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leggerefiore · 8 months

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Red Chain

cw: angsty, Volo is being a bit creepy and manipulative but what's new, one-sided relationship (by Volo), love triangle

pairings: Cyrus/Reader, One-sided Volo/Reader

☄️ = Cyrus's ending, ⭐️ = Volo's ending

Volo had felt like a fool for centuries.

The one time a human stirred feelings within him, he had foolishly blind sided by his ambitions of claiming Arceus's power as his own so desperately that he lost you.

You opposed him fiercely. Your teams clashed at the ruined Temple of Sinnoh. Somehow, you overpowered his pokemon, which he had trained so competently. His rage swelled for but a moment as he called forth Giratina to put an end to your useless resistance to his goals. The choice of words he settled on did not reflect his true feelings.

Strike you down… That was the last thing he wanted. Volo wished you would stop going against his ideals and just let him force the deity down from its hiding to quell his curious mind and take its power as his own. Your death had no benefit to him.

Despite the strength of the Renegade pokemon, you managed to once again persevere and halt his ambitions. The legendary fled into its portal as he yelled curses and insults to both it and you. His feelings were an ocean of madness eating at his poor brain. He relented the final plate to you and watched as Arceus brazenly chose you over him.

Volo departed those ruins with a promise to see his plans to fruition, no matter the wait involved.

He had truly meant it.

Perhaps that was why Arceus had cursed him so.

It had been nearly a century and a half since he last laid eyes on you.

You had departed Hisui not long after you received the blessing of the deity to call upon it. After meeting it, your farewells had been bid to the people of the region as you decided to leave these lands and return to your own era. He had not even managed to see you leave.

Now, however, he stood in what used to be isolated cliffs and rocky terrain. It had been turned into a decent sized city in the now called region of Sinnoh. His feet carried him into the area with relative boredom. News about an organization attempting to call upon the legendary pokemon of Sinnoh to create a new world had called him here in bland curiosity.

There was not much he found enjoyment in any longer. He may have looked no older than a man in his twenties, but he was much, much older. A slight breeze moved his blond strands in its path as he stood in the street near a café. His heavy coat and brimmed cap made his face hard to see, annoyingly mistaken for his descendant a few too many times for his comfort.

It was supposed to be a relatively quick trip. Pop into Veilstone, check out this organization's building, see if any members would talk about how their plans failed, and leave. It was supposed to be easy enough.

You seemed to have a talent for spiting him, however.

Volo felt his feet come to an abrupt stop. Your clothing was entirely different from what he had observed you in during the Hisuian time period, but he could never forget your face. Before him, opposite of the street and pulling a man to a café, stood you. His heart raced. Had this been where you returned to, or was this you before having experienced the past.

The man you dragged caught his attention too, a notable resemblance to an old captain of yours, much too curious not to be acknowledged. Her descendant, almost certainly. You held his arm in your hand as you smiled brightly at him. His face was only stern at you. Volo felt envy boil inside him.

It was the way his body trembled at the sight which brought your attention on to him. Your grip on the man's arm ended as you gazed at him. Volo stared directly into your eyes. Recognition was instantaneous. You walked towards him in a trance-like state, clearly not wishing to believe it was truly him. Your partner caught on to your odd behaviour and reached a hand out to grab your shoulder.

Volo wanted to pout at how you stopped. Your attention went back to the blue-haired man. How could you fall for someone like him? His tenderness and discomfort ruminated in the open air. A whispered conversation was shared between you both, out of the blond's earshot. The man seemed even more unhappy after you finished whispering to him.

Before either of you could react, he pushed you behind him and stood in from of you. His blue eyes bore into Volo's form as he rested his hands behind his back. An obvious attempt at intimidation. Volo only rose to his full height to prove he was not even slightly threatened. The man's brows furrowed together as he closed his eyes. Your hand came to grip his arm as you peered up at him with big eyes.

Volo called out your name and forced your attention back onto him. “Who is this?” he asked, examining the stiff figure of the stranger. It was fairly obvious you both were closer than just friends. You nervously bit your lip.

“… My boyfriend, Cyrus,” you introduced him eventually, moving to stand on his side and lean into him. Cyrus opened his eyes again to glance at you and then returned a glare at him. The name instantly rung a bell in Volo's head. That was the same name as the leader of the team that had tried to use his plans but dumber. Rage boiled inside Volo at the idea that you were dating a zero charisma black hole who did his plans worse than him.

“Boyfriend?” Volo questioned, “… Pardon my memory, but I do not recall you mentioning one.” The blue-haired man stood stiffly.

You nodded your head before smiling in a gentle manner. “I saw no reason to at the time,” you explained, “But I did still consider myself to be in a relationship with Cyrus. It was simply easier to not explain it.” Volo wanted to snap at you both. He had come to love you over a century of life spent in mostly isolation, and you had been taken the whole time? Arceus was truly cruel to joust this fate onto him.

You three felt uncomfortable as pedestrians froze in their paths to observe the scene curiously. It must have seemed like some sort of lover's quarrel to outsiders. Cyrus shook his head. “... I'm still not sure that I believe your story, beloved,” he spoke to you in his quieter tone, “I am not privy to someone attempting to ruin the date you planned, however.”

You watched in terror as Cyrus tossed out his Houndoom. Volo instantly retaliated with his Lucario. A fierce battle between the two was underway in the street by two people that really should not be bringing attention to themselves. It was intense and evenly matched; Volo's wizened years against Cyrus's complete determination.

In the end… Volo came out on top.

Cyrus looked mortified at his fainted Weavile as you rushed over to check on it. He moved almost on autopilot as he called it back to its pokeball. Volo stood distressed, too, by how he was down to his last pokemon. The poor Togekiss looking worse for wear as he carefully raised a hand to console it. Both men's perceived cruelness fading when forced to witness something they care about in pain.

Volo looked at you desperately. You were the only thing he had been searching for in this current era. His plans to force the deity into his bidding paused until he could finally share words with you again. Why did you have a boyfriend? He was in denial, nearly. You moved to comfort Cyrus, but Volo grabbed your wrist. Panting breaths came from him. Your eyes met his desperate ones.

“Please,” he begged, “Speak with me.” You gazed at him in suspicion. Volo was unsure how to prove his genuineness. Dropping your shoulders, you shot a glance back to Cyrus. He ready to interfere should he be required. Team Galactic was not truthfully disbanded after all. A few grunts could easily be among the crowd.

Should you…? You let out a shallow breath. It had been a century for him since everything, even if it was not for you. On the other hand, you truly wished for the quiet domestic moment with Cyrus, an adorable Rotom themed beverage having brought you here.

Hisui was something you wanted to put behind you as you focused on helping Sinnoh in the modern day.

You…

☄️ Shook your head at Volo and pulled your wrist away from him.

You stepped towards Cyrus, finding his arm around your shoulders protectively. It was obvious he was just distressed by Volo as you were. His usually logical train of thought as he acted emotionally to compensate. The blond's eyes were wide at your choice, seeing truly how uncomfortable he made you. He knew this was entirely his fault.

Volo had threatened your life. Even if he truly did not intend to kill you, his words still had a profound effect. He had lied to you and tricked you into doing his bidding before attacking you. It was foolish of him to think he could ever try to explain himself. Had Cyrus done those things to you? He had no way to be certain. His head was hung low as he silently turned away to leave you both.

His heart ached in his chest as he departed into the rocky cliffs of the neighbouring route.

You stood close to Cyrus as he left and the crowd finally dispersed. A few remaining, obviously looking at the Galactic Boss knowingly. He shot them a glare, and they, too, left. His hand took your own as he gently brought you into the café. The quieter, relaxed ambience was a needed change.

You perked up slightly as you ordered the Rotom cookies and teas for you both. Cyrus gazed at the confections silently. They were decorated with different berry flavoured icing depending on the form. The tea steamed from its cup as you were eerily silent. He sighed. You had been so happy to drag him here earlier. His hand clenched.

Cyrus hated seeing you upset.

“… Beloved,” his voice was as soft as he could possibly make it, “Are you alright?” His hand came to grasp yours on the table. It always felt strange for him to be so… vulnerable, but for you, he always felt so unfortunately tender. You let out a shaky breath and gripped his hand tightly. He watched as you looked up at him, your eyes were red, but a smile was forced on your face.

“I'm fine,” you attempted to reassure him, “I just… never expected to see anyone from Hisui again.” His eyes broke contact from yours to look at the cookies. The tale was nearly too fantastical for him to believe. You had appeared in an unfamiliar uniform while rushing into the Galactic HQ. It was much more believable as you told him of his ancestor who established his lineage in Sinnoh which you should have otherwise been unaware of.

“I see…” He nodded. Silence came over you both again. Conversation was never a talent that came to Cyrus. Your grip remained strong on his hand. “I cannot imagine what you went through, but I am grateful you made it back here.” You laughed weakly.

“I only wanted to come back to be with you again,” you admitted quietly and gazed at him with a loving expression, “Leaving you alone after everything was the cruellest thing I could imagine. I never want to put you through that, Cy. I love you.” He felt his chest grow warm. Did you truly come back just for him? Cyrus did not know how to respond. Returning after he lied to you about his actions and forcing you to learn of them as he committed them… You should have hated him.

“I love you, too,” the words felt foreign on his tongue but were spoken earnestly, “Thank you for coming back to me…” You smiled brightly, mood seemingly lifted. Freeing his hand, you picked up one of the cookies and held it out to him.

“Well… Let's forget it for now,” the wash Rotom cookie smelling heavily of Oran berries, “Aren't they just adorable? We should have brought Rotom with us!”

Despite the lightened mood, Volo remained heavy on both your minds.

⭐️ Nodded at him and politely excused yourself to Cyrus and followed Volo into a nearby alleyway.

The crowd was gone from you both as Volo took off his hat and looked up at the sliver of blue sky that shone above you both. His brain was obviously miles away from where you both were… Or maybe just years. Where did he begin? Would you listen to what he had to say completely? He wanted to just force you away from that Cyrus and pretend he did not exist. It had been that way never even twenty minutes ago for him, after all.

“I'm sorry,” he turned his gaze to stare into your eyes, “I know how I acted was unforgivable.” You wanted to jump back at his words, clearly not expecting an apology. “I am not giving up on my goals, let my clarify,” his eyes held the same corrupted devotion as they had at the Temple of Sinnoh, “My intentions were never to kill you.” You shot a suspicious look at him.

Naturally, you would not believe him. “I was single-mindedly focused on my goals,” he explained further, “I could not stand the idea that Arceus sent another to stop me, yet I was intrigued by whom it would dare choose over me.” Volo closed his eyes. The wound was still fresh despite the time it had been first inflicted on him. “I was infatuated with you,” his heart tightened in his chest, “I… I wished to seek you out after it all, but the guards were too suspicious of me, then you left for here.” Your cheeks grew warm at his words.

Still, you turned your head to the opening of the alleyway. Volo was much too late in this confession, for both himself and you. He should have told you before, claiming that Giratina would appear at the Temple of Sinnoh. What did this man have that he lacked? Cyrus did not seem to have any appealing qualities at a glance. A stoic with an unconventional attractiveness.

“… What do you want, Volo?” you asked him plainly, eyes piercing right through him. It was a reasonable question. What did he want? For you to break up with your established boyfriend and join him in his isolated cabin in the wilderness of Sinnoh? Yes, actually, but he did not dare reply like that. But, he could start smaller, certainly. His end goal would always to be to have you in his arms. Cyrus was not worthy of someone chosen by Arceus. Only Volo was.

“A friend,” it was not entirely a lie, “I'm terribly lonely. I barely get out of my home, and when I do, it's to explore ruins and archaeological sights. I get mistaken for my descendant and have no one to confide in.” You looked at him with a gentle expression. His smile had to be forced back. Hook, line and sinker. Your guard finally dropped.

“… I… I do miss the people of Hisui,” you admitted softly, “I left them all to return here. I... I feel conflicted about that decision.” Volo placed a hand on our shoulder amicably and grinned his normal smile. Perfect.

“Then let's keep in contact,” he pulled out his old phone, “I would love to speak about the past.” You gave him your number with a nod.

You soon parter from him to rejoin the blue-haired man, who had begun to look into the alleyway to check in you. He tried to ignore his upset as Cyrus bright his arm across your shoulders to lead you away.

Patience would win him this game, he felt certain.

#pokemon x reader #volo x reader #cyrus x reader #pokemon cyrus x reader #pokemon volo x reader #volo/reader #cyrus/reader #pokemon/reader #pokemon volo/reader #pokemon cyrus/reader

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azureashes · 3 years

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Sukuna’s Curse

TW: NONCON, VIOLENCE, BLOOD AND GORE

Summary: Some cruel fate bound you to Sukuna's side. You could not escape. You weren't sure you wanted to.

Sukuna x Reader

Wordcount: 10 K

Rating: Explicit, MINORS DNI

I don’t know if this is even any good at this point owing to the fact that I’m dead tired, BUT I wanted to finish this off, so here it is.

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But this time, something was off. The taste was almost tame in comparison - mild. Even the sensation of swallowing wasn’t quite the same, squishy and slimy instead of roughly scratching his esophagus all the way down. If he hadn’t been so eager to just get it over with the way he always was, to make it as short and painless as possible - he might have noticed something was off. He might have pointed it out to Gojo, to the principal, to anyone before swallowing the ominous, blotchy blue-green scrap of flesh they had given him.

It didn’t taste like one of Sukuna’s fingers.

Yuuji always tried to drop the disgusting, decrepit digit as close to his throat as possible so that he wouldn’t have to taste the bitter, corrosive flavor that burned on his tongue like decaying flesh - but he couldn’t avoid it entirely. There was always a lingering acidic remnant that stayed in his mouth long after he had swallowed one of the curse’s fingers.

He might have spared you your fate.

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He was bored.

It was boring in Itadori Yuuji’s subconscious. The boy was as empty-headed as he seemed and the scheming King of Curses could only look on as the fool fell into one trap after another, made misstep after misstep while he stumbled his way forward, trying to navigate the Jujutsu sorcerer’s life.

It was a cringeworthy affair.

Sukuna had laid his plans carefully and could only drum his fingers on his throne of skulls restlessly as he waited for them to come to fruition. But he was never as dangerous as he was when he was bored. When he had energy to spare and time to kill. When he was on the lookout for some sport, some prey that could satisfy his instinct to hunt, something to toy with, to devour.

When you arrived out of nowhere, coughing your lungs out, on hands and knees in the bloodied water surrounding the area - your limbs shaking as you struggled to support yourself, weak with what must have been centuries of disuse, his eyes glittered with malicious anticipation.

For once, the idiot had done something right.

You coughed and hacked as if seeking to free your body from something it had long grown unaccustomed to - breath. Life. Motion. Thought. Terrible, terrible things.

You recalled your last, conscious thought when faced with an aging, balding monk. The strange man had carried with him a rosary around his neck and attached to the string of beads was what had oddly resembled an ogre’s thumb. You hadn’t the slightest clue what the monk had wanted from you until he sealed you into the ogre’s thumb - an intentional, cruel irony on the buddhist’s part.

“Go to your master, demon!” He had shrieked.

Master.

You squeezed your eyes shut as you shuddered at the very thought. The monk must have thought he was being clever. Sealing you in a fashion resembling the way the King of Curses had been sealed, but Sukuna was not your master.

You had scarcely been freed of the terrifying demon’s presence, barely been able to dream of a life outside of his paralyzing, horrifying shadow that the accursed monk had appeared to seal you away to a slumber of many thousand years.

No matter.You were free now.

By some miracle, the seal had been broken and you would live in a world where Sukuna had been sealed away somewhere far from you. You would stay away from humans and jujutsu sorcerers and society as a whole. Find a deserted scrap of nature, and live out your days among the plants and animals in peace somewhere.

That was a good plan, you told yourself, straining to breathe slowly and deeply, your eyes still pressed shut because seeing anything at all was overwhelming to your senses after their long rest. It would be alright. Your suffering was over.

“Well, well, well.”

The voice sent a shiver down your spine. You would recognize it anywhere. The deep baritone that seemed to make your very bones rattle.

“What do we have here?” Uncomfortably warm breath brushed against the shell of your ear as he spoke on a hiss.

You saw him clearly in your mind’s eye, his image brought into sharp relief, triggered by the sound of his awful voice that sent a flood of unadulterated, gut-wrenching terror through your body. Your body’s reaction to him was one of instinct, a reaction learned.

It was possible to forget one’s love and similarly, to neglect one’s hatred. But one could never forget what one truly feared. Fear was not stored in hearts or minds, but contained in the body itself. In every inch of your skin, every ounce of your flesh. Fear was intermingled with your blood, a part of your very being. Your mind may have slept, and you, a curse, had no need for your superfluous heart - but your body remembered. Your body would always remember.

When you finally dared to turn, the sight that met your eyes was precisely the one your mind had conjured. He sat perched on a mountain of skulls, some fresh and whole, some decayed and crumbling, but you knew they represented only a fraction of the lives the curse had taken. He was draped in a robe that seemed made for royalty, or perhaps it only seemed that way because of the individual they clothed. The King of Curses exuded an aura that was every bit that of the king he was known as. His hair was pale-pink, his eyes narrowed and sharp, the scarlet irises the very shade of the deluge of blood you had seen him spill in your lifetime. Much of it yours.

Black markings traced his form - on his face, his wrists, his arms, just like you remembered, and the sharp, long black nails on his hands made you shiver with the memory of how easily they could draw blood, puncturing through your skin like it was paper.

“S- Sukuna-sama…” Your barely audible whisper, wavering with sheer horror rang in his ears like the sweetest praise. He liked you already.

When he had spoken, it had sounded as if he had been just behind you, and so you were stunned to see him at such a distance. The corners of his lips were curved in a smirk, his sharp canines peeking through as he lounged on his grotesque throne, his head leaning languidly against the knuckles of his right hand. He looked amused.

Amused was good, you thought numbly, trying to reason with yourself through your terror. His amusement manifested itself in some cruel mockery of mercy on occasion. It was his boredom that terrified you. The things he had done to you when bored defied imagination.

You shuddered and your mouth opened and closed wordlessly, incapable of producing sound, incapable of taking breath. The minute you had thought yourself free of him you had been taken captive, and the minute you had been released from your captivity, you were confronted, once again, with your worst nightmare. There seemed to be no escaping for you. You were hounded by the worst fortune the universe had deemed fit to produce.

You were a minor curse, born of the grudge of the inhabitants of a village that had been wiped out by none other than the King of Curses himself. The dying breaths and resentment of those villagers had accumulated with bitter hatred and you came to be. For reasons, you could not fathom - perhaps because the villagers’ grudge was rooted in righteous human indignance - you maintained a form like that of a mortal woman and had scarcely any powers that you knew of. Mortals could hear you cry, you knew. But that was the extent of your abilities, and you had no desire to spend an eternity haunting hapless humans.

By virtue of your birth, you were compelled to seek Sukuna out, desiring revenge, the force of the villagers’ dark emotions driving you forward. But the minute you had come face to face with him, your resolve had abandoned you. Your cursed energy flickered like the flame of a candle in the midst of a hurricane and you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were out of your depth.

You had sought to escape, but he had seen you. Had begged for forgiveness, but he did not know the meaning of the word. You had screamed for mercy, and he had laughed, asking you to repeat the entreaty - but louder. He had shivered in pleasure at the sound. You would never forget it.

But his eyes now were merely aglow in mirth and anticipation - not recognition. There was a chance, however slim, that he had not recognized you. Indeed, despite tormenting you for centuries, much time seemed to have passed since then, and he had never truly held you in any form of regard even when you had been by his side. You were a thing to him, never a person. Something to relieve the boredom. An unbreakable toy - the very best kind. And as with all things unbreakable, he had tested that claim in every way possible.

“My, my…” he drawled, a chuckle rumbling from his chest. “You recognize me?”

And it was those words, more than anything else, that gave you hope. If he did not remember you, perhaps you could escape. Perhaps you could find freedom. Perhaps you could offer him something worth your release.

You did not even attempt to voice an answer - you were having enough difficulty breathing - and were afraid to provoke recognition. Your eyes darted around the area, taking in your surroundings, but there seemed to be nothing but the watery blood pooled on the ground which you were currently on all fours in - the throne of skulls, and surrounding that, a thick mist veiling whatever lay beyond.

You knew from experience that you could not hope to outrun him, but what other option did you have but to try? What could you possibly do to save yourself?

“Not answering?”A voice murmured in your ear again, “Rude.”

You whirled around to face him with a gasp, sure you would find him hovering just over you and fell to the ground with a splash, drenching your clothes in bloody water.

Panting, your eyes searched for him, but were surprised to find that he was nowhere near you, still reclining on his throne with that same bemused smirk.

You collected yourself as best you could, and turned to face him as you lowered your head in humility, bowing low in the hopes that your hair would hide your face from view. Feed into his ego, you told yourself. That was your only hope. Show him how terrified you were, how great you believed him to be - with any luck, he might just eat it up and let you go.

But when had luck ever been on your side? Not once, from the moment you were born.

“Please accept my apologies,” you choked out in a raspy voice, hoarse from disuse. “Where exists the fool who does not recognize the great King of Curses?” You took a deep breath, and cleared your throat, forcing yourself to go on. “My Lord, please forgive my disrespect, this humble servant dared not speak in your presence.”

You spoke in a low voice, hoping to disguise it as much as possible.

“Oh?” there was an echo of ominous amusement in the single syllable that did not bode well for you.

“I meant not to intrude, Great King. Please,” your forehead hovered just above the water as your palms met in front of you, your arms trembled too violently to truly carry your weight. “Please allow me to leave.”

A sinister chuckle fell from his lips. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Please,” you repeated in a tremulous voice, unable to utter anything but the simple word.

He hummed in mirth, your desperate plea little more than a joke to him. “Asking me for mercy, you must not know me as well as you had me believe.”

When you refused to answer, he smirked at your quivering form, “Do you know where you are right now?”

Hesitantly, you slowly raised your head to take in your surroundings again. You’ve never been in a place like this. Was it some kind of innate domain?

A sensation swept over you, little more than a whiff of air, and suddenly your gaze fell on a pair of black Tabi clad feet in Zori sandals. Before you could move, protest, or even think you felt the weight of the rough, thick sole of one of the sandals on the back of your head.

You should have known better than to cry out, after everything you had been through. Your instinct should have told you to hold your breath rather than waste it on a scream and so, you could only curse yourself for a fool when your sharp cry was cut off on the gurgling sound of your face being pressed into the shallow, sanguine water you knelt in. You pressed your mouth shut, panic seizing your limbs as you thrashed and sought to free yourself. The more you struggled, the more weight Sukuna placed on the back of your head, leaning forward now, one forearm draped across his knee as he chuckled at your plight.

“I warned you once already,” he spoke over the splashing sounds of your struggles. “That it is rude not to answer when spoken to.” He watched your desperate flailing with an aloof air.

“Having fun?” He teased, watching your movements slow, your limbs growing still as your consciousness started to fade. “Now, now… giving up already? Don’t be such a poor sport.”

He stepped back, freeing you, but you lacked the strength to lift your head. He tutted in disapproval and, nudging your shoulder with a toe of sandal, flipped you over with enough force to send your body flying several feet.

You coughed and sputtered for air, lifting yourself into a seated position with trembling arms.

It was beginning. He didn’t care what you had to say, or what you felt. He only wanted to amuse himself, and he knew no limits in doing so.

Slow footsteps approached and the very heart in your chest froze over with fear. You clenched your eyes shut like a bird of prey in the face of the most fearsome predator.

He knelt down in front of you, peering into your face and you stared more determinedly at the ground, letting your hair veil your features. “Well,” he sneered. “Don’t be boring.”

You lifted your gaze despite yourself, that phrase could not mean anything good for you.

“Run.”

The command served simultaneously as permission, and you staggered to your feet as you stumbled away from him - seeking distance from the most terrifying being you had ever known. Millennia at his side would not suffice for you to grasp the extent of his depravity, the limits of the lengths he would be willing to go to torment you.

The sound of your footsteps splashing through the water echoed throughout the realm as you raced away from him, hoping, praying that you would be allowed to escape - that you could somehow, just once - live a day away from Sukuna. Just one day where you didn’t need to guard each breath like a dragon guarded his treasure.

You slipped past the thick mist, refusing to allow yourself to feel trepidation in the face of the unknown, running faster and faster until the fog passed by in a blur but you only pushed yourself even harder to escape - each step was a step further away from Sukuna, a step towards security. Although you could not hear him in pursuit, that fact gave you no peace - he could be as silent and sure-footed as a panther when he so desired.

When you felt the mist thin, some small relief tingled in the back of your head. Maybe, by some miracle, he would allow you to escape? Perhaps he was bored of you and your presence. Perhaps he wanted to be on his own. It wasn’t unthinkable, was it? Freedom beckoned.

You crashed into a tall, solid figure and nearly lost your footing. You looked up in horror, to find Sukuna grinning down at you, arms crossed over his chest. Beside him, the throne of skulls, and surrounding the two of you - the same crimson water. You raised a hand to your mouth to stifle a sob. This couldn’t be happening.

You forced yourself to your feet and turned on your heel to race back into the mist but this time, you didn’t get far. Sukuna caught you by the hair, jerking your head backwards. You cried out in alarm, but he only smirked in response, pulling your head further back.

“You had your chance, little one, but you ran right back into my arms,” he chuckled. “Guess this is where you want to be, hm?”

You sputtered protests, denials, on a thin, desperate wail, tears pooled in your eyes and streamed down your face as he jerked your head further back, bringing your gaze to his own.

He seemed taken aback, for a fraction of an instant, as his eyes widened.

“ You .” The single syllable was spoken in accusation, recognition - and surprise.

He released his hold on your hair and stepped back with a laugh. He pressed a hand to his forehead and shook his head, amused beyond measure. He waved a hand at you.

“You wanted to run? Go ahead. Run.”

Unable to understand why recognizing you had prompted such an unprecedented act of mercy, you wasted not another moment and dashed back into the mist - only to step back into the clearing moments later. You turned back into the fog again - and again and again, but no matter how many times you ran from the clearing, every path led right back to Sukuna’s side. Each time you stepped back into the clearing, Sukuna smirked at you, waiting patiently.

By the fifth time you stepped into the clearing you pressed your hands to your temples and sank to your knees with a scream. There was no way out.

Sukuna stalked towards you and you made no attempt to evade when he reached out and cupped your chin, lifting your eyes towards his own blood-red irises, a grin on his lips as his eyes traced your features. Sobs trembled from your lips as tears streamed from your eyes, streaking down your cheeks, dripping from his fingers and falling to the scarlet waters below.

“Now, there’s a familiar face,” he crooned. “You sure have some sorry luck. But you’re the one who came to me first, wasn’t it?”

“The village -” you stammered. “It was the villagers - I didn’t - I wouldn’t -”

“ Didn’t, wouldn’t ,” he mocked. “Breathe deep now, nice and slow, let’s hear your pathetic excuses, shall we?”

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to stem the tears, struggling to regulate your breathing, before you mumbled, “The villagers’ resentment sent me, I would have never dared. Sukuna-sama, you know I would never have dared stand before you.”

“Village?” he scraped one long, black fingernail down the side of your face. “What village?”

He didn’t remember. Of course he didn’t. That village he had ruined - only one of many to him, apparently - would scarcely register in his mind.

“Forgive me,” you voiced instead in a hushed whisper. “I did not intend any disrespect.”

“No,” he smirked in agreement, and there was something ruthless and cutting in the expression. “And yet you ended up here again. There has to be something to it, no? Isn’t that what they call ‘fate’?”

It was. That was precisely what they would call it. The cruelest fate there was.

His lips curved further into a sneer, his sharp canines glimmering in the dim light, as his eyes lit up with a diabolical expression. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who betrayed me. The reason I was sealed.”

Horror flooded through you. A Sukuna who wanted to amuse himself with you was terrifying, but a Sukuna who wanted to punish you, to get revenge on you, would be worse than hell itself. You couldn’t allow him to believe it!

“Sukuna-sama!” You clung to his arm, meeting his gaze imploringly. “I would never betray you! Please, I - !” You could make any number of wild claims - you could claim to be loyal to him, you could claim to love him, you could claim to respect him - but only one claim would actually soothe his nerves and please him, that much, at least, you knew.

“I fear you far too much to ever betray you!”

“Is that so?” he drew back, and kicked one of the skulls lying beside him into the air and caught it smoothly in one hand, his long, black nails contrasting against the pale grey of the animal skull. Breaking off one of the animal’s horns, he turned it in his fingers thoughtfully, as if considering it from all angles, before that crimson gaze turned back to pierce right through you.

“Prove it.” He tossed the sharp horn towards you and you caught it unthinkingly.

“Gouge out your eye, and I’ll believe you weren’t the one who sold me out.”

“My - my eye?” You blinked at him, praying he wasn’t serious - but you knew better. He leaned against the tower of skulls and crossed his arms, bored.

You stared at the horn in horror. How could you gouge out your own eye? You felt those familiar tremors afflicting your hand and you reached up with a second hand to better steady yourself.

“Is that too much for you?” He crossed over towards you and trailed one sharp fingernail lazily down your throat, before flitting over your collarbones. His finger slipped between the folds of your robe before resting just above your heart. Sukuna pressed against the skin there and a dribble of blood leaked down your chest as a sharp fingernail broke through the skin.

“Pierce your heart, then. Punish the lying organ and I’ll be satisfied.”

Your lip trembled in horror. Take out your eye, suffer immense pain, and live - or pierce your heart and die?

“Well, what’ll it be?”

You lifted the curved horn in your hand and trailed the pad of your thumb over the ridges of the bone. Testing the tip, you noted with some small relief that it was fairly sharp. Living meant living through more of Sukuna’s torture. Dying was clearly the better option.

You bit your lip and squeezed your eyes shut, gripping the horn firmly in your fist, ignoring the way your hand trembled. There were worse things Sukuna could do to you. There were always worse things he could do.

You lifted your hand high into the air and refused to acknowledge the way your entire arm quivered violently. If you lost your nerve, and didn’t pierce deeply enough the first time - would you have to do it again? It was better to have to do it just the once - who knew if you could collect yourself enough for a second attempt?

That meant using all of your strength. Even as you worked through your thoughts, battling your mind’s instinct of self-preservation, your arm remained in the air for what felt like hours as you struggled to build up the nerve to do what he had asked.

“Don’t keep me waiting,” Sukuna yawned, lifting a hand to his mouth. “Or would you rather just confess and accept punishment instead?”

You would not. Whatever he had in store for you, it was surely worse than what you were being ordered to do. Your hand plunged downwards and the tip of the horn pierced through skin and flesh, before being deflected by your bones. You screamed in agony as the horn fell from your grip and blood gushed from your wound.

Your ribs. Your ribs had been in the way. And now you would have to do it all over again.

You pressed both hands to the wound in an attempt to stem the blood as a pained, undying scream pierced through the air, seemingly endlessly. Sukuna winced as he cleared his ear with an index finger as if blocking out the annoying noise.

“Well, don’t give up.” He gestured to the horn poking out of the water. “You almost made it. Come on, you can do it.”

You stared at him in horror, blood still gushing forth between your fingers. Even as your mind obediently worked out how to continue. Now that you knew where your ribs were, it would only be one further attempt, slightly above the bone, and this ordeal would be behind you.

Just one more time.

Once more, and he would see you as a toy again, possibly, but no longer an enemy. Once again. Clenching your teeth against the pain, you reached with trembling fingers for the horn, blood streaming forth more fervently as you bent down.

You did not allow yourself time to think or hesitate, knowing you would lose your nerve if you did. Shutting off your mind, you pierced the horn straight into your own heart and blinding, mind-shattering pain burst through your body. Blood dripped from your lips as you stumbled backwards, lost your footing and collapsed into the water.

There was a buzzing in your ears associated with your fading consciousness as blood gushed out of the wound with every beat of your heart, interrupted only by shrill laughter. Blinking through the blurry haze, you saw Sukuna doubled over with laughter, nearly in hysterics.

“You actually did it! You idiot!” His shoulders shook with mirth, and he wiped a tear from his eye. “Did you seriously think you could ever be important enough to betray me? Do you honestly think anything you could do could result in me being sealed? Are you a simpleton?”

He cackled endlessly, his cold, shrill laughter ringing in your ears as you bled out. “What a fool…” he chuckled, crossing over to you. “What do you think you are? Entertaining illusions of self-importance.”

He was still laughing, even as he reached down to cup your face, squeezing your cheeks and turning your face from side to side. “What an idiot,” he snickered.

You were going so numb, you couldn’t even feel his fingers on your face, and his cruel expression was fading from view. Maybe you were an idiot, but at least now you would finally be dead. Dead and free of him. That wasn’t so bad, you thought to yourself. It was the first and last kindness he had ever done for you.

His face was blurring in and out of your vision, and you were waiting for the moment it would settle to black. The moment you would never have to see his face again, but the blurriness receded and his face reappeared in startling clarity. This was wrong, it was all wrong. Why were you seeing him? Even in death? Was there a hell after all, and had you gone to it?

You slowly grew conscious of Sukuna’s hand on your chest and his cursed energy flooding into you, sealing the wound you had gouged open, closing the flesh you had stabbed apart, healing the organ that refused to let you die.

“No,” you sobbed. “No, no, no, please…” You lifted weary hands to your face and wept miserably, your shoulders shaking. “Please, just let me die.”

Sukuna tutted in response, “Where’s the fun in that? Don’t disappoint me now, you were doing so well.”

You were alive again. Your body healed. Only your mind was still addled by the pain you had forced it through. You blinked up at Sukuna and couldn’t find the strength to bring yourself to move.

He cocked his head to the side as he observed you. “What should I do with you?” His smirk was slow and salacious. “I think you’ve earned yourself a reward.” Another low chuckle rumbled from his chest.

You couldn’t find words to answer him as he tugged at the silk belt holding your robes closed until the layers of fabric loosened and fell apart. His eyes roamed down your chest, over the swell of your breasts, the dip of your navel, he traced one sharp, long fingernail along your ribs. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” He muttered, “Have you been keeping yourself for me?”

You didn’t know why the unspoken implication, the assumption that you might have intimately known anyone at all other than Sukuna in the duration of your miserable existence made your skin crawl. You swallowed thickly. “I was sealed,” you stammered in response. “Same as you.”

He snorted at that. “You really do have the worst luck. I almost feel bad for you.”

He trailed a single finger up your breast, grazing past the nipple in a mockery of a caress. “Then again, you could think you were made for me. Born from that stupid village’s grudge. Being sealed away with me and finally waking up, only to come right back to my side. You’re my plaything aren’t you?”

You whimpered in response. Not wanting to confirm his statement and make him even more reluctant to ever release you, but also not wanting to deny it and provoke punishment. “You remember the village?” You asked breathlessly instead, staring numbly up at the gargantuan ribcage spread out as some kind of makeshift ceiling. His earlier behavior had given you the impression he had forgotten entirely. Or maybe it had simply taken him some time to recall when your twisted relationship had begun.

“Of course I do,” he sneered. “I remember everyone I’ve killed. It’s only normal to cling to good memories.”

Your eyes slipped towards him. Was that true? Was that really how he felt? You felt foolish even doubting it. After everything that had happened to you, nothing should surprise you anymore.

You felt a hand close around your throat and lift you up into the air. You were too weak to resist, and not foolish enough to attempt it. You could only watch him from beneath a veil of thick lashes as he tugged your robes from your shoulders, allowing them to fall to the ground and soak up the bloodied water.

You shuddered in his grip. There was nothing you could do but allow him to have his way with you. If you were quiet enough, pliant enough, perhaps there was a chance you could avoid the worst of the pain you knew he liked to inflict.

His gaze was no longer on your tormented expression as you gasped for air, but devouring every inch of flesh exposed to his seeking gaze. It had been centuries since he had last seen you. Before he had been sealed, he had made no bones about taking what he wanted from whoever he wanted, but there had always been something peculiar about you.

Was it the fear in your eyes that never seemed to diminish no matter how many times he took you? Was it the submissive way you gave yourself up to him, hoping for mercy although you should have known him well enough to know that he scoffed at the very idea? Or was it something else entirely? Was it the familiarity? Mortal women could only take so much before the life went out of them. He never returned to them, he wouldn’t have even if that had been an option. Even if there had been something left of their mangled bodies to fuck. Why return to something old and used when there was always new, live prey on the horizon? Dead women didn’t scream, dead women weren’t afraid.

But you.

You never feared him any less, no matter how long he had held you prisoner. Your screams never died out. He could push you farther than he had ever pushed anyone else and not only would you not die, but you would only submit to him ever more determinedly. As if that had ever done you any good before.

Home was a foolish, mortal concept, he could never understand the appeal of, but as his claws traced along your flesh, inadvertently drawing blood wherever he was careless, he had to admit that there was something intoxicating about the return to the familiar. About reclaiming a body that he knew well. A body, he noted with dim satisfaction, that had never known anyone’s touch but his own.

You might be nothing more than a plaything for his amusement, but you were his all the same. He really ought to reward Itadori for so thoroughly alleviating his boredom.

Despite how willing you had been to die only moments earlier, you weakly raised a hand to his forearm, resting it there in a desperate, wordless plea for breath.

He glanced briefly at your tear-filled eyes, your rosy lips parted for air that would not come, and your reddening complexion - before ignoring you entirely and continuing his exploration of your body. Two hands pried his own robes open as a third came up to fondle your breast, pinching the nipple cruelly between his fingers, causing a pained squeak to leave your lips with what little air you could manage.

Your eyes rolled back in your head and Sukuna sighed, “Air is such a ridiculous thing to depend on.” He licked upwards against your nipple and noted how you shuddered in his grip, before going limp. “Hey. Hang on a little longer. Aren’t you supposed to be a curse?”

Curse or no, you were losing consciousness and that would not do. It just wasn’t the same when you weren’t begging him to stop and screaming when he refused to listen. Clawing to get away from him, and shuddering violently when you orgasmed against your will. No, he could not have you unconscious.

Reluctantly, he released your throat and caught you by the waist when you slumped forward, your chin resting on his shoulder despite yourself. It was a mockery of affection. It looked almost romantic, if one did not consider the circumstances.

“Oi,” he chided you. “Isn’t this just cute?”

He trailed a black talon up your spine and you shuddered against him. You knew it was utter stupidity and probably disrespect to lean on him this way, but you were having difficulty collecting yourself. After your near death experience and the oxygen deprivation, your limbs tingled as sensation slowly returned. You only needed to pull yourself together and apologize. That was all. Just as soon as you found the strength to.

But his body was so warm and solid. So firm. When he wasn’t hurting you, you were reminded of the fact that his presence was the only constant you had ever known. Wasn’t he almost like your home at this point? His touch filled you with trepidation, made you tremble violently, made your heart riot fitfully in your chest in fear of the pain that would doubtless follow and yet - for that split second before the pain began… wasn’t there something almost comforting about his touch? You wished there was a way to prolong the interim. The fleeting moment between being deprived of his touch and being impaled by it. That fleeting instant was almost pleasant.

He guided your thighs around his waist and you crossed your legs around him obediently, fearful of what he might do to you if you failed to comply. The memory of being impaled to a wall so he might more easily have his way with you was still fresh in your mind.

His hand dug into your hair and jerked your head brutally backwards, looking down on you through narrowed, mischievous eyes. The other pair of eyes was shut, dormant on his cheekbones. You caught your breath, fearful of what would follow. He had said he wanted to reward you, but there was never a clear distinction between reward and punishment with Sukuna.

“You aren’t going soft on me now, are you? I’m expecting a lot from you.” His low murmur made you shudder involuntarily as his warm breath caressed your face. He leaned in closer, his lips hovering just by your ear. “Don’t disappoint me.”

You gasped as you felt something warm and wet against your womanhood, only realizing in that moment that, in the way you were clinging to him, your most intimate area was pushed up against his stomach shamelessly. In horror, you dropped your gaze to find a horizontal slit had opened across his abdomen and that a large tongue, dripping with saliva had appeared and was probing your nether regions, pushing urgently past your lips to explore you thoroughly.

Sukuna observed your reactions with amusement as the tongue prodded harshly against your clit and journeyed up and down in its explorations before poking past the tight ring of muscle at your entrance. You clung more tightly to Sukuna’s neck as the impossibly thick tongue lapped at your inner walls, eager and insistent, thrusting further in than you would have thought possible. With more vehemence than you could remember.

“Surprised?” Sukuna chuckled. “My, aren’t you forgetful.”

You bit your lip to keep from crying out in pleasure as the tongue wriggled its way further inside of you, poking at your cervix. You could not hope to distance yourself from it without falling and you were certain that would provoke Sukuna’s displeasure, so you held onto him desperately and allowed yourself to be molested by his tongue, biting your lip as you held out until it bled.

Sukuna’s hands roamed your body all the while, your lust-dazed mind could barely follow along, barely registering where he touched you as the coil of heat tightened within your body with every insistent thrust of his tongue. Sukuna lifted your chin and licked away the blood collecting on your lower lip. Your irises were blown wide with lust as you clung to his shoulders, and he trailed his thumb over your lip.

“If you hold back your voice,” he chastised in a voice that was both threatening and seductive - like thick, black poison. “I’ll have no choice but to make you scream.” A lone, sharp black fingernail trailed down the nape of your neck, breaking the surface of your skin ever so slightly. A clear warning.

“Sukuna-sama…” you mewled, both in complaint and in surrender.

His hands toyed with your breasts, long nails scraping over your areolae. One hand rolled a pert nipple between his fingers with deceptive gentleness, before pinching it mercilessly, painfully. A mouth had appeared on his other hand and sucked harshly on your breast, not letting up in the slightest until you feared he would break the skin and leave you bleeding. The other two hands squeezed your buttocks as you writhed against him in response to his ministrations. His grip was bruising and cruel, you could feel blood pool and trickle down your skin where his claws had pierced your flesh.

You moaned out his name repeatedly, not daring to fall silent for fear of the consequences it could bring as the tongue within you curled upwards, roughly stroking a spongy patch of flesh within you that made you lightheaded, each movement of the thick, wet muscle straining your inner walls. The heat pulsing through your body intensified by the second, driving you higher and higher until you crashed and fell, his name leaving your lips in a breathless cry. Your inner walls convulsed and spasmed around the tongue still burrowed deep within you.

“Hurrying on ahead on your own, are you?” Sukuna accused, but he didn’t seem displeased. At least, you hoped he wasn’t.

You had not sufficiently descended from your high to be fully conscious of your surroundings, still clinging weakly to Sukuna’s neck when he took hold of your hips and pulled you away from himself, you felt his thick tongue slip out from between your legs and inhaled sharply at the loss of contact. Before you could so much as think, however, Sukuna tossed you bodily backwards, causing you to land roughly on the tower of animal skulls.

You cried out in pain as the many horns poked and pierced you in various places, you couldn’t even number your injuries, so scattered was your mind. Sukuna cocked his head to the side and watched your blood drip out over the pale bones and admired the contrast.

You held still, like a rabbit in the face of a lion, as he stalked closer with all the grace of an experienced predator. “Why is your blood this way?” he mused, watching it streak down your skin in rivulets.

“Pretty.”

You gaped at him. You felt warm and lightheaded at the compliment. It was your blood, you reminded yourself. Not you. Your blood that he found pretty. How out of your mind must you be, to be so foolishly flattered by that statement. But you were. There was no denying it. It dulled the pain, to know he was enjoying the sight.

He let his robes fall to the floor as he approached you further still. Your eyes trailed down his form, before stopping with horror at the girth between his legs. How could you have forgotten that ? He was larger than you, stronger than you, faster than you - you had never had a chance of escaping him in the past. You shuddered as you recalled the first time he had impaled you - no other word did the act justice - you recalled how you had bled, your flesh torn from the intrusion. A similar horror caused you to whimper in fear now, unable to tear your eyes away as he stroked his thick cock confidently, not even his large hands able to completely close around its thickness. Nudging your ankle with the toe of his sandal, he nodded at you. “Spread your legs for me.”

You should have complied. You knew it. It would have made everything easier if he didn’t need to be rough with you. If he didn’t punish you. But the fear of having something so huge shoved between your legs, of tearing you up again the way you had multiple times in the past, you couldn’t help but squirm, squeezing your thighs together as your mouth went dry and your lips parted, seeking words that might invoke mercy.

“Sukuna-sama, please, I…” but you didn’t know what else to say and so you gazed up at him, your eyes filling with tears, as you struggled to speak around the choked sobs threatening to tear free from your throat.

Sukuna smirked, but his eyes flashed dangerously. “Look around you,” he instructed. “What is keeping you from becoming one of them?”

You turned your head to the side obediently, your gaze skimming over countless skulls, some animal, some human, but most of the skulls merely remnants from other curses.

“You amuse me,” Sukuna drawled, towering over you. “That is all you have to your name.”

The implication was clear, that he would not hesitate to tear your head from your body and add your skull to his collection the moment you ceased to be amusing.

You swallowed thickly and forced yourself to separate your trembling thighs. To make yourself available to him. Your hands gripping at anything to better steady yourself, you were horrified to find a smooth skull beneath your seeking palms but held on anyway.

Two hands gripped your inner thighs and shoved them apart roughly, causing you to cry out in surprise and discomfort. With a sneer, Sukuna descended upon you, a third hand closing around your throat and applying controlled pressure. Judging by the fact that you could still breathe, you knew he was holding back, and as you met his ruthlessly gleaming eyes, you understood the game he would be playing. Air would be the reward, and whether or not you were permitted to breathe, would depend on how well you did.

As he applied more pressure to your throat you forced your legs wider, desperate to appear compliant, and the hand on your throat loosened.

“Clever little thing,” Sukuna purred, and the praise swept through your veins like liquid honey.

The last of his free hands found its way between your thighs and you held your breath in fear that one of those sharp claws would tear open your skin. When he toyed with your bundle of nerves, you wanted to scream in terror, knowing how badly he could hurt you with a twitch of his fingers and how little he would think of it. You squeezed your eyes shut, not wanting him to continue, not wanting him to stop.

Sukuna drank in every one of your expressions greedily. Whether your eyes were unfocused with lust, or wide with terror, each emotion of yours was equally satiating to him. If he was more partial to your fear that did not mean he could not appreciate his own skill in driving you to pleasure despite your open terror.

When his long, thick fingers pushed past your entrance, you sucked in a cold breath. Forgetting yourself, you breathed his name on a reverent exhale that was almost worship. He did not slow, or pause, preparing your body for him with an almost methodic rhythm. But if your eyes hadn’t been squeezed shut in that moment, you would have spied the confusion flitting briefly through his crimson irises. Would have seen the curious way he regarded you.

He positioned himself at your entrance and you felt his member prodding your core. The haze of lust cleared instantly, giving way to blind terror. There was no way he would fit. Regardless of the fact that he had, many times before. Forgetting yourself, cold dread settled in your stomach and you scrambled backwards, trying to inch away from him as you shook your head.

Sukuna’s gaze lifted to yours and his eyes narrowed in displeasure. Two hands gripped your thighs more firmly, as the pressure of a third hand intensified on your neck in a cruel reminder of how fully you were at his mercy. But fear had overcome your mind and you could not talk yourself down.

“No, no, no, no…” you whimpered pitifully. “Please, please don’t - “

Before you could speak another word, Sukuna ruthlessly pulled on your thighs, bringing your entire body towards him and impaling you on his member without warning. A shrill scream echoed through the realm as a painful fullness, the feeling of your walls being forced to stretch wider than should be physically possible overwhelmed your body.

“Stop! Stop, please, I’m going to -”

But there was no stopping, nor had he ever intended to. If anything, your pained cries only spurred him on. You realized suddenly that his hold on your neck had not tightened, and that the only reason for that could be because he enjoyed your screaming, because he liked you begging. That he liked it almost as much as he relished denying you the mercy you wept for.

The realization set you to tears and you held onto his thick wrist as thrust into you, your whole body sinking deeper into the mountain of skulls with each thrust until you feared you would be buried alive.

“Sukuna-sama…” you sobbed, knowing your cries were falling on deaf ears.

He hummed in approval, and ran a hand through his hair as he smirked at you. “Go on, don’t stop. Let it all out.”

And your fears were confirmed. He got off on your screams. He got off on your pain. You had always known it, but your long sleep must have dulled your senses. You wept incessantly, wiping at your tears as he continued pounding into you, for all his efforts, still only halfway there. You were sure he was going to split you in two. Sure you would not survive this. You could feel your lining stretched thin and pulsing against him in protest. This could not end well. As much as you told yourself you had survived this, many times before, you could not help but feel that the stretch was unbearable, unreal - impossible.

Sukuna’s grip on your thighs provided the leverage needed to reach the depth he sought, as he wondered how many more whimpers and confused moans he could tear from you. He wondered if he could make you cry enough to wash the blood from the skulls beneath you. He pulled you in towards himself as he thrust into you again and again and again. Almost there. So close.

As he yanked on your thighs brutally once more, a distinct, sickening popping sound met your ears along with a blinding, searing pain that raced through your hip.

Your eyes shot wide open as a shrill, agonized scream burst from your throat. Even Sukuna paused in his relentless abuse of your core and that fact - more than anything else - terrified you.

Shaking with dread you looked down, only to find your left leg hanging uselessly from your side. You looked up at Sukuna in horror, as if asking him what to do, but he did not meet your eyes, staring curiously at your leg instead. He poked at your leg and it shifted lifelessly at his touch, causing a branding pain to shoot through you anew. You bit your lip and stifled an agonized shriek of pain.

“Sukuna-sama…” you pleaded miserably, sweat beading on your forehead.

He shoved lightly at your leg again, jostling it somewhat harder than the first time and a shriek of pain exploded from you as you pressed a hand to your mouth, groaning in agony.

Now his gaze did lift towards you as a slow smirk spread across his lips.

“P- please,” you begged, your eyes lifted towards his imploringly. “Please, help me.”

“Mmm,” he mused, and you could almost see the gears turning in his head as he continued where he had left off, although at a slower pace. “One thing at a time, sweetheart.”

Your mind was already fuzzy from the immense, unbearable pain coursing through your body. The term of endearment only addled your senses further. Sweetheart? It was your pain, you assumed. Every new height of pain you endured for his sake, the fonder he seemed to grow of you. You glanced down at your useless leg again. You gritted your teeth. You could take it.

“Hang in there,” he teased, pushing slowly but firmly into you, the movement causing fresh agony to course through you. He hovered over you, bringing his lips close to your ear, he angled his head towards you and took your earlobe gently between his teeth. The touch was so tame and affectionate it sent shivers down your spine. You almost couldn’t believe it was Sukuna’s mouth on your ear. Your earlobe slipped from his teeth as he parted his lips to whisper words of encouragement. “ Ganbare, ganbare. ” He murmured into your ear as he pushed further into your core.

You bit your lip, sweat trailing down your face, and searched his eyes questioningly. The message was clear - take him, take the pain, and he would reward you. He would be proud of you. That alone could be worth it, if he would look at you with pride and admiration, the high of receiving his acknowledgement would be worth it all, wouldn’t it?

You nodded.

His eyes lit up with glee, his grin widening even further, as a low chuckle rumbled from his chest. Where would he ever find someone else like you? Willing to take whatever he threw at you? With the sweetest screams he had ever heard, whimpering his name like a kicked puppy? You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without him. It was a good thing you had found your way back to him. This was how it was meant to be. You would be lost out there on your own. Probably get yourself killed in the blink of an eye by some more powerful curses or some fumbling Jujutsu sorcerers. No, the best place for you to be was right by his side.

Sure, he might break you sometimes, but he would always be sure to put you back together again after. Could the same be said for anyone else? Surely not. After all, you were made for him. Everything about your existence revolved around him. Maybe that was why he tolerated your presence, allowed your existence.

He hammered into you with abandon now, two cruel hands all but crushing your breasts in his merciless grip, as a third squeezed your windpipe allowing you only enough air to cry out in agony, as the fourth hand held your right hip in place - some small mercy to minimize the pain in your left leg - as he rammed into you.

You groaned in pain, gritting your teeth and struggling to hold back the pained cries as your walls slowly, finally, began adjusting to him. The searing pain in your leg rattled your senses, but the pleasure now beginning to course through your veins befuddled your mind until you didn’t know what was what. You couldn’t truly tell the pleasure from the pain - both were blindingly intense, both were driving you out of your mind.

Sukuna’s rhythm intensified, faster, harder, more deranged as he seemed to want to pound right through you and you were certain you would lose consciousness from the dizzying combination of terrible sensation as you heard the sickening sound of skulls tumbling from the towering pile and falling to the waters below as he drove you deeper and deeper into the mountain of bone until your view was obscured by the many skulls that had fallen over you - burying you alive, just as you had feared they would.

The fear, the pain, the pleasure of Sukuna within you, the coiling spiral of heat that only intensified with each thrust, the knowledge of how close he was to you. How the King of Curses relished tormenting you, how he tested you, how special you were to him, in your own way, was a dizzying concoction of delirious euphoria that cast you over the edge of ecstasy, despite yourself, just as Sukuna’s pace stuttered, having reached his climax himself, spilling masses of thick, hot liquid deep inside of you. You felt full, sated, on some cloud far removed from the unending pain and the constant threat of death.

You struggled to catch your breath, to orientate yourself, completely forgetting why you could not see. You felt sharp, long fingernails graze past your hip and a jolt of pain passed through you as the bone settled back into place and the surrounding flesh slowly healed, causing your pain to fade into nothingness. Sukuna’s fingers lingered, tracing lazy circles on your hip, sending his cursed energy into your body long after your injury was fully healed.

At length, he drew back, taking hold of your hand and pulling you out of the pile of bone you had found yourself trapped under. You fell against his chest and he stroked your hair behind your ear, murmuring sweet nothings into your ear that were so uncharacteristic you could scarcely believe what you were hearing.

“Good girl,” he whispered, his nails trailing along your scalp, digging through your hair. His lips met your jawline, trailing hot, bruising kisses along your flesh. Your whole body trembled at the affection you were so utterly ill-prepared for, so wholly unaccustomed to. “You’ve been such a good girl, haven’t you?”

You did not know what to think, or what to say. In that moment, escape was the farthest thing from your mind. You wished he would go on holding you that way, stroking your hair, running a hand up and down your back as he whispered praise into your ear that made you want to melt into a puddle.

Leave Sukuna? Never. Why would you want to?

He didn’t stop. His lips found all your weaknesses as he held you up. Two strong arms, supporting your weight while the other two roamed your body, clearly intent on rewarding you, for once, and not seeking his own pleasure. You felt as if you were a guest in your own body, so foreign was the experience. His seeking mouth on your body, leaving dark bruises everywhere it lingered, a second mouth smirking open on the hand he had pressed between your legs. A third hand massaging the nape of your neck.

You were putty in his hands. You had never known that Sukuna was capable of providing such pleasure. You trembled from head to toe as your mind dimly registered a disconcerting thought. What could you possibly do to earn this reward again? What wouldn’t you do to earn this reward again?

He pulled one orgasm after another from you, not waiting for you to come down from the peak of ecstasy before continuing with his ministrations sending you tumbling headfirst into another. It was a different kind of torture, but one you couldn’t bring yourself to resent in the slightest.

When he entered you again, patiently, slowly, allowing you to adjust to him bit by bit, you were stunned to find that Sukuna was even capable of taking you in this fashion. It wasn’t his style, you realized. It was simply a courtesy to you, for having taken the pain so well.

The words good girl rained down repeatedly on your ears until you almost believed them, until you realized that, after this, you would do anything to hear them again.

He took you again and again, until you went limp in his arms, prompting a chuckle from his lips. Something about your complete submission had touched him in an uncharacteristic way. And his desire to reward you, well… Sukuna was one who did as he pleased. And if he wanted to be gentle with you for once, why shouldn’t he? The two of you hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, but now that he thought about it, it was a good thing you had been released into his Domain. You belonged with him, clearly. His unbreakable toy. His good girl.

Slowly but surely, he was coming back to his full strength, and when he broke out of here, he would keep you by his side. He wouldn’t limit himself to you, goodness no, but he would keep the others away from you, and allow you to be close to him, the way he did not allow anyone else to be. Because you would go to lengths for him that others would balk at. And who would he be if he did not reward such loyalty?

He stroked your cheek with one long, sharp black finger as he observed your sleeping features with an aloof, thoughtful expression. There was something about you he couldn’t place. A sensation you awakened within him that he did not recognize. He wondered, briefly, if it posed a danger to him, before shaking his head and deciding no, someone as weak as you could never be dangerous for him.

It never occurred to him that he had missed you.

When you awoke at last, Sukuna was once again draped in that white robe, a black shawl wrapped around his neck. He leaned back in his throne, his chin resting against the knuckles of his right hand. You were draped across his lap, fully naked, as his left hand toyed with your hair. He did not seem to acknowledge or even notice your presence as he argued with someone you could not see.

The low, dangerous hum of his voice as he spoke deadly threats you knew he had every intention of carrying out, sent a shudder down your spine, drawing his attention.

His eyes shifted towards you, even as he continued curling a lock of your hair around his index finger and spoke with someone beyond this realm, someone you did not know.

“Don’t waste my time, brat. Why should I help you?”

He was not speaking to you, even though his narrowed eyes were drinking you in. You heard a plea in response, an agonized cry for help, that the person beyond had friends who were dying, that innocent people would be doomed if Sukuna refused his aid.

Sukuna’s eyes caressed every exposed inch of flesh before muttering a gruff response.

“People that weak deserve to die. And if you’re too weak to protect them, then you deserve to watch it happen.”

Sukuna traced a finger across your collarbones and down the valley of your breasts as he spoke. You could feel your heart racing in your chest at his touch.

“I’m busy, brat.” He barked, cutting off the connection. Sukuna turned his attention towards you, and you felt you were surely burning alive under his gaze.

But the boy’s voice returned, echoing throughout the domain. Sukuna growled in his throat in displeasure and you could not help but be concerned for the boy’s fate. He cast you one last, lingering look that seemed to indicate that you should wait for him, that he would return shortly, that he was far from done with you.

You nodded in understanding, and when you felt him slip away, you remained motionless on his throne, eagerly awaiting the moment he would reappear and find you, just as he had left you. Absolutely faithful to the letter and spirit of his command. Waiting to amuse him, to entertain him, to be the very plaything he had claimed you were. Ever faithfully by his side.

After all, where else would you go?

#sukuna x reader #tw noncon #sukuna #jjk #sukuna smut

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jessiebanethedragon · 3 years

Text

Commander?

Summary: Reader ('Mech') Is a member of CT-9904's unit and is sent to Ryloth instead of fighting with the insurgents. If only either of them could figure out why he made that call...

basically empire Crosshair is falling in love with the reader and is fighting with the chip's influence, the reader is falling as well. This is what happens when she see's the aftermath of the engine injuries.

Warnings: the reader gets choked, but not like in that way, reader is mean to crosshair, crosshair is mean to reader (ie neither of them know how feelings work)

Ryloth is grossly humid, you hate the way it feels with your plastoid armor on. The dark colour of it and your blacks underneath certainly don’t help either. And the fact that you’re still seething over your delegation has your teeth so clenched it hurts. Senator Taa is driving you insane as well, the fact that you’re playing the part that any trooper could be is driving you insane.

You didn’t get the nickname Mech for nothing. The modified electrostaff that hangs on your hip is evidence of that. The pop of your knuckles out of boredom has Syndulla and his clone looking at you.

“Something to say? Admiral Rampart asks with a glare. The kind that makes you stand straighter and fall in formation. When an answer doesn’t come from behind your helmet he sighs before adding. “You’re dismissed.”

Back in your sorry excuse for barracks, your armor is thrown against the wall. Starting with the stuffy helmet, the sound it makes when it hits the stone isn’t enough to satisfy your anger. So as you strip off each piece of the remaining plastoid it too, meets the interior of the Ryloth cave.

Screw him. Screw your commander. Screw the nerf herding Clone that sent you here. You hate him, you hate the way he speaks to you. Like he’s always looking for a weakness. You hate being here playing guard dog while they chase down the insurgents. And what you hate the most is the insecurity that lingers in your mind.

Why didn’t he think I was good enough?

You were the only one left behind, the only one sent to Ryloth ahead of time. Perhaps for one too many snarky comments. Perhaps because he doubted your abilities.

You’re so angry you go as far as striping out of the empire regulated blacks and into your civilian clothes. Which largely consists of your old baggy tactical pants that are so worn down the hues of your favorite colour are faded. But you still stuff the pants into your combat boots anyways. The top is less top-like and more like a piece of fabric that is long enough to turn into some kind of thing resembling clothing. It’s not exactly high Naboo fashion, but it’s a hell of a lot less warm than your kriffing armor.

You take to fixing the scope of his sniper rifle. You’re tempted to leave it broken, Maker knows how it happened in the first place. But you’re desperate for a distraction, a challenge, anything to take away the sting of being left behind. It gets fixed all too quickly, and you have to resort to tinkering with the calibrations in order to pass the time.

The door opens with a whoosh and the Commander and the rest of your team find you lounging with your feet up, scope in hand looking positively annoyed. Everyone tenses when you lazily get up, and walk over to them without saluting.

“That doesn't look like your uniform to me.” He says, the anger crackling through the helmet. And while everyone else has taken their helmets off, you can see them hesitate.

“Well considering the planet's demilitarizing, it didn’t look like it needed a commando to me.” You snap, the week of annoyance coming to fruition all at once.

“What did you just say to me?” He asks, stepping closer and bunching his fists. Your hand goes to your electrostaff, and his to his blaster. Weighing your options, you decide not to sign your death warrant today. Instead you reach into your pocket and grab the newly fixed scope. Not passing up the change to shove it into his chest.

The second your hand collides with the pastoid he moves like lightning. The scope clatters to the ground adding to the noises of surprise that your comrades make. Some of them move to help you, but think better of it. By the time your brain catches up your back has already hit the wall, a durasteel hand around your neck.

“Apologise.” He grits out. The green visor burning out your retina, and your hands scratching at his vambrace. You splutter around the hand, and he lets up a little. Just a little. The logical part of your brain is screaming at you to say the two simple words.

“I take it you failed to catch them then?” You say instead. And the hand tightens again, making you slap his forearms, he doesn't let up and somewhere your brain registers someone gasping:

“He’s going to kill Mech!” And with that, you collide with the floor. One hand bracing yourself and keeping you off the actual ground, and the other cradling the tender skin.

“You three. Out.” He snaps, and the sounds of footsteps rush out the door. Looking up at the Commander, you see the helmet watch your comrades hustle out, before he moves further into the barracks. Collecting a jug of water and a singular cup. Clutching both in one hand, he uses his other to haul you up. Still gasping you try to struggle.

“Calm down.” He says plainly. “I’m not going to hurt you”

“I think you understand why I'm not inclined to believe that.” You wheeze out, as he leads you to one of the beds and makes you sit on it. Before pouring water into the cup, and hesitantly handing it to you.

“Drink.” he barely gets the word out before you’re snatching the substance from him and gulping it down. You cover yourself in it but you don't really care. Pausing to catch your breath again, the fog begins to clear.

“No toothpick?” You mean to tease, but when you ask he walks away from you. That's when you catch it. There’s a piece of his armor that's discoloured from the rest. Not so much that it needed replacing, but enough for you to notice. “Commander?” You ask, and watch him shake his head ever so slightly. Only turning back when he hears you get up and stagger towards him.

“Sit back down. You’re injured.” He winces slightly at the sentence. Almost like there's a part of him that hates himself for hurting you. Funnily enough it's the same part that convinced him not to let you on that mission.

“I think you are too.” You admit softly. “Let me see.” You push. And he grumbles and mumbles before taking his helmet off.

His hair has been shaved off - even shorter than it was before. But that's not what catches your eye. What you stare at is the gaping injury on the back left side of his head. And the way he scrunches his nose and turns away shows you something you’ve never seen from him before.

Fragility, fear, embarrassment and maybe a multitude of other emotions fly across his face. When he opens his mouth to say something your brain kicks into gear.

“Sit down. Let me tend to it.” You demand. He tries to protest.

“That's not-” “Just let me see it.”

“I’m fine-” “You need bacta.” You’re still trying to lead him into sitting down, and he tries to argue more before finally giving in.

“I was cleared from the medbay you know.” He grumbles, and part of your soul does cartwheels when he listens to you and does actually sit down. And you almost like to think you’re the only person who he does listen to.

There aren't nearly enough bacta strips to double wrap the area like you wanted, but it’ll do until you can restock at a proper Imperial medbay.

This isn’t the first time you’ve been this close to each other, and it isn’t even the first time you’ve touched the commander's face. The first and only other time was in the depths of space. Everyone else was passed out in exhaustion after mission after mission. But you two, neither of you could sleep. And you could see the scrunch in his brow of anxiety and pent up adrenalin. And somehow, some miracle happened and after much convincing, you sat on the floor of some hallway, and he let you rub calming circles into his temple. You can still feel the way his hands held onto your forearms gently, like he was afraid you’d hurt him, or maybe he was afraid you wouldn't hurt him. Or maybe, just maybe, he had wanted to hold you.

“I should’ve been there.” You whisper while dressing the wound. It probably looks worse than it is but guilt is still eating you alive.

“You were where you needed to be.” He states. Taking his gloves off while you move from behind, to beside him as you finish with the bacta. Still analysing the wound and the rest of his face. He almost wants to smile, they didn’t call you Mech for nothing.

“Why did you send me away?” You ask. Closing your eyes when you feel a hand come up and caress your face. It's so gentle it’s almost like it's not there at all. Your heart feels like it's exploding with each beat. Why did this always happen between the two of you, why were you like magnets for each other.

And why did he always have to push you away after?

“I’m sorry,” He tells you when he grazes over your neck. “For that,” another swipe of a gentle hand. “But not for sending you here. Evidently I made the right call.” Fingers rest under your chin, tilting it up. When your eyes open, his are finding the part of you that you worked so hard to bury.

“You should be. It kriffing hurts.” You try to joke, to hide your feelings. But it comes out dry and cracked, a reminder of his anger moments ago.

“You learned your lesson then.” He snaps. And yet, the hand that goes to your hair is still gentle.

“Don’t leave me behind again commander. Or it’ll be the last time you see me.” It’s not a threat, but his eyes darken as if it is one.

“Good soldiers follow orders.” He hisses.

“Good thing we’re commandos then.” You shoot back. He closes his eyes and sighs, his hand leaving your face. It takes something with it, and you feel at a loss. One of your hands travels the regulated blanket that you’re sitting on, like it’s subconsciously searching for him.

Instead, he stands up and walks away.

“You should be resting.” You grumble at him, also standing up, if only to cross your arms in annoyance.

“I was cleared from the medbay.” He repeats himself, reaching for his helmet, ready to block you out again.

“Those droids clear out anything with a pulse. You need time to heal.” Hesitantly, you pad over to him, your hand stopping his when he goes to put the helmet on again. As if on instinct his other hand goes to your throat. But he stops himself when he sees the marks from before.

“This isn’t allowed.” He whispers, bucket hitting the floor. His hand moves onto your waist like a different person is in control of his motions. “I’m sorry.” He says again, fixated on the markings on your neck.

“It’s okay.” You tell him, moving closer. Sighing into his hold and the cool armor on hot skin. Looking up at your commander with blinking eyes. If someone was to walk in now, you’d most likely be executed, or exiled at the very least. But it doesn't stop his bare hands from moving, one on your hip where skin meets skin outside of imperial rules, regulation and armour. The other goes to your face again. Why does he like it so much? What is it about your face that is addictive? He tries to imagine a different face, a different person having this effect on him.

He can’t.

“No.” He says against your lips when they almost touch. And you tremble in rejection, a blank face covers the part of you that's crying. You’re so close to him, to something real, something other than war efforts or the Galactic Empire. You ignore him, and try to lean forward again, but the hand in your hair moves to place two fingers of your lips and push you back. And you know he feels your lips stutter and breath hitch as you contain a cry. His hands leave you completely as he steps away and puts his helmet back on.

“Shame.” You say bitterly, and you’re not proud of what happens next. Maybe you’re too smart, maybe you shouldn’t have read his file when you hacked into the database to find those chain codes. Maybe you shouldn’t have let him hurt you first.

“I liked seeing your tattoo.” You add, watching the helmet glare at you. “It’s a Crosshair, right?”

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fallen029 · 3 years

Text

Poison

They'd been dating, off and on, for about six months. Laxus had been laid up some, from a rough job, but also had the misfortune of running through most of his usual dates. Which was fine. Left with all the time in the world to heal up, he was more than game to find more, well, game.

But this didn't necessarily come to fruition.

It was weird.

Mirajane Strauss was quite clearly attractive.

Only a blind man would deny it.

But there were many attractive women in their guild. Too many, almost. And while he liked to flirt around the edge with some of them, most weren't really worth his time.

Or, uh, well...interested in him, if he could allow his ego to admit it (he typically couldn't).

Still, Mira was someone that he had something of a rapport with, a thing he lacked with many of the other women. She seemed to be feeling rather disappointed for him, saddled with a broken bone, and intent on brightening his spirits. When she had a break in her work, she would frequently linger around his table, making their same small talk as usual, and Laxus found himself enjoying it more than he usually would.

Things were nice in the beginning.

But the beginning was over too soon.

He stuck around too long one night, drinking, and Mira insisted he stay the night at the guildhall, else he risk, in his drunk stupor, injuring himself further on the walk home with his crutches. This was innocent enough and Laxus was sure that she had no real intentions behind it, but that left him up at the hall with her, alone, watching as the barmaid closed down for the night.

"C'mon, demon," he insisted with a bit of a drunken edge to his voice. "Have at least one more shot with me, eh?"

She refused his first offer, but luckily (or un, perhaps), he made multiple.

And it only took one shot to convince Mira that yes, she should do more.

The next day was awkward, but the following wasn't nearly as much, and Laxus made some sort of a jest, over the woman taking advantage of his state, considering his broken leg and all, and Mira thought that was so very funny and maybe he got too drunk, again, to go home, and what would Mira be? Leaving a crippled man all alone in a big guildhall?

They didn't want anyone to know about them. Which was hard. Because they slowly became all either could think about. Laxus was around the hall constantly then, not just from boredom from his injury now, but with a vested interest in the head barmaid, while Mirajane seemed to suddenly find time to take a vacation day or two, and oh, didn't she deserve it? Everyone thought so.

Especially Laxus, who very much appreciated every second they were given alone together.

The woman still, for some reason Laxus couldn't quite grasp (being an only child, he found the idea of siblings frightening, especially the way the Strausses dealt with one another), lived with both her siblings. Which severely limited the places where they could go to be alone. If it wasn't the hall after hours, then it had to either be one of the seedy motels that he didn't quite want to admit the woman he might have frequented at one point in his life (or she him) or, as much as Laxus hated it, the best option of all; his apartment.

"Getting to see how the great Laxus Dreyar lives?" Mira whistled low, the first time she was welcomed to messy apartment. "Wow."

"Yeah, well, I do what I- Hey, are you mocking me?"

Mira only giggled in reply and it was fine, honestly. The more the woman found herself around, the more the apartment found itself rather clean and Laxus lost some of his reserves over keeping his bachelor pad all bottled up to himself.

Time felt different in those days.

In a way he hadn't felt it since he was a child.

He had a routine again, one that wasn't adherent to a strict training regimen or rigorous job schedule, but rather the standard workday.

When he was a boy, he would sit up at the hall, listening to stories from all the old members, waiting for his grandfather to finish up his masterly duties for the day so that they could go have some fun. It wasn't that different with Mirajane. She stopped taking double shifts and would be finished up by mid to late afternoon, with Laxus only lingering around a short amount of time after her escape, finding his own on a hobbled trek back to his apartment, where the woman would be waiting.

They weren't out having adventures. Or spending the fleeing daylight by doing anything too exotic. But it felt so, to him at least. Adventurous and exotic in it's own right, allowing such a connection, such a bond, to begin to form.

For what could have been the worst months of his life, Laxus had to tack them up there with some of the best.

It felt absurd to say, but sitting around his apartment, eating takeout and talking to Mirajane, seriously just talking sometimes or listening to her toy at her guitar… It was the most fun he'd had. The most free he'd felt.

For a man that had all the power in the world, the ability to tackle any job posted, travel the continent at will, someone being confined to the guildhall and his apartment supplied him with some actual fresh air. Or at least perspective.

He almost felt robbed of something, when it was finally time for his cast to be removed.

This wouldn't be the obvious end to things, as he would still need some time to fully regain the mobility in his leg, deal with the conditioning that he now lacked, being out of action for so long. His training, which included the Thunder Legion, now made spending time with the woman more tricky and maybe, if they were better people, they could have stopped it there.

Seen where things were headed.

But Mira always seemed to have her head stuck in the clouds and Laxus, for once, found himself too attached for once, and though the bandage had begun to be peeled back, there was still some adhesive holding fast.

So he'd just have to suck it up and finish the job.

Their time together was tight already and Laxus put it off for as long as he could, honestly, but one day when Mirajane arrived at his apartment with dinner for the two of them, he didn't have nearly the same light behind his eyes that he had in recent months. When she questioned him a bit, over dinner, when she talked a mile a minute and he just sat there, gloomily, back to his old self, maybe, only offering up nods and sighs.

The man, as was becoming rather obvious, was anything but coy.

Still, he found that he didn't quite know how to express to the woman what was eating at him. These weren't exactly the kind to seek a woman out, just to end things with her. But Mira was different. Not even necessarily from the standpoint of his feelings, but also due to her proximity whether they continued to date or not.

She was a part of Fairy Tail. At times, it felt like more so than he was. One of the main reasons for avoiding such relationships up at the hall (again, ignoring the outright disdain he cultivated among other members at time) was due simply to the fact that it would be awkward.

When things were over.

And with him things, inevitably, would find themselves coming to an end.

He wasn't a good person.

Or at least he very infrequently felt like one.

To a mate, at least.

Laxus knew for certain he was a changed man, following the events of his excommunication. Seriously. His whole outlook on life was altered. It went further than just learning to respect his grandfather or guild or the members that dwelled there. Laxus now saw the world from a perspective he'd originally rejected; everyone else's. He wasn't the only person in the guild, in the world, that mattered and while he was a big hole to fill, everyone could be replaced.

So you had to appreciate what you had while you had it.

But...he had difficulty carrying this over into the dating world. Opening up to someone was difficult and caring when someone did so to you was even harder. This was easily excusable for the man, as he found many of his faults were, because clearly he just didn't want that sort of relationship. Didn't need it.

He had the Thunder Legion. For his emotional support. They felt far closer to him than any woman ever could be. All three of him. Knew more about him than any partner ever should.

Friends were enough.

His best friends were enough.

Until...they weren't.

Those past few months, with Mirajane, well, he just hadn't felt that sort of exhilaration in a long time. He'd closed himself off to it, maybe, been so convinced he didn't need it that he never gave himself a chance to experience it.

Sometimes he saw the same woman. A lot. And then he'd just stop. Wouldn't come around as much. Go out on a long job. Not write. Avoid her when he came back to town. There weren't these big moments.

He wouldn't be able to summon up the energy for them, honestly.

"I actually wanted to talk to you," Laxus found himself reply, eventually. "About… You know, I'm pretty much healed up now."

"Oh, I know." Mira smiled over from her half of the table, still picking at her meal. "I'm so happy for you. I'm sure it's been torture being cooped up all this time."

"Not torture, no, but-"

"You're so used to traveling though," she cut him off. "It was hard for me, when I had to take a break for awhile. Hang around the bar. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love it now, but at first… It can just be a big adjustment, you know?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "I know."

Still, Mira only eyed him again before asking simply, "Are you sure you're okay? Lax? Is there something else?"

"I…"

He swallowed and almost balked. Backed out and decided not to tell her. Before he left. And come back from his job and pretend like this never happened. He imagined Mirajane, who was used to playing many different roles in her life, would give into that rather easily.

But there was something in him that didn't allow this. Something he didn't quite understand. The time he'd spent with Mirajane meant something, he knew that, and maybe for that reason he felt a duty to her, to insure that he'd at least accurately explained himself.

If only to spare her feelings all he could.

"I'm going to be gone," he decided. "For awhile, probably. I want to take a long job. And I know that we've spent a lot of time together, but-"

"Laxus," she intervened before giving him a bit of a smile. "I know."

"I- You what?"

"I," she insisted. "know. I get it, okay? We don't have to do this."

"This?"

She frowned, not quite getting why he was now the one pretending to be confused and only explained, "You're breaking up with me."

He sat there for a moment, considering what she'd said before asking, "How do you know that?'

"Because I'm not stupid, Laxus." Mira sighed some before going back to her food. "It's not like I haven't been thinking of it too."

"Thinking of what?"

"Laxus-"

"Thinking about what, Mirajane?"

"About this. This...time." She dropped her fork just to gesture vaguely with both hands. "Together. It's been...something else, but I'm dumb. I know that you're going to go back on the road and that it's over. It's okay."

"No." He felt like she'd pulled the rug out from under him. How could that be, huh? That the woman was one step ahead of him? "You can't just… I had so many things I wanted to say and-"

"You can still say them." She even shrugged a bit, but it was sadly now and he'd zapped it right out of her, that joy she'd had before. Distantly, he wondered it was all an act with him too. The whole time. Another pretend character like what she played up at the bar. He'd felt that he was getting the real her, this whole time, as he gave himself in return, but now he just felt duped. Even as she insisted, "It's not like you're leaving tonight."

Swallowing some, Laxus looked down instead, at his own meal, before asking, "What would you have done if I didn't say anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"If I didn't say anything, tonight, and then left next week," he questioned, "would you have still felt this way? How you do now?"

Mira was the one to pause then, but again, he could only get that sad, pitiful shrug out of the woman as she said, "I know you, Laxus. Even before this time that we've spent together. You're poison. And to a certain extent, I guess I am too. Things don't last, with others, when it comes to the two of us. I didn't have to worry about how you felt because I know, just the same as me, you get it. If anything, I'm a little disappointed you thought I'd be crushed over losing you."

The night never picked back up and Mira didn't spend it with him. Instead, they parted in his living room, not with their usual, sensual kisses and hugs, but rather the woman pressing a soft kiss to his cheek and him glancing away, somehow feeling more exposed, in this final night, than he had the entire length of their romance.

Someone else was on shift when he came by the bar, that following week, to pick up his first job back.

Just as he'd intended, it was a nice and long one. The Thunder Legion wanted to go with him, either as a group or at least one of them, individually, to scope out his readiness, but Laxus rebuked them and instead headed out alone.

It was a much a step back into his old life as it was a funeral for his former.

Or at least it started out that way.

He wanted to be sad. Over Mirajane.

At first.

And then he wanted to be angry.

To which he got really close.

Finally, he wanted to just move on.

He really seriously did.

That was the original idea, anyways, to be able to come back and for their relationship (or whatever it had been) to be old news. For Mira to go back to serving him drinks and the occasional sass while Laxus admired her, or at least her strength, and they could be friends.

Distant ones, but still closer than he was with most others in the bar.

It should have made it easier, right? That Mira seemed content with this idea too? She'd been resound, before he even got his words out, and that was just the best. For the best too. They were on the same page, even in a breakup.

This was literally the most amicable a split could ever be.

And yet…

The Thunder Legion was waiting for him, up at the guildhall, when he returned from his just over four week journey. He should have immediately set into berating them, as he was certain they'd been derelict in taking their own jobs, just to hang around, to be there for him when he got back, but he didn't have time.

He hardly even noticed them.

Honest.

Mirajane was working, back on her normal schedule actually. Which would be no off time ever because where else would she go? Than the bar? All her friends were there. Periodically. A rotating door of them, one leaving for a job only for another to appear, returning.

Lucy, in fact, was around that day, seated up at the bar. Mira had spent most of her shift there, honestly, as the celestial mage had much to share with her, after being away for a week.

She'd just been called away though, Mira had, by a waving hand and a drunk request for a refill, and she left Lucy with a smile in place of excusing herself, rushing right over to take care of the patron. It was while she was refilling the mug though that she caught it, sensed it, could feel it.

Him.

Laxus had an air about him that was difficult to dismiss, last half of the year or not.

She'd been prepping for this. Had her plastered on smile down, knew exactly what she'd say to him. Ask him politely about his trip, ask if he wanted his usual, and then use the man's no doubt unease to slink away from the situation. It would be that easy.

It should have been that easy.

Because she was banking on Laxus behaving how she envisioned. He did most of the time. The man thought that he was deep and complex, but honestly, he was just moody and predictable.

He should have wanted away from her just as much as she did him. To have avoided speaking to her, outside of the necessary first conversation, and then they could just begin hedging their lives away from one another.

But he approached her.

First.

As she was backing away from the table she'd just served, he walked right up to her, bypassing the curious Thunder Legion, and instead coming to a stop before the barmaid.

"Laxus." She wasn't that flustered and only began on her intended small talk. "How was your first-"

He kissed her.

He just took her face in his hands, stopping her predetermined greeting in a gesture that made that entire guildhall stop what they were doing. Everyone was staring, something that both Mira and Laxus were used to, when it came to magic, but neither were too public about such excessive affection. And when they broke apart, this showed by the slight tint in Laxus cheeks and Mira only turned her head from him a bit, thoroughly stumped.

"You shouldn't," she finally whispered in the otherwise silent guildhall, "kiss someone. Laxus. Like that. It's invasive."

He blinked some, the man did, but didn't take a step back. Instead, he only whispered back, "I'm sorry." When she looked ready to reply though, he only continued, "About it all. Mira. I… I shouldn't have tried to break up with you. I shouldn't have let you break up with me. Well, at least not without countering some things. Because yeah, you know, things are going to be different. From the past few months. Fine. But...why do they have to go back to how they were? Huh? Why can't they just keep being different? From then too? And we just...try? I'm not saying that I want to, like, be together forever or anything, although I'm not saying I don't want that either, I just…"

"Laxus," she tried to intervene. "We don't have to-"

"Let me finish." And he huffed a bit. Because he'd floundered before, been uncertain of the words he was looking for. Back at his apartment. But maybe that was because he wasn't meant to say them. They weren't mean to come out. He couldn't find something didn't exist. But now, ruminating for over a month on these words, this set, he knew, finally, exactly what he wanted to say. "I'm poison. Fine. If that's what you think. And maybe you are too. But… I liked being with you. More than I've liked being with literally anyone I've known in the past decade. More than I like being alone, even, and you know how much I like that! I just… I don't think we can throw something away, say that it's tainted, that it's poisoned, before it's gone bad. Why would we ever want to do that to ourselves?"

He'd felt impassioned, before, but as he let out that final breath, his chest heaved a bit. It had been so quiet in the hall, with only him speaking, that it was almost easy to pretend like they were back in those few months, when they were all alone, in the empty guild. But it wasn't empty, right now, and for once, the heavy gaze of all his guild mates was almost too much to bear.

"I was going to say," Mira began then with a bit of a frown, "that maybe we could go somewhere in private to talk this over."

Laxus blinked. Then he frowned as well. "Then why didn't you?"

"You told me to talk!"

"Mira-"

"I'll have to think about this, Laxus."

"Yeah, well-"

"Okay!" And she bounced some, having taking just a moment to turn and tap a finger against her lip before pouncing on him, the man just barely catching her in his arms as the woman decided, "I guess we can do this till we die."

"I said I didn't want to be with you forever," he complained as their dimwitted guild mates, still not entirely sure what they were witnessing, cheered, at least some of them, as this seemed like a happy enough resolution. "Demon."

"You said," she remarked simply, "that you weren't sure. And thinking that your dying signifies forever is a bit conceded, don't you think? Dragon?"

"What?"

She released him instead of explaining, remarking simply in a more hushed tone, "We talk. Alone. After hours."

The man eyed her for a moment before nodding because it was true enough. They did need to speak. Honestly. Alone.

And they would. In a few hours. When there were no other eyes and it was easier for Laxus to explain in a way that wasn't so preachy and Mira didn't have to put on her dim facade, not necessarily challenging the man, but confirming with him, in a way they'd yet to do, just how serious they each wanted this relationship to be.

Considering he'd more than outed them to the guildhall, Mira felt as if he was leaning towards very.

And as she'd given hi the fairy tale ending (at least in front of the others), Laxus imagined she wanted the same.

He slunk back off, the softening of his character not one to be trusted by any other. Only the Thunder Legion chased after him, when he left the bar for the time being, intending to return hours later, and it was just as well. It wasn't him that all the others wanted a piece of.

"Mira," Elfman complained over most everyone else. "What was that? Huh?"

But she didn't answer him, instead heading over to the bar, becoming used to the gazes it seemed, and instead only leaning over it with a sigh as she looked the blushing Lucy in the eyes.

"U-Uh, so…" The celestial mage began. "You and Laxus, huh?"

Mira nodded, but only insisted, "I wanna hear about the rest of your job. Natsu did what to the town?"

"Destroyed it," Lucy said more concisely. "But Mira-"

"Well," Mira offered with a bit of a shrug. "He is known for that."

And Lucy, still wanting all the same juicy information that all the others did, only gave in a bit, nodding as she said, "But maybe one day he'll change."

"Yeah," the barmaid agreed. "Maybe."

This is the last thing I got planned for Miraxus week. I know I got all the days jumbled up, but hey, we can only try.

#Miraxus #Miraxus Week #Day 5 Poison #Mirajane Strauss #Laxus Dreyar #Laxus #Mirajane #Mira #Fairy Tail #Fanfiction

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skullrock · 4 years

Text

the partners | Steve x Reader

chapter one: please, please, please, let me get what I want

series summary: you and Steve are police apprentices at Hawkins Police Station in the fall of 1986. you get along famously, but there’s something Steve is hiding, and there is an unknown evil lurking in Hawkins. [friends to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff]

chapter summary: Steve finally agrees to hang out outside of work.

warnings: swearing, 80s music

word count: 2.4k

a/n: this chapter is mainly a ton of exposition, but it’s gonna get better I PROMISE. huge thank ya to @wolfish-willow who gave me some beautiful ideas (milky coffee + danish loving Steve) that helped this fic come to fruition <3 enjoy!

You pull into Hawkin’s Police Department at 7:30, a half hour before your shift. There are two coffees in the cup holders of your car, and a paper bag filled with two pastries on the passenger seat. You pull in beside your partner’s car and he hops out, a smile plastered on his face. He crawls into your passenger side and grabs the bag.

“This one’s yours,” you say, pointing to the coffee cup marked milk w/ dash of coffee. He laughs, pulling out his blueberry danish and handing you your strawberry donut. He bites into his pastry and lets out a sinful moan, making you smack his arm.

“It’s too early for you to be gross,” you say, but he looks victorious.

“I’m sorry you don’t like my happiness,” he quips, and you roll your eyes.

It was tradition that every Monday that you both worked, you’d get coffee and pastries from the local bakery and shoot the shit in your car until your shift started.

“So, I had a dream last night where I was dating Mia Sara,” he says.

“Wish that were me,” you reply, taking a sip of coffee. “Did it work out for you guys?”

“Nah, she left me for Harrison Ford.”

“Tragic.”

He pauses, listening to the music softly coming from your radio. He scoffs upon realizing what was playing.

“Stop listening to this sad shit,” he says, turning the dial, making you shout.

“It’s the Smiths!” You try to bat his hand away, but he manages to change the channel to a Queen song. Typical.

You and Steve had become good friends after securing your positions, despite your perception of him in high school. After the fire at Starcourt and the death of Jim Hopper, the federal government had given the Hawkins Police a grant to let aspiring cops train directly in the field. It would fast-track getting certified, eliminating the need for expensive schooling. It was like a paid internship. A paid internship where you basically get paid to bullshit with your best friend all day.

A third car pulls in. It’s Veronica, the secretary. She takes over on days that Flo wants off – she’s worked hard enough for it. Veronica was a bit obsessed with Steve, so he groaned when he saw her get out and wave.

“What do you think she’s going to say to you today?” you giggle, and Steve rolls his eyes.

“Probably, like… that she had a dream about us last night, or something.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “God, please don’t let her talk to me.”

Women were throwing themselves at Steve the minute he put the uniform on, but he claimed he wasn’t interested in dating. You weren’t really sure why, given his history, but he never answered any questions. He just said he wanted to focus on work and having fun, so you let him.

Steve was kind of a mystery to you. You were incredibly close at the station, but you’d been working with him for a few months and you never saw each other outside of work. There were talks of maybe going to a movie, but they never went anywhere. It was bizarre, considering how fond you both were of each other. But you didn’t want to push it, unsure if you were making him uncomfortable.

In reality, Steve was just nervous of letting people in. Not just because of his history with girls and friends, but because he also had Russians and demons to worry about. He felt that if he let anyone new into his life, he would be putting them in mortal danger. This viewpoint is also the reason why he applied for the apprenticeship in the first place.

When the position popped up, Steve had no second thoughts. He had looked up to Hopper greatly since the time Will was possessed. He knew without a doubt that he wanted to follow in Hop’s footsteps. But he also felt an obligation now that Hopper was dead. Joyce had left, taking Will and Eleven with her. The three people who had the best grip on the strange events that had occurred the past three years were gone, and the man who devised most of the plans (and executed them) was gone, too. Steve couldn’t sleep at night for months. He needed to constantly call the kids and Robin to make sure they were safe. Being part of the Hawkins Police seemed like a no-brainer; it was a way to ensure everyone was safe and be on the frontlines to protect them.

Not that he ever let this on; usually he would just say that he’s always wanted to be a cop, and he kept it at that.

You’d decided to do the apprenticeship after college didn’t work out. You went to one in Indianapolis after high school, but you weren’t really into it. Your parents decided to retire and travel for a few years, offering to let you have the house while they’re gone. You gratefully took them up on it, and you’d been living there since the spring. You’d enjoyed a few months off, but decided it was time to find something new to do. You’d always had a fantasy of being a hero. Maybe not a hero cop, but a hero. You wanted to save lives, make an impact. Being a police officer seemed like a good start. You knew it wouldn’t be like the movies, but the strange events that happened the last few years excited you. Maybe you’d get the chance to be someone you’ve always wanted to be.

“Why don’t you just give Veronica a chance?” you ask. “She’s pretty and she’s nice and she’s smart.”

“She literally told me she wanted a lock of my hair,” he says.

You choke on your coffee. “I forgot about that.”

“Yeah? I didn’t.”

Steve’s watch beeps, signaling that it’s 5 minutes until 8.

“Please keep talking to me when we go in,” he begs as you both climb out of the car.

“What’s in it for me?” you inquire.

“I will give you all of the lunches my mom brings me for two weeks.”

You pause. “Even the Fruit Roll-Ups?”

He sighs. “I’ll throw them in if you do a good job.”

You successfully make it past the reception desk without incident, waving hi to Callahan and Powell. You knock on the Chief’s door to signify your arrival, and you and Steve make your way back to the annex you worked in. Your desks faced each other, making it easier to talk through your 8-hour shifts. They were usually pretty boring. You and Steve were only cleared to respond to calls about petty things, like noise disturbances. But it’s not like much ever happened anymore in Hawkins, and the town had almost made it a full year without any weird occurrences.

A few hours go by, and boredom runs rampant. You hated Mondays: things hardly ever happened. Steve gets up around 10:30 and puts a mixtape into the boombox in the annex. Don’t You (Forget About Me) comes on, and Steve mutters, “aw, hell yeah,” under his breath. You know he’s going to start dancing, but it doesn’t stop the surprised smile on your face as he starts to swing and spin and sing. It’s magic, watching Steve dance. It makes no sense, it’s clumsy, it’s so white that it hurts; but it’s also hilarious and never fails to pick you up. Sometimes you’d join him. Other times, you’d call him an idiot. And sometimes you’d just watch as the magic unfolds.

This was one of those times.

The door to the annex opens around 1, approximately 5 hours into your shift. You and Steve are begging for something to do, because throwing M&Ms at each other isn’t fun by the second hour. You’d just thrown one at Steve when the door swings open, and you and Steve look at the intruder with wide eyes. It’s the Chief.

The new Chief was okay, you guessed. He was also brought in by the feds. He was a kind older man, with deep set blue eyes and wispy white hair. He could have come straight out of a storybook. You thought the Chief delegated nicely, and you’d shared a few good laughs. Something always felt off, though – but you and Steve chalked that up to the fact that you both were extremely biased against anyone who wasn’t Hop.

“Noise disturbance call,” Chief Edwards says. “Some kids out on Maple Street are causing mayhem.”

Steve groans and throws his head back. “Please tell me it’s not 30 Maple Street.”

The Chief blinks. “It is.”

“God dammit,” Steve says under his breath. It’s Mike’s house.

You and Steve get into a patrol car and set off.

“Do you know these kids?” you ask.

“Yeah, they’re kind of… my kids?” He scrunches his nose. “I keep them out of trouble.”

You pause, confused. “So, you babysit them?”

“No, no,” Steve says. His face grows slightly red. “They’re my friends.”

Steve pulls into the driveway of the house, blaring the siren once to scare the kids that were on the lawn. Their faces quickly went from scared to excited as they saw it was Steve in the car.

You both get out of the car, and Steve takes the lead. He puts his hands on his hips and faces the kids. There were 4 boys and 2 girls, no older than 16, if you could guess. One of them with dark hair is holding a hose, and the others are wet.

“What are you shitheads doing?” Steve asks sternly. A couple of the kids giggle.

“What seems to be the problem, officer?” the red headed girl asks.

“I told you we were being too loud,” a kid you recognize as Will Byers says. He is smart, sitting on the porch and just watching, amused.

“Right,” says Steve, pointing at Will in recognition. “Way too loud. Mike, where’s your parents?”

There’s a beat, and then the girl standing next to the red head quietly says, “Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler aren’t home.”

Steve sighs. “Alright, well, you could always act like idiots inside the house, you know.” He looks at the dark-haired boy holding the hose. “Mike, what are you doing with that?”

The boy’s face breaks out into a devilish grin, and you can predict what’s about to happen. He points the hose at Steve and a curly haired boy turns the handle to let the water spray out, missing Steve by a hair. He jumps back.

“HEY!” he shouts. “Not cool dude, not in my uniform!”

“Wimp,” you laugh, and push him forward, allowing him to get splashed. The kids cheer, and then Steve’s hands are on your arms, and he swings you around to get hit, too. You gasp at the freezing feeling on the back of your legs, but burst into laughter, trying to wrestle Steve back into the flow. This goes on for entirely too long before you suddenly realize that it probably isn’t a good look to be out here responding to a call and then partaking in the offense.

“Steve,” you say, and that’s all it takes for him to snap back into reality.

“This is fun and all,” he says, letting you go. “But we came to bust you, not join in.”

The curly haired boy turns the water off and Mike sets the hose down. Steve has a way with kids. He’s able to level with them and call them out at the same time. It’s pretty great to watch and it’s certainly something you admired him for.

“Who’s this?” the curly haired kid asks, grinning widely.

“Oh,” Steve says. “This is my partner, Y/N.”

“Do you get to carry a gun?”

“Lucas!”

“Sorry!”

“You hang out with Steve? That must suck,” the dark-haired boy, Mike, says.

“Every single day,” you say solemnly. “It’s the worst.”

“Hey,” Steve says quietly.

“I’m kidding, bud.” You punch his arm lightly. “You’re the best.”

You look back at the kids and they’re all staring at you with wide eyes. It makes you uncomfortable, so you clear your throat and say, “Well, uh – shift is almost over. We should be going.”

After an awkward farewell and another “please be quiet or I’ll kick your ass” from Steve, you both get in the patrol car. Steve sees Dustin gesture to call him, and he rolls his eyes, pulling out of the driveway.

“Why did they look at me like that?” you ask. “Because I said you’re the best?” You pause. “Do they hate you?”

He’s quiet for a while. Finally, he says, “I think it’s because we are really buddy-buddy but… I don’t really… I haven’t ever really… talked about you.”

You turn in your seat to face him. “Do you hate me?”

“Of course I don’t hate you.” His cheeks are red – he’s flustered. “You’re one of my best friends –“

“Then why don’t you ever talk about me? Or hang out with me?”

“It’s complicated,” he sighs. “It’s really complicated. I just – I don’t like … I get nervous about having new friends.”

You nod slowly. “Tommy H. and Carol.”

“Yeah.” It’s not really why he’s nervous, but it’s a good excuse. “I don’t want to get dicked over again.”

“Man,” you say, turning back to face the road. “I buy you a blueberry danish every single Monday. And a coffee. And I let you sing Queen at the top of your lungs, and I let you dance, and sometimes I even let you do it at 5 in the morning. I think if I didn’t want to be your friend, you would know by now.”

He’s quiet, thinking. You look at him, trying to read him.

“I guess I owe you the pleasure of hanging out with me,” he says after a while, a smile forming. “So maybe we can hang out Friday night.”

You gasp and throw your arm out, hitting him on the shoulder, making the car swerve slightly.

“Jesus –”

“Do you mean it?” you shout, smiling widely. “We can hang out?”

“I said maybe,” he teases. “It’s board game night with the kids – maybe you can come?”

You start chanting his name – “Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve! Really? Are you for real?”

“Yes!” He laughs and rolls his eyes again. “I’ll pick you up. It starts at 7.”

You smile so hard that your cheeks hurt.

Steve silently hopes he doesn’t regret this.

----

taglist (message if you want to join!): @harrington-ofhawkins @wolfish-willow @gothackedalready

#steve harrington #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things x reader #stranger things fic #lets hope the tags WORK #also this is literally my 3rd draft for the start of this story lmao ugh #couldn't choose a direction/it wasn't funny enough the first 2 times #so hopefully this one works #my fics #do u guys like the warning for 80s music #me? comedy gold? absolutely not but I make myself laugh n that's what matters

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viktory-arts · 3 years

Text

A Bittersweet World- Chapter One

Read on Ao3 here

Check out more of my works here

Ghouls were slowly and painfully integrating with the rest of human society. No one thought it was actually going to come into fruition. There had been many official meetings (never, of course, with ghouls because what if they hurt someone?) in governmental settings about the topic. Usually the talks boiled down to “they look and act human, is that enough for them to be treated as humans?” to which the officials would then share personal accounts of their interactions with ghouls; from the pleasant to the life-altering horrific ones.

The CCG (Commission of Counter Ghoul) was obviously against all of the talks of allowing ghouls to integrate.

“What about our jobs? More than two-thirds of the workers will have to be cut!”

“They’re man-eating monsters that can only sustain themselves on human meat!”

“All ghouls are much stronger than us, and if we allow them societal power, where will ours go?” Were a few of the many, many arguments the CCG had against ghoul integration. Ghoul sympathizers, as they were called, argued as best they could. Telling the government officials that they looked and acted human, and therefore they were humans, that there were scientists out there looking for a substitute for human meat for the ghouls to eat.

Germany had the first breakthrough regarding the diets for ghouls. They found that adding artificially made RC cells to cow meat was a nearly perfect substitute for human meat for ghouls. It tasted horrendous, most ghouls claimed, but they could digest it and it gave them nearly as much nutrients as the proper source. Soon, the United States, Canada, and England pushed for more research to be done about the meat substitute. Japan was reluctant about the whole ordeal, as they had the worst number of ghoul-related incidents from the Asia continent, even beating out places with a surplus amount of population like India and China, but eventually conceded and put forth money toward the experiment. South America and Africa were soon to follow suit, having their best and brightest on the project.

After about two years of testing, the meat substitute was given the all-clear and was on the market that the government controlled. They didn’t want to put the meat in stores as it could lead to human-ghoul violence. The CCG was slowly rebranding themselves as an institute. They were actually the ones to deliver the meat packages. They did this so that “untrained civilians” wouldn’t have to be put in the danger of going into a ghoul’s home. Very few ghouls actually did this, however. It meant that they had to give up their guise of being human and give their names and faces to the government.

Then came the official greenlight for the Ghoul Integration Movement in the United States. Rallies and riots started to happen all around the world after this, demanding that now that ghouls were given an alternative from their original diets, that they should be seen as people in the eyes of the law. That they looked human because they were human.

Then the Manchester March happened. In the early hours of the morning, starting from five in the morning till the same time the next day, ghouls marched silently all around Manchester. Many held signs and as far as the local police could tell, they brought no weapons. The march contained ten-thousand ghouls and three-thousand humans, all marching in solidarity with no violence. The orchestrator of the march was stopped by human news-casting stations and he said the same thing over and over.

“We die the same as you.”

That phrase became something of a mantra for the ghoul movement. It was written on signs and the sides of buildings and was often said at the end of interviews with ghouls. It was the final spark needed for ghoul society to unite to obtain human rights for themselves and not have to hide what they were anymore.

With the unrest happening all around the world, surprisingly, Japan was the first country to allow ghouls rights. They extended some of the human’s lawful rights to them. They made it so that ghouls could not be hunted without reason-- although the human-ghoul violence was still very prominent in the beginning.

But in contrast to all the good that Japan did for their ghoul population, they also made it nigh impossible for them to get jobs or go to school normally. If someone thought that you were a ghoul in hiding, you had to go in for testing to see if you actually were a ghoul. Ghouls who were in hiding were punished. Eventually, the Japanese government made ghouls wear a pin on all of their clothes; a singular sewn kakugan eye that made sure the humans around them knew that they were interacting with a ghoul for safety precautions. The ghouls were outraged and fought back, but were put in their place when police officers and CCG members started to enforce the Ghoul Recognition Act. Any ghoul found not wearing the badge would be seen as a threat and it would be determined by the courts if the ghoul was committing an act worthy of severe punishment.

Japan’s system soon became the norm for most countries. Ghoul sympathizers were quick to point out how the Ghoul Recognition Act was not dissimilar at all to how Nazi Germany ostrasized Jewish people. These claims fell on deaf ears and were shut down.

“It would be different if they were human.”

Many ghouls were more scared of the authorities finding out that they were ghouls and being caught rather than trying to blend in with human society and live life as normally and as unproblematically as possible.

Ghouls were allowed to play sports, attend normal schools, get married (to other ghouls), and were allowed to get jobs (so long as the employers were willing and consenting to it, of course), which were laws allowed by the world powers as a peace offering for the Ghoul Recognition Act. Most peaceful ghouls settled with this, hoping that things would change with time and that someone stronger than them would fight against the oppression the government was causing for ghouls. Many were content with not being actively hunted by the CCG.

Hinata Shouyou was one of those ghouls; born into a world where human-ghoul relations were shaky and unstable at best and downright violent at worst. Humans feared ghouls, so Shouyou pretended to be human to negate this. His mother always told him to hide his nature or he would be killed for not coming out sooner to the government.

And so he did.

***

Shouyou often found himself wishing he was just a human. Sure, his ghoulish nature made it so he had naturally better athletic abilities when it came to volleyball, such as speed and stamina (sadly not much in strength, something Shouyou totally wasn’t bitter about). But the pros of being human often weighed out the cons. He had an ongoing list in his head about the whole ordeal. He’d had his whole life to compile the list so it was extensive, but it could usually be narrowed down to three main points:

1.) He couldn’t eat human food.

Kind of a small and insignificant reason but Shouyou has had time to realize that he didn’t much care how petty the reason was. He always imagined what it’d be like to eat birthday cake or ice-cream without it tasting like boiled garbage and fish oil. His friends at his birthday parties were always so excited for cake and Shouyou was always so excited for them to leave so that they could give away the rest of the cake. It smelled good and the frosting always felt sticky but pleasant on his fingers, but he couldn’t enjoy it. He had to choke it down every year at his or his friend’s birthday parties-- otherwise he might be caught being suspicious. As Shouyou said, his friends were always ecstatic to eat cake, and a young energetic boy like Shouyou should be as well.

2.) His friends were never around for long.

Shouyou had to move a lot as a kid. His mother worked very hard as a nurse (how she kept her nature a secret was beyond Shouyou, but he was kind of an idiot like Kageyama likes to remind him, so maybe it wasn’t as hard as he thought it was). She worked so hard so that she could have the funds to move from place to place, never to settle otherwise the neighborhood could catch onto their secret. It made it hard for both Shouyou and his little sister Natsu to make and keep friends. Even with Shouyou’s cell phone that he got in his third year of middle school, it was still difficult to remain friendly with the people so far away. Izumi and Kouji were his closest friends in middle school, but now they barely interacted besides a few and far off texts trying to catch up with one another.

3.) He could die at any moment.

If someone finds him suspicious of being a ghoul, it was certain death for him and his family. It had been eight years since the Ghoul Integration Act. Natsu had just been born after the start of it. Shouyou didn’t understand a lot, but he knew how important it was to stay hidden. To not have the kakugan eye pin on his chest as an alarm to the general public that he wasn’t human. That he was a danger to society for existing.

So, yeah. Those three points on his list (amongst numerous others) were why Shouyou wished he was human. It just would make life a thousand times easier and much more enjoyable.

‘Or an ghoul uprising could happen and all these stupid anti-ghoul laws could be lifted,’ Shouyou thought to himself as he flicked an eraser shaving off of his desk, boredom making his body feel heavy like lead. He was in English class, something that he sucked spectacularly at. But Kageyama sucked at it too, so it was okay. Yachi could help him study later, he surmised after he came to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to pay attention for the rest of the class.

He looked out the window to see a CCG-qualified police officer carrying a gun and a quinque with him. The quinque was a severed part of a dead ghoul’s kagune, which was disturbing on so many levels. Shouyou tried not to think about it too much as it made him feel sad whenever he did.

The police officer was there to protect the students from ghoul attacks. So if any of the student body or the one ghoul teacher went off the deep end, he could save the humans from harm. None of the ghouls around here would ever do that as they were far too afraid of death to do something like that. The ghoul student body was always under heavy scrutiny. Any step out of line and there would be repercussions. It was bittersweet, but Shouyou was thankful that he was hiding to an extent. He never had to deal with the scathing looks the other students would give the ghouls. He never had to feel in danger for the reason that people knew what he was. Shouyou felt sorry for the ghouls that were out.

There were a couple of ghouls on his volleyball team; all of them were much quieter and scarcely touched the human members of the team, even for a high-five after a good play. Coach Ukai was thankfully not a bigot in the sense that he hated the ghoul members of his team, but he certainly was wary of them and they all knew it. Sugawara, Nishinoya, Ennoshita, Yamaguchi, and Kiyoko were all the ghouls that were out on the team. Shouyou tried to be as nice as possible and give them high-fives and slap their backs when they did something good and give tips when they didn’t do so great.

He hoped that his efforts were appreciated.

The bell rang, breaking Shouyou from his thoughts and signaling that the day was over. The redhead shot up from his seat and rushed out of the classroom like he did every day, his brown leather knapsack flapping wildly at his sides. He sped through the halls, knocking into more than a few of the other students in his endeavor to get outside the school so he could race Kageyama to the clubroom.

He turned around to look behind him to make sure that Kageyama wasn’t on his tail when he suddenly ran into somebody.

“Ow, ow, ow…” Shouyou groaned, rubbing his head where it had collided with the person’s backpack full of hard-cover books. When he looked up, he was mortified to see it was Sugawara who he had ran into at full force. The other’s face was filled with concern and looking wildly around with his eyes to see if anyone had noticed their little run-in.

‘Probably checking to make sure everyone saw that it was my fault,’ thought Shouyou as he adjusted the strap on his knapsack. One could never be too careful as a ghoul supposedly “hurting” a human student.

They had been killed for less, after all.

“Are you okay, Hinata-san?” Sugawara asked quietly. Shouyou nodded and grinned from ear to ear to show that he was alright, ignoring the throbbing of his forehead. He didn’t want to worry Sugawara.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t hurt you when I ran into you, did I?” Shouyou asked worriedly. Sugawara shook his head and smiled warmly, now used to Shouyou’s antics. The short teen glanced at the clock behind Sugawara’s head and saw the time, eyes widening.

“Ah crap, Kageyama’s totally gonna beat me! Sorry, Sugawara-san. I’ll see you in a little bit!” As he said this, he started to backpedal. The ash-gray haired teen simply shook his head and gave a little wave. Shouyou didn’t hear if the other had said anything in response as he ran full-tilt to the back entrance of the school, which was three minutes faster than using the front of the building. His legs were burning because he hadn’t stretched before his sprint, but he ignored it in favor of bounding towards the doors that led outdoors.

Breaking free of the confines of the building, Shouyou smelled the spring air and grinned as he breathed heavily and continued his sprint. The sky was a bright blue with a few clouds and the sun was warm on his black-uniformed clothed skin. He broke out into a sweat as he rounded the corner of the building to see the clubroom and was disappointed to see Kageyama already standing there.

“What took you so long, dumbass?” The angsty teen asked when Shouyou stopped at the entrance of the clubroom to stand beside the other. He was trying to catch his breath as he replied.

“I bumped into Sugawara-san on my way here.” Kageyama raised a single dark brow and reached into his pocket to get the key that Daichi had entrusted them with. He unlocked the door, opening it with a gentle click.

“What’d he have to say?” Kageyama asked and Shouyou shrugged, shouldering past the other to make his way towards his sports bag. He unzipped it and pulled out his clothes before he responded.

“I just ran into him and knocked my head into his backpack. I was too busy trying to get here to beat you to the clubroom to stay and chat.” Shouyou responded and Kageyama did some sort of grunt. The redhead pulled his white practice t-shirt over his head and then his practice jersey. He was in the middle of pulling up his shorts when Kageyama spoke again.

“We should invite Sugawara-san to join us in our early practices,” he said carefully as he sprayed an aerosol can of pain reliever on his ankle. Shouyou stopped for a second, surprised. Kageyama was never outright mean to their ghoulish teammates, but he was never nice to them either. But of course, he wasn’t anything but cool and calculating when it came to volleyball (unless he was yelling at Shouyou).

“Yeah, we should. I’ll ask him when he shows up today.” Shouyou replied with warmth filling his response. He was a little sad to think that their early practices that were just the two of them would expand to Sugawara-san, but he found that he didn’t mind quite so much when it was Kageyama who asked about adding him. They changed in silence after that, but it was a comfortable one.

Once they were ready, they raced towards the gym. Shouyou thought that their little races were both the most frustrating and the highlights of his day. They were in their own little world when Shouyou suddenly stopped, sniffing the air.

It smelled like copper.

Kageyama paused as well, shooting the other a dirty look, then a confused one when he saw the expression on the redhead’s face. He turned to see…

“Kageyama, go get someone.” Shouyou said slowly. Kageyama stood there, frozen with shock. Shouyou understood, but he knew that he would be more useful here rather than the angry teen behind him.

“Kageyama!” Shouyou barked and the other sprinted in the direction of the school. The redhead leaned down, placing a hand onto the dirt ground.

There, lying passed out, was Yachi. With a chunk of her shoulder bitten out.

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thetapestryoftime · 3 years

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Above is the chart for the moment of beginning this journal. How nice that Spica is in the 10th house. Does that portend some kind of success? Who knows? Who cares!

Mercury has been in a key position in my chart since yesterday… or about two days ago. With astrology it’s always hard to tell. When is a position not in a key position? No one day or one moment is more important than the rest… they’re all one and the same! Here! And! Now! Each holds something special - the boredom, the pain, the joy, the ecstasy, the separation or conuinctio. Every experience is unique and never to be repeated again.

Anyhow, Mercury truly is in a very important place in my chart. Here is the chart of the moment on top of my Natal chart.

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He is parting from a conjunction with Mars, yes… and over the past week I had predicted that this conjunction would lead to me finally taking action in expressing my self through writing, which I have not done for a long time. I have been in silence. And everything I have written so far, though much of it had been inspired, came from a different space than the one I currently embody. What’s curious about that statement is that… I could write it at any given moment and it would always be true. Language is tricky, but I will attempt at precision as I develop over the course of time.

Beyond the conjunction of Mars, there is a Grand Cross that exists between Mars, Chiron (not pictured above, I just realized… he rests at 10 degrees of Libra, conjunct NN), Jupiter, Saturn & the nodes. I actually have no real concept of how this chart pattern materializes in my life. This is partly the reason for these reflections. I would like to understand my self through a careful study of the divine timing of my life, tracked through the graces of the cosmic clock that is astrology. This journal, though I have no idea if it will ever come to fruition of any kind, is an attempt at profound self understanding… one of the things I’m finding comical as I type is that I get quite wordy in writing whereas the moments of illumination arrive quite spontaneously as a whole package of quantum information. Will this be digestible? Let’s see.

So, primarily, I’ll speak on Mercury today as he (I suppose she, in Cancer) has been endlessly nudging me today to write this entry. I will point out I am heavily predisposed towards fixity by nature of placements in my nativity & consistently find reasons not to start something that requires considerable shift from my habit loop. So I resisted Mercury until 6:50PM according to the time signature above :D

Here are several observations I’ve made…

First, since his approach towards Mars I started overthinking all of a sudden. I could not get out of my mind the upset I have towards certain family members who continuously question my way of life & make a point to mention things they find faulty every time I have a conversation with them (Mars in Cancer - separation with family, trauma with relatives, distance from my roots… more on this later. I am a very interesting case study for this Mars placement). I was processing tremendous amounts of rage. I was imagining situations where I am punishing them, where I point out their own glaring blindspots & make them angry or sad, finding every excuse to defend my identity over their criticisms. It’s not even an active thing - I generally avoid these family members & don’t spend much time thinking about them. But in this transit… oh boy. It’s notable primarily because I have cultivated deep sense of self & inner peace over the last months… feeling incredibly connected to the present moment, to my body, to the everlasting here and now, with rushes of bliss entering my reality each day as I sink into my self. But of course, the moment I open up to greater realities, darling universe only gives me so long to marinade in the sweetness before offering up the next challenge. I am grateful for that. I want to go all the way DAMMIT.

And so I started to understand this aspect of the Grand Cross… the Mercury side of it. And what was most poignant for me is that Mercury is by far the most accessible planet in terms of transits. As in - Mercury’s transits are easily perceptible due to the fact they deal with our thoughts, our conversations, communications, dealings & so on. Any interface with reality that requires mind will somehow be colored by Mercury. Therefore, his transits are the ones that offer greatest potential for self-comprehension. There’s a bit of a trick, however - there are all the other planets doing things at the same time, so who can say what’s what?

So I thought… or in fact, a thought thought it self into my viewfinder… as each planet transits key points in the chart, a very specific type of activation will present it self to reveal a perspective on that part of the nativity. Sun will be a spotlight, Mercury a set of thoughts, Mars a battle, Venus a success & so on. The slower the planets, the more meaningful the transit as it will reveal far more of the nature of that part of the chart.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer… mom and I had to leave the home and stay at my aunt’s today because mold is being cleared out from our current residence. Do you see the significance? Mars = separation, Mercury = trade, Cancer = home. I would say that mold has to do with Sun trining Neptune today - the less rosy & more disturbing, invisible aspects of life are spotlit.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer… mom and I went shopping & bought a ton of fruits & vegetables & juices from the farmer’s market & the bio store. Mars = activity, Mercury = buy/sell, Cancer = mom/provisions/abundance.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer approaching square to natal Saturn… I was HELLA moody today. I was unable to get into my body after waking up for a long while & thus did not communicate to my mom I did not actually want to go shopping at all… I just want to go home & lay and feel into my body slowly. Which led to a very long and powerful conversation. We spoke about our shared trauma, her lack of access to her emotions, the way we have the exact same trauma response to relationships (our charts have many eery similarities… more on this another time). We are basically carbon copies of each other in our own unique ways. I do not doubt most children have this kind of relationship with their parents. In any case, it was basically a battle except she shuts down while I ignite so it’s rather one sided… but we ended up on steady ground making some (or maybe none? who ever knows) progress together. Interestingly enough, the conversation lasted an hour and a half (or so) and the entire time Mercury was transiting the 8th house. Can’t make this shit up ! The conversation broadly addressed our individual belief systems & the Sun was in the 9th house for a good portion of it. Mmmmhmmmm.

Mercury in Cancer… At a collective level, I made on particular observation that I found quite peculiar. In the past few days, four people I follow & admire showed up in video format on Instagram quite… frazzled. All four of them were going through some shit. & I could sense they were really off their game which I had not seen in such sequence prior. Cancer is a cardinal water sign & to me signals part evolution part devolution… revisiting the past to move forward. Back to Earth. Water slowly dripping down to feed the roots. A moment of destabilization that actually initiates the next level of embodiment, or NOT! It’s an expression of vulnerability, a soft & tender communication that invited me to de-pedestal them (because I am apt to crown humans when I admire some quality of theirs… & thus feel less-than them) and see their lovely humanity. Maybe it’s pathetic but I celebrated seeing them weak. Because it reminded me that everybody falls, nobody is perfect, we are all simply human, and I can show up however I am. As much as I wish it were possible, I don’t think I can ever be quite “there.”

Mercury’s ingress into Cancer has also invited me into a cascade of speaking whereas before I was preferring silence (still do…) simply due to circumstance and changing tides of energy. As I’ve been studying transits nearly daily, I am absolved of any illusion that I have control over any aspect of Being in the world. I am, as we are all, at the behest of shifting sands of time that determine what exactly will be brought to attention on any given day. Astrology is the ‘divine timing’ we all speak of that gives us PROFOUND insight into the energetics of each moment, as well as the energetics of our own existence.

There’s so much more… but that’s it for today!

#astrology #cancer #mars #mercury #saturn #zodiac #journal

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chrisswearicho · 4 years

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Fear (Chap 1/?)

AO3

AO3 to the first of the Valeyard series (It’s two chapters so not very long!)

Characters: Valeyard!13th Doctor, The Master (Dhawan), Yasmin Khan, Graham O’Brien, Ryan Sinclair, River Song.

Chapter 1

It wasn’t until the Master got back into his TARDIS that he finally had a moment to think about everything that had happened. He had his back pressed up against his doors, hearts racing from both fear and exertion and he was struggling to sort through the conflicting emotions at play within him. He was thrilled, how could he not be, a plan of his that involved the Doctor had finally come into fruition. And that was while surrounded on all sides by all the different versions of the Doctor and all her little friends. He’d won. Decisively. Of course, that didn’t mean much in the face of his victory leading the way for the Doctor embracing her dark side. He’d wanted that for the longest time. He’d wanted the two of them to be friends, to team up when overthrowing the universe. The same way the Doctor had wanted him to turn good and he’d tried. Really, he had. But it had backfired on him in the most spectacular way and so the Master was resolute that the Doctor needed to try things his way if it was ever going to happen. Now it was happening, he’d never factored in the possibility that they wouldn’t do it together.

‘Why would I want to work with a coward like you?’ the amusement she’d garnered at the mere prospect of working alongside him had stung.

He still wasn’t 100% sure if this was the Doctor or if she was, like she’d insisted, someone else entirely. For all he’d held the information of her true origins over her head, he didn’t know everything. Most of the information was lost. Maybe there was an ancient being living inside the Doctor’s head. Stranger things had happened in this universe. The Doctor had always had a darker edge to her, no matter how much she’d tried to protest it. Were those moments all the Doctor? Or could they have been this new version, this other being, shining through.

Just as he’d started to get caught up in the questions swirling about in his mind, he felt a jarring shudder as his ship was thrown suddenly off kilter. The force coming from outside the ship. It took him a few long seconds to realise that it was the force of Gallifrey as it was ripped apart by the death particle. He froze, finding it strange that he’d find grief in this considering almost all the death on its surface had come from him anyway. He probably had no right to grieve anything. But it was where he’d been born. The red grass fields where he’d played. It had been the starting place of he and the Doctor’s entwining history together. It was where he’d hoped to end it. Standing in front of her, nose level with her finger on the trigger of the detonator, glee in his hearts at this being how they went out. It had to be her choice. Now it had been, but it didn’t feel right. Wasn’t the same without her hesitating anger, the frustrated tears just barely starting to gather. Amused contempt wasn’t a look normally suited to the Doctor.

Her blasé destruction of their planet only gave credence to the ‘other being’ being the one in control of the Doctor’s body. He could think of no universe, no reason ever, that the Doctor would so callously press the button like that. She couldn’t even do it when he’d dragged her down as low as she could go. So, to do it now, just to spite him and get a rise out of him, seemed unimaginably cold for a being such as the Doctor.

And if they weren’t the Doctor, it begged the question, who were they?

The Master stepped towards his console, swallowing down the lump in his throat and reached for the monitor to take a look outside using the external scanners. His ship was still in the same place, protected by its shielding. The planet was in pieces. Chunks of rock and dust free floating in the space around him. He felt strangely empty over the fact that his home was gone. The grief was there, simmering away beneath the surface, but he couldn’t feel it. It would hit some time later when the shock wore off, he imagined.

The rage seeped through first. The glimmering hints of resentment over this being a victory taken from him. He wouldn’t have wanted his planet destroyed it if wasn’t proving his point. The Time Lords had been the problem, not the planet itself. His hands clenched around the metal at the edge of his console and he took in a few heavy breaths in through his nose, the noise coming out shaky as his jaw clenched. He pushed the monitor out of the way and rounded the console to begin the take-off procedure. He needed to put together a plan, pick up his contingency of CyberMaster’s that he’d hidden off world just in case of a situation exactly like this. If he was going to face down the Doctor, or whoever this was, he’d need an army, and he’d need to be smart about it.

He flew to Pazithi Gallifreya. One of Gallifrey’s two moons. The Time Lords had industrialised it for smelting purposes millennia back. It’s high concentration of taranium was mined to be used in temporal technology. It had been used in different iterations of TARDISs, in Time Scoops and a whole host of other Time Lord technology. The Master had commandeered it for his own usage shortly after killing off the rest of his people. He’d been searching for any stragglers, concerned that they may have already started back up mining operations, instead he’d found the perfect place for a secondary conversion chamber in one of the old mines. He landed his ship on the coppery coloured surface of the moon, near the entrance to the mine and made his way down, keeping his eyes peeled the whole time for any blondes in rainbow sweaters.

The walk down into the mines was eerily silent. Not that there should have been any noise, but he was still on edge, a million different plans on how to handle this situation running through his head. He’d kill her dead, but perhaps he should figure out who it was currently taking residence in the Doctor’s head. She was unpredictable like this. The Master knew the Doctor. He knew how she acted, he knew how she would feel about every situation, he knew the Doctor even better than the Doctor knew herself sometimes.

The mines, especially near the opening, were heavily reinforced to prevent cave ins. Also, he knew, housed a myriad of horrible devices and weapons that the Time Lords had had installed during the Time War. Even as Gallifrey had fallen back, calling all Time Lords back to the front to defend the planet itself, they hadn’t wanted the Daleks to get a hold of the mining operations. Luckily for them, their great enemies had been far more interested in ripping the planet apart and murdering all life than adventuring down into a system of tunnels beneath the surface of one of Gallifrey’s moons.

He kept going down until he could step into the still running conversion chambers and inspected over the collection of 50 or so CyberMasters who all stood to attention as he stepped into the room. It gave him a rush of power to have control over these creatures. Not just Cybermen but Time Lords too. He won. In the overall picture. He won. He beat the Cybermen. He beat the Time Lords. He beat the Doctor.

“We’re going on a trip.” He told his Cybermasters, clasping his hands behind his back, “up to the TARDIS.”

50 CyberMasters gave matching salutes in response to his order and then all spun and began marching out the room and up through the cavernous mines. The Master followed behind them, calmly watching them make their way up and it wasn’t until a familiar voice called out from further up in the mines.

“You really didn’t go far did you?” His hearts twinged in fear for a split second before he looked to the army of his CyberMasters and determination wrapped around his hearts like steel and he pointed up the mine shaft towards the blonde further up.

“Kill her!” His CyberMasters all launched into action, all of them moving into a more attack ready formation, their arms raising to point their weapons at her.

There was a moment where the Master genuinely thought he was going to win. That for all the talk from this new ‘not Doctor’, she was nowhere near as effective as the real Doctor and he would wipe out both once and for all in this one moment. His army of immortal CyberMasters advanced on her, growing ever closer and only thing that bothered him, and it was a minor thing really, was that she didn’t look all that worried. She watched the approaching Cybermen with a raised eyebrow and it was right as the one closest to her in front raised its arm so that its gun was pointed at her that it happened.

Four pillars raised in a square between the two of them, covering the Cybermasters and there was a sudden buzzing noise and a burst of blue energy that came forth over them and they went suddenly still. They gave a jarring shudder, and all came to a stop. There were matching groaning noises from each of them. The Not Doctor looked seconds away from just inspecting her nails out of sheer boredom. A following blast of energy, this time more red-tinted, came from the four pillars and his army simply collapsed like marionettes having their strings cut. His whole being seemed to slump in shock and confusion and the Not Doctor merely rolled her eyes with a grin, throwing her arms out wide as she yelled to him.

“Was that it? No offense here, but I was expecting a lot more! All those marvellous plans over the years and this is what you’ve got for me?”

“What did you do?” he asked once she’d trudged through the mud over to him. Stepping over the still bodies of his wasted creations as she came closer. Frankly he was stumped for an explanation as to what had just happened.

“What? You don’t recognise it? I got the idea from a memory involving you. Or, at least, one you. That one seemed a little more pliable.” He took a second to realise what she was talking about but the fleeting memory of his almost execution back when he wore corsets came to mind.

“This technology is precisely calibrated. As you can see, it will stop both hearts, all three brain stems, and deliver a cellular shock wave that will permanently disable regenerative ability.” Rafando of the Executioners had been a man of a singular mindset, as Missy, the Master hadn’t given him or the rest of his little gang of neck choppers much thought. Her attention mostly turning to the Doctor when the eyebrow heavy version had been brought in to pull the plug on her. The machinery they used though was precise, one little nudge in its wiring, and it could be made to malfunction. This time it didn’t malfunction.

He’d implemented an army with the ability to regenerate and she’d simply cancelled it out with tech that was already there. Since she still had access to the Doctor’s memories, he’d have to be careful about what he did. She would know him as well as the Doctor had, and he had no clue who she was if she wasn’t the Doctor. An unknown entity.

“What they did to you, locking you away, I can help you make them pay.” He tried to do what he did best. Manipulating, offering everything and anything he could to get himself out of a situation, “after all you must have done. For them to just lock you away inside your own mind, it’s a wonder you’re so calm. I know I wouldn’t be.” She simply rolled her eyes at his attempt.

“You think that I was some hard done by hero, like the Doctor?” the Not Doctor’s tone was taunting as she smirked at him, “You think they wiped my memory because of something they’d done?” she laughed suddenly, throwing her head back as though that was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. The Master’s hearts dropped to his stomach; he’d already put this much together but having it confirmed made him swallow nervously.

“So… why was your mind wiped?”

“Well, they couldn’t kill me. There’s no limit on my ability to regenerate. They couldn’t keep me trapped. No prison could hold me. But then they figured out a way to stop me. Ingenious actually, I will give them that. They simply caught me long enough to erase me, or they thought they had.” She grinned, spreading her arms, “I took a gamble. Hid myself away, asleep in the depths of my mind. Until you came along. I still haven’t thanked you for that, have I?” The Master was silent for a moment, watching her as his mind raced, trying to come up with a question to follow and the face of a woman he’d seen whilst searching through the Doctor’s memories came to the forefront of his mind.

“You said you’re not the Doctor?” She raised an eyebrow at that, head tilting slightly as she looked to him like that was obvious.

“Clearly.”

“Why did you tell her you were?” her eyebrows furrowed for a second, clearly not understanding what he was asking until it clicked, and she just shrugged, figure suddenly a lot less amused looking, more forcefully blank.

“I was, once.” The Master’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion this time, her words not making any sense to him. She didn’t give him much of a chance to mull it over, because in the next second, she’d pulled a blaster of some kind from her pocket and fired it at him. He dodged, throwing himself to the ground before backing away on his hands.

“You still haven’t actually said thank you,” the Master told her quickly, now feeling rather desperate to keep her talking and stop her from advancing any closer.

“Thank you.” She told him, sounding actually rather sincere, “as thanks I would’ve killed you last, but,” she smirked, giving him a half-amused shrug, “it’s hardly my fault you killed every other Time Lord in existence.” She began advancing on him once more and he scrambled back and blurted out the first thing he could think of.

“But I’m not the only one left!” The Not Doctor paused mid stride and lifted an unimpressed eyebrow that told him just how little she believed him, but he just continued his explanation quickly, “check the Doctor’s memories. Back when she was old and grumpy with the eyebrows. The last time she was on Gallifrey before, she kicked out the High Council, dethroned Rassilon and had them all exiled. They’re all still out there.” At the mention of the former Lord President the Not Doctor’s face went eerily blank. Rage flittered near the surface for just a moment, with her clenching fists and twitching eye but she seemed to reign it in quicker than the Master ever would have been able to.

“Seems you’re right.” She took a step back, looking him up and down, “guess I’ll go pay a visit to those council members first. Rip out some throats. You took most of the fun out of destroying Gallifrey by leaving it to be done by the press of a button. Sometimes you want to get your hands dirty.”

“And Rassilon?” he asked as she started walking away from him.

“He’ll get what’s coming. But I want him to know it’s coming first. He and I will have a lot to discuss. He has a lot to answer for.”

#doctor who #doctor who fic #Doctor Who fanfic #13th Doctor #the master (dhawan)#the master #valeyard!13 #the valeyard

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southboundhq · 4 years

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MEET ISLA,

FULL NAME › Isla Eileen MacClean AGE › eighteen GENDER › Cis female (She/Her/Hers) FROM › Boot Hill, Arizona RESIDENCE › Trails End Street (Midtown) OCCUPATION › Student at Boot Hill High School, Box Office Attendant at the Continental Moviehouse (Saturdays), Waitress at the Schoolhouse Cafe (Weekday evenings) NOW PLAYING ›

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warnings: disappearance of a family member, alcoholism mention

the only perfect girl is a dead girl. that’s what you learned, last-born runt of the litter, growing up in the bedroom of a girl who would be forever cold, young and pretty. in the beginning, they thought isla was a blessing – may’s soul reincarnate, the lord’s prayers finally answered. you were given her clothes, her room, even her name, stripped and rebranded like a toy doll bought after the last one’s head was chewed off by the dog. seven boys, a dead sister, and you who, with your white-blonde hair and cornflower eyes, was merely a walking ghost to your mother, half-the-time soppy with tender kisses, the other half haunted, confining herself to the dark corners of a house too small for eight ragamuffin kids. you were either overwhelmed or underwhelmed, numb or heretic, dealing in extremes like the hand your mother dealt you – either starved of affection or slathered in it. tennis skirts, nail varnish, a shag rug, a rotten corsage – these were the staple reminders that you were living in a shrine, the room never quite your own, lest you disturb the lingering presence of may. soon, you began to see it as not a room but rather a prison cell caging you in the imprint of a sister you never met.

at eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a townhouse boy. “adam, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” his mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the girl with a sprig of ivy in her hair, you never did find out. white trash. the expression was never far from earshot when the maccleans were around – eight boisterous lads in battered shoes and tattered clothing and then isla, like an angel – perhaps because that’s what you had been forced to become. death resurrected in tired eyes and a tutu.

you kept yourself groomed like a pageant dog – hair always combed with whatever you could find, nails clipped, dresses re-hemmed when the stitches rotted out, feet squished into too-small shoes from a charity store on the outskirts. you made the best of what you had in the hope that standing out from your siblings would prove you existed outside of may. you found attention through other means. you learned the clarinet at nine and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at ten. by twelve you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. that was how magnetic you wanted to feel. but mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too much, too perfect, nothing like eileen, why can’t you just fit in?

lying is the most fun you can have without taking your clothes off – and soon ‘isla’ becomes just something you perform, a character, a toy. the person you became in high school was an artistic fabrication; the bright smiles, soft words, cherry-flavoured lip gloss, all magpie thieved from magazines on how to be a girl. the first time you told a lie, eight years old with silk ribons in your hair, tongue as sharp as a stanley knife, eyes like a wildfire staring into those of your mother’s, you had felt invincible. after that, it was a downward spiral, lying about the simplest of things, just for the thrill of it. you’d go to buy a paperback book, and upon being asked where you’d been, you’d claim a bike ride, a date, a visit to the rabbits in the next door neighbour’s garden. little white lies that built up a repertoire of manipulation. words had the power to make people believe anything you wanted, as long as they were convincing. a mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. to have the power to control that is to be a god. it’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant.

there were parts of your head you tried to keep hidden, boxed up like coffins, never learned how to deal with things properly. anger escapes in bursts ; in the thwack of a hockey-stick against skin during a brawl, muttered excuses that your hand slipped. they believe you, of course – you’re nice, you’re loving, you’re sweet. you cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the one only alison knows about. you slather it in foundation daily, until your hair grows wild again, skirts that float at your knees swapped when the sun sets for others that kiss the cheeks of your bum. smile. sit up. close your legs. comb your hair. arch your back. purse your lips. this was what it was to be a girl half-dead, bras hanging over wooden crucifixes while stone angels watched you climb down the guttering in a too-short skirt. unlike with mother, you don’t have to beg for affection from the boys. they think you’re cool, stylish, pretty, clever. when they kiss you it tastes like cigarettes and your brother’s aftershave. they say they know cian, or that other one, the redhead. that one of your brothers pedalled them acid. not that dangerous, just a bit of fun. you take it on the tongue like alice in wonderland and get drunk on the feeling of being known not as a macclean but merely as you. and maybe the girl they see you as – this dreamy, far-away thing – has been who you are all along.

flattery will get you everywhere – so silver-tongued and cupid-mouthed you win affections like they’re poker chips. at school you could whip the girls into a frenzy with a cutting remark or an elaborate dare ; the mere flick of your tongue you could have an army in your ranks. like a caged hummingbird you’d learned to sing in the dark, and it was time for the world to hear your voice. you’d heard about the girl who lost it to her bike as she tumbled too fast down a hill, heard second-hand how lily sanchez’s parents were gone, a free house for the night, bottles of ouzo and tequila swiped from your mother’s liquor cabinet thinking she wouldn’t know (she always knew) your legs, hardened from pep squad, slut dropping on a kitchen table because the boys thought it would be fun to get the quiet girl drunk. never had a sip before that night. you learnt who you are like the click of an aluminium can, worms spilling out in that vivid space between angelic and disgusting, something repressed finally coming to fruition when you lose it on the floor of a swimming pool changing room, soggy back, polka-dot nylon pulled down to your ankles. it gets easy to pretend. you hide it behind the sugar-sweet smiles and the butterfly barrettes. hunger pools in the pit of your stomach like an unborn child. in leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you’re helen of troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships, and may never went to college, never got out of this sad little town.

for the first time in your ghost-like existence, you want things, people, places. you have ambitions that stretch further than the four walls of a glitter-gritted cell, further even than the town boundaries. bright-eyed and cheer skirted, you’d always known you were more. there was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. part of you wishes that sonny had done it – flown the nest. it would make it easier for you to break your mother’s heart, but it was never you whom she loved anyway – just a dead girl you half-resembled in the moonlight. so you cash in your chips in piggy banks, stash notes under floorboards, patch up your old jeans when the seams split. working two part-time jobs juggled with homework, arithmetic scribbled on the backs of napkins as you wait for the coffee beans to roast – it’ll take a fucking miracle to earn enough, but you were raised like a resurrected lady lazarus, a girl brought back from the dead. you’re nothing short of miraculous.

❝ there’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls. ❞

CENSUS,

FACECLAIM › Eliza Scanlen AUTHOR › Nora

#eliza scanlen #rp #rpg #town rp #bio rp #{ all. }#{ local. }#{ f. }#{ under twenty. }#{ nora. }#disappearance tw #alcoholism tw

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amidalasmistress · 5 years

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All Hell Breaks Loose || Chapter Twelve:

warnings; swearing, oral (male!receiving/female!receiving), fingering, biting!kink, SMUT, & angst

The witches were drowning in boredom. Misty hadn’t returned to her shack as Cordelia had hoped. They heard nothing from Y/N. Cordelia was only able to see that she was safe or else she’d go to wherever she was located. Y/N’s protection enchantments were the strongest Cordelia had ever seen. However, she didn’t use all of her powers. She left a little gateway so Cordelia could still keep tabs. For that, the Supreme was truly grateful.

“How much longer must we wait?” Madison’s gaze was focused on the rusty, wooden clock on the wall.

“Just trust Y/N,” Mallory’s nose was in a book she had reread, at least ten times. “She knows what she’s doing.”

“It hasn’t even been two weeks yet,” Zoe rolled her eyes. “We haven’t been here too long. Just be patient with her.”

“We’ve literally just been sitting around doing absolutely nothing,” Madison threw her hands in the air. “Shouldn’t we be at least practicing? Or find some way to contribute to the fight ahead?”

“We’re contributing by being patient,” Cordelia entered the shack from sitting out on the porch. “If you’d like to practice, by all means, do it. We just need to give Y/N her space.”

“For how long?” Madison whined.

Before anyone could answer or snap at the impatient witch, the front door swung open and there stood Y/N with Michael two steps behind her. Cordelia gasped as tears of joy filled her eyes to see her daughter-like figure alive and well and physically in her presence once again. The other witches stood, aside from Queenie, who had been asleep from a long night of arguing with Madison.

Something about Y/N had changed though. She seemed and looked more regal than Cordelia had remembered. With barely two weeks time, her maturity was definitely showing. Y/N was dressed head-to-toe in black, paired with black stilettos. Cordelia couldn’t imagine being an opponent to such dominance. And for that, she was surely proud.

“I apologize for the wait,” her words soft and elegantly spoken. “But we must go.”

“Finally!” Madison exclaimed.

Cordelia brushed off Madison’s comment as she made her way to stand before her pupil, “You don’t know how happy it makes me to see you alive.”

“As it also makes me,” she pulled in her Supreme in a welcoming, reuniting embrace. “It has only been some days but, it feels like we’ve been parted forever.”

“My love,” Michael cleared his throat from behind Y/N, causing the two witches to separate to look at him. “Won’t you mind telling them where we are to face Devan?”

The anticipation and confusion quickly filled the air. Erasing the boggy stench of the shack. The place that Devan had chosen had more sentimental value towards Michael yet was a statement for the witches. However, Y/N had only heard stories about the place. She’d never been because there was no need to go there until now. How Devan knew of the place was beyond her but, if he had chosen it to be where they were to make their stand, so be it.

“Y/N?” Cordelia broke her train of thought. “What is Michael talking about?”

“My brother and I came to an agreement,” she began her explanation. “This fight must end. There have been too many casualties. So, I gave him the freedom to choose where we are to meet and he has chosen the field outside of Hawthorne’s.”

“That piece of shit,” Cordelia was fuming. “He probably has those cockless warlocks on his side. Y/N, call this off now. They outnumber us by too many.”

“Those prepubescent children don’t scare me, Cordelia,” Y/N placed a hand on her Supreme’s shoulder reassuringly. “You shouldn’t fear them either. Our powers outrank theirs more than they outnumber us. Plus, Michael has already given me all of the insight I need to battle, not only them but, Devan. We can take them down if necessary.”

It all began to hit everyone that this may just be the end. Although they were very confident that Y/N wouldn’t fail, the possibilities were endless and, quite frankly, dangling over their heads. This could end only two ways for certain though. Y/N could succeed and all is well or, they’d lose and the apocalypse was nigh. What ever happens though, the latter of the two outcomes must not come to fruition ever. Not if they can control it which, given that the apocalypse had a figurehead, they most certainly can.

That night they spent at Hawthorne’s. It turned out, their assumptions were wrong about the warlocks teaming up with Devan. Given the previous timeline and the way Cordelia had doubted that the men would rather prove their worth rather than save the world, made them think otherwise. However, the warlocks hadn’t come across Devan at all and understood the seriousness of the situation so, they had opened their doors and given them a place to stay and prepare for the upcoming battle. They had less than twenty-four hours before they were to meet Devan on the field. Yet, if anyone had looked at Y/N, they couldn’t tell if she were anxious or not. Her face was stone, unless she were looking at Michael.

“How are you feeling?” Michael had closed the door of the room they were sharing. “You haven’t really spoken about how you're processing all of this.”

“Honestly,” she sighed as she felt his arms wrap around her from behind. “I don’t know how to feel. I’m just ready for this to finally be over.”

Michael placed gentle kisses along her shoulder, relieving her of any tension, “You have been so strong, baby. I’m so proud of you.”

The amount of support she had received from Michael made her confidence rise. He was always there for her. Guiding her in the right directions. When she had doubted herself, he had assured her that there was no need to. Even when he was putting her in her place for, not so great ideas, made her feel loved and supported. Michael was her right hand and the love of her life. If she were to lose him, she’d lose herself and all that she was. She’d be dead as well.

Turning around slowly in his embrace, her lips now rested against his neck, feeling his pulse against them, “I love you, Michael.”

Michael pulled back to see tears streaming down her face, “Oh, Y/N. There is no need to cry,” he placed a kiss on her forehead, knowing full well what was on her mind. “I will always be here. I won’t ever leave you, I promise.”

Her breath stuttering from the thoughts of losing him, she reached up and pulled him down to press her lips to his in a kiss full of raw passion. He was it for her and they both knew it. Michael had given her more meaning to her life. He was now her life support. Her heart only beats because his does. It was an electric feeling to love someone so deeply, so passionately.

They had stripped themselves of their clothing and began to make their way to the massive bed they were to share. Y/N dropped down onto the mattress, lining her mouth and his leaking cock together before taking him in. Her eyes locked with his as she worked on him. His hips began to thrust as he threw his head back, letting out a loud groan. Michael’s hands grabbing fistfuls of her hair once she took him deep into her throat. Gagging and choking, her hand traveled up his torso to rest at the base of his neck. Michael had locked eyes with her once again, his pupils dilated and his breathing hitched. He removed one of his hands from her hair and cupped her face.

With an echoing call of her name, Michael came down her throat. Y/N swallowed and gagged as she removed her mouth from him. Her cunt was dripping for his length. The aching throbs were unbearable as she slid herself back onto the bed. Michael crawled over her slowly, building up even more tension. His long fingers running along her folds, her hips bucking to his touch.

“Please, Michael,” she whined. “I need you inside me.”

Michael started to nip and bite at her collarbone, she hummed in response. His touch was agonizingly slow. All she wanted was for him to impale her and all he wanted to do was cherish her in this moment. Which, wasn’t something she was going to complain about. At the end of the spectrum, he was here with her, touching her, making love to her.

“Let me taste you first,” he breathed as he moved his lips down her body. He bit at the inners of her thighs, leaving behind bruising bite marks.

Y/N gasped at the contact but, it only made her desire for him worsen. She sang and danced for him and, for a moment, he looked up to admire how much of an effect he had on her. Seeing her so hot and bothered under his touch made him even more hungry for her. After the satisfying sight, Michael leaned back down and began to suck on her clit. The sensation causing Y/N to moan out his name and pull at his curls. The sound of Michael’s moans sending vibrations through her core as he lapped at her. His tongue circling her clit and diving into her entrance. Y/N’s mouth fell open, trying to contain herself.

As she was nearing her end, Michael inserted two fingers to pump her to her release. Tickling her g-spot and making her see stars. Y/N nearly screamed at the friction of his tongue in her folds and his long, god-sculpted fingers wiggling and pushing into her. It wasn’t long before she had come undone. Michael instantly removed his fingers so he could suck up her arousal. He loved the taste of her, that’s for damn sure.

Through hooded, dazed eyes, Y/N watched him as he crawled back up the length of her body. Both of them were breathing heavy as he placed rough kisses all over her breasts before finally reaching her mouth. She could taste her on his tongue which only made another surge of desire boil in her belly. She moaned as his cock teased her entrance, begging him to just fuck her already.

“I want you to fuck me as if this is our last time,” she whimpered.

“You know what,” Michael became this animalistic creature, pinning her hands down above her head. “This won’t be our last time. Our last time will be when we’re old and gray,” Y/N’s eyes widened at his sudden superiority over her but, it was very much turning her on. “In fact,” he positioned himself at her entrance with one hand. “This is how this whole ‘fight’ will end,” he thrusted so deep into her, her back arched and she cried out his name yet again, “You will,” he interrupted himself with a grunt, “meet your brother. Maybe,” he picked up his pace, fucking into her so rough, Y/N was fighting so hard to breath underneath him, “just maybe, there will be a fight. And then,” he interrupted himself once again with a moan, he leaned down to quickly bite her lip, “and then, you will save this god forsaken world,” he huffed and growled as she began to clench around him. “And, afterwards, I will fuck you,” he hissed, “so hard,” he picked up his pace once again, his cock hitting her cervix, causing her the squeal, “harder than this. I will fu-fu-OH FUUUUCK,” he came into her. Filling her up.

As his hips stuttered and stiffened, he reached down to rub her sweet, aching, pulsing bud to make sure she would cum as well. He released her hands and the began to claw down his back as she was, once again, nearing her end. Her mouth fell in an “O” shape as she held her breath. As many orgasms she had with Michael, this was the first one that was this intense. It was a matter of seconds when she came. Clinging onto him as she rode out her orgasm.

Michael removed himself from her and she whined at the loss. He, then, wrapped a hand around her neck, his lips only inches from hers as he spoke through his teeth, “Don’t you ever doubt yourself again. Do you understand?”

She only nodded, which caused Michael to gently squeeze her throat, “Do you understand?”

“Mhm,” she breathed, looking into his blue eyes illuminated by the orange firelight. “Yes.”

“Good,” Michael rolled off of her to let her breathe. He pulled her close to him as they lay there, calming themselves. “I just want you to believe in yourself, baby girl. I want you to believe in you as I do.”

Y/N began to lightly kiss his chest, feeling his heart beating rapidly against her lips once again, “How could I doubt myself when I have you?”

She looked up to see his eyes closed and a smile spread across his face. He looked so precious, so soft. You wouldn’t think he was a ravenous being just a moment ago. It made her heart break at the thought of what she had to do in the morning but, for now, she was just going to enjoy the view she had of him. Beautiful, peaceful, and entirely fucked out.

The next morning, Michael woke, ready to stand at Y/N’s side when she meets with Devan. As expected, he woke to being alone in the bed. He caught sight of her as she finished getting dressed. Michael felt annoyed that he had missed watching her but, he was planning on undressing her later on that night anyways.

“Good morning,” Michael’s voice was raspy and full of sleep.

“Morning,” she skipped the ‘good’ part on purpose. “I’ve already been with the witches earlier. We’re all set and ready to go.”

“Are you?” Michael sat up in the bed. “It’s going to be hard, Y/N. Not the defeating him part but, meeting him. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“I’m not ready for any of it,” she sighed as she checked herself in the mirror, she looked perfect Michael thought. “But, it must be done and I’d rather it sooner than later.”

“See, look at you,” Michael rose from the bed, completely naked, and walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and looking at her reflection in the mirror. “You’re already doing a lot better than the witches did when I was the Antichrist.”

Y/N swallowed as her eyes met his. A poisonous, bitter taste filling her mouth as her stomach hallowed. This was it. It was now or never. Even though she had thought out this decision and came to the conclusion that it was the best for him, it still made her sick. It felt like she was about to betray him, even if it was for his own benefit. She couldn’t risk losing him.

“Why don’t you go and clean yourself up?” She brushed her fingertips ever so slightly over his forearm. “I’ll be right here when you are ready.”

“Okay, my love,” he spoke softly against her skin before kissing her on her cheek and letting her go.

Michael had taken a small amount of time in the shower. He was too eager to face the day, to be at his lover’s side on the field just outside and above these walls. He left the bathroom, fully clothed and ready, to see Y/N standing in the doorway of their room. Her eyes were sad and regretful.

“What’s wrong?” He started to make his way towards her until she raised a hand for him to stop.

“I love you, Michael,” a fear tears fell from her eyes, the gutted feeling creeping up stronger. “I love you so much and I want you to remember that. Always.”

Michael was confused now, “I love you too, Y/N. Why are you crying?”

“Before you get angry with me,” she rested her hand at her side now, trying to contain her tears but they were flowing endlessly, it seemed. “I want you to know that this is only to keep you safe. I can’t risk anything happening to you,” she took a few steps back. “I need you to stay behind. I need you to stay here. Safe.”

“There is no fucking way,” Michael snapped. “And let you go out there alone? Let you face Devan, the fucking Antichrist, alone? I don’t think so.”

“So I figured,” she nodded and get eyes narrowed to the ground.

Just then, Michael made his way closer to her to touch her, even slightly but, some sort of invisible wall had blocked him. Full of shock and unlimited confusion, Michael studied the doorframe.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” she watched as he continuously made moves to get past the doorway but, her enchantments prevented him from doing so. “This was the only way-“

“What the fuck, Y/N?” He began to bang on the wall he couldn’t see. “You can’t do this!”

“I have to go,” the exposed parts of her chest were now wet from her own tears. “Please understand. I love you.”

“Let me out,” Michael called after her as she walked away from him, continuing to pound on the imperceptible blockage. “God fucking dammit! Y/N! Y/N! Y/N!”

Michael’s anger rang throughout the underground building. Everyone’s heads turning in the direction of the bedroom he shared with Y/N. Once Y/N had made her way to the gathering room, the sound of her angered inamorato muffling behind her now, she fell against the wall, clutching at her chest. It physically hurt her to see him so angry and from her own doing. All this time, he had been talking about being at her side when she finally ends this war with her brother and she had done this to him. Making him some sort of prisoner.

Cordelia instantly ran to her protege and held her, Y/N was shaking in her arms, “Ssh, Y/N. It’s okay. He’ll understand.”

“W-Why does it h-hurt s-so bad?” Y/N choked on her own tears.

Cordelia never really understood Y/N’s relationship with Michael until now. She could only see it as some form of casual intimacy. The thought of things running deeper between the two of them was a thought that hadn’t crossed her mind. Now…now she could see it. It was love. Pure love. The realization made Cordelia’s heart drop as she pulled Y/N closer to her in a warming embrace. She was still trembling in her arms.

“You have to pull yourself together,” she said softly in her ear, looking around at the concerned witches and head warlocks in the room. “You have a world to save, Y/N.”

Y/N gathered her strength by holding onto her authoritive figure. She was doing so well at keeping herself composed until now. Michael’s cries still echoed into the room, muffled but, it still reached her ears. As much as she tried to block the sound of him, she couldn’t and the rest of her magical strength she needed for what was to come.

“I need to get out of here,” Y/N pulled back, shaking uncontrollably. “I can’t- I can’t-“

“All right,” Cordelia placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll all go outside. It’s probably best that we’re early to this meeting anyways.”

With only a few gestures, the others began to make their way out of the establishment. Y/N leaned on Cordelia as they started walking out of the room. Michael’s yelling becoming more audible until they had gotten to the elevator. He called out her name when she turned away from being able to see him. Cordelia looked for her, seeing tears streaming down his red face, his hair disheveled from the fit he was having. The sight of him being so animate over Y/N made her heart ache for the both of them. Nonetheless, Y/N had her reasons and Cordelia thought it best as well. If they were to keep him alive, this was the best way to be certain.

Once the elevator doors closed, Y/N had wiped at her eyes, straightening herself up and taking in a large, uneven breath, “Now, let’s stop this motherfucker.”

#michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #american horror story #american horror story apocalypse #michael langdon fanfic #michael langdon fanfiction #american horror story fanfiction #ahs8 #ahs apocalypse

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lovepersists2 · 5 years

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she can vividly recall a time where she’d relished in each and every event attended, the way it’d made her feel so important to be around important people, even if it’s always been her goal. just finally being there, seeing all the hard work she’d put in come to fruition, even in ways so small as fundraising dinners back in college, where she’d been wooed and courted by some of the best law firms in the country. god, it’d felt good, and truly? she misses that rush. that excitement. now they’re nothing but dull. the same people, over and over again, and now they feel…. less important. small. that could very well have to do with the fact that mellie herself is considered far more important than most of them. she’s not just the top of her class at harvard, then yale law. she’s not just a political nobody, biding her time, as nothing more than arm-candy to a man who’d never appreciated her. she’s here, riding high, president of the united states. just thinking that makes her feel giddy, with a sense of joy and fulfillment she couldn’t have imagined even five years ago. she’s here, and successful, and happy, and free, and — damn bored by all the old white men who keep trying so hard to kiss her ass.

everybody wants something. even if it’s just bragging rights, to be able to say they talked to her, it’s almost impossible to find a single person without motive to talk to at any sort of mixer, or party, let alone a fundraiser. and the most irritating part of it all? that she can’t let her intense boredom shine through. she has to seem genuinely interested and invested in each repetitive conversation, when all she’d like to be doing right now is…. just about anything else. even reading through all the briefings and files and requests she knows are waiting for her back in the residence.

the worst part of all this? mellie finds herself wishing she were married. not to anyone in particular, and not for any reason one might think ( she’s damn lonely, of course, but in this moment that’s not the itch that begs most to be scratched ). no, she wishes she were married in order to pawn off a husband on all the people she just can’t bring herself to talk to, for whatever reason. for instance, the senator who’s kept her occupied for what feels like a thousand years. mellie’s not even sure what it is they’re discussing anymore ( or rather, what it is he’s trying to lobby for, as she knows the game well enough to see through any ploy that might suggest anyone wants anything else from her these days ), but he’s yet to see through that.

her smile remains, as false as it ever is in the midst of a crowd like this, though eyes scan the room in a somewhat desperate search for anyone who might rescue her from this never ending nightmare of a conversation. maybe she shouldn’t complain so much, even in her own mind, but it’s been a long day — shouldn’t she be allowed to find herself annoyed with the lack of interesting conversation at a party hosted in her own home? she’s about to lie and politely excuse herself on account of some mystery person on the other side of the room who’s bound to conveniently disappear the moment anyone else goes to look, but that’s before things get mildly more interesting.

finally — finally — someone takes the bait, holding eye contact with her for more than a second before looking away with any array of facial expressions that she tries not to take offense at. in a surprising turn of events, it’s somebody far more interesting than some old white male senator who thinks he can win her over simply due to her short stint in the senate that catches her eye. thank god. in fact, mellie notes, as she excuses herself and determinedly sets off toward the woman she knows she recognizes ( but keeping all these names straight on top of everything else is next to impossible ), she may very well be headed to speak with the single most interesting person in the room. pausing only briefly, she snatches two flutes of champagne off a passing tray, offering a sincere thank you to the person carrying it before she’s off again.

“you looked like you might like a drink,” mellie notes, determining it the most casual way to start a conversation, “and i thought it might be an appropriate way to thank you for helping to rescue me from what was — between you and i? — maybe the most boring conversation i’ve had in my entire life.”

and for the first time all evening, she notices her smile is completely genuine.

MINERVA GENERALLY ENJOYED PARTIES. lovely food, lovely people, lovely drinks…everything this gathering was lacking. it was one of the pitfalls of her status. it wasn’t something she did often, but sometimes her face was simply was what needed at an affair. a woman worth more money than every other patron combined, her presence merely for the headlines. time spend dodging white men who summoned the same questions over and over – was she truly an american if she was from london? was she really a lesbian or just waiting for the right man? and countless others that caused minerva to lose braincells.

minerva had been LINGERING near the wall, having finished another glass of wine. having already lost count of how many she had drank. no where near drunk, but far from sober, the only thing getting her through the evening. beginning to look for the nearest exit to slip out of, and make her DARING ESCAPE. wanting nothing more than to be free of the testosterone filled hell she had been in all night. to eat something that’s bigger than the size of a coin, and drink something that will actually give her a buzz. if this is what americans considered a party, perhaps she needed to spend more time in england.

she’s merely looking around, seeing if there’s anyone she even begins to recognize. politics were not something she generally engaged in. a woman whose loyalty lied between two countries, both as COMPLEX as the other, and she had no time nor the energy to keep up with either, let alone both. peering at the crowd with curiosity and almost disgust. most of them were complete strangers. once you’ve seen one old white man in a black suit with an american flag pin, they begin to blend together. the only person she can put a name to the face is president grant – who minerva didn’t even realize was in attendance until their gazes met. minerva’s eyes instinctively darting to the side, fiddling with her empty glass. almost feeling a blush come over thin cheeks. it wasn’t a usual feeling she held; feeling tall and lanky, out of place. a wallflower on the edge. but it was better than pretending to give a damn about some state she’d never heard of’s governor asking her how she feels about topics she had no INTEREST in.

she doesn’t notice at first who was coming over, only GLANCING up quickly at the feeling of the presence walking up. minerva quickly shoving her phone back into her pocket of dark suit pants. having been frantically checking the time, or seeing if perhaps she had been texted an EXCUSE to leave. but tightened, anxious shoulders lower when she realizes who it is, and finds herself smiling for the first time in god only knew how long. already a big more comfortable in the presence of a woman ( and someone she had actually voted for. )

“ anytime, my dear. always happy to be of service. ” minerva can’t help but to laugh, raising the glass in a toast to the president. sipping the champagne happily. the most enjoyable beverage she had indulged in all night. “ I will argue thought that you look like you need one more. I don’t know how the hell you do it, how you MANAGE it. why do you think I’m hiding in the fucking corner? ” her voice goes down into a hush, giggling a bit.

she thinks she likes this woman, though whether that’s the fact that she’s one of the few women in the room or something else is yet to be determined. right now, though? mellie’s glad for the respite from the panderers. she’s glad she’d made a correct call here, in thinking this woman might be a place to rest, to let her guard down — if only for a moment or two. and truly? she’s glad for a genuine moment to stop and take a drink. ah, alcohol: her one reliable friend. okay, that’s sad, and she knows it the moment it crosses her mind.

“you know, i don’t think i know how i manage it either. it’s practically instinct at this point,” with a career made in politics, parties like these are second nature. she’s so used to them. first at a governor’s wife, then first lady, onto senator, and now president. it’s been something of a whirlwind, and it’s funny to think that with any number of small changes in life choices, mellie might be on the other side of things here. still an attorney, or maybe a senator; if she’d managed to be lucky enough to find a team to help her get elected. for all that she’d said and done to imply fitz had ruined her life, it’s true, at least, that she very likely wouldn’t be here without him. without his name.

“god, if i could get away with hiding in a corner, i’d probably have joined you a while ago,” she can already sense eyes trying subtly to glance in their direction — surely looking for the chance to swoop in and steal her away. she brings her drink to her lips, taking maybe a longer drink than is entirely ‘proper’, but it feels necessary to brace herself just in case. “sometimes being the center of attention is more exhausting than some people realize. but i’m sure you know that feeling well enough,”

minerva takes note of the ever growing sensation of eyes upon them. even a camera flash or two. their conversation would be tomorrow morning’s headline, she could see it now. two of the most powerful women in the world conversing over wine, what on earth could they be dicussing? politics? world peace? no — hatred of the very situations their status forced them to enjoy. being watched like zoo animals. it wasn’t easy to ignore, it never was. so casually, she sidesteps naturally a few inches to the left. expertly blocking mellie from line of sight. eyebrows lifting with a smirk. her height had its advantages.

an exhaled breath escapes her nose, with some sort of a sad smile. it was true. and oh, how she hated being called out on it. for it was a feeling she hated more than anything, and she would not wish on even her most hated enemy. let alone a lovely person such as her. “ people assume that being at the top means you’re freer. but in reality, the chains grow tighter. ” it was solemn, yes, but she was never one to stray from the truth. no matter how bitter it tasted upon ones tongue.

minerva hums into another prolonged sip, shaking her head whilst doing so. suddenly feeling quite silly and rude. “ where on earth on my manners, darling? – min. ” her hand extends outward towards her. the softest of smiles crossing crimson lips. it was a rare occasion minerva truly could introduce herself to someone who didn’t already know her name. this interaction was no different, but it was the principle of it. especially as to her, she wasn’t minerva allory. she just wanted to be min. “ it’s so lovely to meet you. ”

she doesn’t even notice it anymore, the way everyone in the general vicinity stops to glance in her direction the moment she initiates a conversation with someone new, hoping she might drop whatever she’s doing to give way to their stares. of course, mellie’s sure she’s immune to that at this point in her career — at the very least, she’s absolutely determined not to forget that she holds the power. it’s a feeling she’s not quite used to, after so long spent utterly powerless, but it’s one mellie’s absolutely certain she likes ( it’s not what she’s here for, but it’s a bonus, there’s no denying that ). it doesn’t escape her notice, the way minerva so subtly moves to block her from the majority of the crowd. it’s the sort of small gesture that doesn’t feel so small, and one thing’s for sure: she knows she already likes this woman.

there’s something so validating about knowing another person — another woman — knows so well how she feels. fitz gets it, sure, but mellie’s not entirely prepared for any sort of relationship with her ex-husband beyond what it needs to be. for now that relationship is limited to alternating custody of teddy, and she’s satisfied with that, even though there are days where she’s tempted to speak to him about her feelings. maybe that would make her not feel so alone. maybe. but for now she needs her space. giving way to her loneliness feels too much to her like giving him power over her all over again. despite the aptly named chains that leave her feeling so trapped, mellie’s never felt more understood than she has in this moment. “it’s lonely,” she agrees, her solemnity matching the other woman’s perfectly, “it’s impossible to understand just how lonely until you’re in the middle of it. but there’s something reassuring about meeting anyone else who does get it,” and for that, if that alone, this evening has been entirely worth it.

somehow, despite having just met minerva, it feels as though there’s already a bond between them. maybe it’s in her head, but something about sitting here speaking with another woman in a position of power is invigorating. it’s powerful. and, for a moment, mellie lets herself wonder if they might end up friends. god knows she could use more of those. or…. any of those, really. an easy smile ( perhaps the most genuine of the evening ) spreads across her lips as she takes the other woman’s hand, offering a firm shake. “it’s a pleasure to meet you, min.” and it is. it really is. mellie’s aware that there’s not a single person in this room who isn’t well aware of who she is, but it feels instinctual to introduce herself. and for the first time tonight, her smile grows as she excitedly returns the gesture, gladly referring to herself by name rather than occupation, “mellie. i’m mellie.”

#muse. ┊ mellie grant!#ic. ┊ writing!#thread. ┊ crimscnmalice; mellie & minerva 001!

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storiesofwildfire · 5 years

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@likesbeingbad - continued from (x)

He never really understood it. Books, literature, the entire fascination and frankly snobbish nature of the book lovers world. Hyde tried it once, bored within twenty pages and itching to go outside and live. There’s a lack of love when the stories are being told through dead wood and musty dust. Awfully lonely. You have a universe to experience! Tales to tell with grand gestures and highly amusing voices.

After all the old lessons were never made to silent. They were made to roar! To tear from the heart and the throat and to keep an audience wide eyed, engrossed in the world you build them. Swayed by the view presented, a gorgeous manipulation, a cautionary telling.

It was boring, all of it. The whole thing was utter nonsense, such a Jekyll way of passing the time really, leaving his skin itching, aching to go and speak to someone, find entertainment, find a dance. The night was young, the day was bright and oh how someone sings with the right hand. No book could mimic that.

But Loki liked them, of course they did, dull pastimes always fascinated minds looking to go silent when left with too much time to think. Driving yourself barmey on what ifs and maybes but he never lived in maybes, didn’t care for what ifs. Hyde could handle those changes, that thrill and ride of the unknown. He never had to try and escape his own head, only Robert dearests, always half asleep with Jekyll, half bored and then? Half alive when his time came. No time to be wasted in rotting pages and the smell of bitter ink.

Loki’s love for it was getting - hm, not annoying, oddly the little thing was far less annoying than he anticipated which was curious, intriguing, amusing to all end. A Hyde and a Norse? Quite the delicious mix for chaos, for fun if Loki would just put down that dead tree and pay him some bloody attention!

How long had it been since he was given true delight? Whiled away across the recliner just needing, clawing in his throat, biting sharp at his heels. To get out, to go and run, to find someone to hold his attention the way slender fingers held that damn chopping block and firmly ignored him.

Ignored him.

Hyde drapes himself over the back, clicks his tongue once more and waits. Still as anything, watching, listening through the stillness of his chest and not a peek! Not a care in the world, what good did that do him? What fun was that? He could be out with thighs about his waist or a sweet voice in his ear but no! No he’s here, bored out of his mind, out of his skin, snapping to sink fangs into a throat and shake the sense of the world into his typically lovely company.

Jekyll’s desire to stay, to enjoy company. It had to be because Hyde would never be so careless with sentimentality a Hyde never could. Caring for them so warmly, until it seeped into Hyde’s chest and cut deep the urge to run. Cursing him surely, oh, but it is something to follow. Something to hear, something to hunt. To wonder why and chase the answer on the curve of an all too smug smile.

He’s bored and Loki’s books are the cause of this travesty of an evening. So the answer is simply, truly, deliciously so. For dead things burn just as brightly as the living and it would be a shame if something were to happen to the attention thieves sitting so innocently on the shelf.

Hyde is out of the chair in seconds, naturally, quicker than Jekyll, quicker than Loki because his feet were made to carry adventure. Made to enjoy and seek and bring about the world to its knees not waste his time in a silent room with nothing to do, nothing to say, only deadly, echoing, ugly boredom.

It’s innocent enough the first touch, isn’t it? Just touching, seeking, having a little drag of his fingers against the spines. Letting them curl, letting them tear just so. A threat and a promise because these things, this unnecessary recording of thoughts, this pathetic excuse for entertainment? They wouldn’t last much longer not whilst he was left to his own devices.

Loki doesn’t look up at the first touch, nor the second and Hyde turns one over in his hands. Stench of mould, a loss of life what a poor waste of a perfectly good tree, of something to sing and live and breathe. Mmm, but humans did love doing that didn’t they? Taking, taking, hating when they were taken in turn.

It hits the floor with a thud and Blue eyes glint when Loki finally looks up but it’s only for a moment the bastard, right back to ignoring him, to watching pages with words in a language that would last only a thousand or so years and then it would be gone, it would fade. The paper would waste away and the world would continue around it because books did not last, no, nothing ever did.

Darling to think otherwise. Another thud and Hyde’s smile widens as he pushes his hand behind a good few volumes. Teetering so precariously on the edge, begging for rescue, ah but time never was a friend and he’s just so… close.

It’s an order he thinks, no - no. He knows it is. Said in a tone that’s cutting and runs a shiver up his spine, defiance in the way he purses his lips in contemplation and pushes another just that sliver bit closer to the edge. Sad, drab, lost little trees. When they’re burnt and fallen to ashes perhaps he’ll mingle them, mix them to paste and let the forests boom from their corpses.

Oh now that’s an image!

“I’m not doing anything untoward. Just… looking.”

Another volume falls at the word, a tap of his finger and so very, very blatantly and invitation to stop him. To make him stop, challenge him for it. Give him some for of interaction before he becomes as domestic and tamed as is whiney human other half. Loki was always so attractive when angry with him.

“Whoopsie! Now is it really my fault if they fall when I’m studying? Just slipfrom my grip. Right to the floor?”

Hyde brings up a finger, pushing harder now, letting the next fall further, harder, clicking his tongue at tutting at Loki like a condescending little Lilly trying to make him behave. He never did and if there was any true justice in the world, any hope left then Loki wouldn’t either.

Why resist after all? When the temptation seeps from his pores and he breathes in that lovely, mingled scent. Not quite female, not quite male but everything he needs to move with new vigor, prowling over to where Loki remained so delicate, poised, perfectly prim and beautifully ready to ruin.

“And if I don’t knock them? If I leave your precious little collection all alone and stagnant in their place in the world, what will that get me? Hm? I’m ever so curious. What is your price for those tedious books of yours?”

♔—- Loki and Hyde represented two very different forms of chaos, as the Norse Chaos Goddess had come to realize. While they derived from the same sort of ideologies, Loki still possessed much more discipline and structure whereas Hyde... Well, if he didn’t have something to keep his immediate attention for five minutes, he’d start itching, start looking for ways to cause a mess, and purposefully seek out the opportunity to cause an uproar because it was fun.

Loki understood that notion more than most. When left to her own devices without anything to keep her occupied, she often found it difficult not to go a bit mad. Endless possibilities and she found herself stuck doing anything but seeing even a single one of those outcomes to fruition. Her mind wandered, sometimes took a turn for the worst, and when she grew bored, so did her magic.

Restless seidr proved to be as dangerous as an unoccupied Goddess who’s mind moved far more quickly than most.

She, however, represented so much more than Chaos. She embodied so many ideas and desires and groups of people that she could not simply focus on moving forward and doing whatever she pleased whenever she pleased without stopping to take a few breaths. Books always helped her keep calm and stay level headed. Without many of her spellbooks and texts, learning to control her magic would have been an impossible task, especially when she so quickly surpassed every other sorcerer who happened to be available to teach her.

They occupied her mind, gave her something to focus on at the worst of times, taught her, and provided her with entertainment. As the Goddess of Storytelling, how could something as simple and trivial as a book not mean the world to her? In a way, it represented everything she was and every legacy she would leave behind.

Hyde didn’t get that. He didn’t understand Loki’s love of reading and studying, didn’t understand that there was as much value tucked away in the pages of some of her books as there was in spending an entire day exploring a new world. Loki tried a few times, to explain to him why they were so important to her, why she needed them, but he didn’t get it. Trying to get through to him about topics he didn’t understand was something of a chore and when it came to Loki’s love of books? And Loki’s ties to them? It was like talking to a brick wall.

All right, perhaps completely ignoring Hyde for the text in her hands was a bit rude, but she’d been reading long before he showed up, and she hadn’t been secretive about wanting to take a quiet day to herself to study. Hyde staring at her while dramatically throwing himself over a chair to catch her attention did little to do so. She was aware of his presence, of the theatrics he put on in hopes of capturing her attention, but like a child needlessly begging for attention at the worst of times, she refused to give it to him.

He could wait until she was finished and then they could go out, find something to eat, and enjoy their evening together, but before then? Loki needed some Loki time and Hyde wasn’t part of that equation.

She knew he pushed himself up from the chair after realizing he wasn’t getting her attention and she listened to the sound of his footsteps as he made his way over to a wall of shelving that housed some of Loki’s most loved texts. The first thud had her clenching her jaw, her teeth grinding together at the sound of the sheer and utter disrespect of her personal belongings, but she wasn’t inclined to play Hyde’s games right then. She looked up for the briefest of moments, silently shooting him a cold glare, before returning her gaze to the page in front of her.

Though, please know, it nearly killed her to ignore one of her old books being haphazardly tossed on the floor as if it meant nothing at all.

To Hyde, she supposed it didn’t. It was just an obstacle that stood in the way of what he wanted: her attention.

The second thud finally succeeded in capturing her attention, so much so that she promised not to speak to Hyde for an entire week if he knocked anymore of her books down. Threaten him with the one thing he wanted most, right? He was acting out to get her attention, because he wanted her to focus on him and entertain his whims, so threatening to withhold that for a week? He wouldn’t like that.

Though her threats, it seemed, did little to discourage him, as he challenged her demands by inching a few more volumes towards the edge of the shelf, threatening to drop them in their entirety to the floor. Her eye twitched and she did nothing to try and stop that.

She doesn’t move from her seat, but she does set her book aside. Emerald magic surrounds the next two books to tumble from the shelf, allowing them to levitate mid-air before impacting with the ground. The same energy appears around the two volumes already on the floor, carefully hoisting them up so the entire group of books can move to a little table beside Loki.

Her eyes, however--just as brightly intense as her magic--never left Hyde threatening to tumble more books over the edge.

“I am not going to reward you for pissing me off, Hyde. I’m not going to give you anything. I’m not going to make a bargain with you to not destroy my things because I’m not negotiating this. You’re being a right, proper arse. You don’t deserve nice things from me because you stopped holding my books hostage,” she snarled, clearly angry despite a tiny voice at the back of her mind telling her not to be. That’s what Hyde wanted, in reality. He so did seem to love getting off on the notion that Loki was angry with him.

She hadn’t quite figured out the best ways to get Hyde to stop when he got like this. Their relationship was still new enough that she was learning about him and he was learning about her in turn and while it would have been far more effective to just... grow upset with her lover, get sad, pout, maybe shed a tear or two, she hadn’t done that enough to establish a pattern of him really not liking it.

And she was oh-so protective of her beloved books, many of which were actually older than her and needed to be handled with care. Fortunately, Hyde hadn’t selected any issues that were too fragile to toss on the floor. If he had, she likely would have already been beating him.

She did, however, go the extra mile to move the rest of the books that Hyde pushed towards the edge, allowing them to float across the room and stack up on the table beside her along with the four he’d already disrespected. He hardly seemed to notice, as he was already charging across the room to where she sat, poised as elegantly and effortlessly as ever.

“You’d probably have an easier time getting me to pay attention to you if you weren’t purposefully trying to instigate a fight,” she murmured, pushing herself up so she could reach a hand up to cover his face. While her touch was soft due to how seriously she took skincare, the shove she gave him was powerful enough to force him back, giving her more than enough room to stand up so he wasn’t hovering over her anymore like some sort of predator about to pounce.

Hunger and temptation burned in Hyde’s eyes, though. She’d seen it plenty of times before and it usually made her own blood boil. In a way, it did in this scenario as well. There was something so alluring about him purposefully trying to get her going that she found annoyingly attractive in the worst ways possible, but atop that shimmering desire was just blatant anger at him for disrespecting her things.

“I know you don’t give a damn about books, but if you give a damn about me, then you’re going to have to start respecting my possessions and what is important to me. You disrupting my studies isn’t going to make me want to go out with you and have a good time tonight, it just kind of makes me want to hit you, honestly.”

#likesbeingbad #c; hyde #( main verse ; post thor ) a god among men #( ship ; likesbeingbad ) in this kaleidoscope of chaos we sink or we swim together #( ship ) loki x jekyll x hyde #( long response ) if it were easy everyone would do it

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danceyreagan · 6 years

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Isaiah and Mona~First Kiss

Masterlist Moodboard

A/N: Mona is Black. Representation matters.

A big shout out to my girl @blinder-secrets for editing this and giving me writing tips. I love you girl.

Mona was standing in the doorway of the Jesus household, watching Tabby and Jeremiah move around the small kitchen. They had a rhythm going. One was setting up plates, the other cups, Jeremiah grabbed silverware, Tabby pulled the food out of the oven. Mona wondered if Isaiah ever assist in helping make the meals, or setting up the tables, or was he in charge of clean up and what was the dynamic when his mother was alive?

They moved around each other with ease and deep in conversation. Tabby was telling Jeremiah about the colleges she was applying too. The conversation though continuous did not seem to distract them from their movements. Mona didn’t dare speak up, or join in, for fear of throwing off their rhythm. She was waiting for Isaiah to come home. The dinner was his plan, and yet, he was nowhere to be found. He was late, in fact he was almost an hour late and Jeremiah decided to go on and eat without him.

Tonight was supposed to be their third date. Their first date had gone well, better than they both would have expected and, much to his surprise, she had agreed to another. For their second date, he’d taken her to the pictures and to a small restaurant on the outskirts of town away from prying eyes. What surprised Mona most, was how easy it was to be with Isaiah. He never tried to force the romance or make her uncomfortable by staring too long, or over complimenting her appearance. Hell, he hadn’t even tried to kiss her. He was a complete gentleman. The most they did was hold hands across the table while they talked and joked about the Shelby’s. He told her about how country Michael was in the past, and she was determined to find a joke that made Him laugh. Though, she failed miserably every time; only earning an, “Oh no. That's just bad,” alongside the infamous, and totally adorable, disgusted face he made. Which may or may not be the reason why she continues to tell bad jokes.

So, this was the third date. Tabby had invited Finn as well, which annoyed Isaiah to no end. He stomped around the house like a toddler for hours after he found out. To be honest, he was embarrassed for Finn to see how soft he was in Mona’s presence. It wasn't as if everyone hadn't already been witness to the starry gazes they shared whenever in each others presence. This was, in fact, a popular topic of conversation in his absence.

“What time did my brother say they were supposed to be home?” Tabby asked, snapping Mona out of her daze.

“Half past six,” Mona replied, noting the clock on the wall.

6:55pm. Mona was beginning to worry.

She’d woken that morning with a terrible feeling that something bad was going to happen. She immediately called her parents, who were fast asleep. Then she phoned Isaiah at the shop, to make sure he’d made it to work safely. Michael had answered, seemingly annoyed - he was so monotone there really was no telling, before passing the phone to Isaiah.

“Are you okay, Isaiah?”

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?” He asked, confusion laced in his voice.

“I'm not sure. I just have this feeling.“

”I'm okay. I promise.”

“Positive?”

“Yeah. I’ll be in the office all day, working the books with Michael. The only thing I'm in danger of is fucking boredom.”

“Be serious, please.”

“I am, I promise. Look, I gotta go. I’ll see you tonight, yeah?”

“Okay. See you tonight.” The funny thing about premonitions is that they seem to always come to fruition. She went through her day with extra caution still not feeling at ease after her conversation. She went through everyone she cared about calling and making sure everyone was ok before heading to work that morning.

The sudden and shrill ringing of the phone brought Mona back to reality. It rang twice more before Tabby shed her oven mitts and made her way to the phone.

“Hello?” Her face was indecipherable as she listened to the person on the other end. Aware of the silence, Jeremiah exited the kitchen to join everyone in the sitting room, all trying and failing to listen.

Tabby hung up the phone, looking at her father. ”Pop, Isaiah’s been hurt, he’s at the shop.” “Did they say what happened?” Mona asked, her voice laced with concern as she began to wring her hands together.

“No. Just thats he’s been hurt.” If Tabby was worried, she didn't show it. Mona tried her best to mirror her emotions. Afterall, it was her brother and if she was calm, then Mona thought it best not to get too worked up.

Before anyone had a chance to speak again, there was a knock at the door. Mona nearly jumped out of her skin.

“It’s me, Finn.” Mona, being closest to the front door, stepped forward to let him in. Finn’s face was flushed and there were light beads of sweat collected on his forehead and temples, and his chest heaved violently, as if he ran the distance from the shop to their home. He immediately pushed past Mona, making his way over to his girlfriend wrapping his arms around her and placing a gentle yet urgent kiss on her forehead. Looking down she noticed small bits of dried blood on his knuckles.

“He’s okay.” Finn said finally getting a handle on his breathing. “He’s been stabbed. He sent me here to sit with you while Jeremiah goes to the betting shop. A meetings been called.”

“Are you armed Finn?” Jeremiah asked. “No.” “There's a gun in the drawer of the side table, and one in Isaiah’s room. Just in case.” He gave Tabby a small nod before turning and leaving.

“Are we in danger?” Mona asked “No. I don’t think so.” Finn moved to the side table, taking the gun and checking for bullets.

Mona nodded in response, unsure of what to do or say next.

An hour had passed and still no word. The room was quiet as if its inhabitants were afraid to speak. The food sat cold and untouched in the kitchen still in the pots and pans from where it had been abandoned earlier. Mona was on her fifth cup of tea, from the looks of it she might make it to six. She was wired to say the least. Currently, she was pacing the length of the sitting room. She had been sitting beside Finn, shaking her foot frantically but he told her she was giving him motion sickness, so she took to pacing instead. Tabby sat with her arm hooked through Finn’s, resting her head on his shoulder while he sat with his arms crossed, and resting on his knees.

“How has she not gone to the bathroom yet?” Finn whispered to his girlfriend, earning a slap on his arm.

“How are you not more worried, Tabitha?” Mona asked frustratingly as she finally stopped pacing.

“Sadly, I'm used to it.” Tabby gave a small shrug “If it's not Isaiah I’m worried about, it’s Finn. After a while you learn to cope.”

Mona turned her attention to Finn, “What happened exactly?” She was so on edge that she hadn’t thought to ask before now.

“We were on our way out the door, to come here, but Tommy stopped us. Wanted us to go and intimidate a group of thugs out of Peaky territory. Isaiah and I did everything we could to stay calm but, they were looking for a brawl. Next thing you know, a knife was pulled. And well, you know the rest.”

Mona stopped pacing and took a second to process the information. “Can you walk me to the shop? Please?”

“Isaiah’s orders were to stay here,” he said, looking to his girlfriend to back him up.

“I need to know he’s alright. You can stay if you want, but I’m going with or without you,” she demanded, raising her eyebrows at Finn. Mona wouldn't dare claim that she knew Isaiah well, but she knew that he’d be angry at Finn if she walked the six blocks to the shop alone, especially after dark. Finn looked at Tabby once more, to see if maybe she could assist him in convincing Mona to stay. But, she just looked between Finn and Mona, unsure of what the right move was. “Tabby, don’t you want to see if your brother is alright?” Mona asked, knowing exactly what nerve she was hitting.

That was all it took. Tabby looked at Finn and shrugged. Letting out a deep sigh, Finn agreed. “Fine, lets go. But I'm taking the gun with me.”

When they arrived at the shop, everyone was in the the sitting room of the house. There seemed to be a gloom hanging in the air. Isaiah’s shirt was on the table next him, and Mona could see the blood stains from where she was standing by the door. She searched for Isaiah, finding him sitting next to his father with his shirt off, looking at the wooden floor as he absentmindedly shook his leg. Her heart fell into her stomach.

Tommy ran down a list of tasks. Polly was standing towards the back while, on the other end of John, sat Arthur and Esme. No one seemed to notice them enter the room, until Finn cleared his throat.

“We need to strike now, and fast be-“ Tommy stopped and looked towards the sound.

Mona gave a nervous wave at everyone. She had met the Shelby’s, sure, but she had never been in a room with all them - it was really quite intimidating. She started the get the feeling that showing up was a bad idea.

Tabby walked over to where Isaiah was sitting, “Are you okay, brother?” “Yeah, I'm okay. Hurts like hell though,” he said, looking over to see Mona beside Finn.

Her eyebrows seemed to be frozen together. She wanted to speak, but everyone was there, watching them.

It’s as if Isaiah read her mind. “Will you excuse us please, Tommy?” Without waiting for a response, he stood, motioning for Mona to follow him through the doors to the empty betting shop. She nodded, and followed, only somewhat aware of the eyes on them.

Mona wasted no time, once the door was closed and she knew he was alright, she went from worried to irritated. ”I told you. I fucking told you. I had a bad feeling and you didn't listen.”

“You did, yeah,” Isaiah said, slightly taken aback by her harsh language, but also pleasantly surprised by how much she cared. He couldn't help the slight smile that began to form. He looked down at the desk next to him to try and hide his face.

Mona looked around, confused. “What? Why are smiling?” “You care,” he said with the smile still plastered on his face.

”Of course I care, why wouldn’t I? Stop smiling.” “I'm alright by the way. Thanks for asking,” he said.

“Yeah, but, what if you weren’t? What if there's a next time?” she asked, Mona’s tone changed from angry to concerned.

Mona knew Isaiah’s job was dangerous when she agreed to go out with him. That was the one setback. But, Isaiah liked his job and, more than anything, the status that came with it. Being a Peaky meant consequences to those who crossed him. Being a black man was hard enough and she understood that being a Peaky meant security for him and his loved ones because most people weren't too keen on having their tongues and eyes cut out over a racial slur. Besides, after the burning of the Marquis of Lorne, people had left him and his family alone.

Seeing the concern on her face alarmed him; he didn't want to be the cause of her stress. He knew she didn’t like his job, and to be quite honest, he was afraid she was going to end everything. Isaiah moved closer, stretching out his uninjured arm and placing his hand on Mona’s shoulder.

“Look, I’m alright. It's nothing, barely hurt. I promise.” She raised an eyebrow, as if to say “yeah right”, but before anyone could do or say anything the door swung open, and John entered. “Ok, let’s go, get your things. I’m driving you all home.” The car ride to Mona’s was short, and made in relative silence. The only conversation was between John and Esme in the front seat. Mona sat looking out the window as Isaiah held her hand. Once they reached her place, Isaiah hopped out first and made his way to Mona’s side of the vehicle to open her door. John looked on in the rearview, rolling his eyes at the sight. Esme just shook her head. “He’s being a gentleman, John. Wouldn’t kill you to try sometimes.” “Yeah, it might. Besides, you love me anyway. Can't keep your hands off me.” Mona turned to face Isaiah once they reached the front door. “So...” she said, hands joined together behind her back as she rocked nervously on the balls of her feet. “So. How about we try again? Tomorrow night, my place?” “Yeah, okay,” Mona said. She stood there for a second. Without thinking too much, she leaned forward, and placed a quick kiss on his lips. Isaiah was too surprised to react. He stood stiff as a board.

”Im glad you didn’t die,” she said, embarrassed, wanting to enter her home as quickly as possible. But, before she could, Isaiah grabbed hold of her wrist. “Can we do that again? Please?” He asked looking towards the ground.

Mona nodded in response. “Okay.”

Isaiah leaned in slowly and paused, waiting for Mona to meet him halfway. When she finally met his lips, he worked his un-injured arm around the back of her neck to gently hold her in place.

Once the kiss began, Mona’s nerves dissipated. Being with Isaiah was easy, they just seemed to fit. Isaiah, however, was mentally freaking out.

He had wanted to kiss her since that day in the Shelby kitchen, and it was finally happening. His arms went cold with nerves, his fingertips began to tingle, and his skin was covered in goosebumps. Mona’s lips were warm and soft against his own. He could smell the oils she used in her hair mixed with her perfume. She smelt of eucalyptus, lemons, and fresh water springs. He knew from this moment, that he never wanted to kiss anyone else.

However, the kiss was cut short from the sounds of John whooping and cheering from the car. “Whoo! Get it Mate!!!” Mona pulled away, and looked down at her shoes. “See you tomorrow, yeah?” Isaiah asked

“Yeah, okay,” Mona replied with a shy smile. She leaned forward to place a quick kiss on Isaiah’s lips, before taking a backwards step into her home.

“Hey, Isaiah!” Mona shouted as he walked to the car “Try not to get stabbed this time!”

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