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eureka-its-zico · 11 months

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Kiss Me and My Bones Turn to Ash

Synopsis: You get introduced to Mito in the worst way possible.

A/N: I love AU’s like this. This was a long time coming, but finely, this WIP is seeing the light of day after some long months. I tried to make it 5k words or less, but apparently, 7.3k is the smallest I can do. I hope DPR fans (and even nonfans) enjoy this little one-shot of mine. As always, much love, Jenn

Pairing: DPR IAN x Reader

Genre: Demon!Mito, Demon AU,

Word count: 7368

Warnings: dark themes, sacrificial themes, light BDSM, smut, blood, light gore mentioned, there is some dirty shit in here y’all. Mentions of drug-use

Your throat was raw and your skin ached.

Raw from screaming and attempting to struggle out of the many hands that gripped your arms and legs. Your one last shot at freedom echoing between cypress trees and an endless midnight sky. Multiple hands stripped away every last shred of dignity from your body until there was nothing left but tears that flowed freely down makeup smeared cheeks down to naked skin.

You were defenseless as these intrusive hands came by the dozens - yanking and pulling you down dirt paths deeper inside the forest.

It didn’t matter how your voice rose in a crescendo of despair; the fear worming its way deeper inside your gut. The small hope you’d held onto that someone - anyone - would save you died the minute your bloodied back met cool stone.

You continued to give them a fight as they spread you like a star across the midnight stone of their altar. You wouldn’t make it easy for them. While they treated you like something disposable, you knew your life meant something to you with all the moments you’d never see flashing wildly behind frantic eyes.

It wasn’t until the ropes cut painfully deep into the skin of your ankles and wrists that you felt the last grain of hope die in your chest. The prayers to whoever was listening, cracking one last time and washing out to silence as a wolf howled somewhere off in the distance.

No one was listening to the sounds of your prayers - or so you thought. It wasn’t until later you’d learned he’d been walking beside you, as they dragged you through dirt and rocks that cut into your skin. He watched and listened as you thrashed and cursed them with your own hatred bubbling molten hot beneath muscles and bone.

He watched and waited for the perfect time to peel free from the shadows and find his new home inside you.

Cloaked men came together to form a tight circle around the altar. Their arms raised up along with their voices in a deep chant that you swore made even the branches on the trees tremble. Was it Latin? Aramaic? The only ones who knew were the voices of the men and whatever god they were praying to.

You were trying to catch a glimpse around the edge of the hood of someone’s clock - was that Devin from microbiology? - when a knife started to carve shallow lines across your stomach.

A fresh wave of screams rose from your throat. The sound was lost inside the ominous chanting of men with hidden faces and the night. You knew your thrashing was pointless. You weren’t miraculously going to develop superhuman powers and Hulk your way free from your restraints.

So, with each descending cut down your abdomen you snarled, “Fuck you!” In their direction. Your fear was bleeding away into something carnal - something worthy of savagery. No longer did you want them to see you weeping for a God to save you. If you were dying, it would be with defiance in your eyes and skin in your teeth.

Another seething retort was flaring to life on your tongue when you noticed him, and that was when your world completely shifted.

You had to be hallucinating him. A sadistic trick of your own mind to find comfort in…what? He didn’t seem real. He couldn’t be. But there he was. Over the shoulders of these hooded men, at the backdrop of the forest, he paced around them. His eyes pitiless and empty except for what looked like a blue spark of flame. His thumb traced the bottom of a pouty lower lip with the top of his Cupid bow curling into something sinister. You were watching him - you’d seen him and for some reason it brought him joy. He seemed amused, whoever he was, and that amusement sent that blue spark into a flame that lit up the entire iris of his eyes.

He was handsome. The kind of handsome Roman sculptors looked for as a muse when carving into marble. You were willing to bet that there were dozens of odes and poems written just about him. Dark long hair framed his features and somehow made the pout of his lips more exaggerated. The edges touched the collar of his black trench coat that framed wide shoulders. Shoulders that spoke volumes of muscles that rippled with power and seduction: that left thousands begging for forgiveness for following any that wasn’t him. His jawline was razor sharp and the bones of his cheeks raised high. A part of you wanted to call him Apollo, but deep down you knew if he was a God he could only have one name.

Hades.

The chanting came to an end and with it the carving. You didn’t want to turn away from him - your lord of the underworld - but your curiosity took hold. You wanted to see what these bastards had done.

You didn’t yell or scream when you saw the drizzles of blood that ran like heavy syrup down your sides. The crudely cut shape of a pentagram carved into the soft flesh of your abdomen.

He could’ve done better.

It felt fucked up to think that way but you were all out of tears and if you were going to die you at least wanted it to look better than resembling a carved-up Christmas ham. The enter situation began fucked up from the minute you woke up inside a cell and only worsened with each passing hour. If only you hadn’t accepted that stupid invitation maybe then you’d be home in your room eating discounted Oreos and on to your next Netflix binge.

The regret built thick and thicker on your tongue until it made it impossible to swallow past the growing rage. Or maybe your throat was just raw from all the unanswered pleading you’d done - you were done crying. If you were going to die you refused to let it happen with fresh tears in your eyes.

You took in a heavy breath and let yourself grow rigid - hard and hollow - ready to curse them and show them your defiance. It didn’t matter if it was a pitiful last attempt at acting like you had any semblance of control. You weren’t going down begging.

“Fuck-“

You. That’s how it should’ve finished.

Instead, one of the hooded assholes - Jisoon from economics, it looked like - let out a gasp. If you were under better circumstances, you would’ve made fun of him.

“It’s you! Oh, my lord!”

His body collapsed down to his knees. His arms out in front of him in what he must have thought resembled reverence. In actuality, he looked more like he was afraid.

Groups of hooded heads turned to see what made their brother fall to his knees. Your own head included. You weren’t entirely sure why you needed to look. You knew he was there.

You’d felt him long before your eyes ever gazed upon him.

He manifested from darkness. The shadows cast down by the moonlight from trees, bushes, and rock slithered to create his form and once he was made he stepped out into the clearing. The second the group of eyes fell on his darkened figure they followed down on their knees. Their faces buried in the dirt where their praises fell from their lips to the soil.

“What are you praising? The dirt? Fuckin’ idiots,” you snarled.

If you’re going to worship something - someone - you look it in the eyes. Let them feel your devotion like a plague.

One of them looked at you then. His hatred was evident on his face. If he could, you were sure he would’ve spit on you. If you could, you would’ve strangled him with the rope he left you to die in.

“Dark lord - foul one - we bring you the offering that you have desired.”

Besides the long dark coat he wore underneath was a graphic shirt that reminded you of a Rorschach painting. Black designs flooded the white material until it took on different shapes. It was tucked inside black denim that hugged his thighs and dove inside black combat boots.

If he really was a demon he was not only the most ridiculously good-looking one out there, but self-consciously stylish.

Your head dropped back against the stone. Your wrists and ankles are still tightly spread and trapped by the ropes that hold you bound in place. You want to keep looking at him. The desire to look at him was overwhelming, but your body was too weak to fight the exhaustion of holding yourself up.

He walked calmly into the circle they created with you at the center. His eyes took you in and you swore you could feel the trail they took along your body. You felt a need so violent suddenly flash under your skin your wrists jerked against the rope. A whimper of urgency to plead with him to touch you almost escaped your lips, but you caught it and swallowed it back down.

A sexy smirk played across his lips. As if the son of a bitch knew what he almost made you do in a sacrificial circle with you as the main star.

Fresh anger brewed in your stomach and you were ready to spit it out at his feet when you blinked and he was just there. His hand clasped tight to your cheeks in warning as his obsidian eyes of flame met yours.

“I wouldn’t do that, little lamb.”

You would have told him to shove it if he wasn’t holding on to your face so painfully tight.

“Is this all you brought me?”

Well, that was fucking rude.

“Lord Mito- “

One of the hooded assholes from earlier began to rise from his knees. This guy makes himself the preverbal leader of this merry band of idiots. He was on his way up from a one-knee position when Mito stopped him. His only other free hand halted him in place.

At first, you thought it was nothing more than a gesture. He was staying still because his master instructed him to do so. It didn’t hit you that it could’ve been something else until you noticed his pale complexion begin to darken to crimson. The other hooded assholes now looking around in uncertainty and - something you truly enjoyed - fear.

“You come to me - like your parents - to make deals for your Ivy League tuitions with riches and recognition and you come bearing fruit from only one tree. You ungrateful roaches.”

With each word he spoke the boys began to writhe on the ground. Their identities exposed to you the way they’d exposed you to their treachery - naked and alone - to a demon for slaughter just so they wouldn’t need to try hard at life. Some of them you’d thought were your friends.

“We have more! We can get you more!”

“There are tons of these drunk bitches back at the house.”

More drugged women they meant. More women like you who were dumb enough to take their betrayal as friendship. The more you thought about it, the more you wanted revenge. It stoked the dying fire of rage that was left in your gut and made it new.

For a moment, you blinked, and your entire world evaporated into darkness. A part of you screamed as you tore your face free from his hands to stay put - to be a good girl.

What had being a good girl ever got you but sacrificing yourself until you end up on some fucked up altar in the woods.

You were surprised when Mito didn’t turn his grip tighter to hold you in place. He didn’t try to keep you in place and was willing to let you go. Your defiant eyes staring up into his that flashed with mirth.

“I have a better offer for you.”

Your voice was hoarse. Hours of begging for your life will do that to you. Now it felt like its own premonition. Maybe to begin again all of what held you back needed to be stripped away in fire and blood to show you what you were capable of becoming.

“Shut up, you whore.”

It was Carl - sweet coffee shop Carl - who lashed out at you then. His words full of a frantic need to keep you quiet. Mito’s head tilted in his direction giving Carl only a sideways glance before a hand moved into view. His middle and ring finger making a swift motion up sending Carl up into the air.

When Mito spoke the rich baritone of his voice grew darker. The night itself shifted back as if whatever words he hummed in Latin were more terrifying than what resided inside it. You watched as Carl tried to scream as his body contorted in an ungodly way. Blood pulled from the corners of his mouth and eyes with unspoken words gargling out his agony.

“I don’t expect any further interruptions, children” Mito snarled with Carl dropping in a twisted - and very dead - heap on the forest floor. “I smell a deal coming. Please, little lamb, continue.”

Your tongue flicked across your cracked lips. Your hesitancy dying off as soon as you watched his hungry eyes follow their movement.

“I offer you them.”

A crescendo of yelling rose as a wave around you. The men who sought to end your life with brutality did not seem to enjoy losing their lives the same way. How funny.

Mito made a swift turning motion with his hand and pulled it close to his chest. In the span of the same heartbeat it took to do it all the screaming stopped. He’d stripped them of their voice.

“If I wanted them I would have them.”

You shook your head hard once to deflect his claim.

“That’s not true. If that was the case, they would already be dead. Especially Carl. You’re stuck in some weird servitude thing. I bet you can’t even leave this area.” An unnatural cold wind rushed over your skin. It involuntarily caused your hands to grab at your bindings as a shiver ran across your body igniting it in goosebumps. “I can offer you all of them. All twelve of them along with my servitude and the release to feed freely as you wish until I’m dead.”

Everything appeared to grow still as his eyes searched your face. Was that excitement in his eyes? You couldn’t tell at first but realized the growing flames that seemed to leap up endlessly past his iris wasn’t because of anger. It was the thought of new prospects. A freedom to feed in a way he’d been denied after however long he’d been summoned.

Mito began to slowly lean down towards your face and you struggled not to turn away. The fire in his eyes created the illusion that you were falling further into hell and, maybe you were. Strangely enough - for him - you were willing to burn.

“You’ve got a deal, little lamb,” he breathed across your lips just before he crushed his mouth against yours.

You shouldn’t have thought of it as a kiss. It was visceral - every part of you fought against your ropes, digging the thread deeper into your flesh just to feel his pouty lips envelope over yours. The tip of his tongue moved across your lower lip, asking for entrance, and you gladly gave it.

You opened to him without hesitation and Mito deepened the kiss. He used his tongue to open you up further; cracking your lips and smearing it against his own. At the first hint of copper on your tongue Mito let out a moan that made you strain against your bindings. The sound was pure sin. It was the promise of pleasure and pain - of being torn apart and made anew.

When he tore his mouth away from you in a snarl, you almost screamed out in frustration, but the twelve hooded assholes who you’d offered up did it for you.

You couldn’t see all that well what was happening in the clearing around you. The sounds of screaming resonated back inside the night sky once more, but this time it no longer was yours. You listened as some ended abruptly while others gurgled around throats full of blood just before their end. The sound of flesh and thicker things landing with a plop on the dirt made your stomach flip. Splashes of blood rained down on you and you squeezed your eyes shut tight.

It felt like an eternity before the screaming stopped abruptly after the sound of a boot crunching the bones of someone’s neck. You could hear the wind move across the leaves and scatter them over objects - maybe bodies, maybe rocks - and branches. It became so eerily quiet that you wondered if the whole thing had been a dark part of your imagination.

Maybe you’d open your eyes and find yourself back inside the party. Your friend handing you a warm beer as you danced to a remix of some song that you didn’t know half the words too. It was a good thought - a great one, actually - but one you knew wasn’t going to be true.

When you opened your eyes a hurricane of emotion billowed up in your chest and threatened to release from your lips. Mito was floating above you, his eyes completely consumed with the flames that earlier had only shown like dying embers. Now, the fires were completely stoked by the souls of the corpses littered around you.

A devilish smile showcasing perfectly white teeth raised his lips as he watched you swallow down your fear. You could’ve sworn they all looked very sharp and pointy, but just like his eyes you watched as they all but disappeared. The only thing left to show for what had happened was a naked torso covered in tattoos and streaked with blood.

“Are you afraid?”

You licked your lips as you tried to think of how to answer and watched as hungry eyes followed the movement once more.

“It depends on what you mean by afraid,” you answered him softly. “Am I afraid of being in your debt? No. Am I afraid of you? Yes.”

His finger dragged along your cheek and followed the curve of your face. You thought he would stop there and gasped as he traced it further down to your throat, over your chest, and to the curve of your breast.

“You’re smart to be afraid of me,” he replied huskily. His body was no longer floating above you but was now being held up by his own weight. “But I promise to take good care of you, little lamb as long as you promise to do the same for me in return.”

His head dipped to the curve of your neck to press a soft kiss just below your ear. The intimacy of the gesture wasn’t something you’d prepared for. You’d expected him to be brutal; to take without remorse. Instead, Mito pressed his lips softly against your skin as if to tell it a secret.

It didn’t seem possible, but as his lips glided down your throat and to the hollow of your collarbone an ache began to grow hot and molten in your blood. He placed one last kiss between your breasts before his tongue dragged a hot line down close to the carved flesh of your stomach.

You were aware of his hand as it crept up your thigh. Mito made sure he took his time with every inch his fingers took - tracing over the dips in your hip and over the mound of your pussy. Constantly he teased you - getting close and pulling away - and never let you have an inch of relief.

A whimper was rising in your chest. Your hands no longer docile as they struggled to loosen the hold of the ropes at your wrists just so you could lace your fingers roughly in his hair. Mito’s tongue ran over the top point of the pentagram causing a hiss of surprised pain to rush past your lips. You wanted to move away from his wandering tongue as it continued to explore the open wound, but a strong hand held you in place.

Mito worked his mouth over the botched grooves of your stomach - cleaning up the last remnants of your fucked up night. A growl was growing louder deep within his chest, humming against your skin, just before he shoved his tongue brutally into the open wound.

The pain tore the air from your lungs. The scream you would’ve unleashed was stolen by silence and two thick fingers pushing themselves past your folds until they were knuckle deep inside you.

You wish you could say that your body fought him - your thighs had clenched shut around his arm or your hips made it impossible for him to enter you. That he didn’t find your pussy dripping and eager for him. None of that would be true, however.

Your body accepted him like a zealot to a newfound religion, and his fingers pushing past your folds to fuck you had your hips rising up to meet him with devotion.

“Please,” you hummed.

You didn’t care that you were begging. You were ready to shout for him to go further - deeper - when he inserted a third finger. The feeling of your pussy stretching followed by the overwhelming sense of fullness caused you to buck against the rock. The movement forced your stomach up into his hungry mouth causing his tongue to go deeper into the cut.

The stinging sensation should’ve been enough to bring you back to your senses - a warning that this was fucked; you shouldn’t be enjoying this - but Mito made your body crave his pleasure through brutality.

His wrist began to pump his fingers in deep, curling and stretching you until you came impossibly undone. Every time he pulled back - his fingers entering you anew - he went impossibly deeper. His fingers curl enough to hold the breath in your lungs and tear it free when his thumb curved up and pressed down on your clit.

A wet squelching noise began to rise up around you. It was lewd - complete filth that mixed itself together with the sloppy sounds of his mouth hungrily cleaning up the dried blood surrounding the pentagram. Your cheeks would usually burn red hot with embarrassment at the sounds being made, but when Mito’s thumb began to apply pressure as his thumb rubbed small circles on your clit, fingers still fucking you, you couldn’t find a reason to care.

With a thick pop, Mito removed his mouth from your wound. Fresh blood - your blood - outlined his puffy lips. He made no move to go back to your chest or do anything. His fire filled eyes did not stop from watching as you writhed beneath him.

“Tell me: I want you to tell me to whom you belong.”

His voice was sin. It was sex - something ancient and primal that blossomed inside you like blood on a white shirt. It made your body needy as his thumb stroked in time with his fingers as they pushed inside your cunt.

“You - fucc it’s you.”

“You’ll do what I ask of you. No questions asked.”

His curled fingers touched something deep inside you. Something that clawed a mewling sound out from between your lips and made your body struggle anew against your restraints. You knew Mito wanted an answer. The irritation was creasing that pretty brow of his and making his hairline drop to greet them.

The same irritation stoked the flame in his eyes from cobalt blue to crimson. Mito thrusted his fingers one last time into you before he removed them. If he was trying to punish you he was too late.

That last thrust - with the hard rub of his thumb against your clit - sent you barreling over the edge. Your orgasm hit you violently and fast and you found yourself wetting the front of his chest.

“Dirty girl,” he huffed. “You got me all wet.”

He moved along your body until you were eye level. Your body was still trembling underneath him when his fingers laced themselves at the base of your scalp and pulled. A yelp leapt out of you as Mito’s free hand took hold of your jaw and held your mouth open.

You watched as he accumulated salvia at the edge of his lips. Your brain barely registered what he was doing until he spit it inside your open - waiting - mouth and forced it closed.

“Swallow.”

The demand was fire. A promise of punishment if you disobeyed. You wish you could’ve said it was disgusting. The taste of blood - your blood - and brimstone staining the inside of your mouth and coating your throat pissed you off. That you fought against him and told him to fuck off. In all actuality, it only made your cunt clench down on nothing.

Once you swallowed it you opened your mouth and flicked your tongue out just to show him you’d been good. Done as he asked. The gesture alone sent a devilish smirk to curl across those pretty lips.

“Good girl. Now let me hear you say it.”

Oh. Right. “I’ll do what you ask of me, Mito. No questions.”

“I expect you to hold up your end of our deal tonight, little lamb.”

“I always keep my promises.”

You were trying to sound cheeky. Instead, it simply came out breathless. Mito was still staring down at you like you held the world he wanted to destroy and fuck if it wasn’t making it hard to think past the growing heat between your legs.

Slowly, Mito lowered himself closer to you and only stopped when his lips hovered a mere inch above yours.

“That remains to be seen.”

The baritone of his voice whispering against your lips sent your body into hyperdrive. You were ready to beg him to fuck you when he dropped the last inch and placed a soft kiss at the corner of your mouth.

The sheer softness of it startled you. Your eyes went wide as he pulled himself off of you and finally your makeshift altar. He was moving around you carefree. His movements slow and careful as he picks up his shirt and jacket out of the viscera and carnage he’d strewn across the fall leaves.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, little lamb.”

This asshole! Now your eyes were wide for another reason. You reached your arms up as high as you could raise them before giving the ropes at your wrist a shake.

“Ugh, hello? Are you just going to leave me like this in the woods?”

Mito stopped at the edge of the clearing and regarded where you were like you were complaining about being in a five-star hotel. His shrug only set a fire to blaze in your blood.

“It did cross my mind.”

“That’s gonna be a huge no for me.”

“You mean, you don’t like being tied naked to a rock in the middle of the woods?” He teased, with an eyebrow cocked.

“Tempting, but no. Not in the slightest.”

“Very well,” he shrugged. “See you soon, little lamb.”

Mito disappeared back inside the darkness he was born from, and you were ready to scream. To threaten to take your deal back when you threw up a middle finger at his exit and realized the rope was gone.

Thank god - whoever - for spooky favors.

You weren’t a smoker - still weren’t - but if offered you took one. From curious bartenders, frat parties with social smokers, and the ever-present sleazy drunks who assumed you must be a whore pressed so close to the shadows of the brick buildings Mito liked to frequent.

The only whore you were was his.

Of course, you were sure the only reason you let the toxic trash touch your lips was the same reason you drank in excess when he was gone. You weren’t entirely sure when you first noticed it. The emptiness you felt at small pleasures you used to enjoy became a distant memory.

When was the last time you truly enjoyed a milkshake? A damn good Lumberjack-style breakfast or a warm cup of coffee? These days it seems you need multiple milkshakes to really taste the sweetness of the cream or the artificial flavoring of candy. You need dozens of pancakes and a mountain of syrup to even begin to feel full.

No. When Mito was gone there was no fulfillment in anything. You were a bottomless pit of wants and craving and the only thing that could ease the burden of that unfashionable emptiness was him.

At first, you didn’t want to believe such a thing could happen, but the more he stayed away the more you felt the black hole of longing begin to brew inside your gut. You wondered if anyone else could see it; the desperate way you tried to fill it. No matter what you tried nothing could ease the ache of nothingness until he reappeared. Your knight in his all-consuming darkness.

When he would simply appear from the shadows or come up quietly from behind you while you sat on a bar stool, his hands covering your eyes and a devious, “Guess who?” cascading down your senses, you felt whole again. Complete. A fucked up missing puzzle piece finally fitting back in its rightful place.

Maybe this is what it meant to be soulless. A hollowed-out version of who you were that only knew relief by the hands of the devil.

You spent weeks since that night at the party - from your little adventure in the forest - before you saw Mito again. When he finally re-emerged for the first time that night with his hands hovering over your eyes you didn’t need to hear the husk of his tone to know it was him.

Your skin had become feverish with a desire so deep it felt like you’d taken a sledgehammer to the gut at just the heat of him pressed against your back. All the life you’d felt slipped out of you day by day, everything you loved and that made you-you suddenly was coming back with blaring clarity.

The second Mito’s warmth retreated from your back, your legs were swinging the bar stool around to follow him. He was moving to sit in the empty stool next to you. His feet barely touched down on the grimy linoleum floor before you were on him.

You secured your arms around his shoulders and, to his apparent surprise, used the momentum of your body rocking into his to pull him towards you. You weren’t giving him a second to speak or deny you any longer. With a hand secured at the nap of his neck, and the other twinning inside the soft silk of his shirt, you crashed his pouty lips down on yours. Your tongue darting to trace a request for him to open up to you.

Mito didn’t make you wait long.

As suddenly as you’d taken hold of him Mito took hold of you - trapped you - in his arms. His kiss devoured you; ate and tasted up every whimpering plea his tongue stroking over yours coaxed from your chest.

You felt alive. You felt whole again.

Every sinew - every nerve of your body crackled with electricity, and as Mito’s hands glided up the back of your thighs you swore you could’ve become a storm.

The both of you had stumbled into the bars’ back bathroom. The door held together by makeshift locks letting you know the entire place heard every moan he’d torn from you as he fucked you. When his cock bottomed out - so incredibly deep - between your folds and left you coming all over the edge of the bathroom sink, you knew that the whole entire bar heard.

Later that night, Mito made two deals with two grimy-looking fucks. They weren’t into specifics of the deals they tried to make, and that was the thing about demons. Specifics. They were wordy bastards - great at mind games and twisting phrases and promises around until it sounded like a sweet deal, but the fine print was always missed. Needless to say, the two men had made their own separate deals that night. Neither one of them made it to see the sunrise.

After that night, Mito allowed you to travel with him. When you made yourself useful and found him unsuspecting souls full of grief and gluttony and, Mito’s personal favorite, rage. He particularly enjoyed the souls that looked sweet on the outside; soft and sincere sounding with their crosses around their necks. Underneath all of that tried-hard smile was something sinister; something Mito claimed to be the sweetest flavor of sin.

You weren’t sure how all of his deals were struck. You were positive the women, and some of the men, probably asked for the deal to be sealed with a kiss. Sex. Not all of them prefer a handshake and words of good faith. One guy, in particular, wanted the deal to be sealed with a little flame, making Mito do a weird magic trick of using his finger like a candle.

Yeah, that was a weird one.

None of them made it past a week. Some - if they were lucky - got a few months.

That’s how you ended up backstage in a band’s dressing room. You’d met the lead singer at a club they’d been performing at. He’d sauntered up to the bar pressing the crotch of his jeans against your ass and tried to play it off like he was just leaning against the bar - waiting for a drink just like you.

The dislike for him was instant.

You allowed yourself to listen to him ramble. His pickup lines were incredibly atrocious. He thought being in a band made him instantly fuckable.

The only way you saw out of your predicament was to play into it and invite him to meet Mito. There were four other members in their group - four other people to come along for the ride. It didn’t take long for you to excuse yourself to their dressing room so Mito could do his whole song and dance.

Show them he’s a demon and did his best not to freak them out. He was out there buttering them up. Five fresh souls for the taking.

Whenever he made a fresh deal Mito liked to fuck. You weren’t sure if it was the excitement of a fresh soul, or a fresh kill when a particularly delicious sinner sat down at his table was too good to pass up (here is where the word games came into play). Whatever it was, he came back to you in such a euphoric high the tattoos that painted his skin writhed like a living thing.

You weren’t complaining, not really. Your only complaint - if you had one - would be on those days when he’d made multiple transactions in a day. You cared very much when your overstimulated body threatened to rip in half as his cock pushed back inside your bruised walls; fingernails digging into the soft flesh of your hips. His teeth leaving impressions in the mounds of your breasts.

There was no doubt in your mind that he was going to come back in one of those highs. He’d warned you to stay put and that taking one foot outside the room meant punishment.

Mito wanted you close and easy to find. You, however, were growing impatient.

You hated how easy it became for him to read you, especially during sex.

There were times you enjoyed playing hard to please and Mito? Well, he enjoyed playing into it just to tear you apart and turn you into a crumbling mess beneath him. It was his way of reminding you that he owned you - mind, body, and soul - and while you continued to play your little games, it was only because he allowed the facade of freedom to dance like little sugar plums around in your head.

But there were moments he stripped those sugar plums from your head.

The first night he’d marked you had been in the dressing room of someone famous. It’d make you nervous to be around them not because of who they were - you would have cared less about their money and a false sense of infamy. No, it made your skin crawl to watch these people negotiate deals with Mito as if they were making a setlist. They were too stupid to realize they needed to read the fine print; to know that fine print was open to change whenever Mito saw fit.

You tried to wait like he’d asked, just like now, but the place made your skin crawl. You’d grabbed your bag and had just made it to the door, your hand on the knob twisting and swinging it open when - like Houdini - Mito was just there.

An itching sensation began to grow between your shoulder blades. One where you couldn’t tell if it was a warning, you just being antsy to flee, or an actual damn itch. Whatever it was, maybe you should’ve listened to the first part, but just the memory of being left alone - again - inside another dressing room left your brain pleading with you to flee.

Mito be damned.

You slid off of the couch and your chunky boots made a resonating thud inside the empty room.

Yup. Time to go.

The second your hand wrapped around the doorknob and pulled the door towards you flashbacks of that night replayed through your head at warp speed.

He didn’t seem surprised at your attempted departure. Instead, with an arm draped against the doorframe, Mito seemed like he was actually waiting for you to open it. A flurry of thought erupted in your head on how you could explain what you were doing - what he was seeing. You could easily tell him you’d sensed his presence at the door and were just trying to make it easier for him to enter. You knew, however, when reflecting obsidian eyes glanced down at your bag clutched tightly in your hands the jig was up.

“And where, little lamb, do you think you were going?”

“Mito I wasn’t-“

“And don’t lie to me,” he continued. His words over saturating yours as if he wasn’t finished talking to begin with.

His body immediately encompassed what small space was left between you, him, and your attempted exit. His pitiless eyes were still staring down at you - waiting for a response - while he closed and secured the door behind him.

You already knew the minute you saw him at the door you weren’t going anywhere. Now that he’d locked you in, sent your pulse racing with excitement or fear you weren’t too sure which was which. Lately, the two seemed to blend together.

He was pushing you back farther into the room; your feet backpedaling into a moment of peace before you knew what would happen.

“I was tired of waiting for you to get back. I was going out for a smoke.”

“I told you to wait here,” he growled.

“And I wanted a smoke.”

You wanted to sound unmoved by the fluorescent gleam of rage billowing up in his eyes. At any minute his left could wash over to the bleak white that promised he was minutes from breaking. The facade of playing a mere mortal man bleeding away until all that stood before you was Death.

You were so hyper-focused on him that you weren’t aware he’d backed you against the built-in makeup counter until your lower back came into painful contact with its edge. Just as a sharp gasp huffed from your lips Mito’s hand struck out - fluid and snake-like - to wrap around your throat. Constricting just enough to remind you it was there.

“Little lamb, I told you what would happen if you didn’t listen.”

He did. He’d told you many times. Mito even embellished his warnings like a tiny little nightmare meant to keep children from adventuring out into the woods.

Don’t go out there children. That’s where the wolf resides and he’ll tear you to bits.

You always were a whore for things with sharp teeth.

“You did, but I can’t help it,” your words gasped around his tightening grip. “You know I love to see if you’re a demon of his word.”

You watched intently as his eyes scanned your face. The Smokey trundles of white that began to billow up inside his left eye as his nostrils flared. A part of you felt victorious. A matching smirk was seconds away from sliding the corner of your lips upward until it was cut short.

Mito released his hold from your neck, his body moving back just enough to allow space for him to turn you around to face the mirror. His hips closed the few inches he’d given while he kicked your feet apart.

“You love being punished so much, don’t you, little lamb. Always testing your limits and one of these days you’re going to push too far.” As he spoke, his words curled at the base of your spine brimming with a threat that sent your heart thundering in your chest. “You’re so gluttonous for my punishment, let's see how you handle this.”

The reflection in the mirror showcased your uncertainty. Your brow creases with the weight of unspoken questions as to what Mito could possibly mean. For a split second, ice-cold fear encapsulated your mind that maybe this was it. Maybe your deal was done and he was finished with you.

That thought was ripped from your mind as Mito pushed your skirt up to your hips and a sharp smack of his hand against your ass brought you back to the present. Looking in the mirror, you could see his right eye was brimming with fire while the other had been completely consumed with white.

He pressed up against you to keep you trapped between his body and the counter. Mito’s eyes watching as you watched him begin to remove his jacket and then the colorful shirt that had lived underneath it.

No matter how many times you’d seen him naked, Mito never ceased to catch the air in your lungs. Your body forgot to register to breathe as you drank in the caramel tone of his skin and the museum of art that now slithered against his flesh. His muscles bunched and flexed as he tossed his clothes aside, and already you could feel the fabric of your underwear become soaked.

He dragged a hand from the base of your spine and slowly moved it up until his hand laced in your hand. His fingers twinning in its strands and pulling back hard enough to tear a scream from you.

With his free hand, he spanked you hard on the same cheek. The sting dulled out the momentary pain you’d felt.

“Tell me. Let me hear you say what you want.”

“I want you.”

Another hard smack against your ass left your hands scrambling for something to hold you up; anything at all. The only thing you logically seemed to find was the mirror itself.

“You know that’s not what I meant, little lamb. I know you want me. You’re soaking my clothes.”

Licking your lips, you caught his gaze in the mirror and held it. Your chest heaving as you struggled to get out the words you knew would ruin you.

“I want you-I want you to fuck me, Mito. My lord. My master.”

You threw in the last for fun. You knew he loved it when you used pet names for him. One that reminded you both of who - what - he truly was.

“As my slave commands.”

You weren’t about to correct him, because you were. You knew without him you were nothing and when he dropped to his knees in front of your cunt with his tongue pushing between your folds, you knew Mito worshiped you too.

_____________

Comments and reblogs are always welcome. Thank you for reading! XoXo

#dpr #khh #dpr ian #dpr scenarios #dpr christian #yu barom #christian yu #dream perfect regime #dpr ian scenarios #dpr ian x reader #christian yu x reader #christian yu smut #christian yu scenarios #dpr ian smut #khh scenarios #khh smut #demon au #mito is awakened #one shot

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callsign-bunnie · 1 year

Note

For MJ,

Ghost hunts Soap down, in stealth training, and fucks his brain out cause Soap did better as pray then expected

Ghost uses Soaps belt as bontage, fucks him on the forest floor and Soap is hoarse for days and loved it

1 She wrote this at stupid fast speed. 2 You guys are really into primal, huh?

Ghost had caught all the other participants a while ago. He just needed to find Soap.

Wherever he was, he was well hidden and it was driving Ghost crazy, but everyone eventually makes a mistake. Soap was no exception.

He stretched, noticing the slightest impressions in the ground. Little tufts of fabrics hanging on some brambles where Soap had no doubt ran through.

Ghost started to stalk his sergeant, listening intently. He heard a small sound, just the slightest inhale, and immediately was on him. Usually, the people he was training were noticed, they’d get irritated, they’d go back. Why wouldn’t they? The whole point was hiding from Ghost.

Soap ran. It startled Ghost enough for him to get out of sight, but Ghost was quick to follow. On a normal day, he knew Soap was faster than him. It wasn’t something he was ashamed to admit, he was twice the guy’s size, of course he’d be fucking faster.

But Soap didn’t know these woods as well as Ghost did. Didn’t have the advantage of following someone else either.

Ghost was gaining on him, his heart speeding up. This was fun.

Judging by Soap’s reaction to him being close, he was guessing it wasn’t quite as much fun for him.

Ghost’s head felt fuzzy and his body thrummed with adrenaline. He could hear Soap’s panting now, watched him try desperately to get away.

Soap changed direction quickly, trying to use Ghost’s size against him. Ghost skidded across the forest floor before getting his bearings and going right back to the chase.

Soap tried the trick again, but Ghost had caught on, cutting him off and slamming into him. He knocked Soap flat, the wind knocking out of him.

Ghost pinned his arms behind his back, watching him squirm. His muscled body writhing as he tried to buck him off.

God, Soap was gorgeous.

Eventually, Soap stopped struggling. “Alright, Lt. Ya got me.” He sounded so defeated, almost pouting.

Ghost let him back up but as soon as he started walking back, he knocked him off his feet. “Run again.”

“What?” Soap looked up at him, confused.

“Run. That way.” He pointed away from the base. They’d need to be a lot deeper in the woods or someone would hear.

Soap stared at him, getting up. “Why? Was I the first one caught or something? Trying to help me save face?” He smiled and Ghost felt something clawing at him. A desperate need to do a lot of things to Johnny.

“No. You’re the last one. Now, run.”

Soap frowned, backing up. “LT…”

Ghost took a step forward and Soap was off again, running.

Ghost never felt better. He chased him, Soap looked far more scared now, but he was flushing, the red spreading to the tips of his ears and down his chest.

It felt right. He was a monster, chasing down his prey. When he caught him, he was going to destroy him. Brand him. Make him his.

He jumped on him, throwing both of them to the ground and making them roll. Soap tried to scramble up and Ghost grabbed him by his ankle, yanking him down and flipping him over so he was on his back.

Ghost put himself between Soap’s legs, pressing their bodies together. He realized with no small amount of satisfaction that Soap was just as hard, looking away from him immediately.

Ghost slid his belt off. He put Soap’s hands above his head, binding them tight with the belt. “Fuck, I’m glad you were last.” He yanked Soap’s pants down, ignoring that he was still fighting him. They had safe words for a reason.

Soap panted softly. “Don’t remember this being part of the training today. Add it just for me?”

Ghost slapped his ass hard, that feral thing in his chest wanting to take him apart. He yanked his mask off and got out his knife, cutting open Soap’s shirt. He reached into his jacket, finding the oil he kept on him.

“You plan this?”

Ghost grunted, knowing that he didn’t, but healthy fear was good for Soap’s soul. He yanked his legs open, watching him flush and try to reclose them. His pants got tighter and he tried to speed this up. He poured oil all over his fingers and shoved two of them into him, feeling the tight heat surround them. He barely felt human, leaning into the idea of being a monster that had trapped Soap.

Now what would he do to him?

Soap let out an embarrassing noise that could only really be called a squeak. He felt so tight and Ghost wanted to ruin that. Ruin him. His head was spinning with the feeling, scissoring his fingers quickly, ignoring Soap’s whimpers and cries. He unzipped his pants, leaving his tactical gear on. It made him seem even bigger than Soap and that did funny things to him. He poured oil all over his cock, holding Soap’s hips down and shoving into him. He growled, burying his face in Soap’s hair.

Soap screamed, head thrown back. “Oh, God, Simon.” His bound hands found their way around Ghost’s neck, making it hard for either to pull away. Ghost started to bite and scratch at him, hips snapping into him.

“Simon…” He whined, trying desperately to wrap his legs around Ghost’s waist. To somehow pull their bodies even closer together. “Ah…”

Ghost slammed into him, feeling him get pushed up a bit. He dragged him back down, setting a brutal pace until Soap was screaming. Soap hit his back lightly, kicked at him, but Ghost was relentless, pushing one of Soap’s legs up just right to hit his prostate as hard as he could.

He felt Soap get a hand in his hair, holding gently like he might provoke him. Ghost was on cloud 9, choking Soap with one hand and holding his hips up with the other.

Soap whimpered, going limp in his hands but like usual, he could still fucking talk. “Going to break me, sir?”

Ghost grunted, biting his shoulder. He growled softly and Soap finally caught up. “Oh. I see. You’ve captured me. Hunted me down.”

Ghost moaned softly and nodded, kissing Soap’s face before licking a stripe up his neck to his jaw. “Helpless rabbit.”

“And you’re the big bad wolf that caught me?” Soap mumbled, body tensing as he got close.

“And I’m never letting you leave.” He growled, slamming into him hard and stroking him slowly. The hand around his throat tightened until it bruised. Soap came all over himself, clenching tight around Ghost who followed soon after. His fangs sank into Soap’s throat, holding him down.

Soap wailed at that, trying to get away as his teeth sank right into the sensitive bruising. Ghost relaxed but didn’t pull out of him, careful to rest his weight on his knees instead of Soap. He knew with the tactical gear, he’d be way too heavy.

“We’re doing this again.”

“Aye, sir.” Soap panted, sounding a lot worse for wear than he had before. “Next time I’ll wear rabbit ears.”

Ghost’s cock twitched and Soap flushed.

“Don’t you dare, Ghost.”

“You are still tied up…”

“Don’t you dare!”

#Johnny Soap Mactavish #Simon Ghost Riley #Soap Cod #Ghost COD #Soapghost #Ghostsoap #Soap x Ghost #Ghost x Soap #Macriley #Call of Duty #Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 #queue for dinner again hunny?

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yanderefictinallove · 2 years

Note

Hello there! I saw that your request are open and you write for yandere! So I have an request for yandere demon slayer but it’s that the pillars roles are reversed like there the demons and the former demons like douma,akaza,Muzan are now demon slayer and I want it to be demon Shinobu x GN reader if u don’t want to write for shinobu you can switch it to which ever character! Very much thanks if you can write this for me!

Sure anon, i love her

Thanks for requesting.

Butterfly trap

Yandere Shinobu x Gn reader

Warning: kidnaping

This story is recommended for disrespectful teens like me..so yeah keep that in mind, my adult readers are welcome too

Rated: T+

_______________________________________________

Dear Journal, this is my third day of hiding. And she still hasn't found me. The demon is out searching for me. I'm trying to make it out of the woods but it's becoming impossible. The farther I go, the darker the forest gets.

I just wanna go home…

_______________________________________

I wrote in my notebook as I was squatting in a cave. Trying to stay out of sight so Shinobu can't find me and I can win the bet.

I don't wanna be with her. Not now, not ever. When she realized this we made a bet.

If I can survive 5 days without her finding me. I can go home to my beloved husband and leader of the demon slayer core, Muzan. If she catches me, I won't be going home…..EVER.

So that brings me to now. Sitting in a cave waiting for daytime. She gave me a notebook so i can put all my thoughts into it. She promised she wouldn't intrude but…that was a lie.

But all that aside. I need to find a food source or I'm gonna starve, and I won't have the energy to run…..wait….something's not right.

I can feel another presence out here with me….and it's not HER.

Oh no

She got some…..

Help

This is unfair. I was never informed of this.

Oh well, I have some tricks up my sleeve. You see..I still have my blade. I found it when I was looking for an escape at the infinity Castle. And I don't mean to brag, but I used to be a former hashira. So I got some fight to give. My blade is for everyone. I don't care who.

Oh, there goes the sun

Time to move. I stood up, ran, and glided through the air. I saw something familiar. My old village, meaning I must be close to the demon slayer core. I need to go faster. Keep running. Have my blade ready. I'm nearing the hiding place of headquarters.

Is that….

DAKI

My bestie..

"Daki!!!" I yelled. She looked up at me and her face morphed into surprise. Needless to say, she was happy to see me. When I landed she ran and hugged me. "Y/n, you're back, you're here…." She started to cry.

Oh daki, such a sweetheart. As we walked and talked it was time for the hashira meeting…well i am a hashira after all..better attend.

Everyone was seated and ready to begin, well all except for me. I was ready to surprise them.

Oh it started….

"Now as you know, the demons are getting much stronger…." What happened to my husband? He looks so depressed and sad. I listened as he continued. " My late wife/husband Y/n could have already slayed many of the demons…not you worthless slugs." I had heard enough.

"Now, Muzan. Is that anyway to talk to your hashiras, who try their best everyday." I say as I walk out of the shadows.

Everyone except Daki was in shock. As I waked forward Muzan spoke. "I- my love….your still alive.." his eyes started to form tears. I grabbed his ear, ignoring all the other questions and looks of shock. "I'll ask again. IS. THAT. ANYWAY. TO. TALK. TO. YOUR. HASHIRAS?" I repeated. Soon after I heard giggles from Douma and Gyutaro.

Hearing them made me smile. "No, my beautiful/handsome, wonderful, gorgeous, wife/husband." He replied. "Meeting is on hold while I have a chat with my husband". I tell the 12 hashira. They all nod and leave.

I had no real reason to pause the meeting. I just wanted muzan all for myself for a little while.

—---------------------------------------------------------------

Muzan sat up, his pale skin shining in the moonlight. As he sat up to look at his wife/husband. As their naked body layed there. He was beyond joyful that the love of his life was still alive. Happy to see him. He put on his suit and walked outside to where his hashiras were waiting. He not only wanted to give them orders, but, apologies for how he treated them the past year.

"To start with, i just wanted to s-"

Bang

Noise was coming from his shared room. All 13 people went to see what happend……Y/n was gone.

_______________________________________

I woke up, I looked around, and i see, the room was trapped in for a year. Damn it. She found me.

"Oh you're awake." The demon said to me as she loomed over me."looks like I win" she said with great pride. I knew there was something to this bet…

"No…that's not fair. I made it home." "Oh my dear, you weren't listening fully were you? I said 'If I don't FIND you in days.' I never said that you had to still be in the forest, silly."

And just like that, all hope was gone. But that's how Shinobu likes to play. She will play the game, but she doesn't play fair.

She stood up and made her way to the door, locking it. "Now let's have some playtime, like old times, you wont regret. I promise~"

Oh no, this was a butterfly trap.

🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋

Hoped you liked it anon.

I sure had fun writing this one<(￣︶￣)>

Requests: Open

#demon slayer #yanderefictionallovewrites #yandere #yandere demon slayer #yandere kny #yandere shinobu #demon slayer shinobu #kny shinobu #shinobu x y/n #shinobu kochō

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blazewatergem · 2 years

Text

Sweet Story - Trick or Treat

“Just a little longer, Bella baby, I gotta get it right.”

Cleona chuckles at the whine Bella gives out, and patiently waits until the toddler is no longer puffing her cheeks to continue putting on her makeup.

It’s Halloween night, and already the camp has done all the greatest hits - pumpkin carving, decorating, and baking Eleanor’s famous pumpkin swirl cinnamon rolls.

They even had breakfast outside by the lakeshore, enjoying the crisp air as Fall’s last stronghold fell to winter’s army.

Now, though, it was time to go out and get some candy. Which is why Cleona was currently doing Bella’s makeup, listening as the others got ready outside the bathroom.

“Kitty, why can’t you come with us?” Bella asks, and while she still has a pout on her face the rest of the makeup goes on smoothly.

“I can’t wear my Glamore for that long, little queen.” Cleona is careful when planting a kiss on her forehead, before setting the tiara on it, “It doesn’t work as well at night, and only in emergencies. Besides, you’ll be out with Charlie, Alex, Phil and the Marksman.”

That sure is a deeply dramatic sigh from a six year old, and Bella is happy to demonstrate such an act.

“Oooookkkkkkk.” She drones out, but is back to smiling soon enough.

“Think I’ll fill up my pail?”

“Totally, bumblebee.”

🎃

Cleona wanted to laugh at seeing everyone’s costumes. As much as she has always wanted to go out trick or treating - her body wouldn’t let her, she couldn’t fake anything, not like the others - there was something nice about staying home.

Bella was dressed up as a Queen Bee - a frilly, Victorian dress and crown on her brow with swiped Tinker Bell wings - while Alex was her Valkyrie guardian, complete with an armored dress, because Alex never does things in halves.

Sabella had instead decided to turn in early - the drop in heat was making her more and more tired, draining her energy like a slow leak in a boat.

Charlie…

There was no easy way to describe what Charlie was dressed up as. He was wearing his human disguise, which looked so fake he could pass off as wearing a costume. Tonight was one of the few nights he could pass it off instead of freaking others out.

Cleona always thought he looked like he was wearing someone’s skin - a mannequin styled creature, puppeteering itself - but hey, that works on Halloween.

The Marksman - an adult who no one has ever seen or properly heard - was wearing his cloak and mask like always. No big surprise.

Finally, Phil was dressed up as a game show host. He was a middle aged, kindly blond man with a sweet smile.

Everyone called him Old Man. No exceptions.

As she waved the group off, watching them head into the truck and off to neighborhoods beyond…

Cleona walks back into the camp boundaries, out into the forest, and runs.

🎃

Later, when she returns picking leaves out of her hair and burrs in her fur, Cleona sees the truck pulling in and smiles. No, grins. She loves a lot of stuff about Halloween —

But this has to be the best part.

Bella barely pauses when the truck door swings open, jumping out and sprinting for the front door, even tugging on it a couple of times before turning back and shouting wordlessly for Phil. He has to shut off the truck before joining her, letting Alex and Charlie out of the back seat.

They join Cleona in watching, Charlie slowly letting his human-suit plop off and Alex with his arms crossed, smirking.

“Old man is about to lose so much.”

“Oh, yeah? Good trick or treat night then, huh?”

“Hell yeah. You got a stick in your hair by the way.”

“Oh, dammit.”

🎃

The Halloween ritual between Phil and Bella goes as follows; After a long night of trick or treating, Bella brings her bag into the kitchen to be checked out. The candy is dumped onto the countertop, and Phil helps her sort through it.

The candy goes into three piles. One pile is for anything labeled King Size, or is considerably large enough to count as - Phil likes to eyeball it, Bella’s the stickler on these rules.

The second pile is any candy that is sugar free. This candy will be set off to the side, and not be counted.

The third pile is…everything else. The Reese’s, the Hershey’s, the Kit-Kats and Snickers. The gumdrops, the lollipops, the knock-offs and strangers.

Anything with sugar, really. Which, for the most part, Bella couldn’t eat without getting sick. It used to be such an awful thing, especially around holidays like Halloween. It wasn’t her fault, just part of her bee-like biology.

So, he came up with an idea. Which leads to the next part of the ritual, where Phil kindly puts all the pile three candy back into Bella’s bag, and sets it on a kitchen scale bought just for this.

He laughs, “Oh, dear, Bella, how’d you get this to…roughly ten pounds, love?”

She crosses her arms and smirks, a look he recognizes from none other than the golden-winged teen outside, “I got it myself!”

He dutifully doesn’t admit to seeing Alex and Charlie trying to shove their candy into Bella’s bag, or hearing her giggle at their exaggerated acting the entire way home.

“Well, then. That’s ten pounds of regular candy, plus…oh, look at that, five king sized candy bars. Look at that, buzzy baby, I think that’s more than last year!”

And thus, as Phil pats the girl on the head, he realizes with a sigh that - Yep.

She definitely likes this system just a bit more than she should.

🎃

The three teens look up, seeing the triumphant look on Bella’s face, and laugh when she holds one tiny child fist up with glee.

“I GOT TWENTY DOLLARS!”

#talking fire #surefire camp universe #Bella goes trick or treating!#love this one haha #happy halloween

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kirarinlovesidols · 2 years

Text

Alright i apologize for grammar and cringyness on top of whatever oocness as well. English isn't my first language.

Ok so before the actual fic i would like to put up some warnings abt content.

This is a femReader oneshot and it has some Yokai marriage bullshit, magic and slight manipulation. If any of that bothers you, please refrain from reading it, be safe!!

Also I'm gonna put some headcannons i came up with for Yokai marriage shenanigans that i wanted to share, that's all!

Also hell no i'm not writing ever again, now, for sure.

------------------------------

Spirited away.

----------------------

Your mother always told you to not wander too far around places like chinju forest or just away from Inazuma city but you as a mischievous and curious child never cared to listen.

"Mama is such a worrywart, i'm a big girl now i can take care of myself, hmph!"

You murmured to yourself as you walked through the usual path you always took to get your favorite type of flowers. This place would never cease to amaze you with it's mystical air.

Your pout was gone as soon as it came when you spotted the familiar flower field you used to play at. Smiling you ran towards it excited to work on some flower crowns...or maybe you should try something like a flower necklace? Maybe a bracelet.

Your small legs suddenly stopped when you saw some kind of...white lump among the almost neon tint of the flowers that surrounded your claimed spot.

What? Was a tanuki playing tricks on you again like the last time? If so you wouldn't let it slide! You still remember how it seemed to mock you for falling for it's illusionary tricks.

Your brows furrowed as you prepared to scare it away. However, when you crouched to pick up a rock your hand stopped on it's tracks as you heard growling.

On the middle of your favorite place sat a creature you never thought you would've seen in your 9 years of life.

A Kitsune! A real living breathing kitsune! Just like you imagined!!

Yet it's pure white fur seemed to be stained with unnatural blotches of red. The source of the possible bleeding probably came from one it's paws.

The more you tried getting closer to the creature the more intense the growling became. You gulped, this was kinda scary but abandoning it was not something you would do at all!

Getting the handkerchief you kept inside your pocket you tried to get closer to the wound but the yokai had other plans. It bit you hard.

"Nngh...!" A groan escaped your mouth instinctively but you bit your lip and ignored the pain.

You couldn't even get angry at it, it did warn you. Nevertheless you were nothing if not determined and bandaged the gash despite the growling only growing fiercer.

"Y-you really think i'm gonna hurt you? Well think again buddy! I'm gonna help you wether you like it or not, my mama always tells me to be helpful at least!"

As ridiculous as it sounds the kitsune seemed to buy your reason or should i say excuse? It doesn't matter. It stopped biting you and that's all that matters.

It kinda hurt...a lot but you weren't going to let it show.

"There we go, not so hard was it?"

You said looking at it with a satisfied smile, admiring your handiwork.

The little kitsune's ears flickered about while it inspected the fabric. You reached for it's head, you NEEDED to pet it! This is something you always wanted to do but for some reason animals in general weren't so keen in interacting with you at all.

However you never managed to as a strong headwind suddenly started to blow. You lost your footing and fell on your butt, immediately you felt worry about the yokai in front of you, it was so small what if it got blown away?

You open your eyes and what you see shocks you to the core.

A boy who looked to be right about your age, slightly taller than you now stood where the yokai previously rested. Two fluffy ears atop his head, white just like majority of his hair except for the tips that seemed to gently blend into red. 9 bushy tails decorated his back, giving him an ethereal vibe, they had the same coloring pattern as his ears and hair.

Red seemed to be a prominent color for him as his kimono, littered with maple leaves, and eyes shared the pigment.

He literally took your breath away, you have never seen someone so.... beautiful and....mysterious before. You felt like he would disappear if you ever so dared to blink.

The mysterious boy walked towards you, a kind smile resting on his lips. He crouches to get to your eye level and you notice your handkerchief were still firm around his hand.

"Thanks for helping me and sorry for biting you. This was done by humans, you see? I know it sounds bad but i guess i got...a little heated there."

He had a strange way of speaking. He was your age, right? Yet why did he talk like a grown-up?

Noticing the confusion on your face he just chuckled.

Suddenly feeling embarrassed you try to focus on actually answering him instead of admiring like a weirdo.

"U-Uh....yeah! It was...no problem...yeah!"

Your voice shook and you felt mortified.

The kitsune only chuckled once more. You wondered if your suffering was something funny to him. You were about to tell him off when suddenly his face got eerily closer.

You instinctively leaned back, nevertheless, that proved to be futile as you felt your back hit a tree. You had successfully trapped yourself, great.

He only keeps getting closer and the only thing you could do was close your eyes and wait for whatever it is to come, would he kill you?

Such assumptions disappeared as soon as they came when you felt something soft against your cheek.

Eh?

Your eyes flew open as your face got warmer.

He gave you a kiss. It was a cheek kiss but still!

Seriously is this something you aren't getting? Is this normal for Yokai? Ughhh! Everything is so confusing you want to scream!

The kiss lasted for a few more seconds. His long lashes tickled your skin and you wondered why you suddenly felt so nervous.

The silver haired boy moved away. You swear you could SEE the sheer mischievousness swirling on those eyes.

After that he helped you up and introduced himself as Kazuha, a kitsune who got separated from his parents due to wanting to go ahead of them on their usual walks and ended up getting jumped by treasure horders who tried to capture him however a yokai, even if they are children, aren't supposed to be underestimated.

Kazuha managed to deal with some of them but he did end up with an injury so you guess he still has a lot to learn about self-defense. At least, that's what you're gonna assume, he didn't tell you anything more than that.

His story helped you loosen up and you hit it off quickly. You played hide and seek, tag, watched the clouds, heck you even made him a flower crown! Even if he seemed reluctant to let you put it on him, guess he could see through you. You just wanted an excuse to pet his ears.

You wondered why he didn't let you do it when he was ok with you touching his tails...were his ears some kind of...no-no area? Or what? You had no idea and you didn't bother to ask.

You had a blast with your new friend, so much that you didn't realize it was getting late and you needed to go back before your mother got worried.

Kazuha looked a bit disappointed but understood. You still felt a little uneasy though.

"Will i...see you again?"

You ask him after gathering enough courage to do so.

"Mhm. Rest assured, i will come back for you."

You felt relieved. It would be nice to give him a parting hug before going but before you could that strong wind enveloped you again. You moved your arms to your face in order to shield your eyes and the moment you open them again you're on the front of your house.

Confused to hell and back you looked to the sides, behind you, any direction you could think of in search of him.

He was nowhere to be seen.

Just like the wind he suddenly disappeared after knocking you down and making a strong impression. You looked forward to the day you would see him again.

With a smile on your face and hope blooming in your chest you open the door to your house.

"Mama, I'm back!"

You ran to the kitchen and gave her a side-hug.

"Welcome back, sweetie ~"

You didn't tell her about Kazuha, you don't think she would believe you.

Still the fact the bite wound on your hand was suddenly healed and that a faint mark started to form on your cheek assured you that in fact you didn't imagine everything.

Some years later you still find yourself thinking back to that day. It's been so long you started doubting yourself, was it all really real? Didn't you imagine him cause you were lonely? It was hard to say.

it isn't until you decide to go for a walk in chinju forest, desperately trying to cling down to those "memories" that you see him again.

"I said i would come for you, didn't i? Thank you for waiting for me."

Tears prickle your eyes as you smile.

"Yeah...thanks for coming, Kazuha..."

At the mention of his name his expression seemed to soften even more.

He held his hand to you. His eyes, pleading, tempting you to take it.

You worried about your mother, something told you this was the last time you would be seeing her at all. But you couldn't find it in yourself to not go with him.

You felt bad for your mom but she would understand, right? You would be with the person you love! Your own happy ever after.

You were never seen again.

----------------------------------------------------------

Ok so now that it's over let's go to headcannons!

So basically all i did was add my own twist to kitsune lore and some yokai marriage shit i saw in anime.

‌Kitsunes usually exude a specific type of charm magic that makes people more likely to be attracted to them but that's all that it is, it's just some kind of pre-disposition, it does not mean the human will always fall in love with that kitsune or that the kitsune themselves will reciprocate.

‌However helping a kitsune can be considered "courting" and if you strike their fancy they'll mark you(usually done by a kiss) and you'll be mates for life.

‌The mark can usually take many forms. In Kazuha's case his cheek kiss gave you a mark that resembled a little maple leaf.

‌Their charm magic ends up making it harder for their partner to say no, it's a pretty much dub-con of sorts.

‌Kazuha didn't let you touch his ears cause that's something only family and a romantic partner is allowed to do. For kitsunes the act of petting one's ears is very intimate.

‌Asking to touch their tails, however, is fine. It isn't considered as intimate

#genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #kaedehara kazuha x reader #kazuha x reader #yokai au #kitsune #KirarinWritting #fem reader

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deliahscrush2003 · 2 years

Note

Is there anything you do when you don’t have motivation or ideas? Lately I’ve wanted to write more stuff on my characters, make more art, and work on my novel, however, anytime I start, I have no idea what to do. I tried looking at writing prompts, but the same things keep happening. It’s been happening for the past few days and it’s just been really demotivating and makes me feel just generally bad. So, if there’s any advice you have, I’d appreciate it so much <3

Sorry it took so long to answer @apollothe-sungod !!

Thank you dearly for this ask and I hope it really helps with your motivation/inspiration drought. I know all of us have faced that problem too many times for our liking and anything advice I can give that can get you back on the wagon, I'll happily give!

I hope you have a happy 2022 with heaps of inspiration and motivation for your works and wish nothing but good things for you and your loved ones in the future!

What To Do When You Have No Motivation and Need Inspiration?

Watch Movies or TV- Shows ||

If your struggling with motivation, re-watch canon (for fanfic) or stick with genres that are the same or similar to what you're writing (for more original ideas). If you are missing a certain aspect of the narrative, watch movies and tv-shows of that genre or with that theme.

If you're struggling with what your character's mannerisms, behaviour, dialogue - think. What canon characters in film and television are most alike to your character? Watch their films to get inspiration!

This is what I spend a lot of my down time doing when I'm not writing.

Read fanfiction/Books ||

Same thing as movies except books and fanfiction can show you how to describe action, suspense and worldbuilding. You can really get inspiration from others narrative style and techniques. Also, it just really helps when you see the motivation and the ideas of these fantastic creators and it just really pushes you and gets you into this mindset of like, "Hey - I want to do this with my own story."

I'll said it once and I'll say it again - fanfiction writers are one of my biggest influences for writing.

Go for a walk/drive/sit outside ||

I have the best ideas when I'm outside - which is ironic, because I hate leaving my house. Even just going with your parents to the grocery store or just sitting on your driveway, you can get so much ideas for scenes and possible stories.

There's this really dark, long lane near where I lived and we always had to wait facing it when we were stopped at the traffic lights and to this day, I remember the little story that I made up of 'Murder Lane' and the mysterious, charismatic people who lived down it.

Hell, we were driving out of our street once and I looked out the window and saw a small gecko (lizard) on an electrical box and I was just like 'Huh, wouldn't that we a weird scene starter?)

There's this hill near where I live that looks over the entire town and the beachfront, and when I used to pick my sister up from dance practice, I would always play INXS "Never Tear Us Apart" and now I have an entire prologue inspired from that one moment already planned out to the very last detail.

Just go somewhere new. Get outside. Sit on the driveway. The pavement. The road (if there isn't any cars, of course). Visit the river, or the forest at the back of your street. A hill, a valley, a meadow. Night, day, dawn, dusk, midday, morning.

Whenever. The point is - a chance in scenery can really do the trick.

Listen to music & Make a playlist ||

I would like to correct myself. I listen to music and make playlist when I'm not writing, and that's how I come up with most of my storylines/plotlines. I'm usually home alone, so I just put on Spotify and connect it to my speaker, and play my music really loudly to get it so it's feels like a movie.

I'm literally right now listening to "Hunger" by Ross Copperman and singing along while I write this (quite sloppily, I should add). I finished a new playlist for my Jurassic Park fic, The Chaos Theory yesterday and now I have really gotten a good grasp on how the romance plotline is going to go when before I had a really vague idea which really held me back from approaching the fic.

Music is such a big inspiration for writing. Most of the music on my a more savage narnia (than the one you left) playlist helped me picture ballroom scenes and helped me understand some of the emotional moments I plan for some of my characters to have.

I have found that asking other creators for their playlists and song inspiration have really widened my own range and taste of music, allowing me to get more inspiration from themes and genres outside of my comfort range, so asking others for their playlist might help.

But listening to music can also help with your drawing also. I was listening to my True Blue playlist while drawing my Pacific Rim OC, Indianna Taylor.

I'm working on a playlist for My Hero Academia fic, As the World Caves In if you're interested! Mind you, if you want to request playlists for different fandoms, I can certainly make them for you and anyone else who also struggles with inspiration/motivation?

Browse through Tumblr, Pinterest, Tik-Tok etc ||

If you have these social media platforms, they can be really good source material for aesthetic and little ideas that people like to see. Tik Tok has admittingly some amazing and underrated creators with super cool edits and artworks. Pinterest is a great source for aesthetics and creating your character's personality, attitudes, outfits, voice, behaviour and beliefs.

And you also have our very own Tumblr! Look through the tags of the fandom you're writing for and look at the latest news, artwork, headcannon and analysis of canon characters and plotline to get ideas on how you can approach your story/fic from a new angle!

Ask your friends, parents, siblings for ideas ||

Now, I know what you're thinking. What if my friends/parents/siblings aren't into fanfiction or OCs or stories. Well, you don't actually have to tell them what you're asking your questions for.

See, I used to play a game with my sisters when we went to the shopping centre late at night. It was a huge mall and it was mostly empty at night, so we would sit at the bottom and I would ask them, "Quick! Think! What would you do if the zombie apocalypse happened right now and one came right through that door!"

And we would sit there and come up with escape plans and stuff, and it would turn into a whole 'then after I steal a school bus, I'm going to this military base and than I'm going here after' and BAM! I got a half-decent story idea coming up.

Just asking hypothetical questions like 'what would you do in a zombie apocalypse' or 'how would you win the hunger games' or ' how would you go about in a horror movie' can help you understand how other people think and soon enough, their responses become the plotlines for side characters.

Fun Fact: most of the sibling characters in my fics like Seiren and Tora Blanche from my Agents of Fate fic (Fairy Tail) were actually inspired by my real-life sisters.

Also, a lot of the dialogue from the earlier chapters from my Teen Wolf fic Breathe for Me was inspired from stuff I heard my parents say (mostly my Dad because he's hilarious).

Sometime you get sick of hearing yourself over and over again, so go listen to someone else! Go look on reddit even, message your friends, ask your siblings/parents random questions, hell - feel free to drop a random hypothetical in my inbox for my own response!

Talk to other creators ||

Most importantly, talk to us!

Feel free to come to any of your close mutuals or anyone who has opened their ask box for your convenience as we are always up to talk about OCs, exchange tips and advice, help with inspiration and recommendations as well as helping to round and develop your OCs and plotlines if needed.

All the creators in the OC Community are very friendly and approachable in my experience but I understand that it can be a daunting and anxious experience to talk to new people, even on the internet.

So, to any OC creators, fanfiction writers, and original writers who are seeing this, please let us know by reblogging or commenting below if you are free to chat!

My inbox and my messages are always open to any and all if you want to talk OCs 😊

TAGLIST: @lokitrasho || @foxesandmagic || @wordspin-shares ||

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shushiyuii · 3 years

Note

tiny avian tommy getting put in a specific time out for being a little gremlin by a giant sbi member of your choice bonus if its his first time so he doesn't know its safe

Ooop-

Warnings: Self esteem struggles and Soft vore

Words: 1.6K+

Aren't I good enough?!

One way to describe Tommy Danger Kraken Innit Minecraft? Ultimately awesome! Not only was he siblings with the famous and righteous Technoblade! A warrior, no a God! Who tore down his enemies so easily nobody stood a chance! Then there was the musician of the seas.

Wilbur Soot Minecraft, his older brother, and talented musician, known all throughout the world for his talented music, just a simple word he utters makes you fall under his spell like a siren.

And his father, the legend, Philza Minecraft himself, God was he awesome. He was known throughout as the angel of death, everyone cowers before him as the lover of death, but also with his accomplishments of defeating the Enderdragon.

To say his family was a big deal was really the honest truth, but what was to be said of Tommy? That he was an asshole gremlin child? The probably weakest hybrid around? Or the fact he couldn’t eat meat due to the fact that he was in fact part hummingbird?

Which made usually eat flowers like his friend Tubbo? It wasn’t his fault he was born this way! Eventually, he’d be just as terrifying, legendary and talented as everyone else! They just had to watch!

That was what he thought as he was in a field, tending to nearby flowers and snacking on some on occasion. He thought to himself, “What do I have?”. He didn’t see himself particularly talented at anything besides his weird sense of humour and being able to mend clothes, it made him think a lot about what was to come of himself.

“Tommy!”. His friends called him from across the field, he could see the bee hybrid Tubbo flying towards him, at least Tubbo could fly, Tubbo couldn’t even fly himself. “You okay, Big man?” Tommy snapped out of his thoughts, whatever sorrowful expression on his face faded in an instant as he yelled excitingly, “Course I am! Why wouldn’t I be?!”.

“For a moment there you lo-“, “Tommy Danger Kraken Innit Minecraft has never felt or looked like such a thing known as sadness! Only women! Disks! And you Big man!”.

“What about me?”. Ranboo said amusingly as he teleported over to the two, “With some exceptions…” Tommy muttered, quietly showing his affection towards Ranboo before switching it up, “I don’t give two-shits about you Ranboo!”. To which made Tubbo and Ranboo laugh.

The two walked through the field of flowers for a while until sitting down on the flowers to allow Tubbo to snack on them. The three of them conversed until Tommy slowly stopped to respond so much or adding more to the conversation.

He began to go deep into thought again, wandering about his strengths that were easily outweighed by the negatives, The two laughed but stopped when Tommy asked, “Hey guys, what am I good at?...”.

Tubbo looked over to Ranboo a bit confused by the question but answered, “You’re uhm… Funny!”. “And you’re great at insulting people?”. But that ultimately failed, “I mean seriously.”. And the two didn’t answer, seeming to think of an answer when Tommy took it as nothing to say.

“Don’t worry about it then”. As he stood off and walked to a nearby edge, the two stood and ran over to Tommy to try and stop him from jumping off, telling him to “Wait!” but it was too late, he was already gone.

He opened his wings into a gliding position as he couldn’t fly and gliding slowly towards the forest below. He thought about what his family would say but probably would just get laughed at.

He landed with a thump as he abruptly ended his flight, walking to the nearby pond and sat down. Then proceeded to throw stones into the said pond until dawn as he made his way home.

As he entered the house, he was greeted by his family, but he ignored them in favour of going up to his room, all attempts at conversation as they approached his room asking for either assistance or whatever was the matter with the gremlin but to get no response.

The next day everybody was meeting up in the said flower field, he was in previously. But this time Tommy seemed a lot more obnoxious than usual, any attempts at getting his guard down would only be met with more of his uptight yelling and boasts about himself.

For some reason, nobody could get through to Tommy as he ran around annoying everybody, so in order to find a solution he approached his brother’s best friend, to find Tubbo looking just as confused, “Hey Tubs”. Tubbo snapped out of whatever thoughts of losing his sanity were happening and smiled at Wilbur, “Hey Wil!”. “Do you know what's happening with Toms?”.

The two looked over to Tommy to confirm both their thoughts to see a screaming gremlin in Technoblades arms, being held back from attacking Ranboo for whatever reason Ranboo did to somehow anger him.

“I’m not really sure, he seemed upset about something yesterday.”, “Did he tell you anything in particular?”. “Uhm, I mean- He did ask if he was good at anything, like a serious question and me and Ranboo was thinking about it, then he ran off!”.

Wilbur thought about it for a moment, but before he could come to a conclusion all hell broke loose as Tommy was inevitably causing more chaos than needed, yelling profanities at the top of his lungs for no reason in particular.

“Right”. Philza raised his voice at the boy. “What is going on with you?!”. Tommy looked at him perplexed for a moment until letting his guard down for a moment, looking down guiltily and Phil looked at him in concern until he yelled out.

“Absolutely fine Philza Minecraft the legend! Amazing at everything he does!”. There seemed to be something in particular about that statement, something oddly specific. Despite him often praising his father for whatever he does it was never as specific as that. Just small praises.

But before they could continue more, Tommy had run off the ledge again into obscurity. Nobody really knowing where the avian was going to go, but somebody did know, Wilbur knew. It was a spot he took Tommy to when he was younger and would always go there when upset.

So, Wilbur ran off to find him.

Wilbur took a different route, one that allowed him to hide under the surface of the water, you see Wilbur’s words were actually able to send you under a spell since he was actually a siren. A size-shifting siren to be specific.

He transformed when he touched the waters surface, his legs turning into a beautiful scaly tail and his hands turning claws, his eyes becoming more fishlike as they looked more dilated and fish-like. He swam forwards until he found the avian sitting under a tree, looking miserable.

An old trick should do the trick, when Wilbur and the family would take Tommy on adventures, especially when he was younger, in cases of danger he’d be sent to one of their storage stomachs for protection, but that wasn’t the only thing it was used for, if he was being particularly annoying or wanted comfort, he could also be sent there, as a form of comfort.

He quickly swam upwards, quickly breaching the surface and growing gigantic. Tommy screamed as he was scooped but although quickly, was also careful as he threw Tommy into his mouth and quickly swallowed, sending him to his brood pouch.

When Tommy landed safely within, he could feel the boy kick and punch as he yelled “Unhand me you- you prick!” Wilbur couldn’t help but burst into laughter at this.

“Wil? What the fuck man! You scared me!”. Wilbur hummed in response, still giggly about the situation. “Well, sorry gremlin but you’ve been on everyone’s nerves today!”. Then he went silent much to Wilbur’s confusion, “What’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird all day?”.

There was another moment of silence when Tommy asked, “Wil, am I good enough?”. Which caught Wilbur completely off guard, why would Tommy even think such a thing, he laid a hand over his stomach and rubbed circles soothingly. Completely confused.

“I- Toms, of course, you’re good enough! Why wouldn’t you think so?!”. He yelled somewhat concerned and confused at the fact his brother was thinking such things. “I- I’m not good at anything like all of you..”.

“What are you on about Toms?! Of course, you’re good at-“ He was cut off when Tommy yelled, “I mean like talented! You can sing! Techno can fight! Dad- Dad is Dad! He can do so many things! He’s-“.

The stomach walls pressed in on him, cutting him off. “Tommy, you listen to me now. You may not think much as such, but I think you’re a natural-born leader, you’re able to sway so many and command accordingly when so many people need it, remember that time you stopped everyone from fighting? You did all that by yourself!”.

“You may not be as strong as Technoblade but you’re smart and crafty and can hold your own just as well, you’ve impressed Techno so many times with what you’ve achieved. All of us couldn’t be more proud of you as a brother! We all care about you.”.

He could hear soft sobs, and he continued to rub circles, hushing the boy as well. Soon after, they were found by Phil and Techno who joined in the efforts of comforting the boy shortly. And all laid there for the night, keeping Tommy safe like they used to.

Maybe his family did have the answers after all.

#mcyt g/t #mcytg/t #dsmp g/t #giant!wilbur #giant!phil #giant!techno #tiny!tubbo #tiny!ranboo #tiny!tommy #tw vore #shushi's writings

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artnigth · 3 years

Text

Migraines Part 3 (Final)

Took longer that I expected to finish this but I made it! This is the final part of this four day project of mine! Enjoy!!

MIGRAINES PART 3:

It was a lovely spring day, the flower were blooming, bees buzzing, and the fair had just moved into a lovely small-ish town in the middle of Oregon. The fair brought hundreds of shows and games with it, among those hundreds of shows were The Aquatos, a family of acrobats with a taste for danger. Their booth was up and running, the show was about to start. A thirteen-year-old Dion was waiting in the backstage area of the Aquatodome. His legs shaking, his stomach turning and the world was starting to spin. He wasn’t nervous though, he had performed for way bigger audiences in other cities. It was the whispers, voices echoing on his mind, scaring him of the gibberish they were saying. This happened every once in a while but never this strong or whenever his family was about to perform. This made him panic. Frazie and Raz, who were nine and seven years old, were stretching with Donatella. Agustus was checking the nets and safety measures to make sure nothing went wrong. While Nonna was looking after the two youngest kids in the family, Mirtala who was almost three, and Queepie who was just six months old. “Okay Aquatos! Everyone go to your positions were starting this show!”- Donatella sounded determined and excited, like always. Dread filled his system as he walked into the stage alongside two of his siblings, the whispers becoming louder with each step, so much his ears started to ring. Donatella’s voice becoming muted, the world spinning and his skin becoming pale. Nevertheless, the show started.

The show was going well enough, the Aquatos pirouetted and performed like they had all done ever since Dion had memory. Then the final trick of the show rolled around “The Aquato Tower” the voices claimed all of Dion’s attention, he tried his best but the sounds around him became muted, he was standing on his father's shoulders who was standing on his mother's feet who was upsidedown. Dion was balancing Raz on his head, and Raz was supporting Frazie with his arms as she stood upsidedown. Sweat dripped down Dion’s forehead, his head ached enough with the voices, but with his two younger siblings on top of him, the pain became almost unbearable. Now came the final part of the trick that would close the show. Frazie jumped and landed all the way to the right, Raz flipped on his head and proceeded to jump off, landing right next to Frazie. Dion’s turn, his stomach was up on his throat, his mind was breaking and his world was becoming a hurricane of colors and shapes. But he still pulled through, Dion climbed into his father’s head and he jumped. Spinning on the air Dion lost focus for a couple of seconds the feeling of gravity pulling him to the ground snapping him back to reality, Dion landed on his feet right next to Raz. But the world didn’t stop spinning, the voices didn’t stop and his throat threatened to spill all his lunch on the stage. “THANK YOU FOR COMING!!”- his mother’s voice broke his daze, and along with his family, he bowed down and walked back into the backstage. Dion fell on his knees, his breathing unbalanced and too fast for someone his age. His father carried him all the way to the family's caravan and placed the boy on his wore down bed and helped him breathe as Dion passed out.

Hours passed and in the middle of the night Dion woke up. He saw four of his five siblings sleeping peacefully around him. His youngest sibling was obviously in his cradle that was placed in the living room of the caravan. Dion snuck out of the room to go to the bathroom, stopping in front of his parent's room. The muffled voices of his parents leaking through the door. Dion got closer curious about what they could be arguing about at this hour.

“Don’t be ridiculous, he can’t be!” said his father with indignation on his tone.

“It could be! Augustus, my love. Neither of us knows how the curse could evolve with time. Your mother isn’t explaining anything and Dion was completely fine this morning. He described voices in his head, he could be suffering from a worst version of your family’s curse.” His mother was scared, even though she wasn’t an Aquato by blood the curse could still work on her, though no one except Nonna knew for sure. “Think about it, it’s exactly the type of trick those dammed fortune tellers would pull. Cursing a bloodline to die in water and then turning all generations that follow into people like them. Making the presence of the curse unforgettable, and cursing said children with nightmarish torments, like what’s happening to-

Dion ran down the stair, he wouldn’t let the end of that sentence haunt the rest of his life. He grabbed a bag and began to pack food, water, and some medicine. He finally knew what he was, part of a curse to his family. Well, he wasn’t about to help that fucking curse kill his whole family. Even if it meant never seeing Nonna, his parents, or his siblings ever again, he wouldn’t allow it. Tears were building up in his eyes, he brushed them away with his sleeve. He couldn’t afford to make any noise or to break down at that moment.

In a hurry Dion let a bottle of water fall on the floor of the living room. He froze, waiting for someone to catch him, for someone to show up and do something to stop him.

Nothing…

With a sigh, Dion picked up the bottle from the ground and continued his way to the door. “Waaah?” a high-pitched voice sounded behind Dion, Queepie was awake. His small hands rising to try and grab Dion not realizing how far away he really was. Dion turned to look at his youngest brother. His innocent eyes reflecting Dion’s miserable expression. Turning away was hard but Dion barely managed. Queepie saw his oldest brother turning away and started to cry. Queepie was a baby, he was awake and Dion was the only person around. So at the sight of him leaving the baby started to cry. With a hand on the door Dion dropped his bag and pushes it under the small sofa they had. He made his way to the cradle and picked up his brother, trying to calm him down. Eventually, Dion started to softly cry alongside his brother hugging him tight and letting the night pass. Quietly promising to do whatever he could to fix himself, to keep his family together no matter what.

Four years had passed since that secret incident, it was a summer morning. Dion and the rest of his siblings were woken up by Mirtala’s sobbing. The little six-year-old held a piece of paper to dear life, and Frazie noticed Razputin was nowhere in sight. “Tala what´s wrong?” Dion stood up to check on Mirtala, half asleep but still very much concerned. Mirtala showed him the note, still bawling her eyes out. He took the note and started to read. Every word from that letter felt like a punch in the gut mixed with a stab in the heart. When he finished he felt numb. In such shock that the concept of his little brother running away to who knows where hadn’t been fully processed.

“What does it say?!” Frazie said while shaking him out of his daze. Rage was the only feeling he could suddenly feel, he handed Frazie the letter and made his way outside before he took it out on his other siblings. Going down the stair he listened as Frazie screamed from their room out of, rage? sadness? He didn’t know and he couldn’t help anyway so why should he care? When Dion was finally in the living room he proceeded to ignore his parent’s questions and just ran outside.

Dion grabbed a stone and threw it into oblivion, doing the same thing with every other rock he found in the valley they had temporarily settled to rest.

Tears ran down his face the more rocks he threw, sadness and grief mixed with his rage, the voices coming back as a result. It had been months since he had heard those whispers, he thought he had finally fixed himself. But now they were back and he felt hopeless. He fell to his knees and just sobbed. He failed on the one thing he wanted to make sure he didn’t. One piece of his family was gone and they didn’t even get to know why. Razputin never mentioned where he was going, just that he was done and couldn’t take it anymore. His mother slowly walked out of their caravan and went to check on him. Her eyes red made it obvious she had been crying as well. She knelt next to him and hugged him as he continued to cry in her arms.

Now he was walking with Gisu in the Forgetful Forest at night, her scarf was placed on his shoulders and they were still holding hands. Gisu’s hair was a pulled-back mess, the only thing keeping it from tangling was her now loose ponytail. His hair wasn’t much better, his ponytail was holding it together but his bangs were a curly mess hanging in front of his face. His eyes were red, he had finally stopped crying, but the tear marks were still fresh on his face. Gisu’s skateboard was following them not far behind, cracks showing in its surface. The whispers were still there, they weren’t leaving this time and Dion knew that. They walked all the way in silence and Dion already suspected that Gisu would probably not want to see him ever again after this mess. The idea almost brought him to tears once again. They were reaching the limit of the forest to the campgrounds where his family was located. Dread built up in him as he saw the people who were there. His mother sitting on the floor being comforted by his father, Frazie was comforting Queepie and Mirtala was checking on Nonna as she sat on a bench looking concerned. Guilt crept into his mind since he just killed his grandmother’s boyfriend. And that was a really weird thought.

At the sight of his family, Dion stopped walking, stoping Gisu with him. “What’s wrong?” she said in a soft tone. “I can’t… Not after what I did.” He sounded altered, the events of that afternoon coming back to his mind in a painful flash. “C’mon I’m sure your family will be glad that you’re okay. And if something happens I’ll cover your back!” The same soft smirk that she met him with in the clear was placed on her face. That cursed smirk always managed to comfort Dion, he had no idea how. “okay…” They moved forward towards the light from outside the forest. And for the first time in four years, Dion wishes he had actually left on that spring night.

Never has Dion been tackled into a hug by Frazie. His sisters arms crushing his ribcage. “YOU IDIOT, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!! QUEEPIE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD” Her tone made it obvious that it wasn’t just Queepie who thought that. “I’m sorry Frazie” he hugged her back softly, too tired to come up with a snarky response. Dion looked past Frazie and met Queepies tearful stare. “I’m sorry Queepie.” His youngest brother tackling them both in another hug. “DION AQUATO!!” Augustus’ voice rumbled through the campgrounds, his tome mixed enough that his emotions were impossible to tell. Both of the Aquato parents run and tackle three of their children, by this moment Mirtala quietly joins the hug.

“DION!!!” Raz came out of nowhere and kicks his brother in the knee, hard enough to make his presence clear but soft enough to not actually hurt him. Joining his family in the group hug even if for only a second.

Nonna stayed close but didn’t join the hug. Ford was nowhere to be seen. Gisu stood at the boundary of the forest glad that this situation didn’t backfire. “Son, why didn’t you tell us?”Augustus’ voice had calmed down and was very concerned. “I… what do you mean?” Dion was confused but he got what his father meant. “Ford ended up landing here and told us everything” Donatella was clearly tired since they had been looking Dion for hours. “… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” Dion started to cry again, Gisu wondered if he needed a glass of water since he had been crying so much in the last couple of hours. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t… Nonna I’m so sorry…”

This took everyone by surprise, why Nonna specifically. He scared all of them half to death after all. “Dion explain yourself.” Frazie was paniking a little. Because, well, Dion disappeared for an entire afternoon. Then Ford finds him and gets thrown all the way to the campgrounds. And finally, Gisu, who looks like she just survived a tornado, finds him broken and desperate. “I… I… I killed Ford cruller…”

Silence

“What?” everyone said in unison. What did he just say? Killed Ford cruller… “Oh, Dion… You didn’t kill Ford cruller. As I said Ford landed here and told us everything. I don’t think he could have told us you were lost if he was dead.”

“What?” Dion was dumbfounded. He should have asked Gisu… He should have definitely asked Gisu. All this time… Literal hours of unending misery, and he didn’t even kill the guy. “Are you sure? A hundred percent sure?”

“Unless I’m a ghost their pretty sure, boy.” Ford cruller appeared from the forest and stood next to Gisu. “By the way Razputin, I might be back at my prime as a psychic but I’m still sixty-two years old. I can’t suddenly start sprinting out of nowhere.”

“I didn’t kill anybody… Good god, I’m the worst.” The Aquatos finally separated the massive group hug and let Dion make his way to Ford. “Agent cruller I’m so sorry for… throwing you all the way here from the forest. And for screaming at you.” Dion meant this, he felt guilty not just for what he did to Ford but for what he did to everyone. “It’s okay boy, I understand. Things are obviously still tense and it’s fine, you’re a teenager I know how hard it can be. Especially as a psychic. Which speaking of...” Ford reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cloth bag. Opening the bag, there were five small purple rocks. Psitanium. Cruller took one out of the bag and placed it on Dion’s hand. “Now focus your mind on this little piece of psitanium. Think of nothing but this little piece.”

Dion did as he was told, focusing all of his attention on that little piece. The constant whispers fading into the back of his mind, and for the first time in the whole day, Dion felt relief. But now, he needed to face the music. He was truly a psychic and this was his life now. “Did the voices stop?” Asked Ford. “Yes… They’re gone…”

“Well, here you go.” Ford handed Dion that little bag. “If you or any of your siblings have an issue with their abilities. You can use one of those bad boys to help and dull them down a little.” Dion was speechless, he felt no words would be able to convey how many mixed feelings he had at that moment. “thank you…”

“Mom, can we have dinner now?” Queepie broke the silence. Leave it to a toddler to break the awkward silence. “Yes Queepie, we can have dinner now…”

Everyone sighed and began to move towards the caravan, with Ford, Dion, and Gisu staying behind. “Gisu, Ford would you like to stay for dinner?” Augustus’ voice was kind of tense but it was mostly kind. “Actually dad… I think Gisu needs to leave. We’ve been taking too much of her time.” Dion’s voice was soft, not rude at all. Gisu knew that. “Yeah… Thank you for the offer but I need to get back home before Sam locks me out.” Gisu understood and started to walk out of the campgrounds. Dion following behind. “I’ll go with her to the bus stop, I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

The campgrounds were left behind them as they walked back to the Motherlobe. They once again walk in silence, an awkward silence this time. Gisu’s scarf was still over Dion’s shoulders. A couple of steps more and she’ll be gone, on a bus to the nearest town over for the night. Dion had so much to say and so little time.

“I’m sorry”

“For what?”

“For today, for everything.”

“Everything?”

Dion fell silent. This is what he needed to do. After all she did for him, apologizing was the least he could do. “Calling you in the morning to hang out just to dip last minute, almost throwing you into oblivion in the forest, annoying you about my stupid psychic theories… and everything else…” Dion was calm, trying to mentally prepare himself for Gisu’s response. “It’s okay. You don’t need to apologize” “Yes I do! I wasted your time with my stupid crisis. You don’t deserve to be bothered with my issues…” Dion was determined to make his point clear. This was one part of his life he never wanted to regret. “… If I’m here is because I want to be, no one forced me to stay and wait for you. No one forced me to look for you, I wanted to because I care about you, Dion.” Her tone was warm and sad. Gisu’s mind was more at peace about what happened than Dion’s, she knew what her objective was in this whole situation. She just wanted Dion to be okay and she trusted his family to make sure he gets the treatment he needs.

They were now on the Motherlobe’s bus stop. The bus would arrive shortly. Dion took Gisu’s scarf and placed it on her shoulders in silence. He grabbed her hair and fixed it into her typical ponytail. He made his way to her bangs and fixed their shape pulling them out of her face. Both of their cheeks tuning a litte red from embarrassment during the process. In the end, Gisu looked like she did at the beginning of the day. “Thank you. For everything.” “What do you mean by everything now?” Gisu said in between giggles. “Just… everything.”

The bus came to a stop in front of them, the doors opening and the conductor not minding the two teenagers who were having a moment. “I guess you need to go now…” Yeah…” Gisu made her way to the bus and stepped on the entrance. Stopping for a moment and turning around. She pushed Dion's hair out of his face and leaned in, placing a soft kiss on his forehead. Dion was starstruck as he watched Gisu back away and the bus leave the stop heading back to the road. His face slowly turned red and he realizing that he needed to go back to his family. A tough night of conversations was ahead of them. But he knew that maybe tomorrow would be a better day. Tomorrow, he would work his best to be better.

#dion aquato #headcanon: psychic dion #psychonauts #psychonauts2 #psychonauts razputin #psychonauts gisu #ford cruller

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brutal-nemesis · 3 years

Text

Forest Day 2021: Un-cursing a Forest Tutorial (Gone Wrong)

Come into the woods with me, won’t you? I promise everything will be super normal and it’s totally not a little over 5k words hahahahahaha

Castys Masterlist

Ingredients: cannibalism mention, plant/animal/body horror (there is a lot of this and it is weird and kind of gross at times so this is your warning), acid burns, i use the word “pustules” multiple times, eye whump, gore, suicide for convenience

Castys woke up to darkness.

His head was pounding, so it was sort of nice, but much less nice when he tried to move and discovered his arms were tied behind his back. Upon further investigation, he realized he was gagged and blindfolded as well.

Great.

He sat up and was just starting to try and get his gag out using his shoulder when a pair of hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. He tried to jerk out of their grasp, but a second person grabbed his other arm, and then it was all he could do to keep up as they hauled him to wherever. The ground changed from something solid feeling to something dirt-sounding, and then solid again after the creak of a door opening.

“He’s awake, Chief.”

“Thank you. Just leave him and wait outside.” One of the men kicked the back of Castys’s legs, forcing him to his knees. He was tempted to get up once he felt their hands leave him, but he figured it would be best to just wait and see what the hell was going on for now. Once the blindfold was removed, he tried to look around, but a rough hand grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up at his captor, a strong looking woman with her dark hair in a complicated braid. She examined him with concern. “I didn’t think you would look this young.” Her free hand untied the gag, and she gently pulled it out of his mouth. “You are him, and not just some child, right?”

“Nope, just a child. A nineteen year old boy. Not immortal, so I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I never said I was looking for an immortal.”

Castys opened and closed his mouth a few times, blinking. “I-okay that one’s on me. Hooray, you caught me.” He glared up at her. “Now what do you want?”

She let go of him, stepping back and crossing her arms. “I am Citlali, the chief of Nauhiliv’s Hollow. For centuries, my people have-”

“I’m not really in the mood for a history lesson, so just get to the-”

“Either shut up and let me talk or I will gag you again.” Castys rolled his eyes. “I promise it’s relevant, alright?”

“Fine.”

Citlali took a deep breath and began again. “For centuries, the people of Nauhiliv’s Hollow have lived as one with the forest, taking only what we need from its bounty, hunting and gathering from the lands around us. But now,” she looked away, “now the forest is...twisted. What was once a familiar place has become dark and horrifying, and they are now far too dangerous to hunt in. Everyone we have sent in to find the source of the curse has not yet returned.” She took a shuddering breath before looking back at Castys. “You, however, can’t die. So would you-”

“How much will you pay me?”

“Just...this.” She held up a small leather pouch, one that looked kind of like...Castys hurriedly looked down, feeling his stomach twist when he didn’t see the familiar string around his neck.

“You took my-give it back! How did you even find out about that?!” Castys fought to keep his voice even, his fists clenched behind him. That pouch was important to him, it had his rock that allowed him to kill himself easily and painlessly, and it also had...he just needed it, dammit.

“You’re apparently, ah, quite chatty when you’re drunk.” She twirled the pouch on her finger lazily. “So, if you lift the forest’s curse, you’ll get it back. And until then, my other half is going to keep it safe in a pocket dimension, where even a notorious thief like you can’t get to it.”

Castys’s face darkened. “That’s-if you wanted me to help you why didn’t you just, I don’t know, ask instead of fucking kidnapping me and stealing my shit?”

“Because I’ve heard tell that you’re a selfish asshole who definitely wouldn’t help us unless we paid you a ton of money or forced you to. And since we’re not exactly drowning in cash…”

Castys mulled it over for a moment, wiggling his hands against the ropes. “Yeah okay that’s fair. I still hate you, but that’s fair.”

Citlali rolled her eyes. “Are you going to do it, then? Because if not,” she stalked over and grabbed Castys’s chin tightly, forcing him to look up at her, “I could think of a different way you could help my people, immortal.”

“I promise you, I taste terrible.” Citlali flinched back, letting go of Castys’s face.

“What-no that isn’t-I meant I was going to sell you, idiot! That’s so-we’re nowhere near desperate enough to eat…” she shook her head.

“Okay, sorry, I figured if you were desperate enough to kidnap me you were also desperate enough to want to eat me and my infinite flesh.”

“Those two are absolutely not the same level of-look, are you going to do it or not? Because if not I will sell you and keep your precious-”

“I’ll go kill your stupid forest curse thing,” Castys sighed. “Being sold is super annoying, and escaping will be way harder without my rock.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Can you untie me now?”

“Do you promise not to try to run off? You won’t be able to get your pouch back by force, and this village is surrounded by these cursed woods except for a single, well guarded road, so there really won’t be any point in trying, anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Castys got to his feet after she freed him, rubbing his chafed wrists as he looked down at his very empty belt. “You’re going to give me my sword back for this, right? I know I can’t die but fuck if I’m going in there without a weapon.”

“You can have your sword, and the small amount of supplies we can spare, once the sun rises and you set out. Until then,” she gestured to the door, “let Tlaloc and Meztli show you where you can sleep.”

~~~

Castys took a deep breath as he looked up at the trees towering over him, gripping his pack tightly. They looked like normal trees to him, and he was sort of disappointed that they didn’t look...creepier? He expected this horrible cursed forest to look more horrible and cursed, especially with all the trouble that bitch went through to make him do this. He glanced back, but Citlali and the guards were still behind him, and she waved her hand at him to get going. Sighing, he started walking into the forest, hoping this whole “curse” thing was just some asshole wizard kids playing a trick.

Soon enough, he spaced out listening to the forest sounds. The rustling of the wind in the branches, the chirping of birds, the faint screaming...wait what. No, yeah that was screaming or something. He looked around frantically for the source of it, just now noticing that the trees were...different, somehow. They sort of...shimmered, moving in a strange way. Cautiously, he approached the nearest trunk and studied it. It was...it was moving, the whole surface shifting and crawling, like it was covered completely in bugs. O-kay then.

Moving on.

Castys wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to look for. That chief lady had really just sent him in here with the very helpful instruction of “fix it”, like he had ever un-cursed a forest before. He didn’t know where he was supposed to go, or...where he even was. He’d been trying to walk in a straight line, but the way behind him looked unfamiliar, as if the trees and plants had decided to move around while he wasn’t looking. Well, it appeared that wandering aimlessly was his only option now. Delightful.

Maybe he should do something as he walked along to help pass the time. Not that he didn’t mind walking around in nature, this place was just...he pulled out his rekara, twirling it between his fingers for a moment before putting it to his lips and blowing, tapping his fingers on the slender instrument’s holes to play a stupid little tune. It covered up the faint screaming sound quite nicely, and it eventually attracted a little bird, which fluttered down on a nearby branch. It was a very normal-looking one, with plain brown feathers and cute lil’ eyes.

When it opened its mouth to chirp at him, though, another scream rang out through the forest, so loud it sounded like it was coming from right next to Castys. Startled, he jumped a bit, stumbling back and tripping over a tree root or something, falling right on his ass. Frantically, he looked around for the source of the scream, but there was no one around him, as far as he could tell. “Anyone screaming out there?!” he called as he stood up, but he was met with silence. Well, not silence silence but just...nothing un-ambient. Maybe the trees were screaming. It could be a tree thing.

The bird was still sitting there staring at him, and oh my fuck it’s the bird isn’t it-again, the bird opened its beak, and again, a horrible scream echoed around him. Well wasn’t that nice. A bird that screamed like a person. Castys slowly backed away, hoping the little thing’s only weird quality was the noise it made. Once he felt like he’d gotten far enough away, he turned and ran, and he was only running to cover more ground quickly, not because he was scared, no, a little unsettled, maybe, but not scared.

He stopped to catch his breath after a few minutes, and as he stood there panting, he realized the forest around him had grown even more...strange. The trees actively waved in the air now, though there was no wind, and many of their branches hung limp, like they were made of cloth or something and not solid wood. Their bark still glistened and crawled, swirling into strange, mesmerizing patterns. The leaves of all the plants were different now, too, having taken on a sickly pink color, almost like...light-colored skin. Tasty.

Okay, yeah, something was obviously very wrong and cursed here, but he still had no clue what the fuck to do about it. He’s been hoping he could find...he didn’t know, something that looked like the source of it, like a very giant tree with a hole in it or perhaps a big magic crystal or an evil bear. But all around him were just normal sized haunted trees and no crystals and weird greenish mold and all the plants with their gross fleshy leaves-wait that mold or whatever was new. He crouched down and pulled out his knife so he could poke at it.

Upon closer inspection, it was like...little green pustules clustered together on the surface of the shifting tree bark. He used the tip of his knife to prod one of them, but it burst far more easily than he had been expecting, splattering greenish goop all over his hand, and it burned. Crying out, he dropped his knife and looked frantically around for water or something he could use to get this awful stuff off because dying wouldn’t make it go away so until he got rid of it somehow he was just stuck feeling it burn away his fucking flesh but there wasn’t anything here besides plants and more plants so it looks like that was all he was going to get-

With shaking hands, he grabbed a nearby leaf, shuddering at the fleshlike texture, the warmth, and wiped it desperately over his wounds, trying to scrape away the acidic sludge. It sort of worked, getting the larger clumps off, but he could still feel it eating his damn flesh, if only he had-wait he was a fucking idiot-he pulled out the waterskin Citlali had lent him, sloppily splashing water over his hand, gasping in relief as the pain lessened slightly. Obviously nothing was going to heal the wounds besides dying, but now he could actually do that without the acid continuing to burn him. He reached down into his shirt, feeling for the pouch containing his death rock, but...no, that’s right, he didn’t have it, he’d have to slit his throat like old times. Sighing, he wiped the acid goop off of his knife before turning it on himself.

Castys woke up very pleased to find that his hand no longer had holes in it, but when he saw the leaves he had wiped it on, his stomach twisted. The acid had burned right through them, and the holes were rimmed with red, dripping...it was blood, blood leaking from those fleshlike leaves. Quickly, Castys wiped off his knife and sheathed it, getting to his feet, ready to run the fuck away from those gross acid pustules. But...maybe it was a good sign that things were getting weirder, maybe he was getting closer to whatever the hell the source of all this was. So maybe he should…follow that stuff. It was the only sort of idea on where to go he had gotten this whole time, so it really was his only option, huh? He’d just have to be careful not to touch it.

The streaks of green on the swirling tree trunks, which had darkened to a shiny black at some point, led him, allegedly, deeper into the forest. Wait, how was the green stuff staying in one spot while the trunk beneath it was shifting? That didn’t make any sense, not like anything did here, but still…physics. He studied the nearest tree for a moment, watching its surface move as the clump of acid bubble things stayed still. Though...he could see something between the cracks in the crawling trunk, something long and off-white, like...yup. Trees with bones. Lovely. Shaking his head, Castys resumed walking, deciding to just not question anything ever again.

Things certainly got stranger as he continued. There was a pond where his reflection didn’t have a face, dragonflies with wings that looked like overgrown fingernails, and a herd of deer with skin and muscle so clear that all he could see were their organs and bones okay but what would clear deer meat taste like, so he felt like he was probably going the right way. When he heard a strange thumping sound, like something large walking around, he cautiously moved towards the source of it, poking his head out from behind a tree to see what it was.

It was the ugliest, most disgusting horrible abomination creature thing he had ever seen. It’s main body was the same light fleshy color as the leaves, dotted with clumps of acid pustules, with a mishmash of vaguely humanoid limbs with all sorts of skin tones jutting out of its misshapen body every which way. And it had so many eyes all over, some frantically darting around, some focused horrifyingly on him. But the worst part were all the flowers sprouting it from it, not because they were flowers, but because these flowers had little white teeth in their centers, probably serving as the mouths for this thing since he didn’t see one anywhere else on it. Honestly, he wouldn’t mind cutting this thing to bits in the slightest, it was freaky. He stepped out and drew his sword, watching the monster warily as it shambled towards him. If this thing wasn’t the source of the curse, he didn’t know what would be.

Once it was within range, Castys slashed at it, wincing as a high pitched shriek rang out from one of the flower-mouths. He danced back as it swung at him with two of its arms, their hands reaching out to grab him. This kept on for a bit, him slashing at the monster and dodging its blows, though he’d occasionally make the mistake of slicing a clump of acid pustules, spraying himself with the corrosive substance. When he stopped for a moment to catch his breath, he noticed something...unfortunate. All the gashes he’d cut in the monster were slowly closing, healing that thing up like his attacks hadn’t even happened. He, on the other hand, was covered in acid burns and not sure how much longer he’d actually be faster than this thing. His healing was useless in a fight, since dying left him completely defenseless for a good minute or so.

He had to figure something else out some other-shit, he couldn’t stand still for very long, this monster just wouldn’t quit attacking him. He might have been safe in a tree, but all the ones in the area were pretty much completely covered in that acid stuff, so that was out of the question. Seeing an opening, he lunged, trying to stab one of those fucked up mouths, and he couldn’t help but feel a spark of relief as his blade sank in, knocking out some of its teeth. But his elation turned to fear as he felt something grab his ankle the same moment the mouth clamped shut around his sword. He tried his best to keep his grip on his sword as it yanked him up, but it slipped through his fingers, leaving him defenseless as the monster slammed him down onto the ground, his whole body lighting up in pain.

Over and over, it smashed his body against the ground with inhuman strength. All Castys could do was scream as he felt his bones break, their sharp edges piercing him from the inside. To finish, it threw him against one of the trees, the impact of his body bursting a myriad of acid pustules open, drenching him in the stuff. Castys fell to the ground in a heap, sucking in pained breaths beneath his shattered ribs, and all he could do was helplessly watch through his one good eye, the other reduced to goop by the acid, as the monster raised a foot above him. His mind was screaming at him to go, to run, but he could hardly move, he should just let himself die so he could heal, but he didn’t want to, he didn’t want to just lie still and let this thing step on him, slowly building up the pressure on his already ruined ribcage, forcing ragged screams out of his acid-burned throat, he was going to be crushed but he didn’t want to be, g-get off please it hurts so much why do I have to do this it’s not fair I didn’t even do anything wrong this time please-

Castys came back to pain, sparking, burning agony soaking deep into his flesh. He was still covered in acid, and even with his bones intact now he could barely bring himself to move. But he had to, he had to get up, he had to kill this thing, had to get out of this awful place himself, because there was no other way out, because no one was going to come save him, not now, not ever. Just as he was psyching himself up to try and stand, the monster’s hands grabbed him all over, dragging him off the ground. He tried to squirm out of its grasp, and while it had too many damn hands and he had too many damn acid burns for this to actually be effective, he struggled anyway. As it lowered him towards one of its flower mouths, he tried to at least scream expletives at it, but of course he’d still had acid in his throat when he died so he couldn’t even relish the simple joy of yelling “fuck”.

What would happen to him if this gross monster ate him whole, he didn’t want to find out, but it seemed like he was going to if he didn’t break free. Castys shuddered as the mouth opened wide, wider, impossibly wide, showing off an unnecessary amount of wicked sharp teeth, and oh fuck they were a lot closer to him than he’d thought because his damn left eye was a corroded mess again and all of a sudden there were teeth tearing through his flesh and he was falling, falling into that horrible mouth surrounded by bright purple petals, pointed teeth digging into him, but he felt something, he felt something, hard and rough, and maybe it was his sword, and he could still kill this thing, so he wrapped his burned hand around it, fingers screaming in protest, and pulled, and as much as it hurt, as much as his sword was stuck, he wasn’t going to lose here.

His sword finally broke free with a disgusting squelch, though it felt a lot lighter than he remembered, and just as he pulled it out, the monster collapsed to the ground. Castys somehow managed to worm his tattered body out of the creature’s mouth, and once he was free, he held up his sword so he could stab himself with it, but discovered the object he was holding was very much not his sword. It was a strange wooden carving of a twisted tree, like ones surrounding him, a small bone fitted so snugly inside that it was almost as if the wood had grown around it. Was this...the source of everything? It was the most curse-causing looking thing he’d seen so far, and given that it seemed to be the core of that monster...oh, it was starting to grow flesh. Oh absolutely not.

Castys looked around frantically for his sword, his dagger, anything to break this talisman thing with. The first thing that caught his eye within reach was an unfamiliar axe, but he lunged for it, wishing he had time to kill himself and reset his body’s condition, but there was no telling how much this thing would grow while he was out. If he wanted a chance at ending this for good, he had to do it now. He rasped in pain as he dragged himself upright, grabbing the axe with blood-slicked fingers before he set the cursed object down and swung, crying out brokenly in pain and frustration. After a few clumsy whacks, the talisman broke in two, and the flesh bubbling out of it ceased moving. Was...was it over? It had to be. It had to be. It had to-

Head spinning, Castys fell sideways, the vision in his functional eye starting to blur. He knew he needed...to die...but he just...didn’t have...the...strength…

It was warm...comfortable...but it hurt, and...everything was...itchy. But still, so warm, and that was pleasant, and he found himself leaning into it. It was almost like...

Castys jolted awake, his eye snapping open. He was inside some building, the wooden ceiling above him lit by rippling firelight, in what felt like a bed, his whole body throbbing fiercely, and there was...a hand on his forehead. A hand attached to the village chief, Citlali, who was looking at him with concern. Her face broke into a relieved smile when she saw he was conscious, despite him flinching away from her touch. “So, our hero is finally awake.”

“I-” Castys tried to speak, but his throat was still severely fucked up, in fact, his whole body was. He hadn’t fucking died since he’d passed out, and these idiots didn’t know how his immortality worked, so they’d actually bandaged him up. The feeling of them was totally foreign, if not a little nostalgic. God, he must have looked fucking awful when they found him. He hoped it would make them think twice about kidnapping people to do their dirty work in the future.

“Don’t try to speak; your throat is quite badly damaged. Do you want something to write on?” Castys nodded, and she fetched him a wooden tablet and a stick of charcoal. He considered writing something on the angrier side, but seeing as he still didn’t have his pouch back, and that she had tried to help him...he should probably play nice. He was too tired for any more fighting, anyway.

“If you’d just kill me so I can heal that would be great.” Pausing, he decided he should probably explain that a bit better. “Every time I die I come back to life fully healed. And the most convenient way for me to die is to touch my rock, which I believe I’ve earned back. Unless the forest is still wonky.”

“No, you did break the curse, and I want to thank you for that, because obviously it wasn’t easy. I-” she cut herself off. “First things first, let’s get you healed for good.” She furrowed her brow. “Will healing with these bandages on...mess it up somehow? Some of them might be a little...stuck to your wounds. Should I take them off of you first?” Castys considered it for a moment. He’d never tried to heal with bandages on, but if things went wrong...it might be more painful to have to cut them out of his flesh or whatever. He nodded, holding out an arm.

Citlali was gentle as she unwound the bandages with practiced skill, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like hell. It felt like she was ripping his damn skin off, and every time his idiot body tried to scream in pain, it tore up his throat even further, making the whole affair even more damnably unpleasant. He could hardly stand to look at the wounds underneath, all pink and red and oozing what he assumed was pus. The worst part, however, was when she removed the bandage from around the remains of his left eye and it pulled a little string of bloody flesh off with it. He screamed at that, really screamed, and he realized he was crying, and he didn’t understand how mortals did this all the time. Citlali didn’t so much as flinch at the gore, the smell, or his pain, and he almost felt embarrassed about how poorly he was handling this.

When she was done, she retrieved his pouch from a nearby table, giving it to him wordlessly. With shaking hands, Castys managed to pull it open and stick a finger inside, sighing in relief as the familiar blackness took him. When he woke up, he was happy to find that there wasn’t any more acid on him, so he was actually fully healed this time. “Thanks,” he muttered, flexing his hands.

“Thank you, you really saved us. I...I know you were forced to, and I know that I shouldn’t have done it that way, but I felt like we didn’t have any other option, and-”

“It’s fine,” Castys sighed, waving a hand dismissively. “That shit was pretty fucked up so I’m not really surprised all the mortals you sent in died. And it’s not like I’m known for my benevolence.” He put the pouch around his neck, where it thumped against his bare chest. “So, did my clothes-”

Citlali shook her head. “They were full of holes and covered in acid, so we asked around and got you a spare set.” She handed him a folded shirt that was similar in style to the pants he’d been wearing when he woke up, and he pulled it on. She handed him the rest of his belongings before picking up the pieces of the wooden carving that he’d destroyed. “Where...where did you find this?”

“Inside the freaky monster with all the limbs and shit.”

“The what.”

“Was its giant corpse not near where you found me?”

“There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary there besides this and some of the weapons and equipment from our lost expedition parties.” She put it down, standing and crossing her arms. “We all felt the shift in the forest when the curse was lifted, and when we went out to investigate, everything seemed just like it had before all of this started. We found you collapsed in a clearing not too far from here.”

“Not too-I feel like I wandered around for hours! Stupid cursed forest.”

Citlali huffed. “Regardless, we found the talisman next to you, but no monster. But if this was what caused everything…” She picked up one of the pieces, gripping it tightly. “I think I understand what happened.”

“That’s great for you, don’t let it happen again.” Castys stood, shouldering his pack. “I...I can leave now, right?”

She looked up abruptly. “Oh, uh, yes, though you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, and we were thinking of holding a feast once we-” she stopped, clearing her throat. “We’d like to make it up to you in any way you can, but I understand if you’d like to leave. I’ll walk you out.”

Part of Castys wanted to stay and get a bunch of free food out of these people, or at least actual compensation for the ordeal he just went through, but he didn’t know if he could stand to be surrounded by these woods for much longer, despite the fact that they were allegedly no longer cursed. He couldn’t fight the nervous feeling in his stomach as walked away, his steps quickening once he and Citlali parted ways. He didn’t really relax until he had left the forest far behind him.

Once he was safe, Castys opened his pouch and reached inside, worming his finger into the secret side pocket that was separated from the rock. He gently pulled out the piece of paper, unfolding it and sighing in relief upon seeing the drawing on it still intact. Not that he’d expected anything to happen to it, but…The memory of the first day of his life, at least that he was aware of, was far more precious than anything else.

Because if he lost it, if he lost that spark of happiness, that piece of who he was that day, he felt like he would collapse under the weight of every awful thing he’d endured ever since.

Castys Cult: @as-a-matter-of-whump @blackrosesandwhump @fanmanga1357-blog @thehopelessopus @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @hearse-song @muddy-swamp-bitch @whumpasaurus101 @yet-another-heathen @galaxywhump @starnight-whump @his-unspoken-words @misspelledwitch

#forest day #forest day 2021 #castys #immortal whumpee #cannibalism mention #plant horror #animal horror #body horror #acid cw #suicide for convenience #gore #eye whump #sorry it starts kinda slow but i just wanted him tied up on his knees #citlali tryna be a lil professional but castys is too much of a lil shit for that façade to stay up #but yeah castys is *about* 19 physically (and mentally. i mean listen to him talk)#sometimes the forest be screamin. or just birds be screamin #stupid idiot boy pokes at acid balls with a knife and gets splashed. more at 11 #mmm who wants to touch a flesh leaf huh 👁👅👁 give it a lick #i didnt know where i wanted there to be bones for a while but we settled on in the trees #if at any point you are like ''hmm this vaguely reminds me of the 3rd boss from RE8 or perhaps the game 'the forest'''#you win those were both sources of inspo <3 #every time the monster ate someone their limbs and eyes would be added to The Collection™#hence the variety of colors there #and i needed weird flowers somewhere so they ended up the mouths cuz eh why not #yeah i like immortals whose healing mechanics arent beneficial during a fight it makes it sexy

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tendertokyo · 3 years

Text

My take on NCT at Hogwarts

what is it with me and being active on this god forsaken app all of a sudden... anyways, i know that we've thrown jk rowling in the garbage but listen i can't just throw away my whole childhood for one stupid rich white cis woman. also i have no idea what's going on with the neos but when do i ever? alright here we go

taeil: he's giving me frustrated hufflepuff, like he really wished to be in gryffindoor but it didn't work out. think he'd be a halfblood and have a pet toad. likes to visit hagrid for tea sometimes. simps over some bad bitch in slytherin, really thinks she's into him too, everyone tells him she's way out of his league. broke his wand twice already trying to open a can of sardines

taeyong: also strong hufflepuff energy. he's the keeper and captain of their quidditch team and a prefect too, picked purely cause he's good with kids. walks around without his scarf in the cold winter because he wrapped it around ten's neck one morning and nagged on him for not taking care of his health properly, never got the scarf back and doesn't mind. i feel like snape would intimidate the crap out of him, like he would not be able to stay calm during his classes rip. he'd be adored by all the other teachers though, especially flitwick who believes he's really gifted in charms

johnny: a gryffindoor pureblood and keeper and captain of the quidditch team. always the one who tries to talk things out with mcgonnagall when they pull some stupid shit and get caught, never successful. has the marauders map and likes to throw underground raves in hidden rooms and tunnels. buddies with peeves and the house elves. buddies with everyone actually. and regardless of liking him like that or not, every girl in school has fantasized of fucking him in the quidditch locker room showers ooooop-

yuta: omg the heartbreaker of the school. a halfblood slytherin prefect and beater. snape's favourite student, like he gets whatever he wants from that man without trying. everyone is lowkey into him cause of his hot and mysterious vibe and there are so many rumours about his sex life circulating around, but no one actually knows if he's seeing someone. people also speculate he's a metamorphmagus but no lol he just dies his hair a lot. has a pet cat who's mean to everyone except him and mark. likes to explore the forbidden forest cause he's a weirdo

doyoung: a ravenclaw pureblood who hates quidditch, only shows up for taeyong's matches and nags him afterwards if hufflepuff loses. he's the headboy and happily uses his title to threaten haechan. hates divination with a passion and idolizes mcgonnagal, as he should. knows everyone's bussiness in the whole damn castle, never starts drama but almost always ends it. used to tutor some younger students but they quickly realised he's a mini mcgonnagall and zoomed straight outta there. snape lowkey wishes he was in slytherin but don't tell anyone

kun: gryffindoor headboy, probably the calmest person in that entire house and the only one who can kinda control the chaos. if yangyang or hendery annoy him too much he'll give them the wrong password on purpose, mcgonnagal has this unspoken respect for him for that reason. feels really bad for the house elves and wants to help them as much as he can. known as the dad or daddy of gryffindoor, depending on who you ask hehehehe

ten: the artsiest ravenclaw but fucking terrible at riddles, so he's always stuck at the door unless someone let's him inside lmao. is super into divination but purely for the aesthetic. never wears his uniform properly, always wears taeyong's scarf and lots of witchy jewelry. started a dance club in the room of requirement, loves hogwarts halloween with his whole heart. set a classroom on fire once and managed to sneak away undetected. always hooks up with someone at johnny's parties

jaehyun: the fucking fratboy of gryffindoor. he's a halfblood and a chaser on the quidditch team. left so many girls on read oh my god. sneaks alcohol and weed into school, coorganizes parties with johnny, yuta and mark. people think he's this hot bad boy or some shit, lol no bitch he's a dumbass don't waste your energy on a doofus like him, have you heard his laugh he sounds like a 45 year old man. mcgonnagall doesn't trust him at all, always looks at him with shifty eyes. the fat lady flirts with him everytime he approaches the commonroom door

winwin: on the snobby pureblood side of slytherin, like he gives off really judgy vibes. is in ten's dance club, there's a rumor going around that he's an animagus 'cause he moves gracefully like a cat or smth, but he isn't he's just really talented. spends most of his time in the owlery petting birds. the bloody baron freaks him out, most of the ghosts do. tried to be a big brother figure to renjun and chenle but they bullied his ass like crazy so he dropped them like hot potatoes

jungwoo: the most confident gryffindoor y'all. he's a muggleborn and a chaser. has the cutest pet owl, is really into care of magical creatures. snape hates him because he's too "sunny" of a person. wild at parties but looks fine in the morning somehow. the biggest flirt you'll ever meet and has so many bitches wrapped around his little finger lol, there's a rumor going around that he's real beast in bed. awesome at dueling, uses his cute airhead shtick to apsolutely destroy people. can you tell i love his pisces ass?

lucas: a hufflepuff halfblood and beater. wannabe fuckboy but can't because he cares too much lol, those muscles are made of feelings dawg. hits on every girl he sees and is almost always successful 'cause we're weak for cute and sweet himbos. is the biggest show off on the quidditch field and has his own fan club. really into care for magical creatures, like literally wants to befriend every single one of them, hagrid has to pull his ass away from them before he gets hurt rip

mark: a gryffindoor prodigy, a muggleborn and a chaser. the most stressed prefect you've ever seen. mcgonnagall has a soft spot for him and everyone knows it. snape dislikes him but respects him because he's fucking brilliant at potions. a lot of people like him and are into him but he doesn't know how to respond to them lol socially awkward king. plans parties with johnny yuta jaehyun and ten, is always roped into the dreamies schemes against his will. no one can fucking tell if him and haechan are on good terms cause they're at each other's throats all the time, but slobber all over each other like crazy when they get drunk

xiaojun: the most emotional ravenclaw. a halfblood and a prefect. he dated a girl for a long time and she broke his heart, moped about it in the prefect's bathroom for ages. lowkey believes she cheated on him with yuta but isn't sure, is extra weary around him though. says he's done with love but then simps over a new girl every two weeks smh. no one understands how he's such good friends with hendery and yangyang, like the combination of the two of them is a recipe for disaster. whenever they rope him into their bullshit, he always manages to drop their asses in the perfect time and doesn't get caught. many portaits are jealous of him 'cause he has better bone structure then them lol

hendery: the best definition of a gryffindoor. comes from a rich pureblood family, is a beater on the quidditch team. he's the life of the party, man. out of all the students he hates, he is the one snape hates the MOST and he's so proud of that. a really fast runner so he never ends up in detention 'cause it's just too hard to catch him. buddies with the ghosts and hagrid. tries really hard to impress girls, it only works half of the time when he's not being too intense

yangyang: also a gryffindoor pureblood, tried out for the chaser position but didn't make it, is still bitter about it. has a really fucked up owl that always messes up his letters. constantly in detention, like he's cleaned that entire castle by himself 43 times already. also in ten's dance club, also really good at dueling when he actually tries. really into muggle culture, explores it in his free time and shows everyone cool, new music he found all the time. gives kun daily headaches cause he's way too energetic in the morning

shotaro: imma say he's a hufflepuff but don't quote me on that cause i don't know him that well. he seems like he'd have lots of friends though and would be in ten's dance club

sungchan: don't know him well either so i'll just say gryffindoor??

renjun: i'm torn between ravenclaw and slytherin, gonna go with slytherin for him. he's a halfblood and a prefect, also uses his title to threaten haechan. loves defence against the dark arts anď herbology, might become a healer someday. gets tricked by the moving staircases all the fucking time, ends up at madam pomfrey's way more than he likes to admit. likes the slytherin aesthetic but can't stand the evil stereotypes. most people think him and chenle are brothers, wants to strangle chenle when he plays into it. once told the bloody baron to fuck off, no one dares get on his bad side since that day

jeno: pureblood hufflepuff prefect and a chaser. he's the cute, athletic guy everyone has a crush on. is on snape's good side 'cause he likes cleaning up his brewing station after finishing the task the lession is about. is the best flyer in the entire school and has the best chance of getting scouted in the future, everyone knows it but if you mention it to him he blushes like crazy. i feel like he's been in many fwb situations but they all ended well because he's a gentleman

haechan: a slytherin through and through. halfblood and seeker on the quidditch team. thought he was gonna be prefect and was hella pissed he wasn't chosen, i mean hello you're a snake who would want to give a snake authority goddamn it. also always complains during quidditch matches, calls everything a foul just 'cause he wants to win. puts up this persona of the mischevious slytherin boy but it falls flat on it's ass because he's peeves's favourite target

jaemin: a muggleborn hufflepuff, because of that reason he's sworn to himself he'll take care of jisung like a mother. a chaser on the quidditch team. such a sweetheart my gosh, like that dude is always so happy, unless he hasn't drunk his 6 cups of coffee. speaking of, mcgonnagall and pomfrey worry for his health like crazy but won't admit it. excells at care for magical creatures and charms, horrible at ancient runes like he didn't think there'd be so much math involved. girls are also crazy into him but he's such an introvert, the thought of someone wanting to be around him so much scares him. still flirts with everything that breathes lol

chenle: a slytherin and a pureblood, from one of those rich old families. because of that people expect him to be a lil brat, turns out to be the coolest guy you'll ever meet. he's friends with everyone regardless of house, a chaser on the quidditch team, known as the one who scores the most points in a game. he's great at defence against the dark arts and transfiguration, is thinking about becoming an auror 'cause that dude fears nothing i'm telling you. was made a prefect instead of haechan, rubs it in his face like crazy, but ultimately just let's people get away with stupid shit like "haha nice one, respect". memorized all the secret passageways of the castle in his head, helps johnny, mark, ten and jaehyun with their parties. pisses off filch like no other, was in detention all the time with yangyang until they realised how terrible it is when the two of them are in close contact lol so he gets let off the hook all the time. also fucking flirts with everything that breathes, the biggest fucking tease like you never know what he means smh

jisung: jaemin's muggleborn hufflepuff son, though most people are surprised he isn't in gryffindoor 'cause god the reckless shit that boy pulls... always late to breakfast with his uniforn all messy. people think he's very innocent but like his bestfriend is chenle, so how pure could he be. he's a seeker on the quidditch team, goes extra hard during hufflepuff-slytherin matches 'cause he wants to knock haechan off his high horse. blushes like crazy whenever he sees a cute girl which only gives chenle more reason to tease him 'cause he's a lil bitch like that. is the star of ten's dance club but has tripped and fallen down multiple flights of stairs, this kid's a walking paradox

to conclude:

gryffindoor: johnny, kun, jaehyun, jungwoo, mark, hendery, yangyang, sungchan

hufflepuff: taeil, taeyong, lucas, jeno, jaemin, shotaro, jisung

ravenclaw: doyoung, ten, xiaojun

slytherin: yuta, winwin, renjun, haechan, chenle

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god-of-dust · 3 years

Text

after much deliberation, i decided to post what i wrote of chapter 2 and 3 of Trick Me here. this will probably never end up on ao3 because of Reasons, but someone might enjoy reading it and i definitely enjoy the validation. (also, leaving this to rot in my folder seems like a waste.)

this is rated T, no particular warnings apply besides tom’s occasional murderous thoughts.

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There’s no sign of Potter. Figures. Tom glares at the suit of armour as if it’s the one meant to carry the blame for this situation.

Disillusionment Charm firmly in place, he leans on the rough stone wall and resigns himself to wait.

“You’re early. Why am I not surprised?”

In a split second, Tom turns in the direction of the voice and points his wand towards... the empty corridor?

Then Potter’s head—only his head—emerges from thin air.

“Jumpy, too. Again, not surprised,” Potter says, smirking. Then he moves, revealing the rest of his body and the rippling fabric of a cloak.

An Invisibility Cloak. No wonder Potter can get wherever he wants without getting caught. “Where did you get that?” Tom asks, envy colouring every word. That kind of Cloak is worth thousands of Galleons, which is more money than Tom has ever possessed in his entire life.

The things Tom could do with one... he’d have no need for permission to slide beyond the wards of the forbidden section of the library. While certainly tame compared to what a collection from a Dark pureblood family would hold, there are also many old books there that Tom has been dying to get his hands on since he’s seen their titles and felt the power they contained.

“Family heirloom,” Potter says with a shrug.

Of course Potter has a family that provides for him, and of course he has the gall to shrug, like it’s absolutely normal to carry around an object this valuable and use it to go to the Quidditch pitch at night. It’s maddening, to witness this utter lack of ambition in someone who has so much at his disposal and wastes it so pitifully.

He reaches out to touch the fabric. It’s soft and perfect, spells woven so beautifully that it appears not to be enchanted at all. He refuses to believe that this Potter is the one who cast them. “What kind of spells does your family use to prevent the magic from fading? How frequently do you have to refresh them?”

Potter only smiles and shakes his head. “You and Hermione would be amazing together if you just stopped being an arse to her.”

Tom glares at him. His thoughts on that particular topic must be crystal clear, because Potter laughs that full-bellied laugh of his. “You haven’t answered my question,” Tom insists.

“Do you want to stand in the corridor all night discussing my cloak? I thought we had Quidditch to play.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Tom says: “Fine.”

“Get under here, then,” Potter beckons, holding a side of the cloak open for Tom to slip under and cover himself.

Sliding in the offered space, Tom instantly becomes very aware of how close they have to stay for them both to be concealed. Wonderful, he thinks, just wonderful. Just what I needed: more contact with him.

He lets Potter lead the way outside; after a bit of fumbling, they find a rhythm that allows them to walk in sync without constantly bumping into each other’s shoulder.

“Thank Merlin you’re shorter than Ron. His feet try to peek out all the time, it’s an absolute nightmare.”

Are his friends all he can talk about? Tom vaguely wonders, before noticing the route they’re taking. “The Quidditch pitch is the other way.”

“We’re not going to the pitch,” Potter replies.

Tom stops in his tracks, making the cloak tangle around Potter’s form; unsurprisingly, it only takes a moment for the miraculous Golden Boy to recover his balance. Tom, voice strained with the effort to keep it under control, hisses: “If you’re trying to trick me, Potter, I swear—”

“I’m not,” Potter interrupts. “The pitch is too open and couples go there to shag all the time, so the chances of someone seeing us are too high. I’m taking you to a place only I and my closest friends know about.”

Again with his friends. “Are you really so arrogant as to believe you’re the only one that knows anything about Hogwarts?”

This time, Potter is the one who stills abruptly. He turns to face Tom, noses almost touching under the cloak, eyes ablaze with an emotion that Tom has never seen on him: genuine, unfiltered anger. “Listen, Riddle. I offered my help, but what I didn’t offer was being target practice for your fucking abrasiveness. You want to learn Quidditch? I can teach you. You want to act like a bastard? Go do that somewhere else, because I’m not afraid to punch you in the face if you insist on constantly accusing me of imaginary crimes.”

“As if I’m not able to defend myself from your punches,” Tom snarls.

Potter’s eyes narrow. “Were you even listening to me?”

There’s nothing stopping Tom from hexing Potter into the next century; nothing, except for the fact that he’d be expelled and then the whole Potter clan would ensure that he’d rot in Azkaban for an indeterminate amount of years. Right now, it seems like a minor price to pay.

He keeps his twitching fingers away from his wand. He needs to hold himself in check if he wants to avoid Potter’s suspicion. After a steadying breath, he says evenly: “I was. My words were... out of line. I apologise.”

Silence stretches while Potter stares at him. Then he turns on his heels, facing away, and they resume their walking.

It takes them a few minutes to reach the boundary of looming trees that students are supposed to never cross. “Is this secret place of yours really inside the Forest?”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m reasonably sure that no one else has discovered it. A wrong turn would take them either into an Acromantula nest or in centaur territory,” Potter explains, navigating with sure steps amidst trunks and twigs and weeds and bushes as if he owns the place.

Both options are incredibly dangerous, for many different reasons. Not even the Headmaster has jurisdiction over the creatures in the Forest, and any reckless student who wanders too far is responsible for their own fate. Over the years, Tom has done a little exploring of his own to gather herbs, shed fur and other potion ingredients, but he never went as deep inside as wherever Potter is taking them now. “How did you discover it, then?” Tom asks while memorising the convoluted trail so that he’ll be able to return later. The potions he could brew with even a small vial of Acromantula venom, or some eggs... he has to find out more about those supposedly wrong turns.

“I followed my nose,” Potter says with a mischievous smirk, previous anger washed away like a leaf in a river. “And perhaps I had a bit of help.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well, sorry, but I’m not going to divulge my secrets to anyone who asks... besides, you’re smart enough; perhaps with time you’ll figure it out on your own.”

Focus still firmly placed on their surroundings, Tom ignores the compliment. He has no use for Potter’s pretense.

A large clearing suddenly materialises before them, encircled by towering trees whose foliage forms a protective half-dome high over their heads. Ancient magic caresses Tom’s skin, making him shiver with anticipation. There’s a circular area in the center, large enough to hold a dozen people, empty of any grass or stone; Tom is certain that someone has built it that way on purpose. He steps closer, prudent and fascinated in equal measure. “What is this place?” he wonders, eyes wide and searching as he studies the stone while taking in the feeling of rightness and inspiration the space emanates.

“Somewhere where we can have all the privacy we want,” Potter says lightly as he slides off the cloak from their shoulders. To him, this secret spot humming with magic that vibrates in Tom’s blood and bones must be just another day, just another priceless thing dropped on his lap that he wields without a care.

After enchanting a few Lumos spheres to hover around them, Potter extracts a small object from his pocket, lays it on the even ground and enlarges it with a wave of his wand, revealing it to be a trunk. Then he points to a twisted root that peeks out from the soil and transfigures it into three Quidditch hoops, about three meters high.

“I assume you know about Quidditch roles and rules even if you’ve never played, correct?”

“Yes.” Tom’s skimmed through a Quidditch book, if only not to be completely unprepared when it came to playing his part in this charade. He will carry his plan forward and rip the rug from under Potter’s feet, even if it involves studying a few tedious rules of a tedious sport.

“So, you can probably imagine that every role requires different skills, which is why we’ll explore every one of them and gradually build up your stamina and reflexes while you discover what you’re naturally good at.” He scratches at his head contemplatively. “When was the last time you rode a broom?”

“First year flying classes. I was average at the basics and never tried anything more elaborate.” Tom isn’t eager to recall most of those memories because, in truth, it had been humiliating to realise how far behind his peers he was. Unlike them, he’d never had a broom of his own to practice and his confidence had faltered when he needed it the most. The broom’s magic had caught on his hesitation and thus his performance had been lukewarm at best.

“Yeah, I can imagine it wasn’t pleasing for you. Hermione was the same. You really can’t stand it when you don’t excel at something, huh?”

“I doubt anyone enjoys the feeling of being incompetent.”

“Good point,” Potter admits, “but that’s not the attitude you need right now. You always have to start from somewhere and build from there, even if that starting point isn’t as glorious as you’d like.” He squats to open the trunk; it contains a clearly well-loved yet also well-kept set of Quidditch balls.

Tom eyes suspiciously the Bludgers struggling against the chains holding them in place.

“Since we’re starting from the basics, tonight we’re both going to play Chasers, which means that we’ll pass the Quaffle between us and do our best to score through the goals. Of course, there’s more to being a Chaser than this, but it will be enough for now. Before that, though, I want to see you on a broom.”

“I don’t have one. I presumed we’d use one of the school brooms,” Tom says, crossing his arms, mild irritation colouring his tone.

Unbothered, Potter reaches again into his pocket to produce two shrunken brooms. “I brought my Nimbus. It’s very good, especially for a beginner, with quick responses and great stability.”

He holds out his hand and Tom takes the now appropriately sized broom. “...Thank you.”

“Wow, you’re really making an effort into being polite. I appreciate that,” Potter says, apparently pleased. “But now, Riddle, show me how you ride.”

There’s nothing in Potter’s smile and in that particular phrasing that Tom could possibly care for. He straddles the broom and pushes himself to hover in mid-air, one meter from the ground and then one more; feeling how precarious and uncertain his posture is, he does his best to correct it.

“Good. You don’t seem to be struggling much. Are you afraid of heights?”

Tom shoots him a venomous look. “No.”

“That’s one less thing we have to worry about, then.” Potter jumps on his broom and rises too, graceful as a phoenix. Bastard. “Let’s try some loops.”

Tom nods and watches as Potter demonstrates a few simple figures: circle, spiral, figure-eight. They seem easy enough, but when Tom tries to follow Potter’s directions his broom moves in shaky zig-zags instead of the smooth curves he expects it to perform.

“This broom isn’t working,” Tom snarls. He looks at Potter, who’s certainly dying to make fun of him... only to find no trace of sadistic glee on his expression.

Potter circles around him, examining him from head to toe with furrowed brows, almost hawk-like in his focus. “You’re clenching your thighs and hands too hard. The broom reads that as a sign for ‘straight line’ and ‘speed’, and right now that’s not your objective. For curves like these, you have to flow with the movement and lean into the direction you want without overbalancing.” His posture is relaxed, bordering on lazy, as he flies in a large, slow circle for Tom’s sake. “Like this.”

Tom imitates him as best as he can, loosening his grip. “What if I want to achieve a fast curve?”

“Fast curves are more advanced. We’ll try those later.”

Tom tries again with a figure-eight, and he’s surprised when he finds that the broom’s following the path he intended with increasing ease.

“See? Way better,” Potter beams. He looks like he’s genuinely enjoying this.

After a few minutes of loops, Tom’s acquired a mild amount of confidence in his form; at least the feeling that he’ll tip over every time he steers the broom has lessened until it’s nearly gone. Seemingly satisfied, Potter instructs him on how to repeat the same figures with a single-handed grip, then handless, as he explains: “You’ll need your hands free for the Quaffle.”

Even while going through boring drills at this insignificant height, there’s an undeniable thrill to flying, to acquiring control over something as elusive as air. “One day,” he declares, “I’m going to invent broomless flying.” Perhaps a variation of Wingardium Leviosa, combined with a Feather-Light Charm... yes, he’ll do it, and succeed.

“That would be amazing. And honestly, if anyone could do that it would be you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Tom scoffs, close to amused. Does Potter really think that compliments will have any effect on him? Tom’s too acquainted with the subtle art of manipulation to take any of Potter’s amateurish attempts seriously.

Potter rolls his eyes. “It’s not flattery, it’s me making an observation. Every single person in Hogwarts knows that your knowledge and control over magic are impressive.” Smoothly diving forwards, Potter reaches for the trunk and grabs the Quaffle inside it.

“Catch!” he says, and throws the ball at Tom.

Instincts rearing up before he can think, Tom steers sideways to dodge, but he’s too quick, too sudden, the broom refuses to cooperate—fuck, he’s lost his balance, he’s going to slip off and fall on his face like a bloody—

An arm slides around his torso, holding him up. A steady hand over the handle of his broom stops its lurching. Tom is barely breathing, his mind catching up to the fact that he’s not going to become one with the forest soil.

“Shit, Tom, I’m sorry, I thought you were ready, I should have warned you—”

Heart still finding the way back to its regular beat, Tom interrupts Potter’s rambling: “It’s fine. Nothing happened.”

“Well it was a stupid thing to do, and I won’t do it again,” Potter insists, wide eyes painfully green even in the dark.

“Just drop it, will you?” It’s embarrassing enough that he ran away from a Quaffle like it was the Killing Curse; Potter’s self-flagellation is just rubbing more salt on the wound. As if he hasn’t done it on purpose anyway, the fucking prick.

With a sigh, the arm around Tom tightens briefly before Potter releases him. “Do you want to stop? We’ve done a lot already. You’ve been great.”

More useless flattering.

“Let’s try again,” Tom orders. He wants to challenge Potter, confuse him, shock him, give him a lesson that he’ll never forget. The plan to ruin his reputation isn’t enough; the matter has become personal.

Uncertain, Potter nods. This time, when the Quaffle comes towards him Tom catches it, albeit unsteadily. A victorious glint in his eyes, he does his best to throw Potter off-balance by flinging the ball back at him.

The back-and-forth of the Quaffle between them slowly acquires a flow. Potter accepts Tom’s viciousness and in turn pushes Tom’s limits, building his reflexes with progressively more elaborate throws, flying around him in circles like an annoying snidget. Tom fumbles, stumbles, grumbles, but he manages to avoid another fall, and he even scores a few points through the unprotected goals.

By the end of the lesson they’re both sweating—disgusting—and Potter is positively radiating joy.

Tom can’t say the same about himself. His performance’s been nowhere near satisfactory, his dexterity and form nowhere near Potter’s. While he still holds no interest for Quidditch, he also can’t stand the thought that Potter can have this golden opportunity to gloat over him. There’s no way that Tom will accept being considered inferior to anyone.

“So, uh... how was it?” Potter asks once they’ve dismounted, self-consciously running a hand through his hair. It looks like a habit of his.

“You’ve been patient,” Tom concedes. It’s true, at least on the surface: Potter’s been nothing but helpful and tolerant of every mistake, adapting his teaching to Tom’s pace with flawless precision. “I could have done better.”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Potter says, “will you stop with the self-deprecation? You’re learning. It’s all part of the process. Believe me, I’ve seen worse.”

Tom hands the Nimbus back to Potter, who’s extinguishing the enchanted lights and reverting the goal posts back to their original shape. “You’ve also seen best, I reckon.”

Potter huffs in annoyance as he takes the broom and stores it away along with the rest of the equipment. “Yes, and it doesn’t matter. This isn’t a competition. The whole point of us being in the middle of the forest instead of the pitch is that you can be away from judgemental eyes, so could you please stop being your own worst critic?”

“We should go.” If Potter considers having standards the same as self-deprecation, then Tom has nothing else to say. “I can find my way back.” He turns to follow the hidden trail that led them here.

“Wait,” Potter says, interrupting Tom as he was about to cast a wordless Disillusionment Charm on himself. “Do you want to do this again? More lessons?”

Does Tom want to? Is the headache of spending time with Potter worth it?

Like a sharp edge, a thorn stuck in his side, Potter’s words echo in his head. This isn’t a competition. But it is, in a way—it’s Tom’s endurance against his desire to chalk up the whole plan as a failure and sweep it under the rug.

And Potter is still an issue—he still needs to go down in flames, and Tom is the one who has to ignite that fire.

He straightens his back. I won’t quit now. “Same time, next Saturday?”

“I’ll be here,” Potter says. It sounds like a promise.

[missing scene with Tom and snake-Harry]

At half past eleven on Saturday, Harry prepares to slip away from the Gryffindor dormitory under his Cloak.

“Ron, hey,” he whispers in the darkness of the dormitory, shaking his friend’s shoulder.

Still more than half-asleep, refusing to open his eyes, Ron mutters, “What?”

“I’m going out, will probably be late again. Don’t wait for me, okay?” He’s a little ashamed of taking advantage of Ron while he’s in this state, knowing that he won’t ask questions.

“Yeah, yeah—g’night, mate,” Ron says, words slurred as the dream world ensnares him again.

Then Harry leaves, sliding through the many corridors of the castle as if he were in his Animagus form, until he crosses the entrance; outside he can run, free, breathing in the cold wind that chills his face and lungs. He feels so light, like the world is full of exciting possibilities, like he’s on the hunt for something marvellous.

Yes, he hates hiding these nighttime escapades from his friends. However, he also loves the secret thrill of this undefined thing he and Tom have, this strange agreement that’s neither friendship nor rivalry, while not being neutral either. He knows, he can see that Tom—and how weird it is, that he already thinks of him as such—still despises him... yet he’s also invested in Harry in a way that goes beyond simple hatred or spite.

He could have used many excuses to get his hands on Harry’s Firebolt and sabotage it. He could have cursed Harry himself, especially with how close they’ve been, and Harry has no doubt that Tom possesses a sizable arsenal of slow-building, undetectable curses that would have sent Harry to his grave with no one the wiser.

But then, how absurd it is that Harry’s still not afraid to know that a part of Tom, a loud and powerful one, would rejoice in his pain and in having caused it?

He’s certain that Tom Riddle’s bite is deadly venomous, and he’s been thirsting for Harry’s blood for a long time. The bane of his existence, indeed.

Yet Harry saw something else during their time together: the fierce competitiveness, the stubbornness, the drive towards excellence, the desire to be greater than anyone... and also the insecurity, the self-loathing, the fear hidden behind harsh perfectionism, the sense of not being enough, of having to push himself harder, of not belonging anywhere, of being unloved and unlovable.

Tom Riddle is human and flawed. And he has bite, yes, but along with the venom comes a blazing fire that he keeps carefully concealed under his detached, polished façade. Harry wants to witness more of that fire, wants to bask in it, wants to revel in the privilege of being the one who can bring it out.

He knows what Tom could do, the potential of his cruelty. However, night after night, he discovers an inescapable curiosity for what Tom will do.

A laughter, full and thrilling, shakes Harry’s body as he skips through the forest, jumping over traitorous roots and avoiding thorn bushes intent on drawing blood.

Tom, of course, has already arrived.

Harry admires the transfigured goal posts, smoother and more symmetrical than how his own half-arsed magic would ever mold them, and thinks, This is going to be fun.

“Eager?” Harry can’t help but tease.

Tom gives him one of his looks. “I don’t like wasting time.”

“Of course. Let’s get to it, then.”

Like last time, Harry offers Tom his Nimbus; they warm up by playing with the Quaffle, letting Tom reacquaint himself with the feeling of flying by revisiting a few of the trickier turns. Tom’s control over the borrowed broomstick is still shaky and hesitant, which he clearly hates with a passion, but he’s also improved considerably in a small amount of time.

This may be the one thing in which Tom Riddle isn’t a natural. However, for some reason he’s actually putting in an effort to learn, which leaves Harry wondering why. Merlin knows Tom’s mind works in mysterious ways, and even after spending a few nights with him as a snake and witnessing his unfiltered rants Harry’s not closer to understanding his convoluted reasoning.

“Tonight I think you could try your hand at playing Keeper.”

Tom, always straight to the point, immediately flies towards the transfigured hoops and circles around them. “On a practical level, how is it different from playing Chaser, anyway? The ball is the same, it’s just a matter of catching it as we’ve already been doing.”

Harry feels an appraising smile rise on his lips. “Interesting question,” he replies, turning the Quaffle in his hands. “I believe the main difference is in the freedom of movement. As a Chaser, you can follow the trajectory and position of the Quaffle and other players in the way that’s most convenient for you, while as a Keeper you have to stay in a confined area, since leaving the goals unguarded equals failure. You need sharper eyes and quicker reflexes, which is why I considered it more advanced.”

“But the smaller area should make it easier, not harder,” Tom says with a small frown.

“Theory is theory, practice is practice. You’ll see by yourself.”

“Let’s begin, then.” He looks impatient, and Harry privately thinks that it’s kind of adorable. Perhaps my love for Quidditch is rubbing off on him. Or perhaps he’s just that competitive.

So Harry begins throwing and Tom begins to understand Harry’s point as the Quaffle slides under his guard and passes easily through the hoops time after time. With sweaty hair plastered to his forehead, eyes aflame and gritted teeth, Tom struggles to prevent Harry’s craftiness from allowing him to score yet another point. He’s only managed to catch five out of twenty-four throws.

“You have to keep in mind that I’m not an actual Chaser myself,” Harry says, immensely enjoying the murderous look on Tom’s face. “This could be way worse.”

Tom stills, holding the ball as if he wants to strangle it. “You do so love to make fun of me,” he snarls. “Idiot Tom Riddle, who’s never learned to play Quidditch, who can’t even catch a bloody Quaffle. Must be so nice to sit on your throne and laugh at my pathetic attempts.”

The aggressiveness in Tom’s tone makes Harry feel all kinds of ruffled, and perhaps he should be keeping his mouth shut, but when has he ever listened to reason? So he says, “I thought you had more spine than this, for someone who sits on his throne and laughs at others all the time.”

“What?” Tom says, eyes narrow and voice sharp as a potioneer’s blade.

“You heard me. Is it fun, being an arsehole to Hermione and who knows how many others? How does it feel when you are the one whose efforts feel inadequate, Tom?”

“It’s Riddle, to you.”

“Well then, Riddle: how does it feel? And mind you, I was teasing you as I would with a friend, but I could also be cruel and cutting like you. I could get on the same level of ‘polite bastard’ you seem to revel in.”

The look Tom gives him is utterly blank, which could be seen as an improvement over being murderous, or could also mean that he’s so much more murderous than usual that he’s already on the phase where he’s choosing how to dispose of Harry’s body.

Harry sighs. This is all pointless. Tom hates him, will always hate him, and they’re just dancing around each other waiting for the perfect opportunity to... what? Tom is most likely waiting for Harry to lower his guard enough for him to strike undetected, but what does Harry want? What’s his excuse for being here?

Perhaps this time his curiosity is better left alone.

“Forget what I just said. I’ve been an arsehole,” Harry says. “We don’t have to do this if you’re so frustrated it makes you miserable.”

“Is this what you think of me? That I go around lording my knowledge over people?” Tom doesn’t sound angry—he just stares at Harry like he’s speaking in a different language.

“From what I’ve seen of you... well, yes,” Harry says, uncertain. He feels like this whole conversation is balancing on a very delicate thread. “It’s not overt, but you do act superior and rub your grades on other people’s faces, with those condescending smirks and such... and I don’t believe that you don’t do that on purpose.”

“I—do that,” Tom admits quietly, almost disturbed by the revelation. Even more interesting, he appears to be honestly considering it. “Perhaps... it’s a bit excessive.”

“We all know you’re the most skilled student in this school anyway. It’s not just about grades—you clearly have a touch, a passion for magic that can’t be found in books and that most of us can’t hope to replicate.”

Tom’s eyes catch Harry’s then, a blazing intensity passing between them that makes Harry feel… funny. “You’re telling the truth. You do think that.”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“Not coming from you.”

Harry frowns. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You—” Tom pauses, raking a hand through his already mussed-up hair. He looks more unbuttoned than Harry’s ever seen him. “I’m not sure.”

“That you wanted to murder me in my sleep, probably,” Harry says unthinkingly. He knows that Tom has never been confused on his opinion of Harry; he’s heard enough dramatics when Tom’s spoken to him as Ezra, long tales on how insufferable Harry is, and how much of an attention-seeker, how brainless and privileged, and so on.

Surprisingly, Tom laughs. It’s brief, blink-and-you’ll miss it, but it’s happened.

Tom Riddle has laughed.

“I might have considered it, yes,” Tom confesses, not even remotely apologetic.

Harry is shocked and more charmed than he’d like to admit. “I don’t know what to do with this sudden honesty.”

Tom shakes his head, and he’s still smiling—not smirking, but smiling—and he looks as unbalanced as Harry feels. “Neither do I.” He locks eyes with Harry, and for a few brief seconds there’s that intensity again; then he breaks the spell to Accio the Quaffle from where he’d dropped it. “Let me try again.”

“Sure,” Harry says, quietly thrilled.

[missing scene with Tom and snake-Harry]

The trunk containing Potter’s Quidditch equipment sits on the forest floor, lid open. Tom studies the set of chained Bludgers and lifts an eyebrow. “Last time you said that in this lesson I was supposed to ‘learn my way around a Beater’s bat’.” The unspoken question of why Potter hasn’t handed him any bat yet hangs in the air.

“Yeah, I said that, but then I realised that Bludgers might not be the best idea right now,” Potter admits, shrugging. “You’re probably already familiar with how they work from a spectator’s point of view, but this is another instance of theory being very different from practice.”

“In short, you believe I’m not able to undertake this particular task,” Tom says. Of course Potter wouldn’t consider him worthy enough for the scary, angry balls, not when Tom still struggles with inconsistent balance and shaky steering at the best of times. Furthermore, Potter’s famed superior abilities allow him to keenly judge the depth of Tom’s incompetency and find him wanting.

Unimpressed by Tom’s logic, Potter rolls his eyes. “Is it necessary for you to be so dramatic?”

“Don’t bother with lying. We both know it’s the truth,” Tom insists. He has no patience for this display of futile denial.

“It’s a distorted version of the truth, so you can beat yourself up for not being perfect enough, or some crap along those lines. Yes, it’s probably not safe for you to engage with Bludgers yet. No, it doesn’t mean that you’re useless of whatever you’re telling yourself.”

“You seem awfully confident in your ability to interpret my thoughts.” Out of ingrained habit, Tom reinforces his Occlumency shields. While it’s unlikely that Potter has the wits and finesse to master the delicate art of Legilimency, he’s also revealed himself to be unpredictable in many occasions. Better safe than sorry.

“Maybe you’re just obvious,” Potter says dismissively, before tapping his wand on the small set of chains that holds the Golden Snitch in place at the center of the trunk. The ball springs free, only for Potter to catch it immediately with practiced ease and a gleam in his eyes that promises nothing good for Tom. “Tonight we’re Seeking.”

“Will the Snitch’s movements be restricted to this clearing, or will we have to follow its path amongst the trees?”

“Only the clearing,” Potter confirms with a small smile.

Tom lets his gaze roam to evaluate the length and breadth of the space. The shiny surface of the ball would be easily discernible against the dark background. “Seems feasible.”

The smile on Potter’s face grows wider. “Let’s begin, then.”

What followed were blurred hours of Tom fumbling his way through sharp turns, desperately trying to keep himself from losing his grip, then losing it anyway at every attempt to catch the blasted ball, then trying to regain his balance, then remembering to loosen his posture, then failing at commanding his limbs to go on a single direction, thus dipping downwards at uncontrollable speed until he would have surely eaten grass if not for Potter’s steadying hand.

Once they finally touch the ground, Tom flings away Potter’s broom, rage painting his world in red. He doesn’t give a single fuck about the bloody stick of wood and the bloody Snitch, he’s bruised all over the place and he’s sick of this, he won’t stand a single second of humiliating himself any further, he’s utterly and completely done. “How do you fucking do this?” Tom roars. “Why would you willingly subject yourself to this torture?”

“Uh, T—Riddle—”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Tom goes on, ignoring him. “Why I even considered to accept this whole ordeal as if it deserves any of my time.”

“Riddle, I told you, this isn’t an obligation,” Potter says. “We can stop, it’s okay.” He’s dismounted too, and he stands there, slowly and cautiously inching towards Tom.

‘It’s okay’—as if Tom needs to be soothed or, worse, coddled. The infantilising undertones make Tom want to tear Potter to shreds. There’s a Cruciatus on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be unleashed, waiting for him to reap Potter’s pain for witnessing Tom making a fool of himself and daring to treat him like a volatile child. I doubt he’ll be so entertained when he’s contorting on the ground, screaming his lungs out, he thinks savagely, extracting his wand from its holster.

As the first syllable of the curse leaves Tom’s mouth, red light charging on the tip of his wand, Potter is fast—he crouches and rolls away from its trajectory, touching down over the stone in the middle of the clearing and drawing up a Shield Charm strong enough that Tom can hear it crackling like lightning. “What the fuck, Riddle?” he snaps, but there’s no surprise or fear on his face, only the sharp focus of a seasoned duellist.

Unfortunately for Potter, a mere Shield Charm isn’t enough to deter Tom; many Dark curses are designed to eat through them like a parchment set aflame. He smiles, all teeth, and Potter seems to sense his intentions, eyes narrowing.

Then the unthinkable happens.

Potter casts non-verbally at the same time Tom’s spell almost strikes home; the jets of their magic meet in midair and twine together in a single stream of pure gold light. Birdsong erupts, filling the space with an otherworldly melody, while luminous threads of magic are birthed from the stream like a spiderweb, surrounding Tom and Harry in a dome until the forest disappears beyond the shimmering brilliance.

What in Salazar’s name is this?

The entirety of Tom’s world is reduced to this moment in time, to Potter’s green eyes reflecting the light. Mesmerised, Tom watches as beads of light appear in the stream of their magic. His wand vibrates and he clutches it harder; the beads gets closer and closer to its tip, and Tom feels the light whispering at him to accept sanctuary in its song, to let it wash away his anger, to cease fighting, to surrender, and his whole body becomes weightless, being gently lifted from the ground by this invisible, absurd, liminal force—

And suddenly it ends.

The light disappears, leaving them to adjust to the night again: the link has been broken. Tom aches for it, deep in his bones. He can already tell how the echoes of that melody will haunt him for many nights to come.

He and Potter stare at each other, feet back on the ground, eyes wide, breathless and at a loss for words.

“What was that?” Tom breathes. “What did you do?”

Potter shakes his head, bewildered. “I have no clue. I just—stopped it.”

“You stopped it?”

“I think so.” Potter crawls towards a point to his side, scanning the grass back and forth until he recovers his wand from where he must have lost it when he interrupted the contact.

“Why?” Tom asks, unable to keep the word inside his still pounding chest. Why would you commit such a blasphemous act?

“Because—whatever it was, I’m not sure either of us was prepared for it.” He’s holding Tom’s gaze, straight on, in a way that reaches deep under his skin.

Unnerved, Tom skims the surface of Potter’s mind and finds a confusing jumble of... something. Too many somethings, all swirling in dizzying patterns. Wonder, doubt, curiosity, wariness, joy—all underlined by the same pure bliss that has enveloped Tom under the dome.

This magic is messing with my senses. “Don’t speak to me ever again. We’re done,” Tom says, with as much vicious strength as he can muster, rising on wobbly legs.

Potter sits in the grass and says nothing, making no move to stop him.

Tom can feel the weight of his gaze all the way to the castle. Once he reaches the dungeons, the Slytherin common room and finally his own bed, he realises how not a single part of his plan has worked out as expected.

His wand, who’s been a faithful companion since he was eleven, has acted in a way that was absolutely mystifying. Still shivering with the residue of that golden magic that doesn’t let go of his limbs, Tom performs a series of spells only to have the proof of what he already expected: the wand responds as usual and nothing is out of the ordinary—not now, not anymore. But if that unreal... thing wasn’t a malfunction, or caused by a curse, then what was it? He’s never heard of anything like it.

For the first time in what feels like forever, Tom’s out of his depth.

He thought he’d ruin Potter’s reputation, only to end up tired, bruised, with his magic acting up unpredictably and his thoughts scrambled beyond recognition. He thought he would teach Potter a lesson, and yet he lost himself in birdsong and light, giving away his power like an utter fool, until Potter was the one to separate them. And isn’t it funny that the reckless Gryffindor poster boy was the one who acted appropriately, while Tom has been too weak, too compromised? Weak, his mind provides.

How could it all have gone so wrong? How could Tom have lost the guidance of his own compass so completely?

For the briefest of moments, he wishes for Ezra’s presence; the snake has no interest in what he calls ‘complicated human affairs’, and his snark would help to keep Tom grounded. And isn’t this another sign of Tom’s weakness, to need another—an animal—to recover his balance?

He rubs his eyes, feeling both keyed-up and drained to the bone. A restless night awaits him.

However, he refuses to surrender to the hold of these thoughts. It’s completely useless to wallow in defeat and waste any more time contemplating this utter failure. Whatever happens next, whatever stunt Potter pulls that could interfere with Tom’s position in Slytherin, he’ll deal with it. Tom is cunning and capable enough to adapt to what fate has in store for him, as he’s always done.

He digs into his potion stash for a vial of Dreamless Sleep.

Potter can rot.

Harry crosses for the millionth time the opening sentence of his Potions essay. His parchment has turned into a blot of ink and he sighs, his wand to vanish the black stain. Then, he stares at the blank scroll, mind empty of coherent thoughts, unable to string together the meaning of a single line in the open book before him.

“I need help,” he finally says to Hermione, almost begging. They’re sitting, along with Ron, in their usual corner of the library. “I know, I know, I should write my own essay, but this isn’t—Hermione?” Harry hesitates, as he sees her casting a sturdy Muffliato around their table, the usual sign that a serious conversation was about to happen. Harry shoots a questioning look at Ron, but for once his friend appears to be on the same page as Hermione, leaving Harry out of the loop.

“Harry,” Hermione begins, with a concerned tone and furrowed eyebrows, “what’s going on? You’ve been distracted and spacing out for days, like you can’t focus on anything. It’s the third time you’ve asked for my help this week—even with difficult assignments, it’s not usually that bad.” She’s studying Harry’s face like she would a particularly complex Arithmancy equation, looking for the familiar tells that will betray his secrets.

Even though he knows perfectly well that she’s right, and that he did in fact intend to have one of those conversations, Harry protests on principle: “It’s Potions, you know how much I struggle with it! These essays are an absolute nightmare!”

“Yeah, mate, but maybe it would help if you read from the Potions book, instead of the Defense one,” Ron suggests, tapping his index finger on Harry’s book.

Harry stares at him, mild horror creeping up on his face, before letting his eyes fall on the book. He closes it and, sure enough, the battered cover doesn’t lie. “Fuck,” he says, defeated. He pushes up his glasses to rub at his face. “No wonder it didn’t make sense.”

Unlike Hermione, Ron doesn’t seem bothered by Harry’s behaviour; he shakes his head in playful disbelief, but he seems more curious than worried, which is relieving.

“So, what is it?” Hermione says.

Here it is, the moment Harry’s been dreading since this whole ordeal with Tom has started: telling the truth to his friends.

Like many other times, he doesn’t have a proper explanation for acting the way he does; in true Marauder fashion, he’d just acted on impulse, following the trail of fun. Unlike those other times, however, an explanation will be needed at some point.

This doesn’t mean that he isn’t also feeling quite defensive about this particular issue. After all, it’s not just about him; this is Tom’s business as much as it’s Harry’s, and Hermione won’t be happy to discover that her rival is involved. Harry still isn’t prepared for the fuss she will undoubtedly kick up.

And of course, predictable as the sunrise, Ron asks: “Is this because of whatever you’ve been doing when you sneak out at night?”

“Why are you being so secretive, Harry?” Hermione questions, leaning forwards and lowering her voice even though the Muffling Charm protects them from eavesdroppers. “Are you doing something that could get you expelled?”

“Hermione, I do things that could get me thrown in Azkaban on the regular.” Like being an unregistered Animagus, for instance.

And isn’t that another guilt-flavoured train of thought? The list of people that will need an explanation does include Tom himself. He’s warming up to Ezra in a way that he would have never allowed if he were aware of who hid behind the snake’s form. Yeah, Harry can’t say he’s looking forward to confessing that particular secret to Tom. After all, how can Harry admit to him that’s listened to his unfiltered rants and musings without Tom murdering him in cold blood? The Slytherin is already mistrustful enough, and lying by omission is one of the most dangerous things Harry could do, especially considering that Tom is a Legilimens.

Hermione waves an impatient hand to dismiss Harry’s point, snapping his attention back to the conversation. “You know what I mean, and you’re deflecting.”

Harry begins to open his mouth, but before he’s figured out what he’s going to say Hermione interrupts him again, voice gone soft: “Did you break up with your partner?”

“My what?” Again, Harry looks at Ron and finds none of the confusion he expects on his face.

“You have been disappearing a lot,” Ron offers with an half-shrug. “It was the most obvious conclusion.”

Harry gapes, stunned by the turn the conversation has taken. “Did you two really think that I have a secret lover? Why in the name of Merlin would I hide that?” If only they knew who my supposed ‘lover’ is. And isn’t that a thought, Tom being anyone’s lover, and Harry’s lover to boot? It’s too absurd, too unthinkable to even consider.

Yes, Harry can admit that Tom is handsome, and that he certainly doesn’t lack admirers; even with his poor eyesight, he’s not that ignorant of the Slytherin’s charms. However, Tom’s usual regal demeanour creates a distance between him and the rest of the world. Like a marble statue, Tom Riddle is meant to be admired while staying unreachable, and Harry can’t imagine him letting his shields down for anyone.

Except he did with me. Harry has been a witness to Tom’s temper, his cruelty, his smile. As obstinate as Tom has been with his will to drag Harry into the mud and his constant misinterpretation of Harry’s motives, he’s also let Harry see unflattering, vulnerable sides of him that many others would kill for.

How did that happen? What does this say about us?

“You’re spacing out again,” Hermione sighs. “But if it’s not a secret lover, then what is this all about?”

“I’ve been seeing someone. Not in that way,” he adds, before they can say anything. “But we kind of, uh, had a disagreement, and our magic reacted strangely and I was wondering if you knew something about it that I don’t.”

At the mention of an intellectual debate Hermione perks up, her posture instantly straightening. Harry tells them an abridged version of what happened in the clearing, glossing over the more incriminating details that could reveal Tom’s identity or the reason behind their fight.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve read about something like this before,” Hermione says, tapping her index finger to her lips. She bends to the side to rummage inside her magically expanded bag where she keeps a ridiculous amount of books—though Harry has to admit that, on occasions like this, having a portable library does come in handy. “I believe it was on a wandlore book I got last year. It’s hard to find any useful information on the subject because wandmaking is passed on through apprenticeship and very few masters have bothered writing down their knowledge, but I lucked on this tome that was gathering dust on a corner at Flourish and Blott’s, I’m fairly sure they didn’t even remember having it—ah, here it is!” she exclaims, showing them an ancient leatherbound volume whose title has faded completely. After a few minutes of leafing through the yellowed pages, she says: “I was right! Priori Incantatem, an extremely rare phenomenon that manifests when two practitioners bearing twin wands—that is, wands with the twin cores—attempt a duel.”

“So my... acquaintance’s wand has a phoenix feather core like mine?”

Hermione studies the book again. “Not just any phoenix feather, apparently. It has to be a feather from the same phoenix as yours, which I guess is why most wands don’t have a twin at all, or never meet their twin.” She lifts her gaze from the page to meet Harry’s eyes with her bright ones. “Harry, who is this person? This could be an amazing opportunity to study something that—”

“I can’t tell you, and they made it very clear that they don’t want me to speak to them ever again,” Harry says. Classes with the Slytherins have been... something. While outwardly nothing had changed between them, as they’d never interacted in the first place, Harry could feel the spiky coldness radiating from Tom as if it were alive and ready for him to try and cross it.

“But mate,” Ron interjects, gesturing vaguely at Harry, “wouldn’t they like to know about this? If my wand started shooting weird golden light during a duel, I’d be freaking out and thinking that my magic isn’t working or something like that.”

“I think they’re perfectly capable of researching this on their own.” Maybe that’s the reason behind their odd connection. Their wands... attract them to each other, or something.

Would Tom even want to know? The truth is... Ron is right. Someone like Tom, who prides himself on knowing everything and always being in control, must have been utterly shaken by his magic going haywire all of a sudden.

Harry’s choice is made.

A week after the last encounter with Potter, Ezra reappears in the dungeons just as Tom’s Prefect rounds come to an end.

Tom wonders at the snake’s ability to be so precise about his routine. Ready to cage his wayward almost-but-not-quite familiar again, this time with no intention of letting go, Tom lifts his wand in lieu of a greeting.

“Put that away, human,” Ezra hisses, and his tone is enough to still Tom’s tongue. He sounds stiff, his muscles tight and struggling against his obvious distress.

Eyes narrowing, Tom asks: “What happened to you?” If someone had dared to hurt his snake...

“Too many questions.”

“That was one question.”

“Pointless details. Follow me,” Ezra commands, before slithering down the dimly lit corridor, wasting no time to check if Tom is going after him.

Tom curses under his breath. Disrespectful, disobedient creature. He casts a silent Disillusionment Charm over himself and trails behind the sinuous shadow; the snake avoids the treacherous staircases, leading Tom behind faded tapestries and secret passages that he’s never encountered before. Spelling away the cobwebs to prevent them from sticking to his skin and hair, Tom finds himself thinking that not even Potter would have discovered these places—then banishes the reminder of Potter’s existence from his head entirely. The bastard doesn’t deserve a single crumb of his attention.

At this point he’s also wondering if Ezra is trying to get him in trouble on purpose. While the snake has never been particularly talkative and often acts oddly even by reptile standards, this mysterious demeanour is unusual and bordering on suspicious.

Ezra halts in front of a familiar, half-open bathroom door, flicking his tongue at the air; then, apparently satisfied, he slides inside.

More and more confused by this bizarre pseudo-adventure, Tom follows.

Once they’re under the greenish, dim light of the Chamber of Secrets, surrounded by snake-decorated pillars that hold up the vast ceiling, Ezra melts into the shadows and disappears from sight. The last shreds of Tom’s patience evaporate. “Ezra, what is going on?” he barely refrains from shouting.

He hears rustling from behind him, and when he turns in the direction of the sound his eyes fall on the pavement. There’s a book in front of him that hadn’t been there before. The cover is clearly old, black and unassuming, but it means very little for Tom. Wary, he extracts his wand. The Chamber is not a place in which one can trust random books appearing out of thin air.

It’s enough to distract him.

“Incarcerous,” a voice says—a treacherous, insufferable voice—and Tom is bound and constricted by ropes of warm magic that bring him to his knees. As if the humiliation wasn’t enough, he watches, powerless, as Potter waltzes in his field of vision and oh-so-casually disarms him.

“You utter bastard,” Tom snarls, like a flesh-eating curse, “release me.” The spell holds strong against his attempts to free himself wandlessly.

With a grin that shows too many teeth, Potter replies airily, “I don’t think I will. We have a lot of things to discuss, you see, and I don’t fancy being hexed.” His gaze turns sharp and he crouches in front of Tom, mockingly. “Besides, you deserve a little taste of your own medicine. Going around caging random snakes? Very rude, Tom.”

“What have you done to my snake?” No ropes will protect Potter from Tom’s ire. His magic is beginning to flare up, warming his skin, ready to set ablaze everything on its path.

Potter feels it, but all he does is sit cross-legged before Tom, unbothered. “Your snake?” he laughs.

“I caught him. He’s mine.”

“Putting me in a glass case and having a few one-sided conversations about how much you hate me is hardly enough to call me yours.”

Tom’s thoughts screech to a halt. The implication behind Potter’s words dawns on him, like curtains closing at the end of a play. It can’t be true, can it? Tom couldn’t have been so foolish—but wasn’t he the one who’s compared Ezra to Potter more than once? Oh, the irony. The cruelty of his misplaced belief that he could be himself with anyone, even an animal.

And then, Potter’s face opens, and his expression morphs into a genuine smile. Something travels down Tom’s spine at the sight. “You’re surprisingly warm, though. And you smell good under that posh cologne,” he says.

“You knew,” Tom says. “You knew all along that I wanted to sabotage you. That I despise you.”

“Yes.”

“You had no right.”

“You put me in a difficult position, Tom. On one hand, I was very aware of the fact that I was taking advantage of you; on the other hand, however... what was I supposed to do? Let you harm me out of the goodness of my heart? I’m not that self-sacrificing.”

#tomarry #tomarrymort #tmrhptmr #fanfic #yay writing #harry potter

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passable-talent · 4 years

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hi! may i request an alta scenario with zuko where the reader (female or non-binary, if that works) is an earth bender who was injured by the fire nation and is found by iroh and zuko in the woods, who helps them heal, and they begin to travel with iroh and zuko to ba sing se and zuko and the reader fall in love? i’m not being super specific so u can have creative freedom to do what u want, i can’t wait to see what you write :) thank you!

cute!!! their adventures through the earth kingdom always entertained me. esp Iroh and his need for tea

Zuko was growing more and more frustrated with his uncle’s complaisance. He just couldn’t understand it- they were royalty! Both he and Iroh had been raised as heirs to the throne of the Fire Lord, so if their current situation bothered Zuko, why didn’t it bother his uncle?

He took up the mask of the blue spirit once again to begin alleviating these troubles. They were getting food, they were regaining some of their luxury. Frequent firebending patrols, especially around villages, made things harder, but that had never stopped Zuko before. He left at night, when Iroh was fast asleep, and was usually back by midnight. Nothing could stop him- not firebending patrols, not walls, nothing.

Except when the ground moved under him and he lost his footing in the middle of the woods. That stopped him. He paused, and tried to get up, but felt the ground roll underneath him again. For a moment he resigned himself to the dirt, watching the dirt floor of the forest roll with the stones underneath as waves, radiating from one spot.

Through the trees, he caught a glimpse of a small, pointed rock structure. He narrowed his eyes and crawled backwards to put distance between himself and it, and went back to the camp he’d left his uncle in.

“Uncle,” he said the next morning, “I think there’s something I want you to see.” Iroh nodded and allowed Zuko to lead him back to the spot in the forest where he’d fallen last night, and as soon as their footsteps approached, the ground began tremoring again. Zuko pointed to the rock structure, which now it was clear to see had been made by an earth bender. It was a tent-like shape, with two diagonal roof pieces and triangular sides sealed up, all with stone.

There were scorch marks covering the rock, and all the grass around it was scarred with fire.

“What do you think it is?” Zuko asked, and Iroh studied the ground a bit more before leveling his gaze toward the stones.

“I think it’s a very scared earth bender.”

“Hello in there!” He called, and the tremors in the earth stopped. “My name is Mushi, I’m a refugee from the war heading to Ba Sing Se with my nephew. Do you need any help?” For a moment only silence answered him, until one of the triangular sides of the rock tent slid back into the earth.

Inside the tent you were buried up to your neck in dirt, using the cool soil to soothe your burns. You’d received some fierce ones on your shoulder and ribcage after you dared fight back against a firebending patrol, and when you tried to escape the battle, they’d cornered you. Your tent had been an effort to escape the skirmish by waiting it out, and it had worked, after a while. But for hours you merely sat inside your stone tent while they blasted it with flames, heating it up and nearly cooking you, if it hadnt been for the cool soil you submerged yourself in. At the very least, it made your burns much worse. At the worst, you scorched your leg when the flesh brushed too close to the heated rock.

“Are there any firebenders around?” You asked, voice quiet, and not quite timid. Zuko and Iroh shared a look for a brief moment.

“No,” Iroh answered. “Can I come closer?” You nodded and took your arm over your chest, trying to keep any of your body from touching the burns that were all too warm. You sat up slowly from the soil, revealing burnt and tattered clothes barely covering your three major burns. Iroh’s eyes widened and he stepped closer.

“You need help for those burns,” Iroh said, “we’ve got a camp we can take you back to, and help. Can you stand?”

“No,” you said, “it’ll hurt too much.” Iroh looked over his shoulder at Zuko, who was standing in shock, looking at you.

He’d been burnt, and it had left a scar. But at least it was only the one- you’d been treated so cruelly, and if all of your burns scarred, it would cover near a third of your body. He couldn’t stop the adrenaline coursing through him. It would’ve been so painful, and he couldn’t comprehend who would’ve been so cruel enough to do to you what had been done.

“Can you carry them?” Iroh asked Zuko, and he swallowed hard to break himself from his stare. He nodded slightly, hesitantly, and Iroh looked back to you.

“Just take down your shelter, and we’ll help you.” You lifted your right arm, the one whose shoulder hadn’t been burnt, and used it for a quick motion that sent the stone back into the ground. Zuko walked closer, and was about to kneel down, but paused.

If he picked you up on your left side, it would press your burnt shoulder and ribs into him. But if he did so on your left, it was your leg burn that would get too warm.

“Which side do you want me to lift you on?” He asked, and you took a moment to consider.

“Left,” you said, and he nodded. It was somber, as he lifted you up underneath your knees and shoulders. Upon Iroh’s instruction your threaded your fingers together behind Zuko’s neck, and tried to keep your leg extended so that it wouldn’t brush against Zuko’s clothes.

“As I said, I’m Mushi,” Iroh said, trying to make conversation through your light, subconscious whimpering. “My nephew is Lee. What’s your name?” You gave him a small smile, to show that you appreciated his kindness, even as it was tinged by your pain. You couldn’t help it- it had been days of boiling, sweltering flesh that you couldn’t get a reprieve from.

“Y/N,” you told him, and his bright smile answered you.

“What a lovely name.”

Iroh found a plant or two in the wilderness that helped with the burn, and slowly you began to heal. You were kept awake, though, sometimes, and watched as Lee left with nothing and came back with something. You knew something fishy was going on, but you didn’t push it, because you didn’t feel it was your place.

“Are you awake, Y/N?” Zuko asked one night when he returned. You grunted and affirmation and he sat down in front of where you were laying.

“I got this for you,” he said, and handed you a small tin. When you opened it, you found within it an artisan burn suave, made in the nearby earth kingdom village by one or two of the wives of soldiers.

“Thank you,” you said, giving him a smile in the dwindling firelight. He was a tough nut to crack, but you knew he cared for you- he showed his love through listening, and gifting. You noticed it first when he gave his uncle a teapot, and this gift to you only confirmed your suspicion.

Time went on, and they packed up camp to move closer to Ba Sing Se. You came with, holding tight to Zuko’s waist so that there was enough room for the three of you on the ostrich horse. You felt bad for the poor thing, carrying so much weight, but you were in pain and couldn’t walk for long periods of time. Even if you could, you likely wouldn’t have passed up and oppurtunity to hug Lee around the waist for hours while you travelled.

You knew that Mushi had figured you out- there was no way he hadn’t. You weren’t exactly very subtle as you tried to grab Lee’s attention with your laugh or a joke or an earthbending trick. He began doing his part to nudge Lee toward you, which you were appreciative of, especially since it worked.

Or so you thought.

Zuko had scooped you up one evening, when Iroh was already asleep. He hugged you tightly before setting you back down onto your feet, leaving you confused.

“What is it?” You asked, and he shook his head, brooding as always.

“Let me sleep beside you tonight?” He asked, and you were quick to accept, even if you were confused. You fell asleep that night with his arms wrapped around your waist and his nose pressed to the back of your head.

When you blinked your eyes open, you caught a glimpse of the ostrich horse riding away, Lee on its back.

“Mushi? What’s going on?” You asked, sitting up slowly.

“Lee’s got to find his own way. Come, help me pack. We’re going to move to the next village.”

Your alliance was to Mushi, but you did miss Lee. You wondered what he had been thinking that night, when he chose to lay with you before he left. The two of you had barely talked about romance or anything of the like, but he’d done this- how much had it meant to him?

“My nephew is a complicated man,” Mushi said, walking beside you. “Sometimes, his actions are quite peculiar. But he will find his destiny. And somehow, I believe it will lead him back to us.” You looked sideways at Mushi, and smiled.

“You think so?” He nod was all the affirmation you needed.

And he was right- Lee did come back. He came back to reveal himself as brother to the Fire Princess, which made him... the prince of the Fire Nation?

Now the whole ‘running from the fire nation at all costs’ thing made sense.

You didn’t really mind. You offered unconditional forgiveness to the prince, and showed the same medicinal care to Iroh’s wounds that he had once shown to yours.

Zuko was having a hard time, but you were fascinated in watching his training en route to Ba Sing Se. Just as Iroh wanted, the two of you learned from each other, and soon the style of earthbending you practiced looked similar in some aspects to firebending. He, through training with you, became more rooted, and his balance improved further.

But training aside, the two of you started talking. You sat under the stars and began to be honest with each other, now that he had nothing to hide. You shared what had happened to you in that forest for the first time, and he shared the story behind his scar.

Sleeping side by side became as common a practice as eating breakfast.

Iroh couldn’t have been happier, especially as you seemed to bring Zuko out of his shell. He smiled a slight bit more, and laughed a little easier. Even when the three of you made it to Ba Sing Se, Iroh could feel the difference in his nephew’s attitude.

You hated firebenders- they’d left you with course, scarred skin on the outside of your left calf, with dark scars under the skin of your shoulder and ribcage. You hated firebenders- all but two. One, who took you in, and the other, who you loved deeply.

Because someone who’d felt scar tissue for years wouldn’t hesitate to touch it when you wanted him to.

-🦌 Roe

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scathecraw · 3 years

Text

BBRae Week 2021 - Day 3: Into The Woods

“Summer camp has been so much fun, Rachel. Teether hasn’t cried once since the day after you dropped us off, and Tommy got first place in the obstacle course. You were right, we should have done a camp last year, too.” Melvin chattered excitedly on the office phone while Rachel listened patiently. “They’ve made a bunch of arts and crafts, and the woods here are so cool. They’re really old, and Gar knows so muchabout all the trees and animals and bugs.”

“And who is this Gar, Melvin? A new friendof yours?” Rachel’s emphasis was obvious, and Melvin’s blush was practically audible.

“NO! He’s a counselor. He’s really nice, but he’s really old. Like, 50 or something. You’ll meet him on parent’s day next week.”

Rachel didn’t remember anyone older than the director, a middle aged woman she had spoken to when getting them enrolled and again during drop-off. She suspected Melvin was fibbing to cover her embarrassment, but she brought it on herself by teasing the preteen. “I’m sure I will. Does this mean that you’re going to drag me out into the forest when I come? I thought it was going to be an afternoon of arts and crafts and then some campfire songs, not a forced march.”

“Duh. Arts and crafts are lame. Gar said that next year he’d show us how to whittle, which sounds better than making lanyards.” There was muffled adolescent shouting, and Melvin covered the receiver and yelled back. “I gotta go. We’re going swimming. I’ll call you on Friday. Love you, bye.” She hung up before anything could be said back, and Rachel was left with dead air while Melvin sprinted after her friends, untied shoelaces flailing behind her.

Arriving at the aforementioned “Parent’s Day”, Rachel wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The camp had at first seemed like a good way to get the three adopted children outside instead of rotting their brains, but the sheer noise of a few dozen milling, clamoring kids and groups of socializing parents made her wonder what she had subjected them, and by extension, herself, to. She was late, which probably didn’t help the situation, but she looked around the chaos in an effort to find her own three chaos engines. Instead, she was spotted.

A wild, dirty missile made a high-volume impact with her legs, nearly toppling her and babblingso fast that even Rachel’s practiced ear couldn’t discern what he was saying. She was wobbling and about to fall over when a firm hand caught her upper back and helped her regain her balance. “Teether, dude! I said you could go get her, not try to body slam her.”

Rachel finally planted her feet, acknowledged Teether with a gentle hand on his head, and looked up. And up. They both froze for an instant, but the tanned, blond man recovered first. His slack jaw snapped into a smile, and he said “Hi. You must be Rachel. I’m Gar, one of the counselors here.”

His hand was still on her back and heat radiated from it like afternoon sun. Her face had never fallen into the silly expression his had, but unconscious thought raced before she could regain her composure. ‘Definitely not fifty,’ she thought. “Hello. Yes, I’m Rachel, Teether’s mother.” She peeled Teether from her leg with practiced ease, and he sprang off of her and ran.

Gar realized that his hand still rested behind her, almost possessively, and retreated to a more respectable distance. He chuckled, nervously. “Heh. Um, Melvin and Tommy are with their friends, still, but we should probably get them. Ms. Waller asked me to show you around – she said you had just moved to the area?” It wasn’t a question, but he phrased it like it was. They began walking back towards the milling crowd of parents, children, and quite possibly enough noise to drown out a jet engine.

“Yes, it’s our first summer here. She mentioned that most of the kids made this an annual activity, but I didn’t think we’d be so strange as to warrant a personal detail.”

“Oh it’s nothing like that, it’s just that there’s not really many other summer camps around, and ‘cause we go from K-12, we get pretty much everyone. A lot of the other parents already know everybody. You’re not strange, just… new.” His eyes never left her, even as they began walking.

Back with the crowds, Melvin and a gaggle of similarly aged girls watch the two of them. One of them nodded decisively and turned to Melvin. “Okay. They’re too cute together. Look at how awkward they’re being.”

Anotherhuffed a little. “They’re just staring at each other. They should be holding hands or something, right?”

Melvin’s eyes narrowed critically. “It’s been like 10 minutes and they aren’t kissing yet. Gar’s probably too much of a nerd to do anything. We need to do something to make sure they know how perfect for each other they are.”

“Like what? They aren’t going to start making out in the middle of the crowd.”

An evil smirk crept across Melvin’s face. “Maybe not in the middle of the crowd, but what if they were all alone in the woods? Then they’d have no excuse not to!”

A look of awe crossed her companions’ faces. “That’s evil. I love it.”

But the smirk fell, half-formed plot evaporating. “But how could we get them out there alone? It can’t be anything serious, or else Rachel will ground me forever, and I bet she won’t even go unless we can trick her into it.”

“Could you just tell her you feel sick?”

“No.” Melvin shook her head slowly. “Then she’d either stay with me or just take me home early.”

One, heretofore silent, chimed in. “I think I know what we can do. But Mel, you’re going to have to make a lanyard.” She giggled at the disgusted look, and said “C’mon, we only have like 15 minutes before they start wondering where we are.”

Across the crowd and a million miles away, Garfield and Rachel were, in fact, being tremendously awkward as they watched the kids run and play. Gar fumbled his words and couldn’t decide to stare at her eyes, the curve of her neck, or decidedly anywhere except her. Rachel was the opposite. She answered in short, monosyllabic whispers and swallowed, trying to ease her desperately dry throat.

“So, uh, you said you just moved here! Do you have a job, er, of course you do, unless you don’t! That’s fine, too! Nothing wrong with… that. Yeah.” He trailed off, before gamely trying again. “So what do you do when you’re not, y’know, coming to summer camps?”

Rachel took a deep breath and centered herself. Gar started. “I’m not, like, annoying you, am I? I’m sorry, I tend to blabber -”

“No. I’m just… a little off-kilter. I’m a curator of antiquities at the museum.”

“That is so cool. Gar’s eyes were like dinner plates. “I love the museum! I always wanted to volunteer there, but I never feel like I have time between summers here and planning classes during the year.”

“Oh, you’re a teacher? Grade school or high school?”

“High school and occasionally some classes at the community college. I figured I was already teaching AP and college bio isn’t much different. I’m sure the kids get tired of me after the sixth year, though, heh.” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, uncomfortably warm even for a summer afternoon.

“I suppose they wouldn’t let you teach so many years if you weren’t good at the job. Not that biology is my area of expertise.” She clarified, hearing his unspoken question. “I studied history and preservation, so a natural history museum is certainly a big change.”

“Wow, I bet. Still, nobody does what they expected to when they were in college. I got a bachelor’s in Environmental Science, but it turns out most of those jobs are just telling corporations what they want to hear.”

Rachel leveled him with a newly assessing gaze. “Believe it or not, so are quite a few jobs in archaeology. It’s what put me off of the field.”

“But hey, teaching led me to Jump and to Lake Titan Camp, so I can’t complain.”

While the two nominal adults conversed, a far more intricate conversation was happening in the craft cabin. Kole, a pink haired co-conspirator of Melvin’s, was creating a half finished lanyard in pink and purple while the rest strategized. “Okay, so I need to throw her off so she’ll agree. The pink and purple color scheme is good – pink for me, purple for her, but I need something to knock her off her game.”

“You could tell her something that surprised her, maybe. But what?”

Realization dawned. “Okay. This is a little mean, maybe, but I was planning on talking to her about it anyway. I know just what to say. Kole, how’s the lanyard coming?”

“I’ve got it to the perfect length. Just long enough that you might ‘Need a little while to finish it, pretty please.’” She held up the dangling lengths of string. “Everything ready? We’re running out of time.”

“Now or never. Let’s go.” Melvin took a deep breath and led them to the doorway.

Garfield and Rachel were deep in conversation. The initial awkwardness had faded, and while there were still sparks flying whenever they made eye contact, it was more a static buzz than the almost painful live wire sensation of their first glances. At some point they had migrated closer to where Teether and Tommy’s two groups had merged into a supercrowd of children all making noise, forcing them to stand closer to one another to be heard. They were in this huddle, all focus on each other except for both of their frequent check-in glances to the children. Rachel had dipped her toe into a hint of vulnerability to test the waters, quietly and without fanfare explaining that she had adopted all three of them from the same orphanage she had found herself aging out of.

Gar reciprocated. “That’s really incredible. I was adopted pretty young by some family friends. I know how complicated that sort of relationship can be, but it’s doing something amazing for all three of them.”

Melvin, seeing their closeness, hesitated, just a bit. She was messing with fate, a little. But she was certain it was for a good cause. And it was now or never, they were already cutting it close to “Shared Activity Time” for her age group. “Umm. Rachel.”

“Yes, Melvin?” Rachel saw that Mel was nervous. Melvin was never nervous.

“I want to finish a project for you, but won’t have time later. So, uh, I need you to find something else to do. During the Activity Time, I mean. I just want to finish making this. Please, M-mom?”

Time stopped for Rachel. She had adopted them six years ago, and there had never been a time when Melvin had consciously called her “Mom”. Forms asking for “Mother’s Name”, sure. Mother’s day celebrations, absolutely. Even a few mostly-asleep, teary pleas, but never, never while Melvin was in control of her faculties.

But while time had stopped for Rachel, it marched onward for everyone else. Melvin held her breath and waited for long, tense seconds, but Rachel didn’t seem to be coming back to her senses, so she hurriedly spat out “Okayloveyouseeyousoon,” and fled back to the safety of her friends.

Gar, too, was frozen. Not to the same degree, nor for the same reasons, but he felt like he had intruded on something intimate that he had no business being a part of. He looked around, helplessly as Rachel gaped. After several seconds of silence, he couldn’t not do something. “Uhh. Rachel? You… okay?” More frozen immobility. He waved a hand in front of her face. “Rae? You there? Do I need to get a doctor?”

She seized his hand. “Did… did she just call me “Mom”? Or did I have a stroke?”

“Yeah, ouch. She did. I’m guessing this was new?”

“I… Yes. She’s never… What… what do I do? Was she angry I didn’t answer? Where did she go?” Rachel began looking around for her.

“Whoa, slow down. She’s with her friends. She wasn’t mad, it seemed like she was nervous, but not scared. And what you do is let her come to you and talk to her like you always do, and just make sure she knows you’re okay with it. As long as you are okay with it, right?”

“Of course. I just thought...” Rachel trailed off.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about! She loves you and just told you how she feels. That’s a good thing. Let’s give her a chance to do whatever she’s doing. The rest of the kids are about to go do an activity, so we have time.”

“I think I need to get away from the crowd for a minute. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but is it alright if we just go for a walk?”

“Of course.” Gar’s grip had at some point shifted to be holding her hand back, and he led her down a dirt path towards a grove of trees. “This path is quiet and not too hard.” Her sudden harsh look had him follow up. “You’re not really wearing the shoes for hiking, Rae.”

“Hmf. And since when did I say you could call me Rae, Garfield?”

He looked stricken. “I am so sorry. I dunno what I was thinking, Ra-chel. Rachel.”

She narrowed an eye. “Rae is… acceptable, as far as diminutives go. Just don’t make a habit of it in public.”

“Cross my heart. Hey, at least being a little mad at me put your mind off of Melvin, right?”

“And now it’s right back. So very helpful,” she deadpanned.

“Easy come, easy go, right?” His smile grew a little. “I don’t wanna pry or anything, but is it really that surprising? She said you were her mom like, a dozen times during camp.”

“I suppose not. It caught me very off-guard, though. Teether and Tommy sort of switch between Rachel and Mom, but Melvin’s never really seemed like she even wanted that sort of, I don’t know, ‘Official’ title for me.”

“Listen, the whole ‘mom’ thing isn’t as scary as you’re making it out to be. You’re already giving her the kind of love a mom is supposed to, and she loves you. She talks about all the time with stars in her eyes. Being adopted doesn’t make her less your daughter. Rita Farr isn’t any less my mom for taking me in when I was eight, and Marie Logan isn’t any more or less important to me just because she’s not around.”

Rachel took a breath and sighed it out. “Thank you. That does make it easier.” They walked in silence for a short time. “Wait, Rita Farr, as in the movie star? As in, the philanthropist and art collector, married to Steve Dayton?”

He blushed a little. “Whoops, probably shouldn’ta dropped that so casually, I guess. Yeah. Steve and Rita adopted me when my parents died. It’s not always easy, but I love ‘em.” He watched her reaction carefully, hoping she wouldn’t suddenly start treating him differently for having such well-known parents.

Rachel schooled her face after having that bombshell dropped on her. “Well, if we ever meet we’ll be able to talk about some historic pieces she has that I wrote papers on.”

A beat passed, then Gar’s loud laugh broke relative silence of the forest. “Aw man, she is gonna love you.”

And just like that, the tension was broken. All the concern, the lack of balance, everything fell away, and the static buzz of easy conversation punctuated by something just a little too close to intimate for an average friendship was back.

They wandered together down the shady paths, miles away and only a few trees distant from the campground. Rachel didn’t notice the distance she had walked on the formerly dreaded forest hike, and Garfield forgot to try quite so hard with his jokes and wise cracks. They walked, hand in hand and only somewhat realizing how close they were to one another, shoulders nearly touching.

The spell was eventually broken, as they always are. They rounded a final bend, seeing in the distance the campground they had left, what, less than an hour ago? And the reality that they had left behind when they entered the sun-shafted canopies woke them up, and they found that really, their hands were quite slick. Had they been clasped together the whole time? And Rachel, especially, was starting to sweat from the heat and the walk. Garfield was suddenly nervous, after all, he never talked this much, not without making a fool of himself.

But even after emerging from that hazy dream, they held on, gently rising out of the fog and into the real world so no sudden movements could disrupt the memory, the closeness that two almost strangers that fit together like complementary puzzle pieces had shared.

It wasn’t even fully dispelled when their hands slipped apart to be wiped on cargo shorts or dark jeans, though the almost hidden flight from behind a few low-branched trees of blonde hair and untied shoelaces and quiet giggle quickly sobered them.

Garfield turned. “Was that -?”

“Melvin. Oh, that little brat, she is too damn smart for her own good. I would put money on her scheming to get us alone.” Rachel fumed and her face tightened into a mask of cold anger. “I can’t believe that she would manipulate me like this! How could she – How could she finally call me -” and the mask broke, shifting from anger to near tears in seconds.

Gar panicked. “Whoa, hold on, no. She’s not that cruel, I know it and so do you. We’re probably missing something. You just said you can’t believe she would do this – she probably didn’t. Rae I promise you, there’s got to be an explanation that makes sense.”

Rachel took a deep breath, followed by another, centering herself. “I am going to get to the bottom of this. Where would she be doing this “project” she made up?”

“The craft cabin. I’ll take you there, but I guarantee you it’s not as bad as it might sound.”

It was like the crowd parted for them without even reacting. No one looked at the worried counselor or at the steely featured parent, but nonetheless they found their path almost unimpeded. Gar held up a hand just outside the door. “Let me get you two some privacy. Please.”

“Fine. Do it.” Terse and unhappy, Rachel’s displeasure was apparent in her voice, and it made Garfield wince.

He opened the door to see five preteen girls, huddled and tittering. At least until they saw him and his serious frown. Then their eyes went wide, and they looked to Melvin in a panic. “Out, girls. Clear the room. Not you, Melvin.” He stopped her when she tried to take shelter in the middle of the pack. He turned to follow them, and glanced back almost pityingly, then shook his head and exited.

The girls all ducked their heads when they saw Rachel just outside the cabin and hurried off, racing to be the first around the corner and away from the ticking time bomb.

Garfield simply nodded, and left her to it. Rachel entered the cabin and saw Melvin almost trembling, and it broke her heart. She had worked up a head of steam on the walk and the wait, but seeing her precious daughter actually afraid stopped any real anger and left only a bitter emptiness.

Rachel wasn’t quite sure what to do with her hands. She settled on a vague, open armed shrug gesture. “Why, Mel? Was it just a prank? Just a way to manipulate me?”

Tears brimmed in Melvin’s eyes. “No, I just wanted to give you guys a chance to talk alone. I’m sorry I lied, I really did try on the lanyard, but I’m just bad at them so I had Kole do it. I’m sorry, I am.”

“What? What lanyard? Melvin, I don’t care if you had a friend help with a lanyard! I just can’t believe that you would call me your mom, just to trick me into talking to someone. I can’t tell you how badly that hurts me. I… I love you too much for that.”

“What!No, nononono, Mom, I promise that wasn’t a trick. I promise. I was gonna talk to you about it, but I just – I thought that if I – I thought that maybe if I just did it you’d just let me and maybe you’d talk to him and then it everything would be perfect. I promise. I love you, Mom. I do. And I was just trying to maybe make you not spend all your time watching me and talk to him. He’s really cool, and I could tell you like him, and he’s completely in love with you, and you’re perfect for each other. I was just trying to help you be happy!” She sobbed, breathless.

Rachel froze, then instinctively wrapped her daughter in her arms and let her cry. “Mel, you don’t need to worry about me. I am happy, I promise. I don’t need you to try to trick me into being happy. Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to say I’m not mad, but I get it. You don’t have to trick me into talking to, what did you call him, “really old, like 50 years old” guys? If we talk, we talk. That’s how adults work.”

“No, it’s not! I’ve never seen you go on a date, and you just ignore people when they try to talk to you. I know it was dumb, but I had to try something ‘cause otherwise you’d just give him that serious face until he ran away, and he’s perfect for you if you’d just give him a chance!”

“Mel. Mel, okay. I promise. I will give him a chance. But you don’t need to be worried about me. I don’t need a twelve year old playing matchmaker. You should be doing kid things, not bad romcom plots.”

“*SNRK*. They’re not bad. They’re sweet. And you like them, otherwise you wouldn’t have so many of them.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and glowered.

Rachel internally cursed Kori. “If you say so. Now let’s sit here for a minute, then we can go wash your face and you can go hand out with your friends. And I will have a talk with Garfield, and you will not stick your nose into my dating life. Understand?”

“Yes, mom.”

It still startled Rachel to hear that coming from Melvin, but it also warmed her heart. She hadn’t even known she wanted it until it happened, but it was like a spoken guarantee that she really was doing things right, and her little family really was working.

They sat together and Melvin showed her the lanyard that she had made via Kole. Rachel put it on the silver chain she wore around her neck and let it rest beside her heart promising mostly to herself that it would be kept safe at home. Then, when Mel had calmed down, they headed to the bathroom where Mel cleaned the tear tracks from her dirt-smudged face and rinsed her red rimmed eyes. Rachel gave her a final kiss on the forehead, and sent her off.

Gar found her standing there, staring off into space against the wall of the concrete shack. He leaned against it and slid down to sit around the corner and next to her. “So.”

“So,” she said back.

“Not saying it just to confuse you?” He glanced at her, gauging her reaction.

“No. But she wasn’t against confusing me.”

His eyebrow cocked. “Not mad?”

“Still mad. Still going to be grounded, probably. But she did it out of love.”

“Y’know, I don’t want to say I told you so, but...”

“But you totally want to say ‘I told you so,’” she finished for him.

“Yep. So what now?”

“Now, I guess I do what I was going to do before we had all this to deal with,” she said, the soul of nonchalance.

“What’s that?” he said, and when she didn’t respond, he stood up and looked around the corner. “Rae?”

“This.” with only his head around the corner, she turned and kissed him, gentle and sweet, and far too short for either of them. “I’d like to go out sometime. I want to take you to a behind the scenes at the museum, and I’ll let you choose the restaurant.”

His head spun and his eyes were out of focus. His thoughts were like molasses and he could barely get out the word “Okay.” before she was gone, a little bounce in her step.

AO3 FF.net

#bbraeweek21 #bbrae #fic

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griefpersevering · 3 years

Text

sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand

the lokius beach fix-it fic nobody asked for

[Read on AO3] [Buy me a coffee?]

“Who are you?”

Loki stares at him for a long moment, his heart sinking in his chest. First Sylvie, now Mobius… maybe Lokis are destined to lose.

“What?” he asks, still breathing heavily.

The last few days have all melded into one; an indecipherable blur of racing for survival and not much else. With so much happening in quick succession since his failure in New York, it’s impossible to tell whether it has been days or weeks or months since he first arrived at the TVA.

Mobius doesn’t answer, just raising an eyebrow at him.

Loki allows his eyes to wander, assessing the situation and resigning himself to a fight. If Mobius doesn’t know who he is… well, there’s a chance he could get pruned again, and he would like to avoid that situation. Currently, the only people he can see are B-15 - who shouldn’t be too much of a problem - and Mobius, who he would prefer not to hurt, but if he doesn’t recognise him then-

Mobius bursts out laughing, B-15 snickering behind him. She claps him on the shoulder before waving goodbye and wandering off, still laughing to herself as she leaves.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Mobius says between breaths, his confusion replaced with a smile. “That was mean. I just couldn’t help myself.”

“Mobius?” Loki ventures, still wary.

“Look, all that stuff about the Multiverse or whatever?” he replies, waving a hand dismissively. “Not our problem. I’ve officially retired, and I’ve got an excellent retirement plan. Fancy joining me?”

Loki crosses his arms, frowning. “You tricked me.”

Mobius shrugs. “Seems only fair.”

He tries not to smile. “You’re sure the TVA can deal with the Multiverse?”

“Yep, B-15’s taking care of it. Now, come on, there’s a beach waiting for us.”

Mobius fiddles with his TemPad for a moment, a doorway opening up in front of them. He takes a few confident strides towards it before hesitating, looking around the library one last time.

“You don’t have to come with me, you know,” he says, not meeting Loki’s eyes. “I know… I know a quieter life doesn’t really agree with Lokis. You can stay for the fight, if you want, or for Sylvie.”

Loki’s chest constricts at the mention of her, but he forces a small, sad smile onto his face. “You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he answers, and Mobius smiles.

“For all time, then,” he says, extending his hand to Loki.

“Always,” he finishes, taking it as they step through the doorway together.

keep reading under the cut!

1991

The other side of the portal is exactly what Mobius promised: a beach. But what he failed to mention is the beauty of said beach - it isn’t just any old strip of sand, but one of the most breathtaking places Loki has ever had the honour of visiting.

They take a few steps into this new world, their shoes filling up with sand and their hands still entwined as they let their eyes adjust to the bright light. Loki pauses to slip off his socks and shoes, the sand warm and soft between his toes. Mobius follows suit, leaning on Loki for balance, a huge smile on his face.

“It should only be a few minutes walk from here,” Mobius announces, grinning.

“What is?” Loki asks, but he doesn’t get an answer. For once in his life, he isn’t sure he needs one, happy to go along with whatever adventure Mobius has planned.

They walk in comfortable silence, their feet sinking into the sand as they take in the tropical sights. To their left is a bay filled with sparking water which disappears past the land out to the horizon. In the distance, Loki can see a much busier beach by what appears to be a town. If he listens carefully enough, and the wind is blowing in the right direction, he can hear a hundred conversations carrying across the bay at once, a pleasant white noise that mixes with the sound of lapping waves.

To their right is a row of secluded houses, all enveloped in lush greenery that grows from the forest behind them, seeming to lean forwards and envelop them. Their front doors are all painted a variety of bright colours - red, yellow, purple, orange, pink - apart from the one at the end, which is just the default brown.

Mobius pulls a set of keys out of his pocket, a tiny fish keyring hanging from them. “This one is ours,” he declares, and he tugs Loki towards the little cottage at the end of the row.

It takes him a moment to find the right key to unlock the door before it swings open, a neutral brown and white hallway greeting them. He leaves his shoes on the mat outside the front door, Loki following suit, before venturing inside their new house.

Loki can’t say he is surprised by the decor - it isn’t exactly reminiscent of the TVA, but everything is decorated to look almost like a show home. There are no bright colours, no personal touches, nothing to indicate that anyone has ever lived there before them.

Just as Loki opens his mouth to say something, Mobius wrinkles his nose and beats him to it.

“Would it kill someone to pick up a paintbrush?” he complains, but he’s still smiling. “That’s what you get for a company retirement plan that’s only been in place for six hours, I guess… we’ll have to do it all ourselves.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “Company retirement plan?”

Mobius grins. “We have a lot to catch up on. Come on, why don’t you get cleaned up, and I’ll get us something to drink.”

As soon as he leaves the room, Loki rolls his eyes and waves his hand, using his magic to clean the blood and the dirt off of him and to change into a pair of shorts and a bright green haiwaiian t-shirt. And, now that he thinks about it… he frowns and uses what little magic he has left in him to spruce up the place a bit, before collapsing onto the (admittedly, very comfy) couch.

Mobius returns only a few minutes later, raising his eyebrows at the way Loki is sprawled across the sofa, his eyes closed. He looks around the room, taking in the few things that Loki has added - a blanket draped across the back of the couch, a wooden coffee table with a golden bowl of fruit placed neatly on top, and a framed poster of a jet ski on the far wall.

Oh, Mobius thinks with a snicker, you’re gonna love what I have planned for tomorrow.

“Did you get us a drink or are you just going to stand there for all eternity?” Loki asks without opening his eyes, swinging his legs so that there’s room to sit next to him.

“Sorry if I wasn’t moving fast enough, your highness,” Mobius teases as he plops onto the couch, passing a cold beer bottle into Loki’s waiting hands. “The new outfit slowed me down a bit.”

Loki smirks, cracking open one eye to see the outfit that he’d swapped for Mobius’ old clothes. “I thought you’d appreciate something more comfortable. Besides, we match.”

He swings his legs back up onto Mobius’ lap, taking a swig of his drink. They are quiet for a moment, listening to the distant crashing of waves and enjoying the lack of need to do… well, anything.

“Do you mind if I turn the television on?” Mobius eventually asks, and Loki hums an affirmative. He grabs the remote, trying to avoid jostling the legs on his lap as much as possible, before pressing the on button.

As an afterthought, he tugs the soft blanket from the back of the sofa and drapes it over the both of them, firmly focusing his attention on the screen in front of them rather than the sleepy god next to him.

{o0o}

Since he isn’t exactly human, Loki doesn’t need nearly as much sleep as humans. Usually, about eight hours is enough to get him through the week. However, with all the crazy stuff and time hopping and running for his life that he has done in the last however long, he’s asleep within minutes of making contact with the sofa.

When he wakes, however, it is to light streaming through a thin beige curtain. He sits up, running a hand through his hair, as he sleepily takes in his surroundings.

Somehow, he has ended up on top of a bed that he has never seen before. Given the boring decor, he assumes it must be the upstairs of the cottage… so, presumably, Mobius had moved him upstairs in his sleep.

Loki waits for that statement to sink in, for him to feel that usual sense of panic at someone being there and moving him while he was vulnerable, but it never comes.

(If he is being honest with himself, he knows exactly why Mobius is the exception, but he isn’t ready to admit that, not yet.)

He wanders over to the window, yanking open the curtain. There, outside, is the same paradise they had arrived in only last night. And, if the digital clock on the bedside table is enough to go by, it’s 10am on the twenty-fourth of September, 1991.

The view is even more beautiful when he is more awake to admire it, Loki decides. The bay sparkles like a rare jewel, and he finds himself cracking the window open to let some fresh air in.

He sighs, a long breath that mists the glass in front of him. He’ll miss this place, when he inevitably has to leave. Because there’s no way he can stay here for the rest of his life; he’s a Loki, after all, and Lokis are destined to lose. This - a paradise beyond time with someone who knows who he is and accepts him for who he is? He could scoff at the idea. When has the Universe (or the Multiverse, he supposes) ever been that kind to him?

Loki stares blankly out of the window for a few minutes until he is broken from his trance when he spots a familiar figure struggling down the beach, attempting to balance much more shopping than one man can manage.

He blinks a few times, making sure that it is, in fact, Mobius, before barking out a laugh and rushing downstairs and out the front door to lend him a hand. After all, what kind of guest would he be if he let his host embarrass himself publicly within 24 hours of moving in?

When he catches up to him - wearing the same garish, bright orange haiwaiian shirt that Loki had conjured up for him yesterday, he notes - Mobius doesn’t even notice he’s there until several of the bags are lifted from him.

“Hey! Oh, it’s just you,” he exclaims, adjusting a box under his arm. “Thank you,” he adds.

“What did you get?” Loki asks, tucking some of the smaller items into a pocket dimension so he had free hands to carry the rest of it.

“Oh, just a couple of things to spruce the place up. I got a bit carried away, actually,” Mobius admits as they start off back down the beach. “How did you sleep?”

Loki rolls his eyes. “Like the dead, apparently. Did you move me while I was asleep?”

Mobius doesn’t meet his eyes as he responds. “Yep. You looked uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

There’s a pang in Loki’s chest; another reminder that leaving this place will get more and more painful the longer he stays. He can’t get used to these common gestures of affection - he can’t think of another person who would have cared enough about his comfort to go to the effort of carrying him up the stairs.

“Is something wrong?” Mobius asks, interrupting Loki’s train of thought. He’s staring at him, a curious expression on his face, and it’s only then that Loki realises they have stopped.

“It’s nothing,” Loki replies quickly, giving Mobius one of his most charming smiles as he starts walking again.

Mobius stays rooted to the spot. “Bullshit.”

Loki stops, his back turned to Mobius, and sighs. A range of lies are on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t quite find it in himself to bother trying to keep up a facade that they both know Mobius can see straight through.

“I’m having a nice time,” he states, after a minute of debate.

Mobius starts walking again, juggling his shopping as he catches up to Loki. “And that is a problem… why?”

“Because good things don’t last!” he exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “Lokis are destined to lose.”

Mobius raises an eyebrow. “You think this will be taken away from you,” he says. It isn’t a question. “Well, I have a present for you, then. Two, actually.”

They reach the front door of their cottage, Loki’s eyes trained on the ground as he scuffs his sandals on the sand. Mobius rummages through his bags, trying to find something specific.

“May I have the red striped carrier bag, please?” he asks, when his search comes up fruitless. Loki conjures it for him, passing it over. He doesn’t know what’s in any of the bags (although, now, he’s thinking he should probably have checked), he had only picked it because it is one of the heaviest ones.

Mobius opens the bag from him with a word of thanks, peering in to check it’s the right one. Then, he sticks a hand in his pocket, pulling out his fist closed around something.

“Here,” he says, offering his closed fist to Loki. “This is yours to keep, forever.”

Loki cautiously holds out a hand, and Mobius drops the item into his palm. Loki stares at the little piece of metal, wondering how it could mean so much.

“...Is this?”

“The key to our house, yeah,” Mobius confirms, smiling. “And a crocodile keyring, since I’m apparently never going to get over meeting that version of you.”

Loki smiles, just slightly, cupping the key carefully in his hands as he admires the keyring.

“And that bag is also for you. Well, the contents are, I don’t know if you want the bag as well-”

It’s not hard to tell that Mobius is nervous, so Loki can’t begin to imagine what is in the bag. He picks it up, sand pouring out the bottom of the bag, raising his eyebrows at what he finds.

“Green paint?”

Mobius grins, scratching the back of his head. “We’re the only ones with a boring front door. I figured we should probably fix that, add some of your flare.”

Loki gives him a shit-eating grin, sliding the keys into his pocket.

“What?” Mobius asks, sensing something is up. “What did I say?”

With a wave of a hand and without the paint can ever being opened, the front door is suddenly the colour of Peppermint Fresh.

“You seem to be forgetting you live with a god,” Loki declares, waggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, come on.”

They spend the rest of their day renovating their new house, Loki’s powers speeding up the process immensely. Other than paint and wallpaper, Mobius had also bought them both some clothes, as well as a range of random items to make the place look a little more personal, and two whole bags of groceries.

“I’ve never cooked anything before,” he admits, just as the sun starts to dip below the horizon. “We never had to, at the TVA. We always just went to the canteen.”

Loki hums to the radio playing in the corner, standing back to check if the strip of wallpaper he had just hung looked straight. “We always had people cook for us, back on Asgard,” he replies. “My mother tried to teach me, but I found pestering my brother much more interesting.”

“Do you miss your family?” Mobius asks, collecting the paintbrushes from around the room so he can wash them in the kitchen sink.

“They weren’t my family,” he responds immediately, before wincing. “Well, not biologically. But I’m starting to think that maybe family is more than just DNA.”

Mobius nods, shoving the paintbrushes into a carrier bag. When he’s sure Loki has nothing else to say, he gestures to the door. “Want to make sure I don’t set fire to the kitchen?”

Loki smiles. He has found himself doing that more and more since he has met Mobius; the man always seems to know what to say and do. “I’m pretty sure you know that I have quite the history of arson, but sure.”

So, they go downstairs, Loki waving his hands and cleaning the stray blotches of paint off their clothes.

“Let’s start with something simple,” Mobius suggests, opening the fridge. “Fish fingers?”

Loki nods. “Surely even you can’t mess that up.”

Oh, how he was wrong. An hour later, they’re sitting next to each other on the couch (upright, this time) eating burnt fish fingers and scoffing at the programme they’re watching.

“Do humans really believe in these things?” Loki asks incredulously, squirting more ketchup on his plate in an attempt to overpower the burnt taste.

Mobius scoffs. “I think it’s for entertainment, Loki. But yeah, ‘aliens’ don’t act like this. At least, not as far as I know.”

“There’s a multiverse now,” Loki muses. “Maybe there weren’t any before, but there are now.”

Mobius shrugs. “Who knows. It’s not our problem, either way.”

Loki doesn’t answer, instead opting to scoop the fishfinger into his mouth. Mobius frowns at his lack of response, grabbing the remote and muting Mulder and Scully’s investigation.

“You do know… this whole multiverse business, it’s not your fault, right? And, as far as we know, nothing catastrophic has happened yet.”

Loki swallows, refusing to take his eyes off the silent TV. “That’s the thing, Mobius. It is my fault - partly, at the very least. And what if something bad does happen? Any suffering or pain caused by this is on my shoulders.”

Mobius puts his plate down on the coffee table, nudging him with his shoulder. “That statement is so incorrect, it’s unbelievable. I thought you were supposed to be smart?”

Loki doesn’t say anything, and he sighs.

“Look - first of all, it isn’t your fault. This is all on Sylvie. I don’t know what happened there, but from what I gather, you tried to stop her, and that’s all that matters. I’ve met a hundred different Lokis, and every single one of them would have done what benefits them the most, not fought to try and do something to help other people.”

“She kissed me,” Loki says, out of nowhere. “Sylvie, I mean. And then she just… tossed me away.”

Mobius frowns. “Did you like her?”

“I thought I did,” he admits. “But I think - I don’t think I liked her like that. I think I mistook wanting her to be safe and happy for love.”

“It’s a kind of love, just perhaps not the one you assumed it was.”

Loki nods. “I loved her like a sister, I suppose.”

“And she betrayed you,” Mobius continues. “When you were finally allowing yourself to trust others again.”

Loki puts his plate on top of Mobius’, suddenly not hungry. He tries to turn his attention back to the muted television, but he’s missed too much of the exposition to properly understand what is happening.

“Loki, look at me,” Mobius says softly. “Loki.”

He turns, praying that he doesn’t notice the tears welling in his eyes.

“Experiencing two conflicting emotions is perfectly normal,” Mobius continues, reaching for Loki’s hand and squeezing it. “You can care about Sylvie, and be upset about what she did at the same time.”

“I just-” he tries, his voice cracking. “I just wonder whether she ever cared about me, or whether she was just using me the entire time. I mean, it’s the kind of thing I would do, isn’t it?”

Mobius stares him dead in the eye, his voice firm. “Maybe once, but not now. You know what makes you different from every other Loki?”

“The fact I stole the Tesseract, escaped to the desert, and then helped to take down the man in charge of the universe?”

“No.” Mobius sighs. “Well, yes, I suppose. But what I was trying to say is that you’re different to every Loki because you care. You recognised your faults, and then you tried to change them.

“You said, earlier, ‘Lokis are destined to lose’, and yet here you are. I would count this as a win, wouldn’t you?”

Loki is uncharacteristically silent after that. They sit like that for a few minutes, neither of them speaking, before Loki stands up and disappears into the kitchen, taking the plates with him. Mobius sighs, reaching for the TV remote and turning the channel to some random movie.

When Loki returns a few minutes later, he sits straight down next to Mobius. They watch the movie - something about little fluffy monsters - together, not finding the need to speak.

It’s only by the time Loki’s head has drooped onto Mobius’ shoulder that the silence is broken. He drags the blanket over the sleepy Loki that’s attached itself to him, grinning at how adorable he finds the ferocious god.

“Thank you,” Loki mumbles, only half-conscious, and they both know he isn’t only talking about the blanket.

{o0o}

This time, when Loki wakes up, he knows the bed he lies in is his own. He frowns, not remembering getting into bed, before realising that Mobius must have carried him upstairs again.

If anyone asked him, he would say that he had fallen asleep because of all the magic he had used to renovate during the day, but that wouldn’t be the truth. No, he’d be a little more hesitant to admit that their little cottage by the beach feels like the safest place he has ever stayed. Besides, emotions are exhausting.

He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and checking the little clock by his bedside. 9:24, it reads, which isn’t too-

“Loki?” a sleepy voice says from beside him, and he has to stop himself from leaping out of the bed in surprise.

Because somehow, in the few minutes he has been awake, he has failed to notice that he is not alone in the room. Next to him, tucked neatly under the covers, is Mobius, Captain America pajamas and all.

Loki wrinkles his nose at the choice of outfit, but doesn’t voice his opinion. “What - did I fall asleep again?”

“Mmm,” Mobius hums, eyes sliding shut again. “‘S too early, go back to sleep.”

Okay, Loki’s pretty sure his heart just melted slightly. “I don’t need as much sleep as you,” he replies gently. “But you should lie in.”

“Fine,” Mobius complains, rolling over. “But I’m stealing your pillows.”

Loki can’t help but grin at the ridiculous sight - Mobius M. Mobius, formerly one of the most prestigious members of an elite organisation, spread starfish-style across their bed in his Avengers pajamas.

(Although, Loki supposes, the actual Avengers won’t exist for another twenty or so years, thanks to their time travel shenanigans.)

He slips into the hallway, leaving the door ajar behind him, before rummaging around in the bags they had shoved in the study yesterday without bothering to unpack. It only takes a few minutes to find the item he’s looking for, and it takes even less time to sneak back into their bedroom, his footsteps entirely silent.

Click! Loki smirks from behind the disposable camera and sneaks back out of the room, hoping that Mobius doesn’t wake up. Just because he doesn’t want a throne anymore doesn’t mean that he isn’t the God of Mischief- surely, Mobius should be expecting at least a few harmless pranks.

It’s a nice morning - cool, but in that way that suggests it might get much warmer later in the day - so Loki decides to go for a walk. He has barely made it past the second house in their row when a familiar face pops up from behind a hedge, waving wildly.

“Hey! I know you - blue box guy!”

Loki blinks a few times, trying to place the man in front of him. “Casey?”

“Yeah!” he exclaims, hurrying out of his front gate. “You stole my drink.”

“Sorry,” Loki replies automatically, before shaking his head. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, you would not believe the week I have had,” Casey begins, waving his arm dramatically. “So I’ve been behind a desk my entire life, right? And then Mobius comes along, and he’s all like ‘Everyone who works for the TVA is a variant and the Timekeepers aren’t real!’ So there’s a bit of a fight - not everyone believes him, you see, and I had no idea what to think - and then a load of people come back from a field mission saying they saw Judge Renslayer as a high school principal!”

“Really,” Loki says drily, trying to keep up with the man’s incessant babbling.

“Yeah! So then Mobius takes over, just for a while, and he says that there are two Loki variants who are gonna take down whoever is behind the TVA, and he comes up with a plan - the people who still want to work there answer to B-15 and do whatever they want to, or you can retire to a few different locations in a few different times! And I figured, ‘Gosh, I nearly died twice in the span of ten minutes and that was scary so I should probably make sure my life has meant something,’ and also a multiverse sounds like a lot of paperwork, so. Here I am!”

Loki is silent for a few seconds, still trying to process all the information that Casey managed to spit out at an alarmingly fast rate. “Wait. So, everyone who lives here used to work for the TVA?”

Casey nods. “This row of houses, yeah. ‘1991 Beach’ was the most popular retirement option - I was pretty lucky to get one of these spots.”

“Huh,” is just about all Loki can manage.

“And guess what, criminal whose name I don’t know!” Casey exclaims excitedly. “I met a fish the other day.”

Loki raises an eyebrow, amused. “Did you, now?”

“Yep! Which, uh, makes your threat much more vivid.” Casey shudders.

“Don’t worry, I don’t kill people anymore,” Loki says, and realises that that is probably the truth. “Sorry about that, and for stealing your drink.”

Casey shrugs. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

“I should head back, but it was nice to see you again, Casey.” Loki turns back to their house, his feet slipping slightly in the sand. “Oh, and, by the way - my name is Loki.”

He turns his back and walks away before he can see the look on Casey’s face, but if the sharp intake of breath he hears is anything to go by, he has certainly succeeded in surprising his new neighbour.

When he gets back, Mobius is awake, shuffling around the kitchen in his pajamas. “Morning, sunshine,” he greets as Loki appears in the doorway, sniffing the air.

“Breakfast?” he asks hopefully, and Mobius laughs.

“Yup. Full English, I thought. Did you have a nice walk?”

Loki perches on the edge of the table, smiling. “I didn’t get particularly far. I had an… interesting conversation with Casey, though.”

“Oh, I remember him. Bit weird, if memory serves,” Mobius responds, scrunching his nose as he cracks two eggs into the frying pan. “Wait, how do you know him?”

Loki scratches the back of his head. “I may, uh - I may have threatened to ‘gut him like a fish’. And then I stole his drink and poured it into your salad.”

Mobius raises an eyebrow. “Wow, okay.”

“In my defense, he didn’t know what a fish was until he moved here. And, I was part of the reason he retired, so.”

“How did he not know what a fish- You know what,” he replies, shaking his head as he turns back to the stove. “I don’t care.”

Loki turns the radio in the corner on with a flick of his wrist, and they are both content to sit and enjoy the quiet morning while Mobius cooks. In no time at all, they are sitting across from each other, two plates of food in front of them.

Picking a piece of eggshell out of his food, Loki warily takes a bite. “Did you have any plans for today?”

“As a matter of fact,” Mobius responds with an excited grin, “I do.”

It turns out, Mobius’ plans involve him packing a backpack and eagerly dragging Loki down the beach to a small jetty. There, waiting for them on the end of the small pier, is a jet ski.

Loki grins. “So that's why you chose the beach.”

Mobius grins, dumping the bag on the side and fishing his keys out of his pockets. “I have read about these things every day for almost the entirety of what I can remember, and I’m finally getting to go on one. Are you coming?”

“Of course,” Loki answers, and he clambers on behind Mobius.

“Hang on,” he shouts over the engine, and Loki wraps his arms around his waist. “You ready?”

“I’m starting to think this might be a bad- woah!”

Before Loki can even finish his statement, they’re off. Mobius soon gets the hang of it, zipping around the bay and whooping. Loki can’t help but smile - sure, he isn’t nearly as bothered about jet skis as Mobius is, but the man’s excitement is contagious. Besides, there is a certain freedom to it; he can feel the wind in his hair and taste the salt on his lips.

Suddenly, Mobius attempts to do a sharp turn, jolting them both with absolutely no warning. Loki tries to hang on, clinging tightly onto his chest, but the movement catches him by surprise and he ends up in the water.

Mobius turns the jet ski around, slowly pulling up next to (the now very wet) god. “Sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very apologetic.

“Maybe I’ll stick to sunbathing,” Loki suggests as Mobius hauls him back onto the ski before dropping him off at the jetty.

“Are you sure?” he asks, clearly torn between having the time of his life and leaving Loki on his own.

“Of course I’m sure,” he answers. “I think I’ll survive an hour or two on my own. Besides, I don’t want to ruin your fun by vomiting all over you.”

Mobius pulls a face. “Maybe it’s for the best, then. I won’t go far, I promise.”

“Go!” Loki says, waving his arm at his friend as he picks up their bag. “Have some fun. You’ve earned it. I think we both have.”

Hours later, when the sun has started to set over the horizon, the two men find themselves lazing on the beach next to each other. Mobius slips a chocolate wrapper into the book he’s reading and places it down next to him, turning to his companion.

“Loki,” he begins, staring out at the sea. “Did you ever think you would settle down like this?”

“Never,” Loki answers, without any hesitation.

“Me neither.”

In the distance, there is the faint smell of cherry pie - perhaps one of their neighbours is cooking. A seagull swoops by overhead, landing on a fence a few feet behind them and bobbing about. If you look closely enough, you can see the ripples on the top of the water; the only clue that there are fish below the surface.

“We make a strange pair, don’t we?” Mobius muses, watching the sky turn from blue to orange to pink.

Loki hums. “That’s why we’re perfect for each other.”

There’s no argument to be made against that in Mobius’ mind, so they sit together, not at the end of the world, but at the beginning of one.

THE END.

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#lokius #loki #loki spoilers #mobius #mcu #my writing #syssyb

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heliads · 3 years

Text

Lie For Me

When Scott McCall ends up being trapped by hunters, the last thing he expects is to be saved by one of them, a Y/N L/N he knows from school. He later finds out that she is a werewolf as well, and she needs his help as much as he needs hers.

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The woods are beautiful at night. The gentle rustling of leaves against the boughs, the silver light of the moon spilling down into the trees. Emerald green melts into deep oak and mahogany. It’s one of the most soothing places in all of Beacon Hills. Scott McCall would love to appreciate this prime example of nature, but he’s a little distracted by silently cursing Liam for running off into the woods and getting himself discovered by the hunters.

Clearly, Scott doesn’t have this whole alpha thing on lock. He had thought it was going fine, that Liam was finally making headway with managing his emotions. It was a difficult enough transition for any wolf, but for a boy with Liam’s anger problems? It turned out to be practically impossible. Scott’s been trying to think of anything from when he had been a beta, of any helpful tricks Derek had taught him. However, Derek’s version of teaching Scott about being a werewolf had basically consisted of disappearing for days at a time and then showing up out of nowhere to lurk ominously across a parking lot. Not a lot of help there.

The most he remembered from Derek was that one line the older werewolf had uttered to him, when Scott had wound up in the middle of the woods with a supernaturally charged heartbeat racing through his veins. “The bite is a gift.” “We’re brothers now.” Scott had tried out those same phrases on Liam, which had gone about as well as one could expect, with the boy storming away. Well, at least he’d tried.

But ‘just trying’ hasn’t really given Scott the results he had been hoping to see. Liam had gotten into some argument, probably with that boy from Devenford Prep- Brett or something- and stormed away into the woods. The only problem was that it was late at night, the moon was out, and the hunters always chose this time to go on patrols, looking for lone wolves. Lone wolves such as Liam, or at least Scott, who is chasing after him. Scott believes that Liam has managed to get away, but only because Scott distracted them. This has the unintended downside that about a dozen hunters are currently on Scott’s tail, and he has no idea how to get rid of them.

Scott leaps over a ravine, taking advantage of the sudden increase of ground in between himself and the hunters to duck around a stand of trees. There’s a large rock face a short distance from him, and if Scott can manage to get over there, he just might be able to lose the hunters once and for all. Just as he’s about to cross the final leg to the rocks, however, he hears the sudden sound of a dozen running feet and an arrow flies an inch away from his head. Looks like the hunters have caught up.

They’re gaining ground quickly, too. Unlike Scott, they aren’t constrained by the need to hide, and can blunder through the woods far faster than him. Scott throws himself behind a grove of trees, leaning back against the rough wood of the trunks and listening to the hunters draw closer and closer to him. They appear to have passed him, and then they fan out and begin searching in earnest. Scott’s heart feels like it’s in his throat. If he moves, they’ll hear him, but if he stays, they’ll see him. What does he do now? The choice is made for him when Scott sees a pair of black hunting boots stop in front of him, and then a pair of eyes meet his.

Scott is about to extend his claws and try to make a run for it through this nearest hunter, but his movements slow when the figure quickly places a finger against her lips, signaling for him to be quiet. The hunter shifts slightly, and the moonlight washes over her face. Scott’s eyes widen as he realizes he recognizes the hunter- it’s a girl from his school, Y/N L/N.

Y/N seems to recognize him as well, and he can see panic warring in her eyes as she tries to figure out what to do. Then she points towards the forest behind him, at a hole in the undergrowth. She whispers quietly, the sound only audible to Scott’s supernatural hearing. “Go. Quickly.” Scott nods, and turns and runs as fast as he can, disappearing into the night. He hears Y/N loudly walk back towards the other hunters, stepping on as many twigs and crackling leaves as she can to hide any sound of Scott’s movement. “I didn’t see him over here.” So she’s covering for him- but why?

Even after Scott manages to make it out of the forest, he’s still confused. If Y/N is a hunter, and her entire family are also hunters, why would she save him? Scott knows other teenage hunters, and they’ve never let the simple fact that they are schoolmates with a werewolf stop them from killing. In fact, they seem to take added joy in making the demise of a former friend turned wolf as gruesome as possible. So why would Y/N disregard all of that to save his life?

Scott decides to get some answers when he returns to school the next day. Y/N sits at a table outside with a couple of friends, and Scott waits until those friends disappear to the lunch line before he slides into a seat next to Y/N. She looks up, but seems unsurprised to see him. “You made it out.” She says, and Scott nods. “All thanks to you. I have to ask, though- why did you save me? I’m used to hunters being more of the merciless type.”

Y/N looks around, as if making sure nobody is watching them, then casually moves her hand onto the table next to Scott. It’s hidden to any passersby by her lunchbox, so Scott is the only one to see the werewolf claws extend from her fingertips. Once she’s sure Scott has seen them, she flicks the claws away as if they were never there. Scott stares at Y/N, speaking as quietly as possible. “You’re a werewolf? But how- I thought hunters weren’t allowed to undergo the change.”

Y/N tilts her head in acknowledgement. “They’re not. Nobody knows except you and me. I was bitten a couple of months ago, by some werewolf who wanted to send a message to my family. I managed to get rid of him so he wouldn’t tell anybody, but there was still the issue of the bite. I know I’m supposed to kill myself because death is meant to be better than living as a werewolf, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’ve been as careful as I can to make sure nobody finds out.”

Scott shakes his head, amazed. “That must be terrifying, living so close to the hunters and having to keep that secret. How do you do it?” Y/N shrugs. “I spend as much time as possible at school or with friends. I figure the less time I’m around them, the less likely they’ll figure it out, right? I’m very careful not to get paper cuts, so they can’t see me heal. Plus, I have a sudden and extreme dust allergy that just happens to flare up whenever I’m handed a container of wolfsbane. What’s nice is that I know what they look for when trying to figure out whether someone is a werewolf, so I can just do the opposite of all that.”

Scott glances over at her, taking in the stress lining her brow. “I’m impressed that you’ve managed to keep it a secret, but that’s going to be hard. If you need any help, any at all, ask me. It’s hard to be a lone wolf, but it’s even harder to be alone in a house of hunters. You saved my life last night, I’d like to be able to begin to pay that back.” Y/N smiles. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Scott is walking past the lacrosse field after practice when he first hears the howl. It’s quiet, as if someone’s doing their best to hide it, but it’s there nonetheless. Scott turns around to try to find the source, noticing Liam freeze in place as well. “Did you hear that?” The younger boy asks, and Scott nods. “I think it’s Y/N. I think she’s in trouble.” Liam glances around to see if anyone’s watching, then looks back at Scott. “Go find her. I’ll make up some excuse to Coach.” Scott claps Liam on the shoulder in gratitude, already starting to sprint away from the field. He doesn’t know how long Y/N has until the hunters find her, and he intends to get there first.

Scott was able to track the howl fairly quickly. It only came once, but he could get a rough location thanks to his supernatural hearing- roughly around the woods. Besides, the forest is the only place that makes sense- if Y/N was trying to maintain control over her claws and fangs, she’d probably want to go to the one place where she wouldn’t be immediately caught by her hunter family. Not her house, or the town, but the woods. Of course.

Scott turns out to be right about the woods- he finds her after only a couple of minutes of searching through the tangled briars and wind-swaying branches. She’s huddled under a large California maple, back pressed against the trunk. One hand is pressed against her temples, the other over her mouth as she tries to bite back another howl. When she looks up at Scott, her eyes are a glowing, burning yellow.

Scott approaches slowly. “What happened? Talk to me.” Y/N breathes out harshly, as if trying to regain focus, then begins speaking. Her fangs flash in her mouth with every word. “I was with the other hunters, in the house. They started talking about the werewolves they had killed.” She stops talking, as if physically forcing herself to stay calm. “They were so proud of themselves. One of them pulled up a picture on his phone. Scott, the body was a teenager. Just a kid. Younger than I was, and he was so proud of it. It made me sick. I barely managed to get out of there before losing it.”

Scott nods, then kneels to the ground in front of Y/N so they’re sitting next to each other on the leaf-strewn ground. “That sounds horrifying. They’re all horrifying.” Y/N shakes her head in disbelief. “And they’re the ones calling us monsters. I hate that I have to keep hiding from them. I have to live around them all the time, and it’s just going to get worse.” Scott watches as she tries to make herself return to a more human appearance, practically forcing her claws away. Scott reaches out and grabs her hand. “This is how you’ve been trying to hide? Y/N, you’re hurting yourself.”

Y/N looks away. “It’s what works. I don’t have much of a choice.” Scott puts his hand on her cheek, gently guiding her eyes back to his. “You do have a choice. You always have a choice. Even when it seems impossible, you always manage to do the right thing. You saved me from those hunters even though they could have hurt you. Honestly, it’s amazing how you’ve managed to stay afloat in the middle of all this.” Y/N’s angry expression brightens at that, and all of a sudden her eyes lose their golden glow and return to normal. Her claws slowly retract, as do her fangs.

She stares at him. “How did you do that?” Scott shrugs. “A big part of the shift is just losing control of your emotions. Sometimes it’s handy to have someone stay here and help talk you through it.” Y/N smiles at him. “Thank you, Scott. I mean it.” She breathes in and out slowly. “You don’t know how much of a relief it is to go back to normal.” Scott stands up, extending a hand to Y/N to help her up. “Hey, no problem. We all have to have each other’s backs, right?”

Y/N seems about to respond, and then her eyes lock on something behind him. Too late, Scott realizes that the vague noises echoing in the forest around them are not just woodland animals and birds, as he’d assumed, but more distinct. Human footsteps. Y/N’s eyes widen in a panic. “Those are my parents. They’re out hunting. Scott, they’re going to find out.” Scott can feel her shaking slightly with terror. He looks for a way out, some escape route, but there’s nothing. The hunters are closing in on all sides, and they’re only seconds away from finding the two of them. Just before the hunters swarm out from behind the trees, Scott whispers something to Y/N. “Trust me.”

Then there are guns pointed in their direction, guns held by a multitude of hunters. Too many to fight. Besides, a fight wouldn’t have saved them anyway- they would still wonder why Y/N, who was supposed to be one of them, was out in the forest with known alpha Scott McCall. Scott’s mind is a whirl of thoughts, and then he realizes what he has to do. Quickly, he grabs Y/N over to him, extending his claws and holding them over Y/N’s throat. He can feel the panic radiating over her, threads of betrayal making their way to the surface. He mutters something quietly under his breath, something only Y/N can hear. “Go with it. Please.”

One of the lead hunters, Y/N’s father, cocks his rifle. “What are you doing with her?” Scott just tightens his grip around Y/N’s throat. “You’ve been messing around with my pack too many times. I’m here to send a warning.” The hunter laughs, although Scott is pleased to hear a note of worry in the undertone. “We all know this is fake. Scott McCall would never hurt someone.” Scott tilts his head to the side, considering this. “I would never hurt an innocent. She’s a hunter, there’s a difference.”

The lead hunter’s eyes begin to cloud over with panic. “Okay, you’ve said your message. Now let her go.” Scott shakes his head. “That’s not how this works. You’re going to leave the werewolves alone, all of them. Even the lone wolves that aren’t a part of my pack.” The hunters scoff, and another one steps forward. “Why would we ever do that?” Scott’s voice lowers to a threatening pitch. “Because if you don’t, I’ll tear her throat out right now.” It’s a lie, an obvious one to anyone with supernatural hearing. Y/N can hear the hesitation in his heartbeat, and knows that Scott couldn’t do it if he tried. But the hunters cannot hear that reluctance, only see the scarlet glow of his eyes and the monster they’ve always thought him to be.

Anger replaces fear in the leader hunter’s eyes, and he signals to his men. “Like hell you are.” Suddenly, a bullet flies out of the woods and lodges itself in Scott’s arm. He reaches back away from Y/N, fighting the pain in his bicep but watching the skin already begin to reknit itself. The second Scott’s grip loosens, the lead hunter calls out to his daughter. “Y/N, quick! Run!” Y/N’s eyes dart to Scott, and he nods almost imperceptibly. She turns and sprints towards the false safety of the hunters. The other men swarm Scott, grabbing him and forcing him away. Just as Scott is dragged out of the woods, he turns to see one last glance of Y/N, who stares at him. Her eyes are full of terror.

Scott is taken to some hunter stronghold. He’s fairly sure that he’s in the basement of one of the hunters’ houses. Maybe even Y/N’s. It doesn’t really matter, though- he’s a little distracted at the moment. The hunters are lording it over him that they’ve managed to capture a true alpha, and rewarded him with a fairly large dose of torture. It’s not the first pain he’s experienced at the hands of hunters, and it likely won’t be the last, but that doesn’t mean that this doesn’t hurt. He’s been tied to a metal grate at the back of a basement, wires strapped to his arms, legs, and chest. Whenever the hunters feel like it, they’ll up the voltage and a shower of sparks will descend over his vision.

They’ve left for now, but Scott groans inwardly when he hears the sound of footsteps descending down the stairs. He was hoping for at least a little more recovery time, but it doesn’t look like he’ll even have that. His head is hung low, and he can’t see the approaching hunter until they’re only a few feet away from him. Then they pause, and Scott bites back a growl. “Why bother standing there? Just get it over with.” But the hunter doesn’t turn on the electric shocks. Instead, they walk even closer, and gently raise Scott’s head with the palm of their hand.

Scott’s spirits lift when he realizes the hunter is Y/N. She’s looking at him, horrified at what her family had done to him. “Give me a second, I’ll get you out of this.” She grabs a knife from her belt and starts sawing away at the restraints binding his arms and legs. Scott attempts to shake his head. “No, don’t. You have to go- they’ll see you.” A light smirk flickers across Y/N’s face. “Actually, they won’t. They’re all off at some bar on the other side of town, taking the opportunity to celebrate their capture of the one and only Scott McCall with some cheap beer. They won’t be back until late tonight, and they won’t be able to think straight until noon tomorrow.”

The last of the ropes have been cut away, and Scott rolls his shoulders, wincing from the stiffness already starting to creep across his limbs. Y/N watches him, pain flickering across her face. Scott glances over at her. “Don’t feel bad. I made my choice.” She shakes her head. “I should have done something to stop them. To stop this.” Scott reaches out and takes her hand. “There was nothing you could do. I’d rather have you stay alive then save me from a few shocks.” Y/N considers their intertwined hands. “You shouldn’t have had to choose.”

Scott places a hand on Y/N’s face, gently guiding her eyes to his. “We’re not human. We’re always going to have to make impossible choices, that’s who we are. And I chose you in the woods, and I will continue to choose you whenever I can. You’re a good person, Y/N, and good people rarely get to make easy decisions.” Y/N’s look of guilt fades away, and she smiles at him. “Actually, I can think of one easy decision right now. Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to spend any more time in this basement.”

Scott chuckles. “I can agree with that.” The two of them head quickly out of the door, and escape into the brisk chill of night. As they both make their way through town, Scott can’t help but look over at Y/N and smile. He meant what he said earlier to her- he intends to put her first in every day to follow. Today is just the first instance when he can say that out loud.

#scott mccall #scott mccall imagine #scott mccall x reader #scott mccall imagines #scott mccall oneshot #teen wolf #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf x reader #teen wolf imagines #teen wolf oneshot #teen wolf scott #teen wolf scott imagine #teen wolf scott x reader #teen wolf scott imagines #teen wolf scott oneshot

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