#corpse: not actually dead.. rip
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@dire-kumori has an au where Scooped Mike gets time-travelled to before CC and Liz's deaths, and he's filled with such blind rage and self-loathing upon seeing his younger self that he kills young Mike over and over again in a time loop that young Mike barely even understands. Guess who wrote a one-shot for it? (I'm also tagging @serenefig and @cloudwhisper23 bc I feel like you'll be interested in reading)
word count: 3,715
“Have fun with your friends’, brats. Don’t even think about coming back until morning unless you want to spend the night outside, ‘cause I won’t bother unlocking the doors for you.”
Cold lines of metal pressed grooves into Mike’s back as he leaned against the front door threshold and waved his siblings goodbye. His voice resounded in sharp echoes across the tree line; he spoke a bit too loud considering that his little siblings were only a few feet away, but then again, that was the point.
You never knew what things were lurking in the shadows, listening and lying in wait for the moment they could get you alone. Sometimes, however, you could use that to your advantage.
Michael’s gaze roved over the tree line as his siblings turned their backs on him and walked down the driveway. The trees surrounded their entire house in a near-perfect circle; shadows crept beneath the trees’ gnarled, grasping finger-like branches. As the sun slumped further down in the sky, the shadows drew steadily closer and closer to the house like a tidal wave of darkness begging to be held back no longer.
The eldest Afton’s jaw clenched as he dug his teeth into his gum with even more ferocity. Slowly, he pulled his Foxy mask from the top of his head to cover his face.
He didn’t have to be afraid with the wicked smile and sharp teeth covering his face. It was an assurance that Michael could be strong and brave even when– no, especially when he was all on his own, just like the pirate fox he felt so much for.
If a monster wanted to chase him down, then so be it. But as long as Mike had his mask on, the monster wasn't the only dangerous thing around.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Electricity shot through every nerve ending in Michael’s body. The jolt of adrenaline made every hair stand on end, and heat roared through his veins like wildfire as Mike crouched behind the garage wall with his fingers white-knuckled and half-numb against the cool metal of his bright red bat.
Each breath passed his lips at a crawl. Everything around him seemed to blur and fade to gray as Mike focused his entire being on the harsh slam of rubber soles coming closer and closer.
A million ghostly aches, sharp and dull and stabbing and pressing aches of a million undeaths, all sparked to life with increasing intensity as the monster drew closer and closer, but Mike pushed away the memories of aches and pains assaulting his limbs.
He only needed to get one good shot in.
He smelled the bastard long before it got close. It was something like the curdled cup of milk that Mike had found in his room last week, the maggot-infested animal carcasses he and his friends would poke at when they found them on the side of the road, the stank of rotten eggs– all those putrid smells and more clinging to the bastard's skin in an eye-watering stench that made Michael’s stomach churn and his throat burn on principle.
Mike's heart hammered in his chest, almost to the same beat as the footfalls chasing him.
There was a flurry of movement as the sicko ran past Mike where he was crouched out of sight behind the wall.
The reaper's footfalls quickly slowed as though somehow aware that it had been duped, but Mike was already moving.
The decaying monster didn't even have time to turn around before Mike jumped forward and slammed his bat into the back of its head.
His years' worth of practice hitting baseballs did nothing to prepare him for the vibrations that rocketed painfully through his arms and shoulders and all the way down his back, nor for the sickening crack of a human skull shattering under his hands.
The monster went down, but Mike could only stand there even as a voice in the back of his mind screamed at him to run. Vomit burned his throat at the curdled blood and the dark red and purple slimy skin that clung to the metal of his bat before it fell to the ground with a wet plop beside the monster. Thick droplets of the creature’s ice-cold blood dribbled down Michael’s face and smeared against the teen’s lips as he stood there in shock.
Boney claws wrapped around Mike’s ankle. The sharp pain of bone digging underneath his skin jerked Michael’s mind back to awareness, and he brought his bat down on the thing's wrist just before it had time to yank him to the ground.
The fingers didn't let him go even after the impact of Mike’s bat ground the compact bones along the creature’s wrist into fine dust held together only by moldy stretches of tendon and skin.
Michael brought the bat down on the thing's arm again and again and again before its other hand finally snaked around and grabbed hold of the slippery dark red metal.
Michael yanked the bat closer, cursing himself for giving the reaper a chance to rip his weapon away. But the reaper didn’t; instead, it used the momentum of Michael’s action against him.
Mike's vision went red with pain as the handle of his bat flew back at him and slammed into his lips with enough force that Mike heard his plastic mask crack on his face.
Except Michael realized a split second later that it wasn’t just his mask that had cracked. Something sharp and coppery exploded in Mike's mouth and the teen choked on shards of his own teeth as the fractured remnants slid down the back of his throat.
The thing's fingers were still locked around his ankle, and the moldy strands of tendon and skin keeping its bony purple hand attached to the rest of the monster's body snapped apart as Michael stumbled backward with tears in his eyes and dark red blood dribbling down his chin. He was too stunned by pain to react even as the monster peeled itself off the ground with one arm; its other, handless appendage hung limply against its side in a mess of unnatural angles kept together only by thin layers of rotting skin.
Its neck snapped down to look at its obliterated arm, but somehow, the creature looked almost bored as its empty eye sockets focused on the mangled stretch of flesh and shattered bone attached to it. The monster’s remaining fingers latched around its broken arm before ripping the twisted limb from its shoulder with enough force that its entire body jerked at the motion.
The shattered lower part of the arm flopped to the ground in a pile of putrid skin, and the reaper's head snapped back up and its empty eyes focused directly on Michael with its fingers still grasping the remains of its upper arm.
"You're going to regret that,” it whispered in the grinding croak reminiscent of a bag of gravel and forks shoved down a garbage disposal.
"M-Make me."
Michael had wanted to sound stubborn and strong, but the words cracked in the air and passed his lips in nothing but a whimpering stammer as he tried not to gurgle on his own blood.
He should have ran the second he had gotten a hit in on this– this stupid son of a bitch. Things were– Everything was already going so wrong.
The creature lurched at him. Michael didn't have time to run or stumble away; he barely had time to raise his bat.
The reaper still had the upper part of its broken arm in hand, but Michael didn't notice the sharp end of broken bone protruding from the severed arm until the jagged point had already buried itself inside Mike’s shoulder.
Two pinpoints of light sparked to life in the monster’s eyes, and its gaping black eyes looked directly at him as Michael screamed.
The reaper ripped its broken arm out of Michael’s shoulder and aimed for the teen's heart.
Michael just managed to ram the end of his bat into the reaper's neck at the last second.
It was a weak blow. The monster’s close proximity didn’t give the teen enough room to maneuver the long bat and Mike's arms and wobbly legs trembled dangerously, worsening his ability to strike. But by some miracle, it was enough to make the monster stumble a few steps back, though it grabbed onto the teen's bat and ripped it from his hands as it stumbled.
Michael didn’t fight to get the bat back. He turned on his heel and ran.
The teen’s hands clawed at his own shoulder as the monster’s footfalls echoed behind him once more.
Tears stung Michael’s eyes as he remembered that bloody, grimy, disgusting bone piercing into him. God only knew what kind of germs that thing had put into his system– what if the wound got infected?
Not that an infected wound would matter if Mike didn’t keep himself alive and out of the creature’s way.
Michael forced the pain and panicked delirium away. He had to focus; this was the important part.
The reaper was just behind him, following at a pace closer to a walk than a run.
Somehow, that was so, so much worse. The monster didn't have to run to keep up with him, and it knew it. It would always catch him in the end, like a hunter casually strolling after the blood trail of a wounded deer. The creature would never tire nor stop chasing him, and it was just a matter of time before Mike got too tired to go on running from it.
‘No. No, no, no– not this time.’
The monster’s slower pace did make this more difficult, though. Michael couldn't move too fast. He needed to always be just out of the creature's reach, or he would risk the monster getting distracted or frustrated and trying to cut him off by going a different route.
This would have a way better chance of success if Mike could keep the monster right where he wanted it.
Michael dashed into the house from the garage and raced up and down hallways and from room to room. As he ran, he ducked and jumped periodically to avoid tripe wires, avoided stepping on any rugs, and danced around jagged pieces of metal and nails and blades that had been embedded into the hardwood floor.
He really couldn’t afford to mess up this part. Any wrong moves or missteps would have to be avoided at all costs. But with any luck, the monster hunting him wouldn’t be so careful.
As he raced up the steps, he made sure to skip the fifth step down. But as he reached the top, it slowly dawned on him that things had been unusually quiet. As far as Mike was aware, the monster never seemed to react much to pain, but there was a distinct lack of surprised grunts or infuriated yells, or whirring gears and mechanical parts snapping as traps were set off.
Chest heaving as he panted, Michael turned and looked down.
The reaper was standing right there at the bottom of the steps. It looked exactly the same as it had when Michael had fought it in the garage, like it hadn’t set off a single trap during the chaotic chase.
Its head was tilted back, staring at the kitchen knives and heavy hooks used to hang endoskeletons that Michael had stolen and hung from the ceiling over the steps. They were hung high enough that Mike could race up and down with no problem, but the taller monster should have gotten a nasty surprise as it came after him with that single-minded focus it always seemed to have.
Instead, the monster looked up at the trap with an annoyed expression before meeting Michael’s eye.
Keeping its head ducked low, the reaper placed its foot on the first step.
Michael’s heart leaped into his throat and he stumbled down the hallway, struggling to breathe properly through all the panting and the blood still flooding his mouth and throat.
How was that thing still walking?! Mike had set death traps up in every inch of this house; it just wasn’t possible that the reaper could have stumbled through the house without setting a single one off!
The thing on the steps was still way, way too quiet. Had it seen him skip the fifth step down?
Mike turned for a split second to see if the reaper had gotten to the top steps yet.
A sharp pain sliced through Michael’s throat.
That single second of distraction had been enough time to throw several hours of analyzing the layout of every trap he'd set up in this house out the window.
The sharp feeling wrapped around his entire throat as his own momentum forced him further into the trap. The wire tightened, and suddenly Mike’s feet left the floor entirely and he slammed against the ugly red wallpaper.
Hurricane was a small town. One where there wasn't much to do, especially when your father worked at the most interesting place in town and you had to spend nearly every day there for hours on end.
Michael and his friends had explored every nook and cranny and forgotten place there was to find in the town. Including the abandoned railroad tracks in the surrounding woods.
Those tracks were so old that the rusty spikes meant to hold them together could often be found lying on the ground around the tracks, ripe for the taking; even the ones still riveted inside the old tracks could mostly be removed with some determination, and the sharp, rusty, six-and-a-half inch long spikes were attractive prizes to a group of rowdy teens with nothing better to do.
Michael had stored a lot of them away in his closet over time.
Sticking the rivets through a slab of plywood and nailing the plywood plank into the wall upstairs with the sharp ends facing outward had been a lot of effort, just like a lot of the traps he had spent the entire day building, but Michael had deemed it a worthwhile venture because he had been certain those spikes would be able to do some damage.
And Michael had been right.
Michael had put six or seven of those spikes through the plywood, but when Mike slammed into the wall, he only felt one big blast of pain set his back on fire. He didn't even have time to scream before a gush of blood and vomit slid through his throat, staining his shattered teeth and turning his inhuman screech into a quiet gurgle.
The wire stayed wrapped around Mike's throat and cut deeper as his feet–- suspended by the railroad spikes and wire too high for the teen to reach the ground– thrashed wildly in the air.
Michael’s vision went black as the thrashing jostled the spikes, widening the holes in his back and sending the sharp, rusted rivets deeper into his flesh until some of them scraped against his ribcage.
Gasping, Michael sucked in one shaky breath after another and tried to ignore the desperate need to claw himself upward. His throat and lungs were filling with liquid, but he wasn't drowning in water. There was no surface he could rise above to make it all stop.
What a strange sensation it was to drown in your own hallway without a drop of water in sight.
Bloody fingers clawed at the wire around his throat, but he couldn't pull it away any more than he could clear his airway.
Salty tears leaked down Michael’s face in a futile attempt to clear away the blood still staining his chin. Between one blink and the next, the red wallpaper and family picture frames in front of the teen were replaced by two hollow black eyes and putrid purple flesh flecked with varying shades of green mold that peeked out of the crusty white bandages holding its splitting skin together
The monster cocked its head at him, and Michael finally got a good view of the damage he had dealt it earlier. The side of its head had caved in like deflated basketball or a sandcastle under an oncoming tide, and yellowish-white shards of bone jutted out from the jelly-like mixture of blood and decaying muscle dripping from the cracks in its head.
The white pinpoints of its eyes flashed up and down him curiously, watching the blood flow down Michael’s body and drip into an ever-widening pool under his feet. The thing's lips had long ago rotted away, but Michael realized as raspy, cracked laughter spilled between the thing's dried-out, wrinkled gums and bared yellow teeth that the monster was smiling at him.
"You bastard!" More blood dribbled down Michael’s chin and gurgled inside his throat. Mike tried to spit it all out like this was nothing more than his morning mouthwash routine. "You bastard!"
Floorboards moaned under the reaper's feet as it took another step closer. Michael flinched as it did so, and immediately bit back a cry at the white-hot pain of spikes shifting inside his back and scraping against bone and organs.
"That looks like it hurts," the reaper rasped.
Michael’s tears stung as they leaked into cuts on his face from his earlier fight with the monster. He had felt hot and sweaty before from all the running and fighting, but now his fingers were iceblocks against his neck as he struggled with the wire digging into his flesh. A frighteningly cold, bone-deep chill cut into Michael's form, and the child trembled as he struggled to breathe through the blood and the pain.
He couldn't run. Couldn't fight. The monster– the reaper– was going to kill him now.
At least the pain will stop, a voice whispered in the teen's head.
A quiet sob shook the young teen's core. He needed the pain to stop so fucking much, but he didn't want the pain to stop– he wanted to live.
But if he was going to die, at least it would be on his own terms.
"Go ahead," Michael growled. "Jus– Just g-get it over with."
The creature cocked its head at him again, like it had been too distracted watching the blood seeping from Michael's form to bother listening to what he had said.
"Just d-do it!" Michael sobbed. "K-kill me, you– you wrinkly, p-puss-filled ball-sack! Come on! Just– just– get i-it over with and kill me!"
The reaper took another step closer. "No."
Blood-shot eyes locked onto the reaper's gaping eye sockets. "Why?!"
Wasn't that the point?! Wasn't that what this– thing– had set out to do, over and over and over?!
The reaper's hand settled on Michael’s chest. Mike didn't have the energy left to flinch or be wary. He only met the reaper's eye in pained exhaustion.
But then the reaper pushed.
Michael screamed as his prized railroad spikes dug deeper into him until his bloody back was finally pressed flush against the wall.
One of the railroad spikes went all the way through Michael’s chest and stabbed into the reaper's palm, but the monster didn't seem to notice. It ripped its hand away before latching onto one of Michael’s wrists as the teen frantically tried pulling the reaper's arm away from him.
"You want to know why?" Its voice whipped against the air in a wild hiss.
The dull hallway light gleamed off the dark red liquid coating Michael’s skin as the reaper shoved the teen's blood-stained hand in front of his face before it snarled at him. "Because no matter how many ways you try to run or fight it, you will always bring this hell down on yourself with your own hands. You did this, Michael."
'You're insane,' the teen wanted to say, but there was too much blood in Mike's throat for him to talk, or even to breathe. He tried shaking his head at the thing, but the wire was starting to cut frighteningly deep inside his throat. Michael could only stare at the monster in front of him with wide-eyed horror and beg for it to just end this, like the bastard was supposed to do when it caught him.
The reaper released Michael’s wrist, and the teen's arm fell limply down to his side.
He should do something; he should fight. But his energy had been draining away with every second he spent hanging on his own death trap, and there was so little left inside him.
He couldn't even lean away as the reaper lifted its only hand, moved its fingers around the edge of his mask, and traced the curve of his head with an almost gentle touch.
The reaper's broken fingers paused on a string looping behind the teen's head. It latched onto the string and pulled, ripping the Foxy mask off of Michael’s head.
The reaper's teeth ground together as it glared down at the bloody mask before letting the plastic slip from between rotten fingers and fall to the bloody floor with a wet and heavy thunk. And without hesitation, the reaper slammed its foot down on the only thing that had ever made Michael feel strong.
Hearing the sharp crack of plastic as the monster decimated the mask and shattered Foxy's maw into pieces wrenched a hopeless sob out of the teenager's chest.
The reaper stayed still. It didn't move further away, nor did it move any closer.
It only watched as Michael struggled to free himself from the trap one last time before finally giving up.
Michael struggled to gulp down another shaky breath through his sobbing but was rewarded only with more blood in his lungs and pain searing every nerve ending until even the most minuscule movements lit every cell and nerve in his body on fire.
Through it all, the reaper stood back and watched with a smile.
Not wanting to see the monster's smug, rotten face or the blood staining his own body anymore, Michael could do nothing but close his eyes and wait for the moment when the last drop of blood would drip from his body and all the pain would finally end.
(Michael had the sinking feeling that death wouldn’t be that easy of an escape.)
#tw violence#tw blood#tw injury#tw child death#tw death#tw corpse#tw body horror#tw torture#anyway did you enjoy the parallels to the Bite of '83?#and the slight parallels to pizza sim?#and the motif of mike's foxy mask making mike feel brave and like he has a chance until the reaper rips#it from his face so mike can die ''like the coward he is'' (in reaper's mind)?#ik the theme of this au is the *reaper* killing mike but i really liked the idea of#mike setting off one of his own traps and r. mike leaving him to slowly die.#because he doesn't just want mike dead. he wants him to SUFFER. and it's poetic is it not?#mike bringing about (his own) death in more ways than one. you can't escape what you are.#also ''you wrinkly puss-filled ball-sack'' ajdfajksdfhsjfks michael you think you're SO FUNNY don't you#i haven't actually written a teenage mike who isn't subdued and traumatized by the Bite before#it was fun!#10/10 would do again. young mike is so stupid and arrogant. an absolute delight to write.#paradoxical reaper wip#paradoxical reaper au#michael afton#mike afton#scooped mike#foxy mask brother#foxy mask#kats scribbles
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finally online and thinking about how little will does in every instance we see jane being bullied. he’s no stranger to how shitty it feels to be singled out like that, to be berated and belittled, and yet all he does is stand there and watch, then try to help pick up the pieces only after it’s over. i know the suffer brothers have forgotten lonnie byers exists at this point but i unfortunately have not, and in cases of bullies both at school and at home most of his life, will never learned how to fight back. indignance is a fruitless endeavor, inconsequential to a man like lonnie, to kids grappling with adult hierarchies on the playground, to mind flayers prying their way in your head. anger is even scarier, something that always made his mom upset and his brother shut down like a machine powered off when it spewed from his dad.
he tries to learn fight instead of flight for the first time ever at 13 years old, and it just so happens to be in the face of an otherworldly monster. it’s an atrophied muscle since tantrums as a toddler were answered with intoxicated tantrums of the man of the house, and it’s never properly gotten the chance to build its strength up, or even believe it can. will knows this. of course he does, and it’s a contributing factor to his everpresent struggle in not feeling like a burden, a hassle to have around in his loved ones’ lives, so he tries to compensate with comfort, but by nature, it never feels like enough. not when the thing about comfort is that it happens after the hurt, never before, never prevents it. standing by when he knows exactly what kind of hurt jane’s feeling, and doing nothing, feels like a betrayal. if he intervened, it’s not like it would stop it from happening again, but even trying and failing would be better than nothing. considering all the times jane has saved his life and his family and friends’ before she even met him, it is quite literally the least he could do.
but it’s a trauma response, to freeze. one built from the crib to the upsidedown, to lock up or run away. he’s gotten better at the latter, but the progress is hard to feel when faced with jane’s misery by himself, without even the party that always helped him cope with his own bullies at his back.
#study. . .⠀meta#st4 spoilers#i guess it's more of a headcanon but no it's not i just remember lonnie existed<3#even just as the audience seeing jane get bullied feels like shit and then the shots switch to will always just watching and somehow#i feel impossibly worse :)#god they were supposed to have a fresh start :(#i do think at least will got so caught up with just trying to survive all this upsidedown bullshit it was kind of? easy to forget?#the mundane aspects of life that can still make it fucking terrible#and like. they've faced Actual Monsters!! it should be easy to face bullies!!!!#but it isn't. it would take practice that will has Never had outside of trying it out on an interdimensional monster that one time#which didn't work btw<3 it just made it worse to try like that and have your agency so thoroughly ignored#ok enough tags i need to stop...... i have so many thoughts on will's passive coping mechanisms#the only time we really see him Mad at like anybody is mike#and it's this big ugly thing ripping him up and his response is to run and hide and feel so STUPID about how upset he was#the few times he's stood up for himself he always finds a reason to not try it again#OK i'm done for real i have drafts that i'm !!!! about#if i'm dead in the ims it's bc my social meter feels stiff as a corpse today i am apologizing in advance
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Hello! Could you please write full headcanons on the M6 getting home one day to find MC dead? They're not actually dead, their body is just vacant after a spell went horribly wrong, but M6 have no way of knowing that.
Thank you!
The Arcana HCs: When M6 think MC is dead
~ @arson-the-ace oh, this. this is going to hurt, isn't it. ~
CW for descriptions of panic attacks, bodies that seem dead, references to past trauma, and your beloved in lots of pain
-- to set the scene --
It was supposed to be an experiment, to see if it was possible to put your body in a preserved or frozen state when you left it behind to visit the magical realms. You did not expect the result to be your body looking and acting like a fresh corpse, or for the spell to have a three hour cooldown time before you could reinhabit it. Your incorporeal self sighs and sits next to your body, resigned to the boredom of waiting it out.
Until, minutes later, the door opens and your beloved walks in, and you have no way of telling them what happened.
Julian
Already fears the worst as soon as he sees you sprawled on the floor - his plague doctor experience with visiting the sick has his instincts fine-tuned for recognizing an unrecoverable patient
Trips over himself in his scramble to get to you and gets a nasty bump on his knee, but doesn't register a thing because he's finally reached for you and he's looking for a sign of life
A pulse. An exhale. The twitch of your eyes moving below your eyelids, anything, anything to tell him that you can be saved
He rolls you onto your back and tries to give you CPR, but he's breaking down too much already for any of it to be effective
Chest compressions turn into him ripping his gloves off, trying to find any of the warmth you've shared with him
Mouth-to-mouth turns into a choked sob against your cold cheek
He can't bring himself to keep going. Each failed attempt at reviving you gets his hopes up only to rip them to shreds again
He doesn't want to move forward. He doesn't want to go ahead with laying you to rest. He doesn't want to leave this drafty wooden floor, without a blanket or a pillow to keep you comfortable
And he can't stand up
He sits cross-legged on the floor, lifting your head onto his lap and laying his coat over you in lieu of a quilt
You watch him droop over your body, shivering in the drafty room without his layers, voice catching and breaking on quiet sobs as he sings you the lullaby his parents sang him before the shipwreck
By the time your eyes flutter open, his voice is gone
He's happy to see you - he's so, so happy to see you, but he keeps hovering over you like he never knows if you're about to collapse for good next time
If you love him, you'll wait a long, long time to do any more magic
Asra
They thought you were playing some kind of game, at first
He walked into the upstairs apartment to see you sprawled on the floor and teasingly called out your name, playfully asking what new mischief you were up to as he hung up his coat
And then you didn't answer them
As soon as he felt that old dread seize his stomach, he was hurrying across the room and asking you what was wrong
They can feel their own body growing cold as they touch your frozen one, pressing a trembling hand to your chest in search of the heartbeat they moved heaven and hell to give you
He's panicking, breaths coming quick and short. The motions of his arms trying to pull you closer to him are far too similar to his frantic digging in the ash filled sands of the Lazaret
They don't know what's worse - the images flashing across their eyes of your charred bone fragments splintering in their bleeding fingers, or your lifeless face lying heavy against their knees
His heart can't take it. The tears give way to an ongoing numb tremor. He places a preservation spell on your body as his last conscious thought before he lies down next to you on the floor
They put their arm under your limp neck and cuddle up to you like it's just another day's end, just another snuggle before sleep while they lay their head down on your icy, silent chest
You watch him hold your body in shock. He seems like he's caught between worlds, alternating between staring at your unmoving stomach while his shaky tears land and pool on your shirt
And reflexively whispering apologies as they mop up their tears with their sleeve, asking if they're squeezing you too tightly
He's quick to check your memories when you wake up, but no matter how healthy you are, he can't leave your side for a week
Nadia
Her intuition is telling her something is wrong as soon as she's approaching her chambers. Seeing you on the ground is her worst nightmare coming true
You're cold to the touch. You don't respond to her voice. You don't respond ... at all. She needs help, you need help, you need help now, she's going to get you everything you need, just hang on
She lifts you into her bed, and the chilly deadweight of your body is more than she can take. When she throws open the door and yells for a doctor, every servant in earshot hears her panicked sobs
She hasn't had a panic attack like this in years
Servants rush in and out in a blur, hurried murmurs and muffled exclamations fading into the background. She feels like she's been plunged underwater, unable to scream as her lungs fill with salt
She sits by your side with your hand in both of hers, clinging to the only part of you she's allowed to touch while the closest physician pokes and prods at your lifeless body. She can't see you anymore
And everyone else? They can't see their Countess at all
They see a broken-hearted woman holding steadfast to her lover's limp hand, breaths jagged and unpredictable as she wails through her teeth. Mercifully, her hair comes undone and hides her wrenched face and streaming tears behind a curtain of purple
You woke her, first from her dreams, then from her apathy, and finally from her loneliness. Watching you succumb to a sleep far stronger than the one that trapped her is wretched beyond words
When you finally stir awake, she refuses to leave your side as the doctors work to ensure that your vitals are stable and to try to figure out what happened and if there are any repercussions
She's glad you're back, but she can't stop herself from waking you in the middle of the night to make sure you're just sleeping
Muriel
He's already convinced of the worst before he can prove it
He knows what a body collapsed in sudden death looks like. He's seen them countless times on the sand of the Coliseum floor, slaughtered at his own shackled hands, but now it's you
Now it's the only person he trusted to never leave his side
He can't register Inanna beginning to whine and pace, he can't register the sounds of the forest outside, he can't register the fire slowly burning down and out in the back of the hut
A lifetime of trained alertness, muted, because his subconscious has decided it can't take paying attention to a world that doesn't have you in it any more
He's finally able to move again when he takes his first shuddering breath in minutes, and he begins to walk and reach towards you in the vague hope that all is not as it seems
But that's when some small, sick part of his brain starts up its tiny chant that he deserves this, that this is the effect of giving in to your misguided desire for his touch, that this is somehow his doing
But the larger part of him, the part of him that loves you and aches for you and is dedicated to you, leans past the furious pain and lifts your head and shoulders off of the floor, enough so he can lower his head and listen for a heartbeat, feel for breath on his cheek
And there isn't any. Your body is as still and lifeless as his hope for something better, and he can't breathe. He can't breathe, and he's curled up in a ball with you in his arms, and he can't breathe
It takes a few hours before he can master his thoughts enough to think. This has happened before, and it was possible for you to come back. Asra, he has to bring you to Asra, he'll give anything
You wake up as he's carrying you through the woods, and it's the first time you've seen his body go so completely weak with relief
Portia
At first, she thinks you're feeling a little silly and sleeping on the floor just to mess with Pepi. Though the way you're lying, you almost look like you've collapsed. That can't be comfortable
It's when she crouches down to wake you up that she can tell something's wrong. Your shoulder is cold - way too cold
She's already got tears running down her face, but never in her life has she let her sadness stop her from caring for those she loves. She shakes you, back and forth, calling your name over and over
At some point she realizes that it's too late, there's nothing she can do, and that's when she starts wracking her brain for someone who can do something. Anything. She's not giving up on you
She's small, but she's strong and she's in pain. She lifts your body and begins to stumble through the Palace garden with you. She leans into the volume of her wails, using them to call for help
First through the gardens, then through the Palace halls, unable to recognize the blurry faces through her tears, but determinedly blubbering out what's happened and how she needs help for you
When someone who might have been the Countess informs her that the physician is out, she walks out the front gates of the Palace. Her ears are deaf to the offer of a carriage into town
Vesuvia still remembers its plague. It has never before heard cries as anguished as the ones Portia sent echoing down the canals as she ran and stumbled with your body to Mazelinka's house
Mazlinka will be there. Ilya will be there. They both know plenty about medicine, they should be able to help, just hang on. Hang on, she tells your cold body, hang on for me
You stir awake just as she crosses the threshold into the basement dwelling, and the emotions she feels are so overwhelming that she almost punches you for scaring her. She can't stop crying
Lucio
When he walks into the room in the inn after his trip to the outhouse, he avoids the sinking feeling in his gut by telling himself you're just napping. On the floor. Without moving
And then he can't take the way his conscience is nagging at him, so he snaps and (not unkindly, but brashly) tells you to get up and get moving already, we're wasting daylight!
But you don't move. You don't give him a disapproving look. You don't grumble when he shakes your shoulder, or open your eyes when he pats your cheek, or smile when you hear your name
He doesn't understand. You're brave, you're strong, you're loving, you're good, you're full of goodness and you're better than anything he ever deserved after what you suffered because of him
Because of ... him
This must be his fault. This must be his actions catching up with him. This must be the fallout of all those rash deals, some forgotten deity must have run out of patience and come to collect
Of course this would happen. It would take a hundred lifetimes to sift through the pile of selfish bargains, of course he missed one, of course he failed to make up for his past deeds, of course ...
Of course an oversight like that would cost him you
But he's not going to let this go. You deserve better. He hauls you into his arms, ignoring the way he chokes at your dangling limbs, and rushes out of the inn and into the deep, deep woods beyond
He screams and cries and yells and threatens and pleads and begs until his voice falls silent and he can taste blood in his throat
He calls out to any angry being listening to tell him, tell him what this is in payment for, tell him what he can put on the bargaining table that would pay back the debt that demanded your soul
You wake up before he can do anything rash, but he squeezes you in his sleep now, as if to challenge any more soul thieves
#ask arcana brainrot#the arcana#the arcana headcanons#the arcana hc#the arcana game#asra the arcana#julian the arcana#nadia the arcana#muriel the arcana#portia the arcana#lucio the arcana#asra alnazar#julian devorak#nadia satrinava#muriel of the kokhuri#portia devorak#lucio morgasson
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Happy Saturday! Enjoy these brilliant fics. 🩷
I don’t know why, but I guess it has something to do with you by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 17.8K
“You smell like me,” the guy says, scowling as he crowds in and Stiles staggers back between the coats and finally hits the wall. “Why do you smell like me?”
He barely lets out a garbled sound as the blood rushes to his cheeks. “No reason,” Stiles yelps, struggling to get his footing and grasping at a whirlwind of puffy fur.
His Only Defense by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 78.7K
Stiles had just accidentally challenged an alpha.
Oh God, and Scott had just stood by and let him do it. He was the worst best friend ever. Stiles was going to kill him. Except, oh right, the alpha was going to kill him first. Like beyond dead, ripped into tiny little pieces dead. So far dead that his dad would not be able to identify him, dead.
Laying Groundwork by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 10.9K
The one where Scott and Stiles go clubbing and there’s this broody Bouncer out to get Stiles-
Or get into his pants. Thank God it’s the latter.
Give you that thing you can’t even imagine by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 10.9K
The one where mateless Derek thinks no omega can affect him like they do other alphas and he’s about to find out he’s very, very wrong.
Shot Through The Heart by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 64.8K
The one when Stiles and Derek work for rival assassin companies and are sent to kill each other. It definitely doesn’t go as planned.
Foolish devouring things, build your castle in me by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 23.1K
“I will marry you,” he declares. “But should any more harm come to my father or my people, I will raze the earth itself until I feel the lifeblood drain from your corpse and paint my skin with it.”
It is not an idle warning, but from the princeling it has none of the desired effect. Derek feels no fear, but in this instance at least diplomacy triumphed over the spilling of more blood. It is all the same to him anyway. But Regent Peter was most insistent they avoid a drawn-out, gruelling war.
“Then we have reached an accord.”
Oh baby give me one more chance (to show you that I love you) by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 54.7K
“You like Derek,” he says slowly. “Derek Hale.”
His father grimaces at the accusation there. “Look, Stiles it’s complicated-“
“So when I was married to him,” he continues, voice rising. “He wasn’t good enough. He was taking advantage of me. ‘He’ll never be able to love you like you want, Stiles’. That’s what you said-“
Or the Sweet Home Alabama AU that nobody asked for.
I'm at one, and I've been quiet for too long by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 11.4K
“All in favour of Derek not dating for a full year so he can get his shit together and stop romancing people who want to kill us?”
Everyone raises their hands. Every single pack member.
Or the one where the pack insists Derek can't date anybody for a year but he ends up finding romance much closer to home anyway.
I know that you love me, even when I lose my head by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 135.5K
“We’re not mates, Cora,” he insists. “I mean look at him-“
“Ouch,” the kid says, no longer pushing that shit eating grin.
“He’s- he’s,” Derek tries, at a loss of how to explain why this can’t be possible. Why it shouldn’t be possible.
When sparks fly by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 87.5K | Abandoned
“Derek,” Stiles thunders. “Were you ever going to tell me your house is trying to hook us up?”
Derek’s head snaps up, eyes wide and scenting the evident crackle of magic in the air.
I'll wrap up my bones, And leave them by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 65.1K
The sign on the cage actually reads Beware: The Beast! in that crappy horror movie red paint that trickles down the paper in a failed attempt to appear like dripping blood.
And it would seem stupid if not for the living supernatural creature currently trapped behind its bars. Little hard to dismiss the big, hulking werewolf as a poorly constructed horror movie prop.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Dude, cannot catch a break.
How long have I been on the hunt for you? by LunaCanisLupus_22 | 20.3K
“Well I guess accidental kidnapping is not so bad then,” Scott decided brightly after the others had finished describing their ordeals. “All’s well that ends well, right?”
“HAHA,” Stiles practically shouted, loud and unsettling enough that everyone turned to look at him. “I mean, yep. For. Sure.”
#sterek fics#sterek#ficrecs#fanfic writers#sterek fandom#author spotlight#lunacanislupus22#author appreciation
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Prisoner AU snippet:
Kisuke sinks into the shadows of the corner of Yoruichi’s office, crossing his legs and tilting his head up to stare at the bare wood of the ceiling.
It just doesn’t make sense.
Forget the how — he’s still stumped on the why. For what possible reason could the Ryoka have killed Lieutenant Aizen?
It’s incredibly clear that the Ryoka isn’t playing a long game. No, if anything, the Ryoka was planning on the game having ended far before now. Kisuke sincerely doubts he even meant to be alive this long.
Kisuke closes his eyes, imagines the moment he first saw the Ryoka. It’s an easy scene to call up. Something about it has Kisuke on edge, and not for the obvious reasons. Ever since it happened, he’s found himself going over it again and again, his brain unable to let it go. Something about that moment felt so wrong — still feels so wrong — and he can’t pinpoint why.
The Ryoka had been kneeling next to Aizen’s corpse, arms drenched in blood from the elbow down. The shorter blade of his zanpakuto (and wasn’t that interesting — a dual wielder) had been shoved under Aizen’s chin, up into his brain. The larger sword was on the ground, gore covering its edge. The body had been covered in gashes; before going for the head, the Ryoka had, in no discernible order, stabbed the lieutenant in the lungs, cut his torso open from high between his ribs down to his gut, slit open his femoral artery, severed his spine, and ripped his heart out of his chest — thoughtfully placing the displaced organ next to the corpse’s left ear.
Kisuke, the first one to track down the missing lieutenant, had still gotten there well after the blood had cooled.
The Ryoka, knees in the bloody mud — (and how long, Kisuke wonders, had he been there?) — had turned his head towards Kisuke. “I’m pretty sure he’s actually dead, this time,” he said, conversationally, as if commenting on the flavor of a good tea.
Kisuke had drawn his blade, then. The Ryoka, strangely enough, made no move to retrieve his own. Instead, he had just sat there, staring at Kisuke.
And then his gaze had drifted downward, towards Benihime’s bared edge, and it seemed for all the worlds that in that moment the Ryoka lost every bit of energy that makes a person a person.
Before Kisuke’s eyes, the Ryoka slumped, and his gaze went vacant. Like he had been a marionette, and all of a sudden his strings were cut.
Kisuke had waited for backup before approaching the Ryoka, although even then, he had doubted there would be a struggle.
He had been right. The Ryoka had let them take his zanpakuto from him, let them put him in chains, and had let them lock him in one of the onmitsukido cells. There had been no resistance.
Since then, the Ryoka hasn’t tried to escape, let alone attempted to kill anyone else. He barely moves. Nothing seems to bring life to him. Even if Kisuke were allowed to use physical methods to extract information, he doubts the Ryoka would fight back.
Killing Aizen was the end goal, that much is obvious. But why?
For a brief time, Kisuke had entertained the thought that maybe the Ryoka had been meant as a distraction. But for what? He had quickly discarded the idea. Any heist would have been easier than sneaking into the Seireitei without notice and murdering a Shinigami Lieutenant. And if a second, higher-ranking assassination had been the goal, it would have been best done before killing Aizen; predictably, people were now uneasy, and guard rotations had increased dramatically.
Kisuke uncrosses his legs, stretching out one in front of him. “So why did you do it, then,” he murmurs.
Revenge against the Court Guard? No, he would have tried to kill more than just Aizen had that been the case. With his power and ability to go unnoticed, he probably would have succeeded, too.
Revenge against Aizen? An absurd thought, one certainly not worth wasting his time on.
Kisuke drums his fingers against his knee, trying to think. Why? Why would someone murder Lieutenant Aizen so viciously? What could possibly be —
He freezes.
“Kisuke?” Yoruichi says, catching the flare of alarm in his spiritual signature.
He ignores her, desperate not to let the thought fade.
Vicious.
Vicious.
A vicious murder.
The way the Ryoka had done it had been so vicious, hatred obvious in every wound inflicted. And the Ryoka, he had had no interest in continuing his warpath, after. He had given up, as soon as it was done. It was revenge. Of course it was revenge. All the signs are there, why had he not thought of that before. Why did he —
But he had, hadn’t he? Just a few seconds ago, he had —
He had dismissed it, but he doesn’t do that, he’s trained, he knows better than to discard a theory based on personal assumptions —
Why did he have that personal assumption?
Because it was Lieutenant Aizen. He would never have done something —
But —
Captain Hirako. Didn’t Captain Hirako chose Aizen as a lieutenant because —
And then. And then that time someone broke into his lab, and he —
He can’t remember.
He can’t remember.
“Oh, fuck,” Kisuke breathes.
There are gaps in his memory, and now that he’s focusing on it, he can feel where a foreign power, a… a zanpakuto’s power, fading, now — he can notice it because it’s fading, it’s power is lessened — is trying to affect his thought patterns.
Trying to keep him from thinking about how… about how dangerous Aizen was. Trying to keep him from remembering when… when…
Aizen had broken into his lab. Stolen research on… no, theories, it was theories about the —
The —
Hogyoku.
“Oh, Soul King,” Kisuke breathes, horror washing through him, ice-cold.
He has the worst feeling that the Ryoka, sitting in an underground cell several floors below Kisuke’s feet, may have just saved them all.
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what's left / simon "ghost" riley
part two
zombie-apocalypse!au / pairing simon "ghost riley x female reader / wc 2186 / warnings brief gore, illusions to violence, typical end of the world angst, swearing.
summery ghost is tasked with escorting y/n to edinburgh to help with creating the cure for the zombie outbreak. it wasn't in the plan for him to fall along.
note y'all liked my post about writing something for this, so hopefully you'll enjoy this story. um, not actually heavy in terms of zombie appearances, but i have plans for another part to this story if ya'll end up enjoying this.
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Ghost stayed seated, back flat against the wall as he watched Y/N sleep and breathe slowly, her chest rising and falling steadily. He couldn’t imagine that the small cot was comfortable, or even very warm, but she seemed to be at peace. The only look of relief he’d seen on her face since their first unfortunate meeting. The painful memory of sirens blaring, people screaming in confusion, and the gut-wrenching, squelching noise of rotting flesh moving through the compound.
A shiver ran down Ghost’s back at the memory, he stiffened, hardening his clutch around his gun, but the night stayed enjoyably silent. It was quiet in a way he didn’t know, lacking the noise cities and towns used to have, the area around him was drenched in an inky black, and the only light provided was from the moon and stars above that cut through the cracks in the window.
She shifts in her sleep next to him, twitching involuntarily, a bad dream he supposed. Without a thought, Ghost reached down with a gloved hand, brushing it against her cheek, down her neck. The touch stills her, Y/N’s body easing again from the gesture.
“Fucking hell.” He quietly mutters to himself, in the dim light, he moves the blanket to check the wound on her leg. His fingers graze the stained gauze bandaging, wincing knowing how much worse it could’ve been. How much worse Ghost had seen.
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“We’ve got reports of outbreaks in all major cities across the United Kingdom and the world.” The news was completely ignored as the military compound was in disarray, chaos sweeping through as soldiers moved out. Everything was pure chaos, the streets were filled with blood and bones, corpses piling up as the flesh-craving, rabid creatures spread like wildfire. The consequence of biological warfare and the weapons it made. Man had played god and met its destruction when they decided to use their own as a tool.
Ghost’s body was tired, threatening to give out under him as he gunned down more of the creatures. Maggots was the name Soap had decided to call them as they fought back, killing those who’d once been fellow soldiers. But if he stopped now, he’d be swarmed by the infected, and if not ripped apart limb-by-limb, he’d receive a fate worse than death.
“We’ve got medical personnel barricaded in the infirmary, we need to get them out of there and moved to the QZ.” Price barked at Ghost over the comms, he was closet to the infirmary, near the outer hall that led to the medical wing. He groaned loudly, fearing what would happen if he tried to move, but the orders stood firm, and while the government was falling apart, he still acted as a soldier for his country.
“Moving there now.”
It was in that dark infirmary, where he could hear the Maggots beating against the outside walls that he first saw her. Gun clutched in her hands, blood splattered across her clothes and skin, and a grave of personnel who’d been turned in the infirmary as he dragged her out of the closet. Y/N kicked and screamed, scarred that he was dragging her to her death, but she went limp once he’d thrown her over his shoulder, his arm securing her in place as he moved her to the cleared tarmac. Past the growing swarms of flies that flocked to dead humans and Maggots alike.
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“Ghost?” Her quiet voice echoed through the dark room, he gazed at her bruised face. Frowning, Simon wiped some of the grime from the journey off.
“Right here, Y/N.” Ghost sighed, she opened her mouth to speak but closed it again. “How do you feel?”
“Probably just as bad as you.” Y/N brought her leg up, closing it to her chest so she could tug at the bandaging. “Need to change to gauze.”
“Let me do that, Y/N. No need to stress yourself, you need to rest.” He tells her, reaching over to her backpack, reaching inside, and finding her small kit of supplies. The container was beginning to run low, he didn’t like to think about what would happen if they didn’t get to Edinburgh soon. What had been planned, had gone astray.
“Ghost, you need to rest too. I’m not going to be falling back asleep.” She forces the gauze and antiseptic wipes out of his hands and into hers. “You need to rest, otherwise you’ll just be a bag of bones.”
Wiping his face with his hand and letting out a low groan, Ghost knew she was right. He’d had little rest the past few days and knew how it would delay his reaction time and ability to keep her safe. “Are you sure? I don’t want you-”
“I’ll be fine, and if I have even the slightest suspicion that something is wrong, I’ll wake you up. I promise.” Y/N assures him. Ghost reluctantly agrees, his body grateful at the idea of rest, even if it was for just a brief moment.
“Swear it.”
“I swear I’ll wake you up. Please, sleep.” She promises, shifting into a seating position. Ghost stayed seated, but let his head rest against the walls and allowed his eyes to droop. Exhaustion won the battle against his willpower as he drifted off.
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“We need to get her to Edinburgh, they have the tools, the chance to get a cure made. And she’s got the knowledge they need.” Price more often than not, was raising his voice at people. Even with the QZ safely established, and the initial surge dying down, there was too much uncertainty and too much loss for him to act rationally. Ghost knew this, he acted the same, snapping too quickly nowadays at already terrified soldiers under him. Sometimes he felt as mindless and flesh-eating as the Maggots, sniffing out fear like the infected sniffed out their next victim.
It seemed selfish to fight against the order he’d be given, foolish and self-centered. But what real chance did they have at creating a cure to stop the virus and its continued spread? Rumors had circulated that the Americans had been in the early stages of developing a counteract to the outbreak, but England had lost contact with all allies months ago. They could only rely on themselves, and even that seemed a stretch.
“Why don’t you get someone else?” Someone disposable, Ghost thought, as he knew the chances of successfully getting someone across the wasteland of England up to Edinburgh were almost impossible. Vehicles, cars, or helis were out of the question, fuel was strictly saved for powering and keeping the QZ warm. Which left him with no other option but to walk, for three weeks through towns, cities, and country filled with Maggots. A certain death.
“Because you’re the only one I trust to get her there.”
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The sun poured into the room, Ghost’s eyes flickered open before he jolted himself fully awake. His heart slammed in his chest, panic seeping through his veins. How long had he been asleep? Next to him, Y/N lay turned into his side, pressed into the side of his ribs. Ghost found the gun still propped against the wall next to him, he brought it back into his grip and surveyed the room around. All was quiet, all was at ease. Almost as if the outbreak hadn’t happened, destroying mankind in its wake.
Ghost wished Y/N had woken him up the moment she’d grown tired, but he didn’t have it in himself to be mad. For a high-achieving doctor, who always strove to be efficient, Ghost was a bit annoyed by her lack of responsibility. But she looked so beautiful in the early morning light, under the layer of dirt and grime that clung to her skin, Ghost’s eyes lingered on her rosy cheeks and soft lips.
He hated to break the silence or drag her awake, but they needed to move. Their location would only stay safe for so long. “Y/N. We need to get going.”
The woman grumbled at his words, trying to bury herself closer to Ghost’s side. He smirks at her action, prying her hands off of his body. His fingers grazed the veins and took comfort in the steady flow of blood in her body.
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Dry grass crunched under his feet as he carried her to the abandoned farmhouse. Set away from the road and society, no Rotten would wander this far from a horde. They’d be safe, safer than they’d been in the town where they’d been attacked by raiders. Y/N let out a whimper as he set her down on the ground, needing his hands to pry open the heavy wooden door. Her hand moved down to the poorly bandaged leg, where the large gash lay from where she’d been struck during the attack.
The hinges of the door creak as it opens, Ghost steps in, pistol raised and ready to survey the room. The farm, much like everything else around them, was abandoned. He didn’t care to think what had happened to those who’d lived there before, death had lost its sting for Ghost long ago.
Pulling Y/N back into his arms, Ghost moved back into the house, setting her down on the sagging settee in the living room. He moved down to the wounded leg, and as he began to unwrap the gauze, she winced, cringing as the cold, stale air greeted her wound. Y/N’s body shook uneasily, and her breathing was swallowed.
“Sorry.” Ghost apologizes, pulling open her medical kit. But his stomach churned uncomfortably at the wound, it was still oozing.
“S’gonna need stitches.” Y/N groans, dropping her head back down against the arm of the settee after evaluating the wound and its condition. “I can do it myself, but I’ll need you to find needle and thread.”
“I’ll find it, and I’ll do it myself. You’re in no condition to attempt to stitch yourself up.” He grunts, standing back up and beginning to search the room they were in for the needed materials.
“But-”
“No buts, Y/N. I’ve done this before, I can do it again.” Ghost states, opening a closet that was still stocked with sewing supplies. Plenty of needles, and a variety of colorful threads. He chose the one that was closest to medical thread, placing it and the small plastic container of needles down on the coffee table.
As he began to sew the wound closed, Y/N’s eyes began to water, and she gripped the fabric of the settee grinding her teeth. Ghost felt the need to keep apologizing to her, over and over again until he’d tightly secured the stitching with a knot. She let out a strained sob as he wiped the skin clean of dried blood with a cloth and some water from his canteen.
“I’m sorry, it’s done now.” He promised her, yanking his dirty gloves off and dropping them on the coffee table next to his discarded backpack and the harder outer layer of his mask. “You’re okay, I promise.” Ghost assures her, taking Y/N’s face in his calloused hands. She nods, her lips still trembling.
There wasn’t a thought in his mind as he pressed a kiss on the side of her cheek. He brought her body close to his, breathing in the smell of her skin, the blood, sweat, and tears. They stayed like that for a while, he allowed her to cry into his neck, his hands running through her knotted hair.
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His gaze falls on her as she fights the knots out of her hair, trying to manage just a bit before they set out again. While Ghost wouldn’t admit it, his body was painfully numb from all the walking they’d done the past weeks, wishing they’d made it to Edinburgh already. But he feared what would happen when they did arrive. The quiet moments he’d come to enjoy with Y/N would disappear. She’d return to her duty, struggling to make a cure. And what purpose would he have? The idea of attempting to return to London alone was a dangerous one. He assumed the military up there would put him to work. But would he ever get to spend any more cold nights, keeping her warm?
“I’m ready.” Y/N finally announces to him, pulling her backpack over her shoulders.
“‘Bout damn time.” Ghost huffs, offering her his hand to steady herself with. She wobbles a bit, unsure of how much weight she can put on her leg without it giving out underneath her. “Alright?”
“Yeah.” She nods but Ghost drops his arm down around her waist, adding extra support. “Ghost-”
“Let me help you.” He asks, leaning down and kissing her face. The rough material of the mask brushed against her raw skin. Y/N grasps at the mask, trying to remove the barrier between them. With reluctance, he breaks away from her lips, knowing his action is dangerous with consequences that could hurt. “Another time, Y/N. Need to save our breath.”
note so, i'll admit, i left the worst of the angst out of this. but- i may decide to deliver the rest if ya'll are curious about how gut-wrenching my writing can actually get.
#call of duty#simon ghost riley#call of duty mw2#ghost#simon ghost riley x reader#cod mw22#ghost mw2#fanfic#y/n#zombie apocalypse#call of duty zombies#zombies!au#ghost x reader#ghost x y/n#female reader#angst fanfic#i may have also been thinking about pedro pascal as joel miller#dont judge
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Thinking about being a civilian in Las Almas when shit goes down
You'd been invited to stay with a friend and, being in desperate need of a vacation, you'd agreed. It was fun, staying with them, meeting their family, learning about their hometown and childhood.
The fun ended pretty quick when these cunts dressed in black started killing everyone.
You and your friend had been out enjoying the night, eating, drinking, dancing. You were on your way back to their house when you heard it.
A gunshot.
Your friend tells you this isn't entirely abnormal. Tells you to ignore it and keep walking.
So you do.
But the gunshots are becoming more frequent. Louder too. They're getting closer.
A woman you vaguely recognize, one of your friends neighbours, rushes out of an alleyway, terrified and bloodied.
You can only understand so much about what's said before her head suddenly... Not there. Bits of skull and brain and blood spattered all over you as you watch her body drop.
You turn to your friend. "This is normal? Dude...."
You're friend tells you to shut the fuck up and that you need to run. As the sound of heavy footsteps and voices (American accents you register) get closer, accompanied by the sound of a gun being reloaded, you agree.
The two of you make a run for your friends house, passing all sorts of horrible sights. You're a block away when a gunshot rips through the night and your friend suddenly just... Stops.
You look back in disbelief. Their eyes wide with shock, lips parted, slack jawed... The new hole in the middle of their forehead. They try to say something to you, but all that escapes them is a choked groan. They throw you their keys, then collapse.
They're not dead yet. You can tell by their sounds and the rise and fall of their chest. A part of you wants to help them, grab them and drag them off to safety.
The other part of you recognizes the man dressed in all black (he looks suspiciously military but that doesn't make sense, killing civilians is a war crime... isn't it?), who's walking closer as he reloads his gun.
So you run.
Run and run until your legs are burning. Taking back roads and side streets, jumping fences, the adrenaline making it easy to ignore the way the barbed wire tears at your skin.
When you make it to your friends street, you find the door to their house is already open. Kicked down.
You find the dead inside.
A part of you wants to stop here, curl up and break down. The other knows that these people, these men in black, could come back at any moment. And so you do what you can to prepare yourself.
You empty your backpack of your belongings, filling it instead with anything you find around the house that might be useful.
A first aid kit buckled to the side. Rubbing alcohol and tequilla and whatever else flammable you can find poured into glass bottles, the lips stuffed with socks. Kitchen knives. Fire crackers and fire works. A couple flares. You manage to break open the safe and get a gun. An eight round revolver that you have no clue how to shoot but figure, hey, its better than nothing. At the very least, you could use it for intimidation.
You're heading to the garage where you're pretty sure you remember seeing a bow and full quiver of arrows (you were obsessed with the hunger games when you were younger, actually got pretty good with the weapon) when you freeze.
The man in black also freezes.
He's bloody and out of breath. Face smeared with dirt and oil. His mohawk disheveled. His blue eyes land on you laser focused. He's got a gun. A big one.
And he's looting the corpses. Your friends roommates, their bodies still warm as blood pools beneath them, some of their eyes still open, casting judgmental stares, lay there limp. And this fucker is acting like this is a D&D campaign.
You've got the revolver trained on him with shaking hands.
He points his gun (some sort of automatic things) at you. His hands are steady, practiced. His eyes sharp.
He opens his mouth to speak and takes a half step towards you.
You pull the trigger.
Nothing happens.
"Aye," the man speaks in a thick Scottish brogue. He sounds like he's laughing. How dare he laugh? If you could figure out how the stupid gun works you'd shoot him. "You've got to cock a gun like that 'fore you shoot it."
You freeze, your arm drawn back ready to throw the revolver at the man. His accent gives you pause. The other men in black, they were Americans. And this guy... His clothes are a bit different too. Though he's clearly also army.
You lower your arm hesitantly. "You're... You're not one of them."
"The Shadows?" he asks. "Tch, no. You'd best thank your lucky stars for that, they'd have killed you in a second flat."
"What the hell is going on here?" You demand, slipping the gun back into the makeshift holster you had made out of a couple belts. You step around the man to the garage and he follows.
"You're not from here, are ya love?" he asks as he watches you scan the shelves.
"I'm here on vacation," you say bitterly as you stand on your toes, struggling to reach the quiver of arrows. He pulls it down and hands it to you. The arrows are dusty and old, though still sharp. He hands the bow to you as well, albeit unstrung, and you let out a quiet hum in thanks. He watches as you string the bow, a brow raised. He looks like he's going to say something, but you cut him off. "You didn't answer my question... What's happening? Who are those people?"
He hesitates a moment, you notice his ear piece. Someone else is speaking to him. "Aye, i know, I know, but I cannae very well leave her here now can I?"
At the mention of being left, you panic. There's a pair of handcuffs on his belt. You grab them and before he has a chance to react, you've cuffed your hands together.
And swallowed the key.
Yeah... Not your brightest moment.
The man looks at you dumbfounded. Then speaks to the man in his ear. "Uh... Lt? Got a bit of a problem..."
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Wishing Gortash hadn’t massacred a room full of people couldn’t be me because the environmental storytelling of it is SO GOOD. You leave the great big coronation hall packed and lively, everyone cheering for their new archduke. You get back out into the city, track down Orin, get your hands on her netherstone. You return to the coronation hall, the room loads in, and wham. The entire hall strewn with blood and corpses. Dead silent. Cultists in full Banite regalia milling around openly, unconcerned. You realise that not a single one of those nobles left the hall after the coronation, after you did, because every single one is lying slaughtered where they were. And it is very very obvious that this is the work of the new archduke who you allied yourself with. For me, it was a moment of oh god, this guy is serious.
And like. You can find TONS and tons and tons of damning evidence for how horrible and corrupt and evil Gortash is all over the city, there is not a single corner of it untouched by him in some way. You have the families of an enslaved labour force imprisoned and tortured. You have that same enslaved labour force dressed up in shock collars! You have a scheme to distribute teddy bears stuffed with explosives, targeting refugee children, just for the sake of instilling more and more fear in the public. And you do get to understand pretty well that these things are all being done not by someone who just delights in violence and chaos the way Orin does, but as the utterly dispassionate, pragmatic ventures of a guy who genuinely does not see people as people (and rather as objects, tools, currency - shapes that might walk and talk but ultimately mean nothing).
But for me personally, even on top of ALL of that, no display of Gortash’s villainy made more of an impact than walking into that room as his ally.
Not because I give a shit about any of the actual nobles themselves, or think it’s technically worse than say giving explosive toys to refugee children, etc. But the slaughter of the patriars has such an impact for me because it’s not talked about. You can’t find a million clues about it or stop it from happening. Talk to any of the Banite guards and they simply tell you point blank what happened. It’s not abstract. It’s not preventable. It happens, and it’s a cold whack in the face for the unwitting player who may have earnestly allied with him. It’s the game saying “this is your ally, by the way, in case you weren’t aware. Even if you foiled his other little plots - found the undetonated teddy bears, freed the Gondians, etc - don’t think that was enough, because this is who he is.”
(And because we don’t SEE it happen, just the aftermath? You get to wonder. Did Gortash step out before this happened? Or did he stand back and watch? Did he find it messy, or did he smile as he watched his steel watchers rip people in half? Did it make him feel powerful? We can probably guess the answers to these questions.)
Anyway Gortash is SUCH a good character and I love him. And if Durge had all their faculties walking into that room and seeing all the murdered people would have brought a tear to their eye, they’d be so proud of him lol
OOOOOooooh absolutely brutally accurate description of Gortash, and YES.
That is the beauty of Gortash's evil. His pragmatism.
The way he tries to pretend he's different than you and Orin, but you can call him out, and say, you're just as bad as us.
And I would LOVE to know if he was there when he killed the patriars too.
He acts like he's so "above it all." Like he's not a Bhaalspawn, killing for pleasure...but sweetie, you are not any different just because you have a Steel Watcher crush a child rather than dissect one.
The people you try to save when you're at the Steel Watch Foundry? Those poor old people and children and families?
All of them are pretty fucking brutal. The Steel Watch are fucking awful. They're not benign robots. They are cruel and cold and emotionless, and they aren't there to protect, only subjugate.
And they're a lot like Gortash himself.
Frigid, with a black and white understanding of right and wrong, only it's flipped, and submitting to authority is the only "right" and any resistance is "wrong" and needs to be destroyed.
And just to go back to him believing he's so "above" the Chosens of Bhaal, or even everyone in general...even with Karlach, when she's enraged, and hurt, over being sold and enslaved, he says, well it was for your own good, my dear girl, let bygones be bygones - stop lying, Gort!
stop pretending you're so above everyone else, that you're this calm, logical man, whose endeavors are heroic, even noble.
They aren't.
You're getting back at a world that abandoned you.
Your entire life revolves around revenge, sadism, and wanton cruelty.
You are not saving anyone. You are dooming those who made you this way.
And that's why I like him.
He is just so...kickable. And evil.
And disgusting.
And I adore him.
He is built wrong, and I like it.
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Been rewatching a whole YouTube playlist about DOOM, and it's got me thinking about Doomguy as a hero
Because despite being the executor of possibly the most brutal violence and carnage ever put on a TV screen...Doomguy's force is never directed at a fellow human being. People have described the Slayer's one and only goal, his purpose, as "to exterminate each and every demon in existence", but I think I'd view it more as "his purpose is to protect innocent lives, period".
Still probably the greatest piece of characterization in these games is the very beginning of DOOM 2016, the leadup to the title screen. Doomguy enters that elevator from the intro facility to the start of the game proper, and Hayden starts telling us about how "oh, they only had the best of intentions when they started mining Hell for energy. Sure, it's all gone bad now, but it was worth the risk, I assure you!". As Samuel tries to convince us that this was all for the greater good, he only had people's best interests at heart, Doomguy simply looks at the corpse of a security guard on the floor of the elevator (who definitely didn't sign up to the possibility of being disemboweled by hellspawn), looks up and is visibly shaking with fury as he presses his fists together, and then smashes the speaker Hayden's talking through, transitioning us to the game's title card.
Absolutely perfection. Tells you everything you need to know about Doomguy's motivations and resolve without a single word. Though if he had said anything, it'd probably just be quoting Ripley from Aliens: "Bad call? THESE PEOPLE ARE DEAD! Do you realize what you've done here?".
Everyone in these games is constantly trying to tell Doomguy that sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, and he utterly refuses to entertain that notion when human lives are concerned. Not to mention that, while the games play with the metatextual conceit that Doomguy doesn't give a shit about the lore or narrative or bigger picture, he's just there to slaughter evil (the same way most Doom players and indeed Doom co-creator John Carmack view story as merely window dressing for gameplay)...if you headcanon that Doomguy actually IS reading all the logs and lore that he's picking up as collectibles, you know he's aware that all of the higher-up decision makers at the UAC are straight-up demon worshippers attempting to bring about the apocalypse, and thus nothing they say can be trusted.
As far as Doomguy is concerned, there's no compromise when it comes to innocent lives. If one innocent person has to die in order to uphold the established system, the system is to be violent ripped down and smashed into the dirt, never to be rebuilt. That's how he feels about Hayden's UAC, that's how he feels about Khan Maykr's plans in Eternal. That's WHY his fight is eternal, because he'll fight anyone, even those he once fought alongside, if they choose to say, to end this post on a joke, "some of you may die, but that is a risk I'm willing to take".
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Monsters in the Garden (Ettore x Reader) 18+
No one comes to your garden but you, not even Dr. Dibs. So what is the most dangerous man on the ship doing leaning against your doorway and watching you work?
Pairing: Ettore x fem!reader (second person, no use of Y/N)
Warnings: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT SMUT; hand job; kissing; blood; mentions of rape, murder, and violence; female genital mutilation; vague mentions of corpse mutilation
Author's note: This was inspired by a session I had with the Ettore AI made by @harrenhalhottie (RIP). It was just so good I had to write it out for y'all. This Ettore is a little different from normal, but I can't help but look at a one-dimensional character and want more. Hope you enjoy, and let me know if you want a Part 2, because I have ideas...
This song also heavily influenced the vibe:
Taglist: @thelittleswanao3
Monsters in the Garden
You were on your knees, leaning over one of your raised garden beds when you noticed him leaning against the open doorway. He wasn’t quiet on his approach – he wanted you to know he was there.
Ettore was always there, in some dark corner, watching you.
By this point, you were almost used to the burning feeling that crawled beneath your skin whenever his eyes were on you.
In the right light, those eyes were a mesmerizing blue. The color reminded you of the sky back on Earth. If he hadn’t been so goddamn creepy, you might have been happy to stare into his eyes just to remember home, even briefly.
But he was easily the most unsettling person you’d ever met. Always leering at the other women on board – though in the past weeks, you had apparently become his one and only target– and using the Box proudly, far more than anyone else did.
It was no wonder why. You knew what he was.
Everyone on board was a killer, including you. But Ettore was the worst. The most dangerous of you all. For he was the only one who had… done worse than just kill his victims.
Murderer. Rapist. Monster.
Well, some would say what you had done was worse. But that was different. Your victim was already dead by the time you started your work on his corpse, and it had been more than deserved.
You did not let yourself linger on that. You never did these days. The further away from Earth you got, the more distant it seemed. The rage, the guilt, all of it.
Ettore wasn’t distant. He was mere feet away from you, intruding on your garden.
Not yours, not really. Because of your past – specifically, the degree in horticulture you were only one semester away from completing when you were arrested – you were assigned to look after the gardens instead of something more related to the actual mission of the ship like the rest of the crew.
Or more basic, in Ettore’s case. Dr. Dib’s called his assignment “ship maintenance,” but you all knew what he really was: the janitor.
But he never came in here. You made sure of it, keeping everything meticulously clean and fixing all your equipment yourself so no one – least of all Ettore – would ever have a reason to intrude on your space.
You didn’t even allow Tcherny, the other gardener, in here. He was fine with it. He preferred the vegetable and grains and left the medicinal plants – kept in their own room – to you. The only person beside you who ever came in here was Dr. Dibs, and she hadn’t been here in months. She didn’t like the dirt.
Yet there was Ettore, just staring at you.
His eyes weren’t that beautiful, bright blue you so rarely glimpsed. His chin was slightly tucked into his chest, his strong brow casting his eyes into darkness. His face was blank, unfeeling, and unmoving, save for those eyes.
They almost didn’t look human, but animal. Yes, that was the look of a predator. And it was directed at you.
You turned away from him to face the garden bed again, hoping he would lose interest if you didn’t engage. But if he didn’t, and he did try something…
Well, you had your spade next to you. It was probably sharp enough to dissuade him from doing anything you didn’t approve of.
So, you resumed your work, carefully tending to your poppies.
Once the lovely purple-pink petals that were just unfurling fell in a few days, you would harvest the sap from the seedpods so Dr. Dibs could synthesize more of the sedative the crew was forced to take each night. Only a handful, carefully selected by you, would be spared and allowed to produce the seeds that would become the next crop.
Though you hated playing a part in producing the drugs, the poppies were still your favorite plant. They were the only flowers you had left.
The garden was always your happy place, even on Earth, and you quickly found yourself concentrating not on Ettore or the sounds of the ship or even the ship itself. There was only you, the dirt, and your beloved plants.
So, when you finally stood and looked away from your work, you had entirely forgotten that Ettore stood there.
Still, he remained leaning against the doorframe, watching you. He hadn’t moved a fucking inch.
You jumped slightly at the unexpected sight, your hand flying to your racing heart.
While he did not flinch at the motion, Ettore’s brow raised slightly, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.
At least the hunger in his eyes had abated. Somewhat.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, love,” he crooned as he uncrossed his arms and took two steps forward.
God, you had never heard him speak before.
His voice wasn’t particularly deep, but it was low and smooth. His accent was like something out of those British action movies a boyfriend in high school loved to make you watch. Perhaps it was those memories – of either the boyfriend or the handsome actors, that made his voice sound almost alluring.
It had to be. It couldn’t be him.
You instinctively stepped back, raising your hands to try and communicate that you didn’t want him near you. Unfortunately, you forgot your spade on the ground, leaving your hands empty. Fortunately, your gloves were loose enough that he could not see the slight trembling in your fingers.
“I just…” you stammered. “I forgot you were there.”
He just stared at you impassively, those predatory eyes taking in every detail of your face, then traveling lower and lower.
Some of the hunger returned when his gaze landed on your breasts.
You had to shut that shit down.
“What are you doing here?” you asked, pouring all your contempt into your voice to mask the fear that still crept within your blood.
Ettore looked back at your eyes, the corner of his lip flicking up as though he was holding back a sneer. “Just passing through.”
You risked looking away from him to glance at your watch. It confirmed what you already knew. “You’ve been standing there for over an hour,” you informed him. One hour and eighteen minutes, to be exact. “Hardly what I’d call ‘passing through.’”
He raised his brows slightly, apparently surprised it had been that long. “Guess I lost track of time. Watching you is…” he turned his eyes, not to your body, but to the flower bed you had just been working in. When he looked back, he gave a sly smile. “Relaxing.”
Bullshit, you thought. But then you bit back the sharp tang of your own cynicism. Gardening was relaxing to you; it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that he honestly found watching you relaxing as well. If it had been anyone but Ettore, you probably would have believed them without a moment of doubt.
But it was Ettore.
Murderer. Rapist. Monster.
You glared at him for a long moment, trying to communicate that you wouldn’t be fucked with – you wouldn’t be a victim. Then, when he still didn’t drop his gaze from yours, you took it as an acknowledgment of the threat and turned away from him.
You were at least half-expecting him to pounce on you then and there, but he didn’t. You didn’t hear a single sound as you walked to your workbench, situated on the opposite wall from the door, and took off your gloves.
“There’s nothing more to watch,” you said over your shoulder. Then, grabbing a clean rag from one of the drawers, you began wiping the dirt from your forearms – rinsing it off in the sink would risk a clog, which would mean a visit from maintenance and Ettore. “I’m done for the day.”
He didn’t reply, only grunted his acknowledgment. He never moved as you continued to wrap up your work – cleaning your tools, sweeping the dirt that had made its way out of the beds, and washing your hands. Still just watching you.
At least it confirmed that it wasn’t the gardening he found ‘relaxing.’
Finally, you discarded your rags in the laundry bin. It would need to be taken out soon – it was ready today, but you were already running later than you wanted. In just ten minutes, you had an ‘appointment’ with Dr. Dibs, and you didn’t want to make her angry. Again. Doing so has become kind of a bad habit of yours.
So, you turned to face Ettore, who continued to stare at you as you stepped within a few feet of him. He stood a little taller at your approach, puffing his chest out as that near-rabid hunger took over his eyes once more.
Your stomach fluttered, and you told yourself it was only because you were nervous about whatever Dibs planned to do to you tonight.
But then the corner of his mouth quirked up, and your heart sank at the realization that it was because you – or rather, your traitorous, repressed body – found Ettore attractive.
Murderer. Rapist. Monster.
He would be just your type if you didn’t know why he was here. You had never been able to resist a good jawline, and his could cut fucking glass. And as you took another step closer, his height became just as enticing. You always told people you only liked tall men so they could reach things for you. But really, you just loved the feeling of having a big, strong man to protect you.
No one had looked at you like you needed protection in years. No, you were now what people needed protection from.
“Though she be but little she is fierce,” the lawyer had said when convincing the jury to not be put off by your size. A fitting quote, since Shakespeare himself had inspired some of the more gruesome details of your crime.
And now, you couldn’t help but take another step forward, then another. All along, savoring how far back you had to tilt your head to look into those beautiful blue eyes.
God, as he tilted his chin back as well, the bright lights of the garden set them blazingly bright and the bluest you’d ever seen them. They were even better than the sky back home…
You forced yourself to look away when you felt heat begin to pool between your thighs. Instead, you stared over his shoulder to the hall, trying not to snap when you heard him laugh slightly at your movement. Was the blush you felt visible?
“You’re in my way,” you said, your voice more of a whisper than you intended.
When his smirk faded, and his lips – very pretty lips, you realized – fell slightly open, you thought he would have some cutting remark. But he only stepped to the side to allow you through.
As you passed him, you were close enough to catch his scent. Everyone on the ship used the same soap, so how did he smell so different? Beneath the clinical smell you all carried, there was something deeper, more masculine.
You really needed to calm down before your appointment with Dibs. She knew you didn’t use the Box – not after that first time had failed to get you off, despite the engineering genius of the contraption – so seeing you this riled would lead to questions you didn’t want to answer.
Touching other inmates was against the rules. And even if this wasn’t touching… even thinking this way about another prisoner may incur her wrath.
So, you walked a more than respectable distance away from him before turning back. He was still half-in, half-out of the garden. But he wasn’t staring at you anymore, but rather at the poppies...
When was the last time he had seen a beautiful flower?
You glanced at your watch again. You barely had enough time to make it to the infirmary.
“I need to lock the door,” you said, drawing his gaze back to you.
His brow furrowed slightly as he glanced from you back to the door, then back to you again. He sucked his teeth as he looked at you in condescending disbelief. “You need to lock up flowers?”
“It’s protocol,” you answered. Perhaps your tone was a bit harsher than it needed to be, but you were both criminals - murderers. He could handle a little bitchiness. “And there’s more than just flowers in there.”
Ettore let out a laugh that was little more than a hard exhale, but the twinkle in those eyes told you that he was indeed amused. Then, crossing his arms, showing off the odd, triangular tattoo on his forearm, he stepped away from the door.
You would have to walk by him again to get to the door. Perhaps he was cleverer than you gave him credit for – if you had previously given him any credit at all.
If you weren’t so pressed for time, you might have stayed to tease him some more. This was surprisingly fun, even when you knew what he wanted from you and what he had done to get it from other women. You were just that bored.
And horny. You were very, very horny.
That would be what got you in trouble.
You scoffed, pushing past him to lock the door. It took all your effort to slip the key in as your fingers trembled at the feeling of him hovering over you, his breath hot on your neck as he stepped closer to you.
This shouldn’t make you horny. On the contrary, it should make you afraid. But still…
When the door finally locked, you spun around quickly, tucking the key between your fingers like a claw – something one of the college policemen once told you about.
But Ettore stepped back – once, twice. And then the was pressed against the wall opposite you. His stare was still hungry, and you could easily see how heavy his breathing had become, but he didn’t advance.
“I have to go,” you told him, unsure why you were doing it. It wasn’t like you needed his permission or even wanted it. “I have an appointment with Dibs.”
His eyes darkened then. Not with lust or animalistic hunger, but rage. It was almost… possessive?
It was gone as soon as it appeared, replaced by his usual empty stare. Still, you did not dare move, not after whatever it was you just saw.
“Can I…?” Ettore gritted his jaw and looked away, his hands balling into fists at his sides. You didn’t know if he was about to cry or kill you – and you didn’t know which would be worse. He still looked away from you as he continued, “Can I come here again tomorrow? Just to watch.”
You should immediately forbid it. It was wrong, it was a bad idea, and it was just fucking weird. But as the hour chimed on your watches, you realized you couldn’t leave when he looked so desperate, almost sad. And you definitely couldn’t say anything to make that horrible expression worse.
“Yeah,” you whispered. You turned as he looked back at you to shut off the alarm on your watch. Dr. Dibs would be pissed at you, of that, you were sure. At the moment, though, it didn’t seem to matter. Not when his eyes lit up again, not from any light, but with excitement. “If you have nothing better to do, I guess that’s fine.”
The corners of Ettore’s lips quirked up like he would smile, but he quickly corrected it and set his mouth in a straight line. He didn’t want you to know just how excited he was, but you did anyways – he wasn’t a great liar. Tipping his head in an attempt at indifference, he sniffed before speaking. “Yeah, wicked.”
You winced a little at his pathetic attempt to seem cool, but it faded quickly when your watch beeped again. This wasn’t an alarm or the chiming of the hour but a summons. If you didn’t obey it, you knew Dibs would happily use the stupid watch to deliver a steady stream of low-level electric shocks until you did.
She was just as much of a killer as the rest of you – worse than some, if the rumors were right. Why should she have such authority over the rest of you?
It was pointless to question it, and even the beginnings of the line of thought had ruined your mood. So much so that you didn’t say anything else to Ettore before turning away from him and stalking down the hall toward the infirmary.
After you had disappeared around the corner, Ettore took a deep breath, silently congratulating himself on handling that almost like a real person would. Then, he turned in the opposite direction as you. He was due to clean the canteen before dinner. But fuck that. He needed the Box – now.
-
Dibs had been pissed. Not only that you were late to your appointment, but that you were so obviously turned on when you got there. It wasn’t like you could hide it, not when she immediately ordered you into the stirrups and got a front-row seat to your weeping and flushed cunt.
“Have you been using the Box?” she asked, that sickeningly sweet smile plastered across her face.
You pursed your lips, looking away. “No.”
Her smile faded, and her eye twitched. “And yet here you are, practically dripping.” She reached for something on her tray, but you couldn’t see what. You had a pretty good guess, anyway. “Well, at least it makes my job easier.”
It had been anything but fucking ‘easy,’ you thought as you cradled your aching abdomen. Under the pretense that you were already wet enough, she had shoved her speculum into you hard and fast – and without lube.
If you thought her tests and procedures had been uncomfortable before… they were downright torturous yesterday. Especially since she conveniently ‘forgot’ to give you any numbing agents or sedatives. And definitely no painkillers.
Not even the sedative you were served with dinner had helped. For the first time since you boarded this godforsaken ship, you hadn’t slept.
Thankfully, you had little work to do in the garden besides waiting for the poppies to drop their petals. But you didn’t want to just wallow in your pain, so you decided to sit at the edge of the bed where your little willow tree resided.
It wasn’t growing very fast, likely because it didn’t have the room it needed or deserved. Still, you were happy with the progress it had made. When the ship first took off, it was little more than a bonsai. Now, it stood a good eight feet tall – the only plant you needed your step stool to tend.
In truth, it didn’t need much tending. Trees never do unless they are very young or something is wrong. But sitting next to it, examining the patterns in its long leaves and tracing lines up its trunk, was spectacularly soothing.
You had never considered harvesting anything from it. Not yet. It was too little still, and you didn’t want to risk damaging it permanently since you couldn’t simply order a new start. But as another pulse of pain surged through your stomach, you found yourself reaching for a lower branch.
All you needed was a small twig to chew on. It was an ancient Egyptian remedy, one that eventually led to the invention of Aspirin. And even if the sedative didn’t help, perhaps something more natural, something you had grown yourself, would.
You had just wrapped a hand around the branch when you felt a large hand close around your shoulder.
Instinct kicked in, and you whirled around, freeing yourself from your attacker’s grasp. Without processing who it was, you threw your arms out, shoving with all your might. “Get the fuck away from me!”
You only recognized Ettore after you had backed into the wall. He had also fallen on his ass and crawled backward on the floor – apparently, you were stronger than you thought. Any amusement at the fact died when you saw the anger burning in those eyes.
It was entirely possible that you just really fucked up.
But your adrenaline, from the pain and the scare he had just given you, was racing too hot and fast to let you consider that possibility.
“What are you doing?” you spat. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Ettore’s face grew even more furious, if that was even possible. His eyes burned as bright as any fire you had ever seen. It was beautiful and deadly. “You fucking… you said I could come watch you!”
Damn it, you did say that.
But it was before Dr. Dibs had been such a cunt.
And she had only done it because he got you horned up like you were a pathetic high schooler.
“Well, now I changed my fucking mind!” you shouted. If you could stand, you would have. Towering over him and just screaming your heart out would feel so good. But you hurt too much to even entertain the thought. “I don’t want you here – I don’t want you!”
Ettore shattered.
You watched it happen as your venomous words left your lips.
His face fell, his eyes began to water, and even his tattoos seemed to go dull.
At that moment, he was not Ettore, the murderer, rapist, and monster.
He was just a boy – the both of you were barely more than teenagers when you left Earth – and he was broken.
You broke him.
You looked on in horror as his trembling lips set into a hard line that echoed in his harsh brow, and the tears in his beautiful eyes faded to reveal a primal rage that chilled your blood.
There he was.
Murderer. Rapist. Monster.
Ettore stood slowly, like a tiger rising from its crouch upon realizing its prey has no escape – that it could play.
But then he looked away from you, sniffed, and moved for the door.
His leaving without doing anything to you should have made you feel overwhelming relief, but it did not. Instead, a great yawning pit of guilt and regret opened in your chest, hurting nearly as much as your wounded core.
You tried to call out to him, take your words back, and apologize, but all that came out was a short yelp of pain. This time, it was accompanied by wetness between your legs – and not the pleasant kind.
As you folded over, burying your face in your knees as you pulled them into your chest, Ettore paused halfway out the door.
He’d heard noises like that before. From other women in pain – pain that he caused. His lip twitched, and his head tilted out of his control, the movement more animal than human.
You were helpless and apparently wounded. This was his chance.
But as he turned to face you, he caught sight of the poppies you so lovingly tended to the day before. With the memory of your soft smile as you cupped a particularly pretty bloom, one that was a deeper pink than the others, he was able to pull back on the reins of that instinct.
Just slightly, but just enough.
“You hurt?” he asked, his voice strained.
You nodded into your legs and lifted your head without meeting his eyes. “I think… I think I’m bleeding.”
Ettore was frozen, his hands flexing, relaxing, and balling into fists as he tried to keep hold of those inner reins. If he was smart, he would leave. Go straight to the Box and fuck himself until this hateful urge was gone. If he was a good person, he would offer his help.
He was not smart. And he was most definitely not a good person.
But something about you and those goddamned poppies woke what little was left of his humanity and made him want to try.
So, he just stood there, staring at your helpless form as he fought a vicious war inside himself.
You watched him. Watched as his eyes flicked over every inch of your body with dizzying speed, as various parts of his body twitched and flexed. You’d never seen anything like it before, except…
The vague memory of a play you went to on a middle school field trip reemerges. Your whole grade was reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and it just happened to coincide with the local community theater’s production of the play.
It wasn’t a good play. Even at twelve, you could tell it was objectively bad. But the man who played Jekyll and Hyde was decent (one of your classmates told you he was their pediatrician), mainly when he performed the ‘transformation.’ You hadn’t been able to look away as he contorted; every movement was desperate, halting, and frantic.
Not unlike how Ettore moved as he watched you.
When he came out of the fog that had settled over his eyes, which Ettore would you get? Did he even have a Jekyll to his Hyde?
You knew you should take the opportunity of his distraction to run. The infirmary would be best, but it would mean seeing Dr. Dibs again. You had no desire to admit that you needed her help. The showers were also an option, but it would allow others to see you in a weakened state. You didn’t want to admit weakness. Besides, Dibs would hear about that as well.
So, even though you knew it was stupid, you decided to take the biggest risk of them all.
“Ettore…?” You called his name softly, unsure of the pronunciation. Whether it was right or wrong, he didn’t seem to mind. He locked eyes with you, and his nostril flared as though he really was a predator and could smell the blood you were now confident was leaking from you. “I need your help.”
His eyes widened slightly, and he looked like he would run from you. But beyond another twitch of his head, he did not move.
“Please?” you begged. You felt pathetic, but you kind of were, so you tried not to let it bother you too much. “I don’t think I can stand on my own.”
Ettore’s brows furrowed at that, and his lips went from a near-sneer to a determined frown. Then, with a lumbering gait, he approached you in only a few steps, holding a hand out in front of him for you to take.
You stared at his hand for a moment, admiring the elegant length of his fingers. And then you realized: he was shaking.
It was subtle, but it was there.
Tilting your head, you looked up at his face. Apart from the slight widening of his eyes, it was again set in passivity. But what was more peculiar than his trembling or his expression was the fact that he was steadfastly refusing to look at you.
Indeed, those blue eyes were set on the softly swaying leaves of your willow, tracking their movement like the tree would attack him if he looked away.
You were so used to his eyes on you. Was it wrong that you wanted it back?
Before you could ponder the answer, you raised an arm to take his hand. He squeezed your fingers painfully as he helped you onto your feet.
The pain surged again as you stood, causing your knees to buckle the second Ettore let go of your hand. You stumbled, falling against his chest.
It was no more than instinct that had him wrapping his long arms around your shoulders and waist to catch you. An instinct that his brain was yelling at him to abandon you and let you fall.
It was too dangerous to touch you, to feel your soft skin as his hand accidentally slipped into the side of your overalls – why the fuck were the sides so low when your shirt was so short?
At the sensation of your hot breath against the sensitive skin of his neck, he let out an involuntary groan as he tightened his grip on you.
He had to get away. Now. As fast as possible. He didn’t want to hurt you. He really didn’t. But his blood was singing with desire, more intoxicating than any liquor or drug. Keeping his fingers from digging into your flesh possessively was almost painful, and he was so, so hard.
The reins were slipping…
You felt it, his hard length pressed into your stomach as you brought your hands to his chest to steady yourself.
You should push him away again. Slap him. Yell at him. Kick him as hard as you could right on that hard, impressively long length.
But you did none of it.
“I need to get to my worktable,” you whispered, “there’s a medkit there. And…”
You looked into his eyes, watching them dilate even further as you finished your request. “I’ll need help getting out of my overalls.”
That blue you were so entranced by was all but gone. Ettore looked like a man possessed, his breathing heavy and heaving as he lowered his chin to look into your eyes.
There was no way he heard you correctly. You knew what he was, what he had done. And you were smart, so much smarter than him. Far too smart to ever ask someone like him to take off your clothes. Even if it were to help you with an injury – an injury he still couldn’t see.
But then your eyes squeezed shut, and you fell forward to bury your face in his shoulder as you moaned in pain.
And then…
Then your right hand moved up his chest to wrap around his neck. Not to choke or hurt, but just to hold.
He expected your hands to be rough from working in the garden all day, but they weren’t. No, your fingers were unfairly, unbearably soft as they swept across his bare skin, coming to rest against the tattoo on the side of his neck.
When was the last time anyone touched him like this – tenderly and without fear? It had been years, even before he was put on this doomed ship.
Ettore almost came just from that simple touch.
More intense than even the extraordinary pleasure was the feeling of near calm that washed over him. It soothed the pain he felt in every muscle and quieted the violent, primal urges roaring within his chest. They weren’t gone, but they were further away.
It made it easier to take the reins.
“The worktable…” he breathed as his grip on you relaxed slightly. He still held you firm enough to keep you standing, but you no longer worried you would bruise.
You pulled away slightly, noting the way he whimpered and winced like a scolded puppy as you slowly removed your hand from around his neck. “Yes.”
He nodded frantically, sniffing and taking a few deep breaths. As if he needed to prepare himself for the short walk to the table. Then, moving with a slowness that suggested the motion took all his concentration, he lowered his arm from your shoulders.
When Ettore turned to the worktable, even with his other arm still around your waist, you felt a rush of unwelcome cold. Even when you were still clothed and the garden was kept at a balmy temperature.
He walked slowly. Perhaps you would have thought it was out of concern for you and your pain, but you knew by now that this was hard for him.
Indeed, when he pulled away after you were leaned against the table, a faint sheen of sweat had broken out across his brow. His breathing was still rapid, and his eyes were glassy, as if he were several shots in.
“Ettore?” When he met your eyes again, you looked down at the buttons on your shoulders holding your overalls up. He followed your gaze and made a choking sound when he realized what you meant. “If I let go of the table, I think I’ll fall.”
It wasn’t just his hands shaking now, but all of him. So much so that you couldn’t tell whether he was nodding or just shaking that badly.
Either way, he reached for the first button on your left shoulder. It took him a few tries, but he got it done. The strap fell, and one side of the overalls slumped, revealing the tight white shirt beneath that left very little to the imagination.
Ettore growled.
What the fuck? Humans don’t growl. At least, you had never heard it.
And yet he did.
A flicker of fear started in your chest, and you chose to focus on that rather than the bloom of something else lower within you.
He began to reach a hand, tense and shaking, towards your breast. But inches away, you caught his wrist. You had to lean further against the table not to fall, but you weren’t letting go.
“The other button, please.” Though you spoke quietly, the command was clear.
You only released his arm when he looked into your eyes and confirmed with a twitch of his lip that he heard you. He clenched and unclenched his fist several times before finally going for the other button.
It took him even longer to get this one undone. But at least he didn’t growl again when the other half of the overall’s torso fell limp around your waist. His eyes did linger on your breasts, but you let it happen.
You had great tits. And he deserved a little reward for helping you, didn’t he?
So, you let him have a few seconds to just stare. As long as he didn’t try to touch again. Because you didn’t want that, right?
Ettore’s gaze fell further, to where the overalls were just barely hanging onto your waist. You said you were bleeding, but he still hadn’t seen it. So just where was your injury?
His cock twitched, and he was sure you could see it through the thin scrub pants he was forced to wear as he realized what would happen next. “You need ‘em all the way off, eh?” He hated how weak and shaky his voice sounded, but he supposed it was better than growling. You hadn’t reacted well to that. “Do you need me to…?”
“Yeah,” you affirmed. Of course, you knew you should say something about burying your spade in his chest if he tried anything. But the fact that he was asking, rather than just ripping the garment off, made you feel almost safe in having him do this. Almost.
You would feel even better about it if you couldn’t see his dick straining against his pants and twitching almost as much as he was.
C'est la vie, you supposed. Though that probably applied more to something trivial, like your school’s football team losing a game they should have won, than you being forced to ask a serial rapist and murderer to take off your pants. But close enough.
You shivered when he lowered his hands to your waist, causing him to pull back slightly. “It’s fine,” you assured him. “Keep going. I’m fine.”
Ettore nodded and fixed his eyes on the bottom drawer of the table as he took the thin fabric of the overalls between his fingers and started pulling them down. Really, he could have just nudged them, and they would have fallen to the floor. But he kept them in his grip as he lowered himself into a kneeling position.
He never once looked at you. Not at your ankles, or your legs, or the apex of your thighs – which were covered with more blood than you expected.
Damn it.
You considered what to do next as Ettore remained on the floor, carefully slipping the overalls over your feet. A difficult task when he refused to look at what he was doing.
By the time he finished, and you felt very much like Donald Duck – shirt, shoes, but no pants – you knew what you had to ask.
It was the stupidest thing you’d ever done.
“As long as you’re down there,” you said, your joking tone flatter than you intended, “the medkit’s in the drawer just to your left. Can you grab it and… and help me onto the table?”
Ettore didn’t reply but yanked the drawer open and grabbed the medkit. After tossing it on the table, he rose. Then, still not looking at you, he wrapped his arms around you again – one around your waist, the other around your upper thighs – and lifted you onto the table.
God, you felt so good in his arms. You were the perfect size, like you were made for him to hold. Warm and soft and… wet?
His eyes shot to the arm that had been wrapped around your legs. And both of you looked on in horror as you realized it was now covered in blood – your blood.
For the first time, you saw a look of disgust come over Ettore’s face.
“Oh my god,” you whispered, voice breaking as tears of embarrassment began to fall. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry!”
But he didn’t say anything. Instead, Ettore simply stalked over to the utility sink a few feet from the worktable and slammed the faucet on. He didn’t wait for the water to heat before shoving his arm under it.
You watched in humiliation, fumbling to lower your panties as he grabbed the soap and began to scrub. “I’m so sorry,” you said again, ripping open the medkit to find a packet of gauze you could press between your legs. “Ettore, I’m so sorry!”
He shook his head as he scrubbed harder and harder, until his skin burned from more than the searingly hot water. You were bleeding, you were hurt, and all he had been thinking about was how much he’d like to fuck you.
It had never stopped him before, not with any of the other girls. He had never minded having their blood on him. He savored it, actually. But it had been him who made them bleed. You…
“Who?” he growled, stilling his scrubbing but keeping the arm under the water. The burning distracted him from the desire to find someone to hurt. Because he needed to hurt someone. Badly. Preferably whoever did this to you, but he wasn’t picky.
You didn’t want to tell him, not when you recognized that look in his eyes. It meant violence – retribution. You had seen that same look in your eyes when you watched the recap of your trial from your cell, and your lawyer was telling the jury, in excruciating detail, why you had killed your victim.
For a moment, you thought about trying to pass it off as you just being on your period. But he wouldn’t buy it. Not after what you’d already told him. Besides, all the women on the ship were synced, and your periods were still two weeks away.
Finally fed up with your silence, Ettore shut off the water and turned back to you, not bothering to dry his arms. He just prowled back to you, standing between your spread legs as he stared deep into your eyes without a glance at your mostly exposed cunt. You turned away, not wanting to face the darkness in his eyes, but he grabbed your chin and forced you to look at him.
“Who?”
You bit your lip and fought to get free of his grip, but to no avail. Knowing then that it was hopeless, you locked eyes with him again as you said simply, “Dibs.”
He growled again, not with hunger, but with rage.
And then he turned away.
He would hurt her, you realized. He would kill her.
You weren’t opposed to the idea, but you were opposed to what would come next. What the other prisoners would do to Ettore afterward. And perhaps you as well, since he would do it for you.
Before you knew it, your hand had shot out to grab his shirt, and he froze.
“Don’t,” you pled. When you tugged on his shirt to draw him back to you, he only resisted for a moment before coming back toward you. “It was just her punishment. I’ll be fine. She wouldn’t… damage me permanently. She needs me intact for her experiments. I promise, she was just being a cunt.”
Ettore cocked his head and pursed his lips like he would argue, but you couldn’t have that. So, you lifted the gauze from between your legs to show him how the blood flow had already stemmed somewhat.
“See? It’s already getting better.” But your weak, reassuring smile fell when you realized what you had just done.
He realized at the same time, and he could not stop his eyes from dropping to what you just made visible to him.
His erection had begun to flag while he cleaned your blood from his arm, but there was no stopping it now. Not when he had a full view of what he had been dreaming of for weeks.
Just like the rest of you, your pussy was so pretty. He wanted to kiss it, stroke it, fuck it. His blood hummed with the desire, and he barely stopped himself from diving forward. He closed his fingers around yours where they bunched the front of his shirt. The feeling of your skin against his was his salvation, an anchor to his humanity.
Not you, he told himself.
Not you, who didn’t look at him in fear or disgust. At least, not entirely.
Not you, the only person since his mother died to touch him with anything other than aggression.
Not you, who had trusted him, even knowing what he was.
Murderer. Rapist. Monster.
“Please.” His plea was hardly more than a breath. Pathetic. “Please, let me go.”
For even with your touch, he was losing his grip on the reins. If he stayed here one second longer, he would do something he really didn’t want to do. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
You could see how much danger you were in, but you did not let go. No, you tightened your grip on his shirt, pulling him closer and closer until your forehead rested against his.
Finally, you could look into those eyes and remember the sky back home as you had wanted to for so long.
But the sky wasn’t enough.
You wanted him.
You knew you couldn’t have him fully, couldn’t do what you really wanted. Not when you were injured like this.
Still, you brought your other hand to his chest, feeling him shiver as your fingers traveled lower and lower. Finally, you rest your palm against his length through his scrubs, feeling a sense of satisfaction when his hips cant slightly forward into your grip.
He didn’t have to say anything for you to know he wanted this as much as you do. But, of course, he did. When was the last time a woman touched him there, let alone willingly? The thought should have disgusted you, but it didn’t.
Perhaps you were just as much of a monster as he was,
“Dibs will punish us if she finds out we did this,” you whispered, your lips mere inches away from his. “But I don’t really care, do you?”
Ettore shook his head, his eyes burning like the fires of hell, where you both belonged. He was so close to breaking, losing himself, losing control. He was little more than an animal following the primal instinct to mate.
But letting you take control – and you were undoubtedly in control now – made it easier. For once, it wasn’t him who had to pull back on the reins. Not when he gave them to you.
He nodded vigorously. He wanted you. He didn’t care that he didn’t deserve it. And he didn’t care that you were probably just as monstrous as he was. He just wanted you.
You smiled, pressing a single kiss to the corner of his lips before sliding your hand past the waistbands of his scrubs and boxers and taking hold of him.
He immediately let out a pitiful cry as his stomach tightened, and he had to concentrate so hard not to come before you had even begun to move your hand. It was only made worse when you giggled at his struggle. The sound was sweet and light and utterly infuriating.
Needing to shut you up, Ettore brought his hands back around your waist as he tugged you to the table’s edge. He leaned forward to kiss you, but you pushed against him, holding him back. Then, tensing, he grunted, a low, throaty sound and a begging.
“I know,” you whispered, mock sympathy barely disguising your amusement. “I know what you want. Believe me, I want it to.” You laughed again as you began to pump him slowly, collecting the precum on his tip with every stroke to ease your movements. “You can kiss me another time. Right now, I just want to look at you. Is that okay?”
His hands tensed around your waist, and for a few seconds, he looked like he would let that animal loose and lunge at you. Like he would kiss you with all the pent-up frustrations of an entire life spent unwanted.
But he stopped, looking from where your hand disappeared below his pants to your eyes. And he nodded. Not a small, weak movement, but a firm, final motion.
He would allow it.
He would allow you to do whatever you wanted.
You smiled broadly, and again, he had to hold back his release. He wanted this to last forever.
At last, you released Ettore’s shirt from where you had bunched it with your offhand, raising it to his neck. You traced each line of his maze-like tattoo as you sped your movements, savoring each wince and whine he let out. Cataloging each reaction to figure out, without him having to say a word, exactly what he liked best.
And what you liked best. You were particularly fond of how his eyes would squeeze shut, and his mouth would fall open each time you grazed your thumb over his leaking head, following a short trail up and down his slit.
It was such a mesmerizing sight that you brought your hand up from his neck to touch his face. Every movement of one hand was echoed by the other as you explored each feature.
The severe line of his jaw. His large chin. The sharp cheekbones and flat brow. His long, elegant nose. The pink plush of his lips, from which he let out such tantalizing moans and whimpers.
Once you had taken in every inch of his face, you cupped his jaw in your left hand to feel it work as you sped the ministrations of your right hand. His eyes squeezed even further shut, and he grunted like an animal. But you didn’t stop. You only went faster and faster.
“Are you nearly finished?” you asked teasingly.
Ettore cracked open his eyes, looking from your taunting smile to your hand, working him so skillfully, then back to you. He moaned almost inaudibly, and that animalistic hunger returned to his eyes. He had been locked in a cage for too long, and now you had set him free.
“Yes,” he moaned, almost too quiet to hear.
You brought your thumb to rest against his lower lip, smiling at the feeling of his increasingly frantic breath against her.
For so long, you had feared this man. And now he was reduced to putty in your hands.
With a mischievous twinkle in your eyes, you pressed your thumb further into his lip and let your other hand slow, ignoring his protestations. “Before I let you finish,” you said, your voice tauntingly innocent, “I need you to answer a question for me. Can you do that?”
Ettore’s body jerked wildly as he desperately tried to regain some of the friction you had just deprived him of, but his eyes stayed locked on yours.
He knew he would do anything you asked him to then.
If you asked him to jump? He’d ask how high.
If you demanded he get down on his knees and beg? He’d do so happily.
If you told him to throw himself out of the airlock? He wouldn’t hesitate.
Compared to what he would do, what you actually asked of him seemed so simple.
“Fine…” he gasps, tightening his grip on your waist as though you would pull away. “What is it?”
You smirked, savoring that dark look in his eyes. How could you ever have been scared of it?
Then you squeezed his pulsing cock, just past the point of pleasure, to emphasize the power you held over him.
And, of course, he loved it. Groaning as his head toppled over into your shoulder. You carded your hand through his short hair as you whispered in his ear, “What feels better, my hand or the Box?”
Any pain, any embarrassment at being so pathetically at your beck and call, or any emotion other than his desire for you faded at the question. All that mattered was you and your perfect touch.
It felt wonderful even when you tugged on his hair quite hard to make him face you again. The answer was written on his face, in every piece of the complete, utter joy he felt in every inch of him, but especially where your skin met his.
“You,” he said, the word like a prayer. “You.”
Your responding smile was wicked, and you almost went back on your promise not to kiss him. But you resisted and began pumping his cock at a breakneck pace, brushing each sweet spot with every stroke and letting your pinky graze against his balls each time you came to his base.
It takes every ounce of what little restraint Ettore had to not scream at the overwhelming bliss. It was so much, too much. It was everything.
But what finally pushed him over the edge was you leaning in again to whisper against his cheek, “Just wait until you feel my cunt, Ettore.”
There was a sharp gasp, a guttural cry, a whimper, and a grunt, and then he was spent. Thank God his boxers were thick, or there would have been a very obvious stain at the front of his scrubs.
Ettore whimpered again as he looked into your eyes again, unsure what this meant or what would happen next. He was so drunk on his release that words failed him, or else he no doubt would have said something stupid and ruined his chances of actually getting to experience what you had promised just before he came.
You removed your right hand from his pants, wrapping it around his neck like the left, soothingly stroking the peach fuzz at the base of his skull as he came down from his high.
There was a new look in those blue eyes. Not hungry, not animalistic. Not angry or predatory. No, it was almost reverent.
Who would have ever thought that Ettore, the murderer, rapist, and monster, was capable of a look like that?
You parted your lips and leaned ever so slightly into him. “Thank you,” you whispered against his lips. “For letting me just watch. I think… after giving me that, you deserve a treat, don’t you?”
Ettore didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He couldn’t. He could only stare at you as pleading vulnerability crept over his face. The look of a puppy begging for a treat.
Then, he nodded, his only pleading answer.
You ran a hand through his hair again, making him wait just a moment more. “Kiss me, Ettore.” His eyes went wide at the command. “Kiss me the way you really want to.”
His throat bobbed, and he nodded again, still holding your gaze. Then, before you could even take a breath, he pounced.
Ettore’s lips were hot on yours as he kissed you deeper and more passionately than you’d ever been kissed before. It took only a moment before it felt like your souls were melding together for how close he held you. He did not relent until you were both struggling for breath.
Even then, he kept his lips pressed against yours as though he wasn’t quite ready to let you go.
“Thank you,” he said softly, the sound sending tingles up your spine.
You just sat there, smiling against him for a moment, wishing you could have taken him inside you. Perhaps you were fine now, and if he could get hard again, you could…
But then your watches both beeped the hour. He’d been there an hour. Someone was bound to notice he wasn’t scrubbing the halls soon.
So, you reluctantly pushed him away, heart clenching as he weakly fought to hang on to you. “I want to come back,” he whined.
You didn’t reply as you dressed again, your pain mostly gone, and pulled a clean rag out of another worktable drawer for him to clean himself. As you went to shut the drawer, an idea sparked in your mind. You grabbed another rag and ran to the sink, bunching the cloth as you moved.
Ettore looked on in confusion as you shoved the rag down and down into the drain until you couldn’t reach it anymore. But then realization set in, and he grinned wickedly.
You turned to him and returned the smile. “I think I may need to call maintenance tomorrow.”
#monsters in the garden#ettore#ettore x reader#ettore x you#ettore imagine#ettore smut#ettore fanfic#ettore fanfiction#ettore fic#high life#high life fanfic#high life ettore#ewan mitchell#Spotify
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deep diving into the episode three line from rhaenyra, “no one is here for me,” and how if the takeaway from that scene is that rhaenyra is a selfish brat you aren’t proficient enough to do anything past surface-level reading.
in episode one rhaenyra expresses to alicent that she hopes her father gets his son, “for as long as i can recall it’s all he’s wanted.” which leads us (the audience) to understand that while rhaenyra loves both of her parents she feels ostracized from her father (and mayhaps even her mother, to some extent, because of her constant pregnancies) due to his ‘need’ for a son to continue the targaryen dynasty. she is a daughter, only seen as valuable for her womb, which is evidenced that she knows about when talking to her mother. rhaenyra wishes to be a knight and ride off to battle and glory, with aemma giving her a gentle reality check on her lot in life. she does not want to serve the same purpose as her mother.
aemma dies near the end of the episode, with viserys ordering her butchered for the chance that his long-awaited male heir might live. this is a violent and gruesome scene, followed by rhaenyra not even being given the privilege of hearing her mother’s death first. she is instead relegated to members of the small council being alerted, even corlys and rhaenys learning about this before her, she is a silent member on the sidelines. she does not know the extent of what has happened, but she knows that something is wrong.
we have to think about how she learns of her mother’s fate. did otto tell her? did rhaenys? did viserys? did she see her mother’s body ripped open? did she see the bloody sheets left at the scene? was she allowed to hold baby baelon, considering he didn’t die immediately? was she there when he took his last breath? maybe it would bring her some comfort, she didn’t get to say goodbye to her mom. maybe she held him until he passed. did her father offer any explanation? we’ll never know, but these are all such heavy questions in regards to what she experienced that day. she’s fourteen, has spent her entire life watching her mother grieve dead baby after dead baby, losing little bits of herself in the process. it’s no wonder this was a traumatizing period for her, fueling her want (her need) to not be shackled down by marriage and childbirth.
even at her mother and brother’s funeral she isn’t allowed to just grieve, to just be. she has to hold her head high, she has to comfort her father, she has to order their corpses burned. was her father happy for the few hours he had a son? she wouldn’t know, she never will be that for him. how long does he spend wallowing is his self pity? he reprimands daemon for not being there for his niece, but where was he, her father? he banishes daemon, takes comfort from his daughter’s best friend. he finally comes to her, tells her of a great danger rising from the north; from my blood comes the prince that was promised, his will be the song of ice and fire. she hasn’t heard from him in days, a targaryen must be seated on the iron throne to unite the realm against the cold and the dark. her mother is dead, and he has wasted the years since she was born wanting a son. she is now enough, her mother never was.
it has now been six months since her mother's death (murder), and she has been heir the *entire* time. her father won't talk to her, she is still the cupbearer for the small council. lord corlys is angry about a war he says has cost him, the crown will not help. she suggests they use dragons, a show of force against their enemies. her father admonishes her, "it isn't that simple, rhaenyra." he allows the lords at the table to belittle her efforts. the only one appreciative is corlys, "at least the princess has a plan." otto says there are better uses for her talents, she has been heir to the iron throne for six months. she's been given the chance to choose a future kingsguard, she wants one with actual combat experience. the hand is exacerbated, she is firm in her decision. ser criston cole will be the replacement for ser ryam redwyne.
alicent has been visiting her father in his private chambers secretly, corlys wants his daughter to be the next queen. viserys begins openly courting lady laena of house velaryon. rhaenyra and alicent visit the sept, she expresses her worry, her mother has only dead for half a year. the lords seek to replace her, alicent convinces her that she cannot worry about the plots of lords and men, she is the heir, however. why shouldn't she worry? she misses her mother.
she meets with her father, he reassures her, "i loved your mother very much." she apologizes for speaking out of turn at the small council meeting, he tells her she will learn (will he be the one to teach her, though?) daemon has taken a dragon's egg and seized dragonstone, bringing news of his future marriage to lady mysaria. the king means to go himself to stop him, otto will not let him. daemon took baelon's egg. rhaenyra is angry. she reaches dragonstone just after otto's party, she knows they were about to come to blows. she confronts daemon, she is the reason he was disinherited. if he kills her, he'd be done with all this bother. daemon scoffs, walking away from her. he throws the egg whilst still retreating. rhaenyra smiles and leaves. her father is mad once he learns what she's done. she left without his permission, but she retrieved the egg and prevented bloodshed, he should be pleased with her efforts. otto would never have been able to accomplish what she did, he relents.
rhaenys lectures her about the order of things. the realm will never accept a woman ascending the iron throne, but it's different for her. her father is the king, rhaenys' father dies as a prince. her father made the lords of the realm swear obeisance to her, rhaenys never had such a thing. the lords chose viserys over rhaenys at the great council, viserys has not given them a choice. rhaenys is the the queen who never was, rhaenyra is the queen to be. when she is queen she will create a new order, rhaenys warns there will be war (unfortunately she is right).
another meeting takes place between father and daughter. he must take a new wife, someone to help propagate the targaryen line. they are vulerable, to easily ended. rhaenyra understands, it is his duty as king. obviously he will marry laena, the daughter of one of the most powerful houses in the realm and of pure valyrian stock, it is a fine match. alicent is still visiting her father in secret.
her father calls a small council meeting, he means to announce his next wife. rhaenyra is ready, she gave him her blessing (why is alicent here? she never has been before.) her father starts speaking, "i intend to marry... the lady alicent hightower." corlys is enraged, otto is pleased, alicent is anxious. rhaenyra was ready, it has all fallen apart. alicent is her best friend, that friendship dies before her very eyes. she runs from the room.
it has been two years. viserys and alicent are married, and they have a son, with one more baby on the way. the boy's name is aegon, it is his second birthday. he has past his infancy, the lords believe it is only a matter of time until the king names him heir, rhaenyra is well aware of this. the queen visits the godswood where rhaenyra sits. she overrides rhaenyra's authority, commanding the singer to leave. she states the king wishes for her to join them, he wants them to have fun as a family. they do not need her to celebrate his long-awaited son. it is the king's command, she leaves unhappily. alicent wishes for things to be different, rhaenyra knows they never can be.
together they all sit, traveling towards the kingswood. rhaenyra asks after alicent's well-being, viserys reminds her that she will be in this position sooner than late (the same position that killed her mother). "it isn't so bad, the days are long but aegon came quickly and without fuss." the queen states. rhaenyra is hurt, she tries not to show it. the king reminds her she has duties, rhaenyra retorts sarcastically. how long will these duties last, once her father names alicent's son as heir over her? her life will be forfeit before long. no one is here for her.
"no one is here for me." translates to "no one has been here for me. i’ve been alone and angry and terrified for years. i am my father’s heir, but what does that mean? what will it cost? you put me here. daemon put me here. alicent put me here. you have a son now, he outlived baelon and my other siblings. how long until i am cast aside again? made to be some petty lord's wife, made to be a broodmare until it kills me? i don't want to end up like my mother. this heirship is all i have. it will soon no longer be mine. i'm only seventeen. no one is here for me."
rhaenyra is never shown the same amount of grace as alicent for her strifes and anguish in life, for the fact that she too was a child from episodes one through five. rhaenyra might not have been a child bride, but she still spent her life being told she was never enough. she was not a boy, she could not be the heir, her father needed an heir. he kills her mother for it, he ignores her unless she can benefit him. he makes her believe that he will marry laena, only to blindside her by marrying alicent. she realizes alicent has been lying to her for months. her father continues to undermine her throughout the years. he names her heir to spite daemon, which she admits she knows about in episode two. he allows the lords to ignore her. it takes him two years to reassure her he won't replace her. rhaenyra is an angsty teen who has seemingly lost everything and has no support to counter that. she is not upset that no one showed up to a two-year-olds birthday party with her in mind, she is upset that her father continuously overlooks her, that he takes and takes and takes everything from her. he took her mother, he took daemon, he took alicent, he had a son. she has not been able to catch a break due to her father's selfishness. in all honesty, she should have acted out worse, maybe burn everything to the ground. viserys would deserve it, she was far too lenient with him.
#house of the dragon#rhaenyra targaryen#pro rhaenyra targaryen#in defense of rhaenyra targaryen#anti viserys i targaryen#team black#pro team black#anti team green#anti team green stans#hotd meta#i wrote most of this within the past two hours#if you see any typos no you didn't#putting the anti tg tags bc its always them calling rhaenyra a selfish brat#that is my wife i will not let you slander her
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i like the Hunger Games a lot but im always gonna be a little bitter it took off when her Underland Chronicles never did. those books were so good and so fucked up. snippets of spoilers for a 20 year old book series for middle schoolers ahead:
cockroaches the size of horses who talk and are actually super chill and great babysitters for human toddlers. these books are the only reason i dont have nightmares about cockroaches anymore
cannibalism happens a lot. at one point a rat the size of a bison says "man go ahead and eat your dead friend, we wont judge" to a spider, who then proceeds to eat her dead friend. everyone but the rat judges.
another rat, who is still relatively a baby, is found later eating his babysitter's liver in an attempt to hide the body.
dude, pandoras death was so fucked up. "wow an island! im starving im gonna have a snack. brb guys" flies a little bit over, is immediately devoured in seconds by bugs and her skeleton crashes into the jungle below
plague book! humans try to commit genocide and blame it on bugs
hey. hey eleven year old. kill this tiny baby screaming for his mother. he sounds just like your baby sister you think just died horribly. kill this baby with a sword. you didnt? you didnt kill a sobbing baby who watched his mother die? we're putting you on trial for treason and will execute you
baby rat gone insane, now 15' tall and leading an army, ripping the head off of his friend/gaslighter, immediately heartbreakingly asking where she went, and then finding the head and accusing a twelve year old boy of doing it
dude gregor is eleven and in the first book willingly leaps off a cliff to his death (despite it being his worst fear) in the hopes itll stop his two year old sister boots from being graphically torn apart and eaten, like he has seen happen to others
thalia's death. they dont just kill unnamed children (they do absolutely kill a lot of unnamed babies onscreen) they also kill beloved named children
"the fireflies had to gnaw ares' claw off of his corpse bc you wouldnt let go of your friends claw. its been almost three weeks and the viscera has dried and glued it to your grip. we cant get it off without breaking your finger. you gotta let go of your friends corpse, twelve year old boy"
twitchtip.
forcing the twelve year old into a prophesied battle where he will die, and making him dissociate so hard for months he blankly allows others to make him cause/be complicit in war crimes
HAHA HEY THE SAPIENT, INTELLIGENT MICE DYING BY THE HUNDREDS SUFFOCATING ON POISON GAS WHILE A TODDLER SINGS A NURSERY SONG ABOUT THE MICE DYING.
the six year old boy losing literally everyone hes ever known and cared for over and over again
just so much violent gore and death for middle schoolers, man. i love it.
hey that was objectively a good and well done ending. and i also loved it. but "hey gregor my husband was in the war. he had ptsd that will never go away just like you" hey hes twelve :( someone help him
prim's death in the hunger games has nothing on the shit collins pulled in the underland chronicles this is like a tiny chunk please read them
#cannabalism#gore#child death#the underland chronicles#gregor the overlander#gregor campbell#ripred#twitchtip#hazard#boots#ares#thalia#idk im tired of tagging now#m text
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Decided to redraw my first oc (ON AGGIE BECAUSE ALL I FUCKING DO IS DRAW ONAGGIE APPARENTLY)
It’s name is Suit-009 😁🥳
If you are curious I will quickly explain its lore and uh that’s it yah. (I don’t rlly post my ocs like ever but I dunno hour long drive got me being thoughtful as usual)
Before everything I MADE THIS WHEN I WAS 14 THIS PREDATES AMONG US AND LETHAL COMPANY DO NOT SAY THAT IM RIPPING IT FROM THOSE I DID IT FIRSSTTT
Humanity is on its last limb, the earth is practically an unlivable husk especially due to immense overpopulation
So basically, there is a group of 9 scientists tasked with finding a habitable place that human can colonize or a place that can be harvested for resources
The team lands on an alien planet and begin research. They are all scientists and all are capable of running and surviving on a spacecraft or in a hostile environment, so that’s not particularly a worry.
The ninth crew member, suit numbered 009, was recruited specifically for his scientific studies, yea they are all scientists but he’s like THE scientist. The guy that’s goes hmm yes nod nod URETHRA! All that.
Anyway they find some crystal fragments and decide to do some extensive research on it due to energy signals coming from it. Having something that creates energy like said crystals would be extremely useful if they could replicate it in some form
009 goes and studies it yea yea whatever. Idc. But like it starts taking awhile and the crew leader 001 (she does have a name it’s Hailey but I dunno abt anyone else I WAS 14.) anyway she goes and is like hey buddy how pal pick up the pace you’re taking long as hell
And he’s like SIR YES SIR, but it’s been a while now and he’s kinda being freaky deaky. None of the other crew realy took notice of him kinda acting tweaked out since they were never really close beyond coworkers unfortunately
But UH OH! The crystals actually have some dumb shit that like attracts things/people to like investigate it (the energy thing) but what it actually does is kinda cause people constantly around it to be like overly obsessed with it and also kinda become stupid
So the thing with the crystals is that if it somehow gets into your blood stream it starts forming more crystals as like a way to grow. They aren’t particular just an inanimate object, it has a goal to grow and it can’t just grow from nothing sooo
Anyway 009 is like tweaked out because it’s actually just a suit with a corpse and crystals piloting it
Eventually Hailey realizes this but I mean it’s not gonna go out without a fight
So suit-009 grabs a fire axe and axes down the entire crew, once it’s finished it just folds over, using the surrounding and remaining biomass to consume and grow yaaaay
Oh just some thing I thought was neat, if you were to pop off the hazmat mask the head would be absent and replaced with a horrible mass of bloody crystals isn’t that exciting
That’s pretty much it yea. Hey by the way did you know I love Dead Space 2, Don’t Escape 3, The Thing, and Alien? Haha yea anyway I LOVE SPACE I LOVE SPACE I LOVE SPACE I LOVE SPACE I LOVE THE HORRORS OF SPACE I LOVE SPACE I LOVE SPACE SO MUCH SPAAAAAAAACEEEEEEE WOOOOO YEA SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!)!)
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The idea of characters from other stories winding up in SVSSS has been stuck in my head for a while but I'm not gonna write abt it lmao so here's what's been rattling around in the ole noggin:
Toph:
Toph would be a genuine menace
Specifically on poor Liu Qingge, who hasn't the slightest clue how he wound up with yet another student
Earthbending should not be possible here. Earthbending is NOT possible here.
Toph invents earthbending here.
In fact, she only gets stronger. Because the cultivation aspects of the world means she's got even more qi and knows more about how to use it beyond earthbending.
She can now use qi itself to "see" (sensing others' qi, using it to sense movement, etc.) Not just earthbending
Lqg wants nothing to do with any more disciples. Especially not ones as annoying as yang yixuan
He gets a gremlin even more annoying than yang yixuan
He lies awake at night, regretting saving her life that one time on a hunt and kickstarting her path of being a Problem
Specifically, he saves her life one night while she's out trying to remaster earthbending, inspiring her to become a cultivator
She runs away from her noble family and their arranged marriage and stifling life that they've planned out for her and heads straight to Cang Qiong's Bai Zhan peak the first chance she gets
Refuses to take no for an answer, thus growing to become lqg's #1 menace
He both blesses and curses the day she was born
Lqg would sooner die than admit she's basically his other baby sister/daughter figure
Will outright refuse to fly on her sword When asked how she'll get around, the earth goddamn MOVES UNDER HER FEET and she causes several earthquake/mole monster sightings with these shenanigans
Is banned from this move
Begins to tunnel underground instead
She could arguably fly on her sword just fine, sensing the qi around her to navigate and shit, but it's harder and definitely uncomfortable and brings back bad memories of that one time in the volcano with Aang and Sokka
Luo Binghe wants her dead
She probably never gets strong enough to 1v1 him and win but she's definitely strong enough to become a genuine challenge
Especially when she reinvents metalbending
Rides for her shizun ong
Would probably fight lbh for lqg's honor after the SQQ corpse situation (he did not ask her to do this)
Aang:
The angel of Qing Jing peak fr
Or that monastery but we don't hear enough about them tbh
Has legitimately no idea how he got here, maybe too scared to question it actually
Like, did he really fuck up and end up getting ripped out of the avatar cycle orrrr????
Decides some things are better left unknown
The only struggle he really has is not being bald anymore
Honestly???? Might still shave his head and just stick to a wig
Would inevitably get caught or ALMOST caught and eventually gets used to growing it out (would probably become the inventor of extensions or wig glue though lmao)
Would make the spoiled qing jing disciples better just by being around them tbh
Star student probably, would be a menace in a cute way
One of the few men allowed on Xian Shu (for visits/messages)
Would probably befriend demons ngl
Loves flying on his sword
Prefers his staff though, and eventually figures out how to make/get someone to make one for him
No one knows how he does the air scooter. They are scared.
No one asks about the tattoos either.
Or how he's controlling all these fucking elements.
He doesn't have an avatar state anymore, but that doesn't seem to stop him from being wildly more dangerous than anyone expected
Possibly unlocks permanent cultivation-blocking? Like sealing off your core
Demons don't take note
Until he learns how to do the same for demonic cores
Exorcist Aang
Possibly becomes a rogue/wandering cultivator
Wandering rogue exorcist Aang????
He's either a god descended upon the earth or a heavenly demon in disguise, according to critics
He thinks it's all silly
Until he meditates too hard and communes with a god or something who tells him they may or may not have bargained to snatch his corner of the avatars soul for a reason
Uh oh
Sokka:
Does not know how he managed to get spiritual energy or cultivate
Actively chooses not to think too much about it
The head disciple of An Ding 😭
Absolutely salty about it
Shang Qinghua is endlessly grateful though
Does not know what to make of the long hair thing; probably tries to keep his hair in a half-pony still, as an ode to the water tribe
I've seen some fics where Qiong Ding is headcannoned as the bureaucratic peak; in this case, he might be able to sweet talk his way in if fate and Yue Qingyuan is kind enough
Either way he's grateful he gets to do sword stuff again
Especially now that he can FLY on them?!
He hasn't completely forgotten his skills, so he's got a whole different style no one's seen before and it's Weirdly Good Actually
He finally works his cultivation up enough to get his personal sword
Then he finally gets to summon his and he cries
It's space sword
No one knows what the fuck to make of this weird ass sword but he doesn't care, it's his and he loves it
Known as the best ever manager of An Ding peak
Katara:
Would have one (1) argument with her brother and march up to Xian Shu
Frequent visitor of Qing Jing and Qian Cao
Mu Qingfang mourns every day that she didn't choose the medicine peak
Katara maintains that she's too ready to beat some ass to ever be a full doctor and vow to do no harm
Never quite learns to be comfy with a sword but can still handle her own
During the demon invasion on Cang Qiong (assuming she's there at the time), she bloodbends Hualing right off the mountain
The demons do NOT stick around
The cultivators are too scared to ask her what the fuck that was but they're nicer to her than before
The xian shu peak gains a fearsome reputation of possibly teaching blood magic
No One gets how she does the waterbending stuff. Outsiders assume it's some Xian Shu ancient secret technique. Or she's related to Mobei Jun. Real members know Kataras just Like This.
Keeps the hair loopies. No matter what people say.
Wears a blue necklace similar to her mother's heirloom; a gift from her shizun probably
Genuinely enjoys the sisterhood on Xian Shu. It reminds her of the better days of her home, before the southern raiders came back
Zuko:
Could've chosen from several peaks, but chooses Bai Zhan
Something about the bamboo on Qing Jing reminds him of his uncle though, so he likes to visit. But not for too long. It hurts.
Isn't really bothered by the long hair thing; while cutting hair isn't forbidden in the fire nation, long hair is common practice, especially for nobles
Keeps the standard topknot until Toph calls it ugly
And then he remembers toph cannot see his topknot
Starts doing ponytails anyway
Also a star student of Bai Zhan, especially after he busts out the firebending forms
Yet another nuisance for poor lqg
He and Toph are the only two that can keep up with each other
Known as the Twin Stars of Bai Zhan
Aka the Twin Headaches of Liu Qingge
Has a small red birthmark near his eye, on the side that used to be burned
The fact that there isn't a massive burn is mildly uncomfortable to him at first. Doesn't feel like himself
Again, No One knows how all these kids with weird qi abilities are coming from
They're beginning to suspect they're all part demon
Neither he nor Toph ever defeat the demon heritage allegations
Especially not with the way they fight. And allegedly have a Past that no one else knows about
Would also fight Binghe for his Shizuns honor
Weirdly chill for Bai Zhan actually
Has probably made leaps and bounds from his avatar hunting days already
Most expect him to have gone to a quieter peak, it's baffling
Until he beats the shit outta somebody
And then goes back to being gentle and chill and forgiving
He wonders if uncle Iroh is watching over him here too
He can only hope his uncle is still proud of him, wherever he might be
Lqg isn't his uncle, but he's still a kind presence that Zuko looks up to a little, even if the guy is a little too punchy
Thus takes it upon himself to ride or die for him
One of the few dual wielders around
His curved blades are also a source of curiosity for the others
But he's good with them so no one complains
In a bingliushen situation, Zuko, Toph, and YYX are feral protective gremlins that somehow make things better AND worse for the development of the bingliushen courtship process lmao
I'll probably make more at some point but that's all for now. If someone wants to make a fic of these PLEASE let me know, link me I'm desperate
#atla#svsss#scum villian self saving system#avatar the last airbender#drabble#no bc this was living in my head RENT FREE#toph being best bai zhan disciple ong#can you tell i love lqg?#i love lqg#i ship bingliushen so hard ngl#especially where lqg is so oblivious to the 2 dumbasses trying to reel him in#while also simultaneously pining over them like an idiot#svsss crossovers#honestly theyd be needlessly protective around ANYONE who wants to date lqg tbh
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The paradox of white chest plate is solved!
Warning:
1) Heavy spoilers
2) Lots of text
3) My point of view may change later
Let's recap some "Fake Ending" and "Continue Game" events:
Elster enters the Gates and goes through red desert. Red is the colour of bio-resonance and Ariane's wrath and suffering, or, in other words - Hell. Loops are also part of Hell.
She sees many corpses which are not (!) results of "Leave" ending - these don't look like they died with inner peace, they are far from Penrose-512 and, most importantly, they are still in Hell. These Elsters just never found the Ship or didn't dare to come closer. Remember Ariane's "come closer" call?
This time Elster finally made it to the ship! But then she got injured by invisible strike. Invisible means bio-resonance and there is only one bio-resonant in Hell - it's very creator Ariane. She didn't forgive Elster. Red part of Ariane feels betrayed and who can blame her?
Despite feeling Ariane's wrath, which hurts in many ways, Elster keep going. She puts her hand on the ship and awful noise stops. She climes up Penrose-512 and tries to open the hatch. "Ghost in the Shell" reference shows that Elster does not care of her body, she didn't forgive herself neither. And she fails. Again. And she falls down dying. Again.
She's actually dead, just look at her eye at main menu! The tragic story of Penrose-512 repeated.
We chose to continue and we see memories of Elster and Ariane being happy (interesting detail - back window is blue here)
We coming back to Elster's dead body and see how Ariane's figure appears next to it. Then we see how Ariane's face blends into bandaged version. I guess we can read it as Aline taking over Ariane or it is Ariane's other side kicks in as she looks at poor Elster? The side that is tired of suffering and wants it all to end - the White (sorry, white won't be visible) colour side, aka what's left of original Ariane. (Is it a proof that there are 2 long-haired Arianes in the line-up, so either one of them Aline or Ariane has 2 sides?) And then…
Elster's last memories are taken out of Red Hell (and therefore - out of loop) into White (snowing) Limbo. Just same way it was transferred from dead Elster on Penrose-512 to Hell in the beginning of the game.
Elster opens her eyes and climbing back. She does not use the hatch. Instead she appears in Ariane's room on the same place where original Elster-512 died. She has another dreadful injury now - her heart was brutally ripped out. That is the scary price for another try. It is hard to admit, but love was the reason of Elster's failures. And now she's desperate enough: she gave a promise and she'll do anything. We see exposed blue bones, blue is Elster's colour. And Ariane accepts Elster's hart as a sacrifice and… forgives her?
Finally, we are approaching the chest plate paradox that is announced in the title! But first, couple words about our sponsor… Do you like brain rot? Have you ever been going to bed and saying "man, I wish I had something to think about again and again instead of healthy sleep"? Try Signalis! Providing broken harts and sleepless nights from 2022! And if you are an artist, you are cursed for additional 50%! Okay-okay, now serious XD
Remember that we are still in White Limbo, outside loops of Red Hell. Another Elster's body we find by the cryo-pod is not a result of other in-Hell endings! It shows us WHERE and HOW we should have died! Arm/armour - is a sign of Ariane's forgiveness. We cover red chest plate and arm markings (the colour of Ariane's wrath) in white and blue - colours of Ariane and Elster. And that will protect us. Now she's ready to jump back to Hell. Now Red side of Ariane can't stop her anymore! What she's gonna do about it, huh? Except… hm… driving Adler mad and wake up Falke? >_>
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can we have a mini series for the sun and the moon ??? :(
Summary: if you were the moon, Yuji the sun, Megumi the stars, then Satoru was like the earth
A/n: hi anon! hope you like this small conti of my first post. maybe if I can think of another part I'll make a pt 3. this actually turned out to be heavier angst than what I was originally planning (I apologize in advance) I'll say it again: major spoilers for JJK that won't be covered by the anime (yet. probably season 3)
Warning(s): spoilers for the second season (the start of the Shibuya arc), as well as manga chapters 136+, mental breakdown(on readers part ig), megumi's unrequited feelings brought up again, misdirected anger and all-around messy feelings
A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth moves between the Sun and the Moon. As the Moon orbits, it falls into the Earth's shadow, which causes it to temporarily darken or change colors.
'How did all of this happen?' you think to yourself. There's a stillness in the air as you hug your knees closer to your body, trying to hide from the cruel and unforgiving world.
People mindlessly stand around you, an after-effect of being hit by Satoru's domain expansion. Their eyes roll into the back of their heads, and grumbles of nothing slip past their lips. But, you don't pay any mind to them. Not when you're trying to soak up the residues of Satoru's cursed technique, the last things left of him.
The crater left by Satoru seems to keep you tied to the ground. The scatterbrained people, spilled blood, dead, twisted corpses left behind by that patch-face curse, and the insurmountable damage don't mean anything to you. Not when Satoru's been ripped out of your life.
".....!......"
".....y.....!"
"...y/...!...."
"...y/n-chan...!"
You lift your head, eyes blank and body feeling so heavy, to see Iori. Her shoulders rise and fall as heavy breaths escape her, and you wonder where she came from. Her hair's disheveled, a good representation of the shit show that just went down in Shibuya.
Her mouth moves as she speaks, but nothing seems to be heard. Her hand touches the side of your head, and it's covered in red when she pulls back. Oh, so that's why you can't hear very well; you probably had some severe head damage.
The next couple of moments pass in a flash as you let her pull your body up from the ground and out of that forsaken train station. Everything's hazy as your eyes take in the damage down to the city: buildings destroyed, ash basically covering every, blood that's seemed to dry up and turned an ugly brownish-red, and bodies littering the ground.
"y/n!" Yuji says, his voice full of relief as he rushes towards you. His hands quickly come up to cradle your face as he inspects the new scar underneath your right eye. His eyes shine with a bright reassurance at the fact that you weren't killed in Shibuya. It doesn't take long for his oh-so-bright smile to reach his face as he quickly wraps his arms around you, burying his face into your hair to seek comfort.
Megumi stands some ways back as he watches Yuji gush all over you. A heavy pain fills his heart, but it's quickly replaced with relief that you're okay. He steps towards you, and places a hand on your head and says a quiet welcome to you.
You'd break down right about now if it weren't for the fact that your eyes land on a tall, blonde woman seated on the couch. Yuji and Megumi are pushed away in a blur as you quickly grab Yuki by her collar.
A nasty sneer makes it to your face as you glare at her. A destructive aura surrounds you as a vein pops out from your neck. As quick as you were to move, the others in the room swiftly tried to de-escalate the situation.
"y/n! Calm down! She's here to help us!" Yuji says, his hand coming to place itself on your shoulder.
"Help us? Where the fuck was she when all of your friends were dying, huh?" you spit back, eyes never leaving Yuki's as her face turned blank. "Where the fuck were you?" you repeat. "You're a goddamn special grade sorcerer, and yet the only time you fucking show up is after everyone's dead? You fucking slacker."
Your words cause a heavy shift in the room as everyone listens to your tear into Yuki. They all know it's not her who you're mad at, but it's easier to let you lay all your anger into her.
"We're going to go see Tengen-sama," is all she says as she removes your hand from her shirt, quickly rising to her feet and being the first one to leave the basement where you've all sought shelter.
Yuta (ever the good upperclassman) takes a soft step towards you as he ruffles your hair. "I know it's tough, y/n-chan," he tries to comfort.
But instead of thanks in return, all he gets is a scoff of disgust as you turn to look at him with an indescribable look in your eyes. With a suffocating gaze, you move to follow after Yuki. "The only thing she can do for now is give herself up as tribute when it's time for someone else to die," is all you say, your back facing everyone.
'No! No! No!' is all Yuji thinks as he watches you walk out of the basement. This cruel world can't take away your soft smiles from him. Your kind eyes, warm embrace, and ever-radiant warmness! You are supposed to be his shining moon that he looks to for solace, a safe place where he doesn't have to carry the burdens he's been cursed with.
He's stuck in place before Megumi knocks his arm with his elbow and tells him to follow. With a grave heart, he obeys, hoping (no, praying) that this is just a phase, and you'll go back to the girl he loves.
#yuji itadori x reader#yuji x reader#yuji itadori#one sided love on megumis part#megumi x reader#itadori yuuji x reader#jjk x reader#jjk angst#jjk spoilers#jjk x you#jujustsu kaisen x reader
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