fat cockhead. A crude hole for him to fuck, at his leisure.

"Did you know that guy, or do you normally let strange men corner you in an alley and call you a — wait, what was it now? Sweet little cunt?" Cheeky, utterly impious. His mouth smears his salted throat, teeth clink off his jaw. Does he normally let strange men fuck his sweet little cunt? Surely he's as slick as one now. Danny's dick would glide in stupid easy, force the mess he's made on his thighs back inside his hole, fucked greasy and full. His pulse kicks at the thought.

[unconscionable]

So he's been watching a while — that makes John grin, or maybe it's a grimace, a sharp flash of teeth pressed together tight. "Never met him before. Shit lay, I'm not here to be anyone's babygirl."

This guy, though, this guy touches him like he actually knows what the fuck he's doing, and John's hips snap forward to get another stroke of that fist, setting up a slow pace, slower than he'd masturbate. It leaves his hands free to grope at Danny, first his hip and then between the legs, humming low approval when he finds the hard shape of him, rubbing there over the leather. "Mm, do you think you can do better?"

His other hand cups the back of Danny's neck, warm and firm, keeping him close, John's beard brushing his skin as he turns to catch his eyes again, since that got an interesting reaction the first time. "Bet you wouldn't be so uninspired, hey." Kiwi accent layered with the kind of chummy, amused manipulation that Danny probably hears in his own voice all the time.

[ghostface]

Danny sees the grimacing-grinning teeth bared in his direction as free real estate for his tongue, so he accepts the invitation graciously with his free hand knotted in his hair at his nape, a kittenish lick to his upper lip. How many mouths has he been kissing tonight? How much dick or pussy has he had in his mouth tonight? Danny thinks he can taste all of them on his teeth, like second-hand smoke.

His hips tilt, fucking into John's kneading palm, as warm and sturdy as the dick he's fisting now. He feels like any other man Danny's ever jacked off, but those — fuck, those eyes. Twin voids, hungry and chasmic. Siren black to Danny's soft, heavy-lashed brown.

Better question: can he taste the crushed glass remnants of Danny's last soul-eating void on his teeth? In his gums? If he licked deep enough down his throat, would he taste her on his tonsils, or deeper still in his guts? Do all voids taste the same? Does submission always feel like a fucking crucifixion? Is this one going to butcher him too, rebuild him in his image? Is he good enough yet?

"Oh, I'm full of inspired ideas." He holds his stare, wrings his fingers into a tight collar at the weighty base of his cock so John's next thrust goes frustratingly nowhere. "Ain't none of 'em decent, though."

Ain't none of 'em PG. He palms his nape, his spine, follows the pathway of muscle to his ass and grips a fistful of plump cheek. He might not be a sweet little cunt, but he's got a sweet little cunt, a puckered wet hole that Danny grazes with his thumb. Danny sucks on his tongue, lazy and indulgent, wet open mouth and grazing teeth.

"If you get on your hands and knees for me, I'll show you one of them." Half-tease, half-dare, just to see if he'll do it, right here in this rocky alleyway.

feed the beast, obviously nsfw this whole thread

[dion]

[ This is so much more reckless than Dion would normally be at home. But this isn't home, and the food from the festival coupled with his own latent desires burns in him. So sure, he agreed to come back with this man whose name he barely caught (Danny, he reminds himself, that's it, right?).

They're not even in a proper bed. How disgraceful a picture he must make, Dion thinks, a prince shoved up against a dresser with a hand on his throat. He's not at all worried about it; he's still got power hidden in him, after all. That little squeeze is exciting, not troubling, and he meets Danny's mouth with his own, open and demanding, teeth against teeth for a moment. ]

I wasn't planning on it.

[ He sucks in a sharp breath at that touch on his cock, tighter than he anticipates. Maybe he should have chosen differently — no. Throwing out titles and duty and all of it is as attractive as just getting laid, at the moment. He can be no one at all here. Maybe this is atonement, too. Either way, his body responds to the harsh touch just fine, half-hard with anticipation and want, the aphrodisiac doing its job in helping all of this along.

He hooks one long leg around Danny's waist, loose enough to escape, but obviously encouraging. He braces himself on his right arm, the weaker one, and twists his other hand into Danny's hair, pulling him closer for another kiss. ]

yeah buddy, get that dick dion

[ghostface]

( what is it with danny and blonds? it's an affliction, a bizarre hunger as bottomless and certain as the corroded sickness in his head. dion is definitely the fanciest looking blond bitch he's ever had snagged snug around his hips. somehow, even with his trouser shucked open, danny's hand inviting itself inside for a dry stroke of his cock, he still paints a regal picture. prim, proper. a sleek and expensive shiny white corvette, but not above indulging in the vulgar comforts of a warm body, clearly.

his tongue skates dion's teeth, his hard palate, mapping his mouth in careful detail. nice mouth. hot, wet, willing mouth. bet it'd feel good around his fucking — )

You taste like money, ( he says, interrupting the crash test dummy course of his own empty-headed, dick first thoughts. he tops their kiss with a chaster one, close-lipped, planted beneath dion's jaw where danny's ink-haloed thumb lines his throat. ) You don't spook easy, do you?

( he doesn't wait for an answer before he tucks his chin and spits between them, dribbling his cock and danny's jerking fist in saliva. his next slide down his shaft goes easier, slicked up from cockhead to base. )

I hope not.

[dion]

[ Dion still has on the sheer tunic that someone gave him earlier, though it leaves little to the imagination. No matter. He's fine removing anything he's got on other than the bandage around his arm that runs from his right wrist to just above the elbow. But again, no matter, not right now with Danny insistent against him. ]

Do I?

[ That's something he's not heard before, but he's also dealt almost exclusively with people who cared about his title (or cared that he is Bahamut, cared about the power that lives in him). Someone who speaks to him brazenly, unaware of status and propriety as it would be back home, is thrilling. He'd never considered any possibility of anonymity until now.

Danny's got his spit-slick fingers still moving on his cock and he stumbles over absorbing the question. ]

Not a bit.

[ It sounds a little like bravado, but it's also true. Dion is too honest to lie anyway, but after the horrors he's seen and lived through, no. He doesn't spook easy at all.

He drapes his other arm over Danny's shoulder, hand sliding beneath whatever shirt fabric is in his way at the back of the other man's neck, skin on skin, pretending he doesn't feel desperate. He'll be more careful about the food here after this, but maybe it's not worth complaining too much about. ]